I bought an Acer C720 Chromebook for travel computing. The Chrome OS will not run Skype which is essential for my travelling. To my knowledge there is no project to install openSUSE on a x86 processor Chromebook - only ARM. I have tried installing several other Linux installations and the one that works uses “chroot”. I have read that this is an open door to being invaded by hacking.
Could someone explain how great this risk is and if there is some way I can reduce it? I don’t store state secrets, but am concerned over exposing friends’ E-mail addresses and names, and having passwords stolen.
Thanks in advance.
P.S. I know this would probably be more appropriate in an Ubuntu forum, but I have been using openSUSE since 9.1 and have found this forum to be far above others in its expertise and responsiveness.
eh would not work anyhow, as openSUSE doesnt really have skype and that goes double for its arm version.
(seriously skype support in openSUSE is ****, it works in Mageia, Fedora and Ubuntu but not in openSUSE and I hope one day the rpm can be installed without the bull)
chromebooks are a dead end for skype
> I have tried installing several other Linux installations and
> the one that works uses “chroot”. I have read that this is an open door
> to being invaded by hacking.
On the contrary. in Linux, chroots are used to protect programs or
users, to limit what they can do. For instance, if the administrator
suspects that the daemon “named” can be compromised (hacked), he puts
that daemon in a chroot jail so that even if it is hacked it has no
access outside of that chroot jail and can not damage anything, besides
that daemon, that is.
That’s what a chroot is in Linux. In other systems it can mean something
very different. Like what people talk when “rooting” an Android device.
So, it depends what you really understand by “chroot”.
What? Last week I spent 2+ hours in an skype video call to another state with some people running windows. Their side froze/disconnected a couple of times, they had to call their IT people to get it back working. On my side it worked flawlessly on a netbook running oS 13.1 64bit.
It depends on how chroot() is used. If used with care, it can improve security in some situations. If used carelessly, as a replacement for good security practices, then it can be a source of risk.
On 2014-02-26 10:22, flymail wrote:
> On 2014-02-25, MadmanRB <> wrote:
>> eh would not work anyhow, as openSUSE doesnt really have skype and that
>
> I disagree. The 32-bit openSUSE-version of Skype works perfectly well on 32/64 bit openSUSE and has done so since
> openSUSE version 11.2.
Wait.
It is not the “openSUSE-version of Skype”. It is the “Skype version of
Skype”. They make it, and they distribute it, not openSUSE. And they
don’t make it specifically for openSUSE, either.
But it works, yes.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
> Wait.
> It is not the “openSUSE-version of Skype”. It is the “Skype version of
> Skype”.
The current download is skype-4.2.0.13-suse.i586.rpm after selecting from the `Choose your distribution’ then choosing
openSUSE 12.1 32-bit. Sounds like an openSUSE-specific version to me. If it happens to be identical to the other
32-bit rpms, then the end-user isn’t to know.
> They make it, and they distribute it, not openSUSE.
I never suggested otherwise.
> And they
> don’t make it specifically for openSUSE, either.
Saying an application is not supported involves much more than a missing menu or desktop icon, right?
And that’s not my experience here. It installed a menu shortcut under Applications, automatically. To run it, I just go to the menu. I didn’t have to do anything, not even tweak the audio settings, something I had to do in the past. Perhaps your experience is with an older version. The package I’m using is skype-4.2.0.13-suse.i586.rpm, running on oS 13.1 64bit, installed from Yast.
What irked me in Skype was the latest update on Android, that ask for extended permissions that I found very invasive, considering they were not required in the previous version. But this is OT, better suited for an android forum.