[Sussex] Argos Catalogue surprise

Steven Dobson steve at dobson.org
Sat Nov 11 21:52:17 UTC 2006


Colin

On Sat, 2006-11-11 at 08:38 +0000, Colin Tuckley wrote:
> Steven Dobson wrote:
> > I burnt the new graphical netinstaller ISO for Debian (sid).  This
> > worked just fine and I got my graphical desktop back.  But I found out
> > during the install that Ctrl-Alt-F2 did not get me a command line prompt
> > like the old (non-graphical) Debian installer.  Neither did Ctrl-Alt-F3
> > get me the live log of the install.
> 
> Just one point - the fact that Ctrl-Alt-F<n> doesn't switch you back to a
> virtual console is nothing to do with the graphical installer. It was a
> decision made by the Linux *kernel* hackers (nothing to do with Debian) that
> this facility should be removed on security grounds.

Security?  What Security?

I've just sat down in front of the system, put a CDROM in and caused the
system to boot from it.  That machine and any data on the disks now
belong to me!  The first rule of security that I was taught was that "If
you don't have physical security then you don't have security at all."
There are always ways in - you just have to know how.  So I don't buy
the security argument.

> You can put it back, but it needs a kernel rebuild.

This is an install CD.  Sure I could build my own version if I wanted
but that was not the subject of my rant.  I was ranting that should
something go wrong how to I find out what was the problem so I can fix
it?

Steve

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