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by Daneel_ 500 days ago
If it’s not installed by default on server-oriented flavours of Linux then it’s dead to me, unfortunately. Most orgs aren’t going to agree to roll it out across tens of thousands of machines on a whim.

My entire Linux experience is dictated by what’s installed by default on rhel and/or ubuntu.

2 comments

This is why I originally learned vi. Working on DoD machines as well as this of other consulting customers. I had a notebook of short scripts and commands that would make my life easier. I couldn't use any media or even reference the internet in many of the data centers and labs.
"installed by default" should never be a compelling consideration for an org with ten thousand machines, or one hundred. As soon as they have their own package repos and automatic deploy systems, it should be as simple as saying "fd is a fast file finding utility packaged upstream as 'fd-find'. Please add it to the deploy list for these classes of machines" or whatever else starts your change management system grinding.
Unfortunately that doesn't cut the mustard in most organisations either, with the typical responses being along the lines of: "Who will support it? Can you provide a security assessment? Is your team happy to be responsible for any issues?"

I sorely wish it was as simple as "please deploy", and in days of yesteryear you could probably get away with that either yourself or if you were friends with the linux team, but those days are over now as far as I see.

For context, my opinion comes from being a security consultant for over a decade - I see a lot of other people's environments and how their organisations handle requests like this. Not every environment will have objections, but most won't add it as a standard package across the fleet.

My opinion comes from decades of running the department that provides an initial security assessment and then signs up to support it.