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Of course there is. I, myself, had XENIX on my first computer and yes I take some pride in the fact that I had to actually RTFM and learn to use a computer rather than the point,click,pray approach most people are forced into when starting with Windows.

Edited 2006-10-23 15:46

No it isn't. I loathe that kind of elitism.

Edited 2006-10-23 15:45

That is not elitism. Please learn what the word means before mindlessly spitting it at people. I'll give you some extra help on this one.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/elitism

Fsckit, your point is obvious but some are getting wrapped up in the particular word you used. It would be better to say that you are very pleased rather than proud.

According to definition 2, it actually could be called elitism. Consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favored group. The group would be those who used Unix before Windows.

I envy you. From about '86 to '02 I always had the sensation that I was missing out on the true computer experience because I had almost no Unix access. I finally made the switch to Linux in '02.

No elitism, just attitudes of affected superiority.

I think what he is trying to say that learning the 'hard way' is a good experience because you are forced to understand more. That extra experience pays dividends later. It's a rough way to start, but like it or not, you get an edge because of it.

Of course there is. I, myself, had XENIX on my first computer and yes I take some pride in the fact that I had to actually RTFM and learn to use a computer rather than the point,click,pray approach most prople are forced into when starting with Windows.

If you're going to go down that path then I suggest you have nothing to be proud of. After all, you didn't write the Xenix kernel, you didn't write the compiler. You're just another user, despite any false pride because you typed some words in a terminal instead of pointing and clicking.

So you are proud that you couldn't figure out how to use a computer on your own, and had to use a manual?

I'm not getting the connection. How does reading the manual != learning on your own?

How does reading the manual != learning on your own?

I'm not sure, but most people seem to think that computers need to be simpler than toasters and that a chimpanzee should be able to use one.

Learning how to use a computer to it's fullest potential is frowned upon, because it shatters the myth that pointing and clicking is more than enough to reach that potential.

People don't like to be outclassed, but geeks show them otherwise. Deep down they hate the geeky kid who cleans up after their malware infected mess. They know they can't get by with just clicking and that they are dependent on the ones who know more than just click.

So any signs of elevated skill level will bring out hostility.

So you are proud that you couldn't figure out how to use a computer on your own, and had to use a manual?

Don't sound like a fool. If you never make the first step of "admitting you have a problem" you will never be anything more than just another user for whom the machine works by magic. RTFM is the most important skill a computer user can learn.

edit: forgot to quote.

Edited 2006-10-23 16:17

Of course there is. I, myself, had XENIX on my first computer and yes I take some pride in the fact that I had to actually RTFM and learn to use a computer rather than the point,click,pray approach most people are forced into when starting with Windows.

Taking in pride in being *able* to learn to use the software is something I can understand. But why take pride in the fact that you *had* to learn? An accomplishments are something to take pride in, circumstances are not.

I, myself, had XENIX on my first computer

My first work computer in 1975 had DEC RT-11 as its operating system. My first home computer bought seven years later ran CP/M (Gary Kildall who wrote CP/M had originally worked on the DEC operating systems). Great not to have started with MS eh?

I didn't get to Unix (SunOS 3 and an early AIX) until 14 years after starting with DEC operating systems. I only wish I had got to Unix systems earlier. I use Ubuntu at home now, it just works.

Edited 2006-10-24 02:15

People want a computer experience to be seamless, intuitive, and simple; unix has none of these qualities.

So what about MacOSX?

Edited 2006-10-23 15:36

People want a computer experience to be seamless, intuitive, and simple; Windows has none of these qualities.


(write a stupid comment and get a stupid answer)

"people want a computer experience to be seamless, intuitive and simple" -- I classify windows to be beginners-friendly, not user friendly.

Take a sweex USB/serial converter.

Windows:

1) install hardware.
2) tell windows you have a driver as windows doesn't understand the well known pl2303.
3) install driver
4) reboot, as the software tells us so.
5) see that the device doesn't work, install usb to serial software
6) reboot as the s/w tells us so.
7) see that it doesn't work. take out the plug, reinsert
8) yes we have our driver.

linux:

1) plug in the device.


same story for a lot of cameras, storage devices, mp3 players......

Edited 2006-10-23 16:54

You're kindly leaving out the multitudes of hardware where the story goes like this:

Windows:

1) Plug in the device.

Linux:

1) Plug in the device.
2) dmesg
3) See it wasn't detected.
4) Break out Google.
5) Read forum posts for 30 minutes.
6) Find a reference to an obscure HOWTO on some guy's site Apache index listing.
7) Follow the 3-year-old HOWTO, using trial and error.
8) Finally get the device working at 11 PM after buying it at noon.
9) Feel a sense of smug satisfaction that you are, after all, using the superior operating system.

Funny. When I try to install my scanner and printer on Win/OSX,it requires hours and hours of work, since HP and Canon's drivers for my equipment are borked for OSX (as in, they won't install, forcing me to download 3rd party software), and for Windows they just require a massive download and tedious installation procedure, as well as an uninstallation procedure, since a lot of pointless utilities are installed alongside the drivers (and you can't opt out).

On Ubuntu, I can plug them both in, and they just work.

Point: it depends on what hardware you are talking about. The biggest problem with Linux hardware today is i.e. changing videocards. In that respect, Linux is still stuck in the stone age.

Edited 2006-10-23 19:09

uh, um, WHY do people still bring these lame-ass arguements?

Windows:
1) Plug in device.
2) Windows doesnt recognize device
3) Pop in Driver CD
4) Install drivers
5) Reboot
6) Device conflicts with another device (haha, just kidding)... ^H^H^H^H^H^H^HH^H the device works

Linux:

Pretty much the same as with windows, cept the chances of it being recognized are higher.

This isnt 1995 anymore, Linux has come a loooong way. If you have a pc thats 5 year sold or newer, then most likely, most of your hardware will be seen on installation. If you have some obscure piece of hardware then it can get a bit interesting, but thats the SAME problem windows has.

Before I get flamed for being biased, I use windows XP on my main tower and Debian on my ghetto piddle tower.

You wouldn't go into an Apple store expecting everything to work on your Windows box. You wouldn't go into a PC retailer and expect everything to work on your Macintosh. Why would you go into either one and expect everything to work under Linux.

I did my research before buying a Linux box, and every bit of hardware works once it is booted off a Linux installer or live CD. I don't need to use dmesg, Google, forums, mailing lists, how-tos, or the midnight oil just to get things working. In fact, I barely even had to touch Google in order to do the research.

Now if only I could say the same thing about Windows, which can hardly be considered as stable unless I download the latest drivers from ATI.

People want a computer experience to be seamless, intuitive, and simple; unix has none of these qualities.

Clearly you are not familiar with Mac OSX !

It is Seamless, intuitive and simple to use.

and it is the most secure Unix there is BSD

Mac OS X isn't really Unix, nor BSD. It's Unix- and BSD-like. But that's all.

Mac OS X isn't really Unix, nor BSD. It's Unix- and BSD-like. But that's all.

Split hairs

Leopard will be POSIX

BSD is a flavor of Unix

but 3.5>V

PC-BSD is great for ease of use, security, & stablety

HELLO!! MacOSX!! PC-BSD!!

Mac OS X! SUSE! Linspire/Freespire! Xandros! PC-BSD! Many more...

Actually SPF is 'sender policy framework". Personally I think people should stop abbreviating things that were never meant to be abbreviated and just speak english.

Personally I think people should stop abbreviating things that were never meant to be abbreviated and just speak english.
Have you ever done work with US Military contracts?

I swear they make the acronyms then come up with something that loosely fits after the fact. For the given example, most of the contracts I've seen use SPoF so they can say "ess-pawf" (yes, in that accent).

I run no antivirus (I just dont use IE and Im behind a router).

That's the silliest rationale I've ever heard. Do you use email? Have you EVER allowed an ActiveX control to run? Do you have Java installed? Do you ever run applications you've downloaded from the internet?

Do you use email? Yes, just take care, is not that hard.
Have you EVER allowed an ActiveX control to run? Why I should do that?
Do you have Java installed? Not a problem with it yet.
Do you ever run applications you've downloaded from the internet? I try to avoid the freepornxxx.exe's and the like.

OK, good luck with that.

Why you'd want to try to outrun virii that DO exist vs. protect yourself is beyond my comprehension.

Think of using an A/V app like using a condem. You don't HAVE to, but why risk it?

Think of using an A/V app like using a condem.

AV is NOT like a condom. Condoms prevent infections from the get go.

AV is more like antibiotics. For AV to be effective you already need to have the virus active in your memory. AV can't fight something that isn't already there.

It would be nice if something like a condom could be written for OSes.

If only an AV were so effective as a condom... The right prevention technique is common sense.

because it feels better without

sorry, i had to

You will be very surprised and angry when some worm slips through router, firewall and Windows defenses, it happens. I was like this until msblast, sasser and similar made my computer a self-restarting piece of machinery. Then I switched to Linux. I still have to fix my parent's computer with Windows XP even though it has automatic updates enabled, it's behind router, has a firewall and antivirus app (and after some education my father uses p2p apps to download porn ).

Edited 2006-10-23 16:50

If msblast "slipped" trough your hardware router you obviusly had something bad configrated on it.
I know windows can be full of viruses of 10 minutes if you dont take care, but if you DO take care, it doenst have to.

"That's the silliest rationale I've ever heard. Do you use email? Have you EVER allowed an ActiveX control to run? Do you have Java installed? Do you ever run applications you've downloaded from the internet?"

Don't open attachments in emails. Don't install ActiveX controls from untrustworthy sites. Disable Java applets. Don't download apps from P2P networks. Keep your system updated.

These simple rules coupled with Firefox and a firewall means you won't need an antivirus.

Edited 2006-10-23 16:53

"These simple rules coupled with Firefox and a firewall means you won't need an antivirus."

and still we have to fix those machines..... how come ?

I know that this is a good base, but be aware of the flakey part that runs under your fingers, Windows.

I have seen those interesting ads (on this site btw) that I know not to touch but people do and they get infected quickly. We've done some studies on ow fast you can be infected and what it takes to get rid of infections. YOu don't really want that on your own system.

We use VMware and roll back the image if we cannot fix a known problem. Most of us don't.

The most flakey part is the lack of common sense.

Avoid certain sites and certain applications downloadable through p2p-networks.

That'll do quite a trick.

Boy, I can't believe this is a site filled with supposed techies. Good luck with your method.

In the meantime, your computer is *still* vulnerable dude! Just hoping a virus never lands on your PC is completely naive and absolutely laughable. Being behind a router and not using IE is NOT a suitable replacement for AV software.

[i][sarcasm]
You're perfectly safe, just never open any attachment in email, install any ActiveX control, use a java applet, download from p2p.

Also, never use a torrent, never use an ipod (they just shipped with Windows viruses), never use a USB thumb drive that has touched another network or computer, never install a database server or an app that opens ports for remote connection. In fact, don't use your computer for anything meaningful at all. Better yet, just shut your PC off and it's perfectly safe!
[/sarcasm]

...And AV Software is not a guarantee of security. If it's Norton, you might even get some exclusive trojans just for Symantec.
I work with several AV products, and you'll be surprise about how a machine with zero problems and zero cleaning events can be infected. If you think you're protected by using an antivirus, good luck for you. You'll need it.

Btw... My windows installation is almost 2 years old, without antivirus. And without incidents.

"In the meantime, your computer is *still* vulnerable dude! Just hoping a virus never lands on your PC is completely naive and absolutely laughable."

I've been "hoping" that a virus never lands on my PC(s) for many years and, guess what, it never has. The only viruses I've come in contact with were those on other people's machines that I was hired to remove.

Any knowledgeable and responsible computer user can stay away from viruses. I challenge you to uninstall your antivirus, and if you follow the rules I gave in my original post (which everyone should do anyway), you'll never get a virus, period.

But anyway, I know I can't convince you that it's not needed and you can't convince me that it is, so there's no reason to debate it...

It's simple: If you don't have a computer, you don't have a problem.

Using Firefox(but patched iexplorer is also fine), regularly patching vulnerabilities in XP, not running executable attachments, and generally taking care not to execute suspicious stuff is enough to stay clean. To allow antivirus to crawl your system each time you run an exe file, is not really the best solution

And even if you get infected by some really nasty one, you can download a trial and clean it up, or find instructions to remove it manually. I had to do this a few times (e.g. MS-Blaster got removed this way).

You haven't updated XP since it was installed?

In that case I hope you installed XP within the last week - if not I'll recommend you perform a system check.

So antivirus software is supposed to detect what are essentially format errors in data files now? Why, because certain particular applications using those files are badly written and will fall victim to bugs which in turn become security problems? How about fixing the bad app and be done with it?

You can see I hope why AV is considered bloated, and AV scanning itself a bad security practice. Where does it stop? It doesn't. Blacklists grow and grow and add more and more stuff and never take it out, because you can bet that once Symantec added that file format check for JPEG's they will keep on doing so forever in all future editions. Instead of fixing some simple matters once.

It's important to keep in mind that windows xp is, after all, a 2001 product. It isn't supposed to magically find new drivers to newer hardware.

It's also important to keep in mind that Microsoft decided that a big release every five years or so was a better approach than smaller incremental releases. As of today, WinXP is still the latest supported version of Windows that I'd get if I bought a new PC. So you could almost say that lack of support for newer hardware was a design decision.

Try that with 2001's unixes.

Here you go: http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/01/Mandrake_71.pdf

That's the version of Linux I started with. Nice graphical installer.

While I agree that the modularity isn't windows strong point, I also think it was never meant to be. Windows is designed as a desktop product (since 1.0),

It's also a server product and that's where it's lack of modularity can hurt. It sounds like they might be doing something about that though.

The Add/Remove programs feature is as good as the program uninstaller you're trying to remove.

The menu choices are the worst part, I'm having to constantly fight the menus to get them in a usable state. You'd think they'd enforce some kind of standard of usability. Will this be coming with Vista? Anyone know?

A 2001 browser is a quite bad browser, even ignoring the security holes. Try running Netscape 7 and you'll see.

It still has better standards support than IE7. That was when browsers started getting good. I preferred Mozilla to Netscape 7 at that time and when it came to CSS support it was second to none.

Actually, most of 2001 linux distros didn't run on my 2001 computer... And yes, it was fully "compatible" with linux.
Mandrake and Nice on the same sentence can't really make sense, but that's ok.

And btw, windows XP is NOT a server product. And I didn't understood why something working as a server has to be modular. There are some cases, yes, but then again there are some other products. When you buy a server appliance, is it modular? Generally no. When you buy a router, is it modular? Well, if you spend some big bucks on top-of-the-line models, yes, maybe. When you buy a cellphone, is it modular? I don't think so - software is seen as a part of the base package. And while you may argue that software and hardware are different business, the main channel of distribution of windows xp is via OEM licensing - making the software a part of the base package.

About Add/Remove, yes, I've had some problems, most of them with shitty or badly tested installers. I didn't understand what you mean by "usability", but I guess it could be better.

Actually Netscape 7 is from 2002, not 2001. You might have missed