this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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Think about it this way: you're downloading someone else's code and running it on your system. The OS doesn't care: it will give it access to everything your user has access to, but won't give access to anything else.
So (under the caveat below) the software won't be able to mess with your system because your user generally can't mess with your system. However, you still need to trust the software, since it will be able to access e.g. your saved passwords, SSH keys, install a keylogger, etc. In comparison, the binary packages can be seen as safer, because they have more "eyes" on them, and there is more time between the code being published and you running that code on your system.
Caveat: if you run something like
sudo make install, then, of course the risk is way higher, and the package definitely will be able to mess with your system up to and including destroying it.