That server’s root access is now vulnerable to a compromise of the systems that have the private key.

An alternative, if you have console access, to doing that root password dance, is:

1. Drop to rescue/emergency/single-user mode.
2. Do your changes to the user account
3. Drop back to multiuser mode.

They my go to to quickly triage a problem being caused by SEL or not.

Not quite. But sorta, yeah.

Learning to “not fuck with it” or ways to do so and rollback are valid lessons themselves.

Being able to segregate “production” and “development” environments is very valuable.

100%

The alternative being variations on:

Hi my name is [redacted], I have [X] years experience.

Please run sfc /scannow.

You can find more help at [Irrelevant KB URL].

Please rank me 5 stars.

Ticket closed

Theoretically one could also prohibit rebooting.

IIRC kexec is pivot_root but for the kernel.

Arguably he’s been taxed before he got rich… So the poor still got the whole tax burden.

I recognised the art style! Was hoping someone would post more details.

I thought this was a request for Stack Overflow proof.

Then figured that was 'proof from pasting random crap from SO".

Then figured it’s the same thing.

Any distro will be suitable, create yourself as the first user when installing (which will probably be added to the wheel/sudoers group or whatever) then create a new ‘standard’ user.

Most distribution defaults should be adequate.

For added safety, choose one that is immutable like, for example, Fedora atomic.

The nouveau drivers are just barely enough to have a desktop, anything actually needing a GPU will perform very poorly (in my anecdotal experience with 4K). Or, to put it another way, choosing an NVIDIA card is choosing their proprietary drivers.

So you’re left with AMD (and Intel). The open amdgpu driver is pretty good and is suitable for gaming. Which I do.

I have no experience with Intel, but I believe their open drivers are pretty good.

So I recommend AMD.

It’s an uphill battle to adjust to the taste, but once you’re over the hump it’s just deserts.

This level of pedantry is satisfying.

The best part is that any arrangement of three snakes in 3D space are all on a plane.

Potentially faster installation

Particularly when you’re flashing the ISO you downloaded from MS to USB and it doesn’t work unless you use MS’s magic tool. Thus dropping you into the bootstrap paradox.

Especially because it gets partway through the install before failing to load NVMe drivers complaining there is no installation media to load them from.

It turns out it’s faster to install Ubuntu and download one of MS’s windows VM’s and use that to download and flash a USB than actually install Windows 11.

The gender neutral bathroom’s already in your house!

It’s only 5. It just overflows.