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I'm very new to Linux, have used Ubuntu, Mint, Elementary and KDE Neon for 2 or 3 days altogether on VirtualBox to select 1 for installation on the laptop I use daily. I've chosen KDE Neon 5.16 and have been using it for last 3 days. First problem I faced in this distro that when I tried to paste a file that I downloaded from a website from the Downloads folder to a partition/device, namely /dev/sda3, it didn't let me do that via GUI initially!

I then tried to log in as the root, following along the example given here, to have all privileges BUT I couldn't actually login as root through the login screen, to operate the system! It just gives an alias named sudo after logging in as an ordinary user to execute some ownership and permission cmdlets!

From such behavior of this distro what I've understood that these Linux distros actually have built a bridge between root and user through some messaging protocol and developers of these distros obviously have full control over my laptop via network socket, am I right? If I'm right, how are these distros different from Windows or Mac in terms of security? Is there any workaround in KDE Neon to log in as root when it prompts to log in?

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    Why would you want to "paste a downloaded file onto a partition"? Whatever you wanted to achieve that way, it does not work like that. Either your file is a file system image, then you could restore that image onto the partition, overwriting all its current contents, using some tool. Or you want to save that file inside the file system on that partition, then you need to mount the partition first, so that you can browse it in the Files explorer. – Byte Commander Jun 20 '19 at 20:41
  • @ByteCommander, I could paste that file in that partition after changing the ownership and/or editing rwx permission. –  Jun 20 '19 at 20:43
  • No. You can still not paste a file onto a device. That is not how it works, whichever of the two things I described you are hoping to achieve. – Byte Commander Jun 20 '19 at 20:45
  • @ByteCommander, I did paste that file by right clicking and selecting Paste one file. It is possible after changing permission using chown, chmod, etc. –  Jun 20 '19 at 20:50
  • Then I assume I misunderstood what you meant and you have actually mounted the device. Yes, unless changed or configured differently, depending on the file system type, stuff will be owned by root at first. If it's an ext4 or similar file system, you can just chown its root directory to use it as data disk for your user. (Never chown/chmod system files and directories though!) If the disk is formatted with FAT or NTFS though, you need to mount it with your user as the owner, because those don't support Unix permissions and Ubuntu just emulates those by setting one value for everything on mount – Byte Commander Jun 20 '19 at 21:00
  • @ByteCommander, KDE neon mounts automatically whenever I click on that device and it gets unmounted when I log off, it's an ext4 partition. I didn't mount it anywhere during installation, it'd only one system folder named lost+found after installation. –  Jun 20 '19 at 21:04

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From such behavior of this distro what I've understood that these Linux distros actually have built a bridge between root and user through some messeging protocol

No. Sudo is a program that can, given appropriate configuration, allow users to run programs as root. There's no messaging protocol involved, really.

This is basically best practice. Run with least privileges needed, and elevate when you have to. Ubuntu does not have a root user enabled by default.

and developers of these distros obviously have full control over my laptop via network socket, am I right?

No, you are not correct. There's no networking involved in sudo, and no remote capability. The developers does not have any control over your laptop. man sudo in a terminal will give you more information about sudo.

There's no reason to enable the root account. If you need a root shell, run sudo -i.

If I'm right, how are these distros different from Windows or Mac in terms of security? Is there any workaround in KDE Neon to log in as root when it prompts to log in?

Linux and OS X is fundamentally different from Windows. Linux and OS X is rather different as well, but both owe a lot to Unix, so they have some similarities.

Anyway, Ubuntu, OS X and Microsoft Windows all have excellent security when patched and configured correctly.

vidarlo
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  • Thanks for nice clarification. I really like its low memory and cpu usage, I think I'll keep using it for long in my laptop. Currently I'm having some issues with NVIDIA Driver, I always have to log off If I change display driver. It feels like when I use Intel HD 530 instead of NVIDIA, overall GUI experience is better. GUI freezes sometimes If I use NVIDIA Performance mode instead of Intel HD. –  Jun 20 '19 at 21:15
  • Actually I missed the one, Fedora 30, that actually gives me the right to log in as root anytime I want to! –  Jun 21 '19 at 04:18