Why is linux good for a hacker?
I understand that unix is an excellent operating system for many reasons. especially for servers because they rarely need to be shut down if at all and can run for years without having a problem.
Im not asking this question because I disagree with the statement. I am just wondering what you think it is about linux that makes it a hackers dream. I know it is fun to play with and has a limitless shell to work with But what are some specific features that you would say make it so good for hacking?
It's not "good for hacking". It is what you make of it. If you know what you're doing it shouldn't matter what OS you're running (of course you can't take that statement completely literally because running windows 3.0 is clearly not going to work as well as XP). It just happens that quite a few hackers prefer linux.
Another thing not brought up is the fact that linux programs generally are open source, and get a lot of developers attention. I would go as far to say that many/most/all 'hackers' at one time or another use tools written by third parties. Many of those tools are written to work on linux (granted some have been ported over to windows/macs)
Window can't run linux programs. Linux has WINE(not great but still).
Also, there is pretty much anything you could possibly want as far as compilers and other software as close as a simple "sudo apt-get install" command. Can't really do that with windows. Linux is also highly customizable compared to Windows or Mac.
OS is not in fact important thing if u have knowledge.. Linux does provide some good hacking tools but windows or any other don't have any problem either.. They all are same.. I remember something nice point by spyware about linux & script kiddies in anther thread. yeah many hackers like it coz its open source & the softwares for linux are also usually open source..
I like linux because IMHO you get more control over whats actually happening in your system. A specific example would be cracking wireless networks, its possible on windows with the same tools, but I dont feel I have the control I do on linux.
Also being free theres no hunting through malware infested sites to find a serial.
moshbat wrote: [quote]Uber0n wrote: Don't forget the most important thing - Linux makes your penis twice as long (1.5 times as long if you're using Ubuntu) :D
Then they might just be able to fit it into the 3.5" floppy drive.[/quote]
lol that was funny.
I think also it supports what a hacker believes in. It only makes sense that a hacker uses free and open source software.
fashizzlepop wrote: Window can't run linux programs. Linux has WINE(not great but still).
Wrong: Cygwin.
Uber0n wrote: Don't forget the most important thing - Linux makes your penis twice as long (1.5 times as long if you're using Ubuntu) :D Ubuntu users don't get a bonus… I'd almost rather see them stay on XP. Ubuntu seems to give them a sex change op after a successful install.
Just to add to the original topic:
In addition to it being free and having open source progs, I'd like to add that the *nux distros themselves are open-source. Originated in C or C++, many of the base system progs are compiled from source. A lot of the system utilities are also just bash scripts (if bash is your shell). All of the configuration can be done from a text editor… on everything. You can streamline your system by removing unnecessary crap from your kernel and recompiling it. You can even build your system from the ground up, only adding what you want during install (which is something XP can also do pre-install with nLite now).
The name of the game is flexibility, and there are so many ways in which Linux is more flexible than Windows. Of course, if you know Windows quite well, there's nothing wrong with using that as your "hacking OS". How many of these "Why is Linux good for hacking" threads are we up to now?
Linux is a much much better operating system for more reasons then any one person on here can explain…
How many people actually use it as there #1 operating system though?
Infam0us wrote: How many people actually use it as there #1 operating system though? My primary fluctuates depending on my mood. I generally just use my XP machine for C# coding, DVD burning, and as my torrent bitch… but, sometimes, I just get in the mood to use it for a while. I don't think it's really necessary to have a single primary; I keep my favorite apps on both so I can switch back and forth.
fashizzlepop wrote: I guess I'm just a little biased.
Being biased is fine when discussing your own personal preferences. However, in a discussion regarding the merits of both in comparison to each other, it's best to be objective and convey as many of the facts as you can. Otherwise, it just ends up being wrong… and that helps no one.
ynori7 wrote: "Better" is a very relative term. Nobody ever seems to understand that… Relative to both the subject (comparison) and the speaker (opinion), really. In other words… I agree. It's all in how you use it as to how much weight it actually carries; otherwise, it just looks like you're trying to convince people of something you've already convinced yourself of. This can partly be blamed upon the focus of this thread, though, which is wrong to begin with.
moshbat wrote: Mac beats Windows and Linux for producing various types of media.
Check this out you'll get a kick out of this one : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6553260189868317794
moshbat wrote: [quote]Infam0us wrote: Linux is a much much better operating system…
False. It is better in specific areas than other Operating Systems. For example, Most games are made for windows, and even though there may be very rarely a version for Linux, it won't get updated as often, as very few people use Linux for games. Mac beats Windows and Linux for producing various types of media. [/quote]
cedega.
In my opinion Linux and just about any distribution of linux is good due to two things. The package manager. So to pull down any software approved and placed in the repositories you have listed in your package manager its just a simple variation of the apt-get command.
And of course because you have a whole world of customisation available to you. For example. Ever considered upgrading your kernel on windows?:happy:
moshbat wrote: Try playing a high-powered game using that.
true true. I get what your saying, but if you think about performance wise linux has windows beat hands down. I mean at least linux runs applications separate from the kernel. (Microsoft likes to call this "tight integration" ) in window$ if your browser crashes it can take down the whole os :whoa:
Zephyr_Pure wrote: [quote]SANTA wrote: So to pull down anything its just a simple variation of the apt-get command.
… No, the hell you didn't.[/quote] My bad on that one communication error. Or more simply for lack of a better word. I was gunna say software but then thought of things like ALSA Sound Drivers. So yeh technically WGET is what would go in there instead of apt-get but hey after this people should get the point. Seeing as I edited original.
Ubuntu / Debian / variations on Debian-base = apt-get Red Hat / Fedora / CentOS = yum SuSE = yast Slackware = pkgtool / installpkg (manual) or slapt-get (auto) Arch Linux = pacman Gentoo / Sabayon / variations on Gentoo-base = emerge (Portage)
Those are just the ones I can think of first thing in the morning. Really, not even just "wget" cleans it up, either. The emphasis on package managers is fine but, really, there are times where a Linux user will prefer to build something from source instead of downloading the package. Usually, this is when the user either seeks a particular version of the software or is developing with the software and needs to be able to redistribute the same version when putting the developed program(s) in place. Thus, the benefits of Linux could be expressed as the ease of using a package manager (when available / depending on distro) and having the choice to both compile the software for your architecture as well as having access to "bleeding-edge" experimental versions through SVN / git. wget… is just a file retrieval tool.
I'm really not trying to nitpick this, but it irks the crap out of me when I see these things generalized as they were.
Infam0us wrote: [quote]moshbat wrote: Try playing a high-powered game using that.
true true. I get what your saying, but if you think about performance wise linux has windows beat hands down. I mean at least linux runs applications separate from the kernel. (Microsoft likes to call this "tight integration" ) in window$ if your browser crashes it can take down the whole os :whoa:[/quote]
OK, first of all an OS is an OS. Period. They all work on the same hardware and same networking protocols. There is not difference between the operating system. I use linux when I have a old ass computer I want to use but no windows 98 disks laying around. I ran an old red hat version on my 300mhz laptop for 2 1/2 months because my main computer was taken away. So I like did nothing but program because the old peace of crap couldn't detect sound card, dial-up or ethernet, or video card drivers. So I pretty much had a crappy gui so I just ran in shell and made cli c++ programs (which I couldnt even copy to my usb thumbdrive because it couldn't detect those drivers either). The laptop was far older than the OS, and still did not have good support.
My first experience with linux was picking what programs I want installed, stumbling through a partitioner that has little insight into wtf your doing if you dont already know, and a 12 hour+ install. And if the install was successful you still had to wait 10-30 minutes to boot the damn machine. Once it was booted, the login, and everything else ran smoothly and faster than windows. That is, untill the machine doesnt shut down properly and becomes totally corrupted!
Nowadays support for linux is awesome. My computer is a year old and already ubuntu has the full drivers, and my machine boots in under a minute, and faster if you count the login. All my hardware (including my onboard pos nvidia) was detected. Shutdown errors still exist, and hibernation/sleep still does not do anything but screw up your settings untill reboot.
But I generally use one or the other. When I program I do it on linux because I prefer the command line to an IDE, and linux's shells are more flexable, and the command names make more sense in addition to the file structures being built better logically for typing out.. But if its web based programming I'm not switching from my PC to nix to do it. Because in windows everything works, just because the hardware information is reported to microsoft and not linux. Though now linux drivers are becoming far more dominant.
As far as hacking goes, there are differences between the OS's when sitting at the target machine. But over the internet, the protocols are the same. The only difference I can really think of is windows allows for more than one daemon on a port where linux is not supposed to let you do that.
I support the development of all operating systems, and I bet that if linux ever became the #1 used in the world than in 10 years this thread would be titled "Why is windows a better OS for hacking?"
I know this thread is slightly old, but I just wanted to share my 2 cents.
Sorry moshbat, its hard on this forum. You guys have 50 threads on a single page, without even doing an order by for the date of the most recent post. This thead is the 14th down of 50 on the page. Position from the top in just about every other forum I have gone to indicates age by order of last reply.
And spyware instead of calling me a retard based on my post, make valid points as to why all my information was incorrect. And don't tell me Ubuntu does not count as Linux because it is just as flexible as every other distribution of Linux out there. The fact that I use Ubuntu does in any way validate that I have not toyed with other versions of Linux nor other things. Granted I've not yet customized a kernel, and though its on my to-do list, its not really that important. Maybe one day I will understand why sitting at a computer for weeks tweaking a operating system to perfectly match your hardware is worth the time and effort.
So please, point out my blatantly wrong information. I don't know everything, so I would like to know what I said that is wrong so I can correct my understanding.
apescanfly223 wrote: I understand that unix is an excellent operating system for many reasons. especially for servers because they rarely need to be shut down if at all and can run for years without having a problem.
Im not asking this question because I disagree with the statement. I am just wondering what you think it is about linux that makes it a hackers dream. I know it is fun to play with and has a limitless shell to work with But what are some specific features that you would say make it so good for hacking?
Simple, it's open. There's no obfuscated developer API's to deal with, if you don't like it you can change it. This extends to all free unixes, OpenSolaris and *BSD.
There's nothing you can't do, which is not true on other OS's, not just looking at windows. I'm not sure how this'll be taken, but I deal with a multitude of OSs every day, including porting the same software (In the case of my work, printing software, which involves kernel mode print drivers) to different platforms, and linux is easy to work with. I know the 2.6 tree pretty well, but porting to BSD and Solaris was not even nearly as easy, Win32 was nearly a waste of time.
If anyone is interested in free Unix shells, give me a yell (offering on FreeBSD 7.1 and Gentoo (PPC64) at the moment).
Richo
p99 wrote: OK, first of all an OS is an OS. Period. They all work on the same hardware and same networking protocols. There is not difference between the operating system. I use linux when I have a old ass computer I want to use but no windows 98 disks laying around. I ran an old red hat version on my 300mhz laptop for 2 1/2 months because my main computer was taken away. So I like did nothing but program because the old peace of crap couldn't detect sound card, dial-up or ethernet, or video card drivers. So I pretty much had a crappy gui so I just ran in shell and made cli c++ programs (which I couldnt even copy to my usb thumbdrive because it couldn't detect those drivers either). The laptop was far older than the OS, and still did not have good support.
Erm, no. There is a lot of difference, the structure of the ioctls, the abstraction between software and hardware, the usermode callbacks to kernelspace, the filesystem implementation, the socket layer.
p99 wrote: My first experience with linux was picking what programs I want installed, stumbling through a partitioner that has little insight into wtf your doing if you dont already know, and a 12 hour+ install. And if the install was successful you still had to wait 10-30 minutes to boot the damn machine. Once it was booted, the login, and everything else ran smoothly and faster than windows. That is, untill the machine doesnt shut down properly and becomes totally corrupted!
That's your own fault, ext3 has been stable for years, and default for as long. I ran RH6 in '94 with it, and a 5 second writeback cache. that's FIVE SECONDS of loss in the case of power failure. So don't bitch, feeling keen? Reiser4 vs NTFS. Benchmark that, bitch.
p99 wrote: Nowadays support for linux is awesome. My computer is a year old and already ubuntu has the full drivers, and my machine boots in under a minute, and faster if you count the login. All my hardware (including my onboard pos nvidia) was detected. Shutdown errors still exist, and hibernation/sleep still does not do anything but screw up your settings untill reboot.
You using Ubuntu does not exactly make your image as an experienced unix hacker clear. Ubuntu is a topic that I'm biased about, I'll stop.
p99 wrote: But I generally use one or the other. When I program I do it on linux because I prefer the command line to an IDE, and linux's shells are more flexable, and the command names make more sense in addition to the file structures being built better logically for typing out.. But if its web based programming I'm not switching from my PC to nix to do it. Because in windows everything works, just because the hardware information is reported to microsoft and not linux. Though now linux drivers are becoming far more dominant.
"From my PC to 'nix?" What the fuck man. Dude, using bash in xterm within Gnome in your default Ubuntu install doesn't make you leeb. I'm not telling you to stop learning by any means. Don't give up.
But you don't know shit. Get out there. Learn. Get rid of X11. Run an absurd window manager. Do LFS(!).
p99 wrote: As far as hacking goes, there are differences between the OS's when sitting at the target machine. But over the internet, the protocols are the same. The only difference I can really think of is windows allows for more than one daemon on a port where linux is not supposed to let you do that.
What the fuck. You show me how to bind more than one daemon to a socket on a win32 kernel. Go on then. Can't be done, that's how TCP/UDP/IPX/EveryDamnSocketImplementation works.
p99 wrote: I support the development of all operating systems, and I bet that if linux ever became the #1 used in the world than in 10 years this thread would be titled "Why is windows a better OS for hacking?"
Question, have you helped developement? Have you donated code? Or Money? Or documentation? Or translations? Time? Effort?
Anything?
p99 wrote: I know this thread is slightly old, but I just wanted to share my 2 cents.
Mine too.
Sorry if this came our harsh.
richohealey wrote: Erm, no. There is a lot of difference, the structure of the ioctls, the abstraction between software and hardware, the usermode callbacks to kernelspace, the filesystem implementation, the socket layer.
I wasnt clear about what I was saying. I meant it in terms of this: All cars are different, but in the end, they are all still cars. Make sense?
richohealey wrote: That's your own fault, ext3 has been stable for years, and default for as long. I ran RH6 in '94 with it, and a 5 second writeback cache. that's FIVE SECONDS of loss in the case of power failure. So don't bitch, feeling keen? Reiser4 vs NTFS. Benchmark that, bitch.
At the time I had a Redhat disk and a SuSe disk. For whatever reason the redhat disk would fail at the beginning of installing, and the SuSe usually worked, though it took a very long time. The disks were ones I picked out of books from my library. Please specify the acronym "RH6" because at first I thought it was redhat, but V6 wasnt out till '99. If benchmarking is your thing, cool. I go with what runs faster and is still useful, but unless I plan on running high end calculations I could care less what configuration runs how many seconds faster. Just my opinion
richohealey wrote: You using Ubuntu does not exactly make your image as an experienced unix hacker clear. Ubuntu is a topic that I'm biased about, I'll stop.
Never claimed to be a "hacker", I'm biased about the term hacker. I'd never go calling myself a hacker or claim to know everything.
richohealey wrote: "From my PC to 'nix?" What the fuck man. Dude, using bash in xterm within Gnome in your default Ubuntu install doesn't make you leeb. I'm not telling you to stop learning by any means. Don't give up.
But you don't know shit. Get out there. Learn. Get rid of X11. Run an absurd window manager. Do LFS(!).
When I code on my ubuntu box I'm not using an xterm. I just drop out of whichever window manager I'm on at the time and use the compiler for whatever language i'm toying with and use nano. I absolutely cannot get used to vi, and see no reason to when nano is so much simpler. I'll check out LFS on my laptop, might be kind of fun. I will say that when I am making a program that is a gui application I just use a text editor. No point dropping out of X to create something made to be visual. But gui's are often a waste of time on the personal programs I make. And no, using a command line does not make you any better. I agree with that. Hell I can do that on windows, why would linux be any different?
richohealey wrote: Question, have you helped developement? Have you donated code? Or Money? Or documentation? Or translations? Time? Effort?
Anything?
Support is more than something you can hold in your hand. It also has a lot of definitions it can mean. I also used development as a way you may see a child grow taller and smarter. The way I meant that sentence was me saying that I fully encourage the growth of usage of all operating systems. It doesn't mean I need to directly contribute to it in order to support it. I think all OS's have room to grow, and that all of them can be and will be better. And while I know I dont have much at all to bring to the plate as far as the physical development, I still favor the idea of all operating systems improving.
Well the "Bitch" was a bit much, but you presented yourself nicely and gave me things to think about.
In regards to the 2 daemons 1 port thing, I asked the person who told me it originally. He had meant that you can run 1 daemon on a port at a time, but on udp you can sort of tag team two of them. He said with tcp you cannot, and I assume it is because of its constant checks on data sent. So I was totally wrong on how that one worked out, and I can see how that would work on linux as well as windows. For some reason he still says its windows only….