Re: Clearing SWAP

On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 04:42:11PM +0200, NN_il_Confusionario wrote:
On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 07:43:00AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
On 05/09/08 07:33, Dotan Cohen wrote:
I use Linux because it is the most
stable and secure OS available in my opinion.
I'm sure the {Free|Open}BSD crowds would more than quibble with you.

also the NetBSD ones

Well, I compared the release dates of fixes required by all distros
(e.g. a fix to OpenSSH or a paricular perl version, or even to libc) for
quite a while: Debian and FreeBSD came out within a day of each other;
OpenBSD, if was even vulnerable given the tweaks they did to gcc, had a
fix testing in -current very quickly but full testing (enough for them
to say that the fix met their high standards) took a few days more to
show up on their patch list; it took far longer (weeks) or never for
some fixes to show up on NetBSD's patch page. This was one big factor
in my choosing OpenBSD for my tiny boxes even though I don't need a lot
of the stuff in OpenBSD's base install.


And a workstation running OpenVMS was considered so unhackable at
DEFCON9 that it wasn't allowed back the next year.

and VMS, unlike unix, since the beginning was planned with solid
security in mind. In the times where classification into A,B,C,D
security made sense, there were VMS B-certified machines (the maximum
level, except for the lack of a formal mathemetical proof of that level
of security). And Digital never had to hide the code from the eyes of
the world, so that everybody could know the quality of the code (any
reference to proprietary software widely used today, and which is not of
the same level of quality as VMS, is purely wanted).

I'll have to look at OpenVMS. Is it still maintained? Will it run on
my old 486?

But the point of the original phrase probably is: the most stable and
secure OS available among the ones that whoever is speaking is able to
use to get the work done.

Doug.


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