"For years now, Linux has been a black sheep standing in the shadow of Apple and Microsoft. Despite having a fervent and enthusiastic following, the operating system hasn't been able to grab a sizable share of the computing market and has instead been content to subsist on the customers that come away dissatisfied with the mainstream competition. But that may be about to change. With the release of Microsoft Windows 8 on the horizon, some are saying Linux may have a great opportunity to steal a significant share of the market away from Microsoft, allowing it to finally take the helm as a major operating system service provider." This has to stop, and the only reason I'm linking to this nonsense is to make this very clear: Linux will not magically conquer the desktop or even make any significant gains because of Windows 8. People who don't like Windows 8 (Vista) will continue to use Windows 7 (Windows XP). This is getting so tiring. And does it even matter? Linux is winning big time in the mobile space, server space, and countless other spaces. The desktop is and always has been irrelevant to Linux.
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Member since:2012-06-22
Says the guy who would thinks UAC is worthless. What exactly sucks compared to everything else? Be specific. I work with both Linux and Windows so please enlighten me.
WTF are you talking about? So it would make no difference if people turned off updates? That is actually one of the biggest problems.
I would argue that switching everyone to Linux would be a bad idea anyway (didn't I already say that in this topic?). A mono culture is never a good thing.
But wouldn't 100k randomly generated binary incompatible versions of Windows have a better result? So again Windows itself isn't the problem. That's like saying Windows has security problems that can be improved by shutting off the internet twice a week. It's not a systemic problem, reduced exploits through binary incompatibility is a security strategy that is separate from Windows.
People who run Windows 98 today don't have to deal with malware.
Android has far more malware than Windows 98. Conclusion: Windows 98 has superior security. We should switch all smartphones to Windows 98 to solve the Android malware problem.
Member since:2006-12-05
"WTF are you talking about? So it would make no difference if people turned off updates? That is actually one of the biggest problems."
Bleh. I give up arguing with you, this is the same kind of nonsense counter-argument I was expecting from you. I point out that Microsoft comes up with cheap little band-aids as "features" to "patch" a problem (and poorly at that), and you try to spin it around to make it seem that I am talking about all security updates (or even security updates at all). Hint: I was NOT talking about Windows Update or security updates/patches in general. I was talking about the many worthless kludges that Microsoft keeps tacking on with little to no benefit and passing them off as breathtaking security "features." You know... *that* kind of patch. I thought for sure I made that clear with my wording, but really, I'm getting the idea that you're just trying to twist what I say around just for an argument, and I've argued my point more than enough.
If this was some god damn security update I was talking about, I would also be complaining about one of the more recent Windows XP service packs. But I'm not talking about security updates--I am talking about a questionable "security feature" that made its way into Vista. Get it? If so, good. If not, someone else can waste their time--I'm done.
Nice cheap shot with the Win98 comparison. How that's relevant to modern operating systems, I don't know--although I get your point, but don't agree with your conclusion. It really sounds like you're trying everything you can to defend your beloved Windows and slam Android. What did Android ever do to you, steal your Windows Phone? Kill Steve Jobs? Rape your dog?
Edited 2012-08-29 10:54 UTC
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OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
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Member since:
2006-12-05
Clearly it's not stopping these drive-by attacks too well, otherwise I would have nothing to be bitching about.
I don't recall making such a claim. In fact, aside from using the term "Linux" in a generic sense meaning "Linux distribution," I don't even know what the hell you're talking about; sudo is certainly not a feature of the kernel. Sure, I mentioned that I run Linux (again, as in an OS with the Linux kernel) now and that I no longer run Windows, but my opinion is more like this: Linux is not special in any major way compared to most other common operating systems, server or desktop. UNIX, BSD, Linux, whatever--they all tend to be quite adequate as far as I can see.
Hell, even Mac OS X is decent to an extent, although Apple's quest to simplify things for their users at the expense is finally starting to bite them in the ass (sounds a lot like a certain monopolistic U.S. technology company, doesn't it?). I am not specifically saying that Linux itself is better than Windows. I am saying that Windows' security just sucks compared to pretty much everything else out there. Go ahead and debate that if you want--you seem like you'll pull some kind of shit out of your ass to defend Microsoft. That much can be inferred from your previous posts.
The idiots trying to get to porn and see bunnies hopping doesn't help anything at all, but at the same time Windows makes it disturbingly easy to get screwed--and the patches Microsoft is putting out just don't help.
I would argue that switching everyone to Linux would be a bad idea anyway (didn't I already say that in this topic?). A mono culture is never a good thing. Although, if everyone used Linux in general (as in, an operating system based on the Linux kernel) but everyone used different distributions instead of everyone using Ubuntu or Mint, I would imagine the situation to still be better than what Windows faces today. A nice even combination of Linux, BSD, UNIX, Mac OS X, Windows, etc. would be optimal--where by "Linux" I mean a nice, healthy selection of at least a half-dozen or a dozen distros with relatively even shares of users.
Of course, this is all hypothetical. It doesn't make up for the fact that Microsoft has made countless braindead-stupid design decisions in the past, with UAC being just one of the more recent ones in how it was implemented. A good idea, yeah--but useless the way it was set up. That's UAC.