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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Today I'm grateful I'm using Linux - Global IT issues caused by Crowdstrike update causes BSOD on Windows (www.timesnownews.com)

submitted 4 months ago by Thorned_Rose to c/[email protected]

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This isn't a gloat post. In fact, I was completely oblivious to this massive outage until I tried to check my bank balance and it wouldn't log in.

Apparently Visa Paywave, banks, some TV networks, EFTPOS, etc. have gone down. Flights have had to be cancelled as some airlines systems have also gone down. Gas stations and public transport systems inoperable. As well as numerous Windows systems and Microsoft services affected. (At least according to one of my local MSMs.)

Seems insane to me that one company's messed up update could cause so much global disruption and so many systems gone down :/ This is exactly why centralisation of services and large corporations gobbling up smaller companies and becoming behemoth services is so dangerous.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Windows does have a fallback mode called safe mode and that's exactly what's being used to fix this utter mess.

Package management isn't going to save you from this as it didn't save the Linux systems affected last time. It didn't stop Arch Linux from failing to boot after a Grub update either.

Windows also has drive cloning tools, that isn't unique to Linux.

NixOS isn't immutable. It's not an a/b root system and / isn't read only. Rather it's what's known as reproducible. I am not convinced NixOS would make this any easier either given how simple the fix was. Funnily enough though tools exist called ansible and puppet for configuring systems in repeatable ways that apply to both other Linux systems, Windows systems, and even macOS.

There are like one or two valid points in this whole comment and the rest is pretty much falsehoods and misconceptions.

Edit: Forgot to mention tools exist to make Windows immutable as well. So that is an option.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Windows does have a fallback mode called safe mode and that’s exactly what’s being used to fix this utter mess.

The other fix was reboot your Windows computer at least 15 times.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/07/crowdstrike-fixes-start-at-reboot-up-to-15-times-and-get-more-complex-from-there/

Package management isn’t going to save you from this as it didn’t save the Linux systems affected last time. It didn’t stop Arch Linux from failing to boot after a Grub update either.

Not everyone was affected though :

https://web.archive.org/web/20240324083115/https://endeavouros.com/news/full-transparency-on-the-grub-issue/

How come not everyone was impacted?

Prior to the most recent version, grub only registered the fwsetup if detected support. If your machine detected support, you would have had the fwsetup command registered and the failure wouldn’t occur.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

The other fix was reboot your Windows computer at least 15 times.

How is that an argument against anything I have said?

Not everyone was affected though

Only machines running crowdstrike were affected, not all Windows machines. So in neither case were all systems affected. In this case though Microsoft doesn't bare any responsibility as they didn't distribute the software. In the case or Arch and EndeavourOS they had a responsibility to check packages before they shipped them to users. In this case the OS maker was more at fault.