The choice of software to run our computers can get awfully depressing. On one hand, there’s Windows XP expensive and woefully insecure, but it works on almost every machine out there. On the other, there’s Mac OS X — far more secure, but also expensive and restricted to Apple’s own computers.Where’s our independence from this pair? For a growing minority of users, it comes in the open-source operating system called Linux. It’s either cheap or free (depending if you buy a packaged distribution or download a version online), it’s secure and it can run on any Windows-ready machine.
And because its code is open for anybody to modify, users, not marketers, can get the final say in this operating system’s evolution.
But Linux doesn’t offer up these rewards easily. At worst, installing it means hours of thumb-wrestling the software into submission, first tweaking it to work with a PC’s hardware and then mastering the inscrutable routines needed to update and manage this code.
Read the rest of the interesting editorial at Washington Post via Y! News.
I don’t understand this article. There is more choice now in software than ever before, and lots of it cheap. Go back four years and linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD was not an option at all. There were no useful mature free desktop environments. Other than IE, all we had was Netscape, which had been orphaned by that time.
What are the good ol days the author is pining for? CP/M??
Now, if someone could magic up a distribution exactly like Xandros, but made up of entirely open source software, you’d have a real winner. Until that day arives however, Linux will remain a second class citizen in the desktop OS world.
an distro based on Ximian and that made full use of all the nice features of Gnome 2.6 in a way that was as integrated as OS X, then we would see a Linux Desktop that was in the same league as OS X and (the some day in the future) Longhorn.
Seems like a somewhat whiny article, though the author does demonstrate a few moments of clarity.
The first problem arises because many hardware manufacturers provide enabling software only for Windows, forcing Linux programmers to do that work on their own.
I do believe some reviewers have to stop confusing different with inferior.
SuSE pared down the complexity but suffered from initially puzzling settings (icons on its desktop respond to single clicks instead of double clicks).
The fact that Linux lets you have it either way should be applauded. I set my desktop to do this by default, why else would I be going near an icon unless I want it to start something. My own opinion is why double click when one click will do. Neither way is right or wrong, so lets pick something else to complain about.
Freebsd and linux is great but they dont have developers working on it 9 hours a day
If all the OEMs(orig. equip.manuf.) would put Freebsd and linux on all their computers then you would faster changes for user friendly interface.
If the government would have capped Bills O$ at 50-60% of the market and stop bundling then there would be alot of competition.
… but the various GNU/Linux desktop distributions have been improving so much lately that right now I believe Linux is a better alternative than XP:
– The Linux kernel is safer and more flexible than XP. Drivers have improved tremendously as of the last year.
– X Window performance has also improved and the number of supported cards has become comparable with XP.
– KDE, correctly configured, offers a better GUI than XP.
– In general, GPL’ed office suites have shown steady progress and become usable in office and home environments.
There is room for improvement in all the areas mentioned, but Microsoft is facing serious competition from the GNU/Linux front.
“It’s a clever system. Except — duh — there’s no graphical front-end to it, forcing users to use a text-only, command-line interface.”
its called up2date. yes up2date can use yum repos
>> Unfortunately, to install any of these versions without
>> wiping out most Windows installations, you’ll need to buy
>> a third-party program to partition your hard drive.
Someone please tell this poor guy about the Ultimate Boot CD!
“a different sound malfunction in Mandrake caused a Dell laptop to emit an ear-piercing screech”
I think he has installed this under vmware …. the ear-piercing screech is from his on board microphone.. which he is touching with his fingers or moving the laptop..
I had the same problem only when installing via vmware/ maybe even virtualpc etc..
Fair criticism…
The gauntlet is thrown down… as the Linux desktop is my passion, I really see this as a challenge. I ask my friends all of the time what barriers they have to adopting Linux on the desktop. The answers they give are often enlightening and surprising. There is much work to be done.
Having said that, there has been a ton of improvement already. My linux desktop, for the first time, meets all of my computer needs without a great deal of fuss. No barriers here. However I am a grep loving geek… whereas I cannot get my parents to take the plunge (for example).
The linux desktop community will get there. Yes, there is much work to be done. Work like Project Utopia does give me a lot of hope and optimism. I am so excited about where the linux desktop is going… more excited than I have been in the past.
Go forth penguinistas!
There is a ton of choice now in the free software world, but I think the author is talking about the pre and early Win9x era when there was also choice in the commercial software market. Think about it: how many commercial office suites are duking it out for first place? One. Back then, there were at least three pretty evenly-matched choices. How many IDEs are there? Just Visual Studio, practically. Back then, Borland still had an edge, and Watcom offered a good alternative. These days, the commercial software industry has pretty much degenerated into a few de-facto standards, and very little real competition.
“I think he has installed this under vmware …. the ear-piercing screech is from his on board microphone.. which he is touching with his fingers or moving the laptop..”
No, I had exactly the same problem with the onboard sound card on a recent AMD mainboard. The problem was easily solved by changing mixer settings, but I agree it’s disconcerting for newbies and even experienced users.
That however was a one-minute problem. It took me a lot more time to figure out how to install XP on a machine that was the target of a Sasser attack…
reading into the article, it’s clear that he only tried free (as in kittens) versions: SuSE LiveCD, Mandrake download, and Fedora. Couldn’t spare $50 for shrinkwrapped SuSE or RedHat Enterprise desktop or Sun JDS? Couldn’t even be bothered to ask the companies for eval versions?
Even in Free Software, you get what you pay for.
Reviewer’s own fault.
>> Unfortunately, to install any of these versions without
>> wiping out most Windows installations, you’ll need to buy
>> a third-party program to partition your hard drive.
This guy doesn’t know QtParted and SysReccd:
http://www.sysresccd.org/
My Conectiva Linux box resize any Windows partition using parted directly from the installer or even after installed…
If I was a technical writer I never would write about a system I don’t use. I would be honest and let an experient user to install and demonstrate the system for me…
” Unfortunately, to install any of these versions without wiping out most Windows installations, you’ll need to buy a third-party program to partition your hard drive.”
That’s odd. I’m sure both Mandrake and Suse use ntfsresize, so they can resize ntfs partitions during install.
I’m sure I’ve installed Mandrake on a box and had it resize an ntfs partition automatically.
ntfsresize:
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html
Also, I’m sure most package managers have front end guis. I’ve never seen the need myself though.
Other than that, a pretty fair article.
mac os is restricted to apple computer – windows is restricted to PC. so what?
RedHat is headquartered in Raleigh, NC, not Chapel Hill.
Windows, Mac and Yunix all have problems with device drivers and filesystem… use forth, its much simpler and better
The fact that Linux lets you have it either way should be applauded. I set my desktop to do this by default, why else would I be going near an icon unless I want it to start something. My own opinion is why double click when one click will do. Neither way is right or wrong, so lets pick something else to complain about.
I agree, the ability to choose if you want double or single click is great. Linux as well as Windows gives the user this option.
The question is what setting should be the default. We can expect that more than 90% of Linux potential users have been exposed to windows that almost always are configured to use double click. This means that they get confused when entering into the KDE environment. They open things by mistake or open two instances instead of one. This behavior seam to be difficult to unlearn. Even Microsoft did try when they introduced their Active desktop together with IE4.0. The result was that most users went back to double click as soon as possible.
You say that there is no reason to be near an icon unless you are going to start something. I don’t think that is entirely true. The user may also want to select the item or to examine it, e.g. look at the file size. I would say that the single click to select represent picking up a real object from a real desktop for examination, without doing anything to it. I also think that the reason for single click being so succesful on the web and troublesome at the desktop is that on the web there is only one thing to do with the clicked object (i.e follow the link). While in a desktop environment the user have much more options to consider. By being able to select the file on single click he gets feedback on what file he is going to apply any of all those options to.
So I really think that KDE would benefit from having doubleclick as default. That way most potential users wouldn’t need to unlearn an allready familliar behavior.
“It’s a clever system. Except — duh — there’s no graphical front-end to it, forcing users to use a text-only, command-line interface.”
its called up2date. yes up2date can use yum repos
Unfortunately up2date only updates software, it does not install new packages.
“Unfortunately up2date only updates software, it does not install new packages. ”
up2date -i packagename
that installs a new package. read man up2date
what software may it be a journo wants to install that is *not* included in 4,5 GB of data — are the distro packers st00pid? Btw, I tought you can partition with SuSE without extra software.
He wasn’t talking about “choice”. Having a choice of thousands of open source programs is competely irrelevant to a prospective Linux user if they can’t get Linux installed in the first place. Choice is also irrelevant when the program of your choice won’t install.
The “dependency” problem is very real. And, it’s the result of too much choice: Too many packaging schemese, too many dependency resolution schemes, too many magic installation tools. Not only to prospective Linux users need to learn how to install and use it, they also need to learn about window dressing like rpm, deb, emerge, yum, apt, urpmi, tar files, dpkg, dselect, and all their dressed-up equivalents.
What does this kind of choice mean to a new Linux user? It means he needs to remember he must constrain his choice of software repository to one that employs a packaging/dependency scheme that works with his installation.
Remember, the software in all those respositories is exactly the same. In the name of choice, we’ve created a chaotic mess that brings nothing of value to the table.
(The piece is also on target about the incompetence exhibited by any distribution that gets its installation so screwed up that it has to ask the user about mount points. Leave mount points for someone who deliverately opts for the “expert” install. For everyone else, just show them a nice piegraph representing their current partitions and let them point and click to adjust things. No need to ever use words like “mount points” and “partition”.
My biggest problem with Linux is that its like a box of chocolate, you never know what you are going to get. I have tried several distros between my desktop and laptop, and each one has something different that just plain old wont work. For me, its getting a little irritating since IMO, its just a waste of time to be downloading and installing different distros to find that it wont work all the way. Thats going to be the biggest hurdle for Linux. I think its silly to expect a Windows user to just convert (If Windows does what they need, then why change anyways?)if they cant use all of their hardware and software in a new OS.
If I was a technical writer I never would write about a system I don’t use. I would be honest and let an experient user to install and demonstrate the system for me…
You are right, this amateur test will not show what Linux is capable of and in that respect you could see it as bad journalism.
However I find this article highly interesting as it gives us a view of how a newbie experiences the system. Often it is this first experience that makes the difference between continuing using the system or go back to whatever he used before, in most cases windows.
On example is his problems with drivers. Of course one can get sound, scanners, … to work with Linux. You only have to select the right hardware. However, most users enter Linux as an upgrade from windows, not on a new box where all hardware was specifically chosen to support Linux. In that respect this article was a fair revieew of the current state of Linux.
“Unfortunately up2date only updates software, it does not install new packages. ”
up2date -i packagename
that installs a new package. read man up2date
Yes, but you miss the point. If you have to write
up2date -i packagenamne you could just as well have written
yum install packagename. The article was asking for a GUI tool.
At worst, Windows can give you lots of headaches, at best it can work flawless for ages. It’s the same with linux. With any OS.
The OS that has been almost flawless to me is BeOS. But that’s my experince, I know a few people who has had trouble with it.
Linux is far from perfect, but in my experience, distros like SuSe works just as good as Windows. My Mandrake installs has been acting very fishy at times though.
yeah, thats true. the OS I’ve had the least trouble with has been BeOS too.
You are right. sorry. havent used up2date on the gui ever. too much resource usage and cumbersome for me anyway
Having converted to Linux about a year ago, I can appreciate this article’s spirit even if some of the detail is plain wrong.
Irrational though we might find it, many persevere with Microsoft products because they know how to use them. They tolerate problems of stability and security because it is easier to do so than to move into the unknown.
The perception of Linux is that it is hard to install, full of arcane commands and difficult to manage. People know it is stable and secure, but that will not be much good if they can’t use it.
That and the fact that Linux has come a long way, but that there is work to do before there is a mass migration from 98 or XP was, I think, the very broad gist of the article. I think this is a valid point.
I suggest we should be generous in our response to such articles by correcting the more obvious errors whilst pointing out the obvious advantages of Linux.
Which are: it is cheap, it is stable, it is secure. As Open Source Software, it even represents a new way of looking at the world.
Linux is not Windows. It requires some effort of learning, but that effort will be rewarded with all the above and more.
We should welcome the Washington Post taking an interest in us. Ultimately it can only help.
Yes, but you miss the point. If you have to write
up2date -i packagenamne you could just as well have written
yum install packagename. The article was asking for a GUI tool.
So do “up2date -i synaptic” and now you never have to use the commandline again. Synpatic is the best software installer you will find; it comes with links to all kinds of repositories around the world already set, and gives a nice simple GUI with searching capability. It handles dependencies and all that automatically. If you tell it to install a package and another one (or twenty) is needed, it will ask you if you want to install the needed package(s) as well.
“So do “up2date -i synaptic”
problem with this is you have to install apt and not every repos is apt enabled. apt4rpm isnt multi architecture compatible either which is why yum was choosen in fedora
what i belive would be a solution would be to have the gui toss say a downloaded rpm to the distros own package manager if the file is doubleclicked. when there it would be checked against the package managers internal list of packages and any dependencys solved. if they cant a nice friendly popup should come up and point you towards say rpmfind.net to help you locate your needed files. hell maybe it could even look for the files there on its own.
there are software in windows that need you to install other software first. most of them dont do dependecy checking but instead just fail with a typicaly cryptic windows error (how does a memory hex dump help your avarage user? tell me what files screwed up or just keep still!). ok so the avarage linux error isnt that mutch better most of the time. but then error messages have allways been a pain even on macs (a row of cartoon bombs anyone? i may well belive that my mac have been taken over by a bunch of terrorists
or maybe bugs bunny and daffy duck?)…
anyways, there is work being done towards helping normal people install software. do a google (nice how a page becomes synonymous with a “action?”) on autopacakge. its a install framework that when operational will work very mutch like install files under windows (complete with friendly gui wizards in both gtk and qt)…
Ha-ha, it’s so funny – this guy doesn’t know that or doesn’t know how to set up something – why should he know?
Most people buy computers to get the job done – to work on their office stuff or surf the internet or watch a movie, and most of them don’t give a shit what kind of OS is loaded on their computer – they use applications, that’s it and OS is just a layer between an end-user application and hardware.
So why an “average” user should know how to compile something or some neat utility to repartition the drive?
If you buy a car, you, most probably, expect it to work out of the box – because you just bought a car, not a do-it-yourself kit for auto enthusiasts and you don’t have to be a mechanic to drive.
And I guess that’s the main problem with Linux on desktop – it’s a bunch of programs thrown toghether on cd, not tuned, without good manuals and so on.
“it’s a bunch of programs thrown toghether on cd, not tuned, without good manuals and so on.”
One MS is a bunch of programs thrown together on a cd some utilitys never get changed for ten years or more…
Never seen a manual in a Windows Box but if you purchase SUSE or Mandrake theres two very good manuals…
your point is?
In my town in Belgium, everybody i know use single-click on windows. After 6 months using my first pc (win98) and friends told me to change the double-click, it took me 15 error-clicks in the first two hours and a few times the next days. Oh error, i have to close a window. It saved me probably 100 000 clicks and i’m glad ’cause my fingers and wrist hurt already enough. Like i said they all change it to single-click and none of them is a geek. Some of them do a lot of graphic work, but most just use pc’s just for fun (chat and stuff). I thought everybody else did it too … seems i was wrong.
Is your objective to make Linux better or to score rhetorical points against Microsoft?
Windows should offer printed manuals. XP’s help system is better than any I’ve seen on Linux, but that’s not as good as having a book in your hands.
Manuals and books take time and money to create. We wlll never see hardcopy manuals coming from non-commercial distribution because they lack the writing skills and the money needed to support such an effort.
Xandros. From reading the article it sounds like it would have been perfect for him, answering all his objections.
The article mentions hardware compatibility as one of the stickiest problems, well IMHO it is one of the best features. After upgrading to the 2.6 series kernel my no name TV tuner card for example is working better than it ever did under Windows. Being a no name card the drivers and front end gui are never going to get an upgrade from the original manufacturer. Thanks to Linux the picture quality I am getting from the 2.6 kernel drivers and Tvtime front end image processing is an incredible improvement.
Then there is the power of knoppix which lets me use my work laptop, which I don’t have admin rights to in windows, to add a wireless network card and log on to my wireless network at home.
The is software selection is great too, sure it isn’t the big name stuff from Abode, Macromedia etc, but there is a sustitute for almost everything, and they are almost always better than the original in some way worse in others. This is because the programmers add in that feature that you always wished that the big name application had, but always lacks.
Linux on the desktop is very real and personally I couldn’t be happier.
This statement: “Unfortunately, to install any of these versions without wiping out most Windows installations, you’ll need to buy a third-party program to partition your hard drive.”
This is total horseshit. Mandrake at least can resize even Windows NTFS partitions from within the install. At WORST, with SOME distros you might have to use FIPS.
This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Period.
Another bullshit FUD piece.
Dependency hell is a myth, point you updating software to your distributions official site, and you will have no problems. If you try to install every application from every third party source under the sun you are asking for trouble.
It is exactly the same with windows, if you go around installing every crap peice of software from all over the net you will end up with a registry full of rubbish as you install and remove software which will eventually self distruct, or worse you will get trojans and viruses.
Since a lot of the posts here illustrate the muddle-headeness of a lot of Linux advocates, I thought I’d relay why I’m using Windows today, not Slackware where I’ve spend most of my time for several years:
A week or so ago I bought a flat panel LCD monitor to replace the ViewSonic CRT that had rolled over and died. Get it home, hook it up to my video card (Matrox G550 — I spend all my computer time reading and typing; games hold no interest; the G550 has first-class 2D image quality) with the DVI cable — because DVI is the way to get the best image on an LCD flat panel — and….it doesn’t work. Nice black screen.
Turns out this card is known not to work in DVI mode with the XFree86/Xorg servers. Matrox offers a moribund beta driver. It also produced a nice black screen
I need to use my computer. I can let is sit idle while I look for a video card that approximates the image quality of the G550 and works with XFree86/Xorg, or I can install Windows and get some work done.
I installed Windows. I’d rather be using Slackware, but the card works fine and the display is excellent. I’ll go back to Linux when I find that video card.
I agree with this author. However, Linux will probably be ready in 2 years…right now it’s just too much of a headache compared to Windows, in my experience.
fdisk /mbr
A lot of people write articles about Linux but as I feel as this guy has done, do not give a real review of Linux.
For instance you pick Suse and Mandrake to review which are versions mostly used by techs and businesses (Which normally have techs that can install and configure Linux)
For home users there are easy to install versions like Lindows, Xandros and Lycoris. All three of these versions come preinstalled on machines sold by Walmart and are much easier for regular users to use.
People buy something called “Linux”, so they expect to be able to install any software that’s written for Linux. Why should they know that Linux packages from a Fedora server will screw up your Debian machine, and vice versa, for example?
The current situation with dependencies serves only to lock users into a single distribution. The best way to manifest real choice is to eliminate all the conflicting packaging schemes and dependency resolvers. Why shouldn’t Linux user be free to install software from any Linux repository?
thats true. It can be limiting sometimes. like recently my cd burner died and none of my other ones work with beos so im stuck using windows with it right now :
but thats why I have a linux and a windows install on my system. if i cant do something in beos, i fire up one of the other OSs.
“On one hand, there’s Windows XP (news – web sites) — expensive and woefully insecure, but it works on almost every machine out there.”
expensive? one can buy a pc preconfigured with windows xp home for as little as $349 (with monitor speakers and printer).
the cheapest isnt on sale this week at circuit city, but for $449 you get a bit more:
http://weeklyad.circuitcity.com/circuitcity/listing_detail.asp?list…
17″ crt fs7550
hp dj360 inkjet printer
2.53ghz celeron in model sr1120nx compaq
256mb ddr ram
40gb hard drive
dvd/cd-rw combo drive
xp home
(the one that they sell every other week or so for $349 has 128mb ram and plain cd-rom drive)
one can add xp home to an already owned pc for $79 http://store.yahoo.com/ftcshop/micwinxphome.html
a license alone (if you have a cd already) can be had for as little as $50
http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.327906/sc.9/category.5/it.A/id….
you have choice to buy home or pro based on your needs. you can buy retail, oem, bundled with a pc.
business can buy in license plans that bring the cost of xp pro down radically…at least as low as $84
http://www.pcbase.com/cgi-bin/main.pl?category=Software&subcategory…
(i would think big biz can get even cheaper than what you or i can find on pricewatch)
schools can buy xp pro licenses for as little as $67
http://www.vertigoonline.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Pro… (but again they can probably get cheaper than what we can find on pricewatch if they are buying many many copies)
support is included on retail products from ms.
support is included from the vendor on oem xp bundled with a pc from that vendor.
oem bought standalone and not with a pc is without phone support but is correspondingly cheaper so a trained user can save themselves money. all support is still included via online methods.
so sure, linux can be cheaper, but will it have support?
mac os x is radically more expensive when the costs of hardware are balanced with the cost of the os.
“woefully insecure”
last time i checked on major security reporting sites, linux had more major vulnerabilities listed than windows.
windows is not secure (enough) by default. linux is much more secure by default. mac os x is likewise much more secure by default.
ms is responding to the security issue. they went from a vendor of software that said make it as easy to use as possible. they were difficult to work with on the security response times. but that has improved markedly. svc pk 2 of xp will have much better default security.
and ms has given its customers a much better response time to security vulnerabilities.
they even make security updates available for free even after software is no longer officially supported. they likewise support their oses and release patches for a much longer time than any other vendor.
those free updates are made available via download or you can even have them send them to you on a cd on their dime:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp
you think apple can afford to duplicate, package, and ship 25 million cds to its clients for free? ms is willing to do it for hundreds of millions of clients, and again for oses that are no longer even supported officially.
when you use windows, you get a lot for the expense if you take full advantage of all that ms has to offer.
so talk about linuxes merits, but dont start off with that tired line about windows being expensive. its very cheap in fact and you get support and services on it for many years.
Totally agree. Hopefully the whole .RPM, .deb, tar.gz..whatever..situation will be resolved soon. I don’t know how much of a reality autopackage.org is but I hope it manfests itself in the coming year or so..Repositories simply suck. They’re a bandaid.
I agree with the author not because I use or endorse Linux but to get a usable Linux Desktop you have to hack through zillion things. Tell me one distro that is fast usable out of box. People complaining about they had to download this and that driver, well how long does it take before you have a full fledged OS on your system. Windows Probably 2 hours Linux , Well I chose Gentoo and have spent close to 2 weeks to get everything working except acpi. Well Linux companies should be focussing now on “ZERO INSTALL” that microsoft was using as a sellig point.
Totally agree!! In the end you get a completely customizable desktop but do the means really justify the ends?
BTW the closest to the “MS experience” I’ve gotten is Fedora Core 2. However, that is unbelivably slow to boot up & use compared to other distros.
Never seen a manual in a Windows Box […]
Heh, ain’t that betraying your age
.
“expensive? one can buy a pc preconfigured with windows xp home for as little as $349 (with monitor speakers and printer).
”
linux machine is still cheaper
“last time i checked on major security reporting sites, linux had more major vulnerabilities listed than windows. ”
wrong. dont spread FUD here.
“and ms has given its customers a much better response time to security vulnerabilities. ”
not true. activex vulnerability has been there for more than a year
“so talk about linuxes merits, but dont start off with that tired line about windows being expensive. its very cheap in fact and you get support and services on it for many years.
”
linux is cheaper and we will say that. if you cannot accept facts then tough
Freebsd and linux is great but they dont have developers working on it 9 hours a day
Oh yes they have. I don’t know about FreeBSD but Linux has couple hundred fulltime Kernel coders, many Linix-centric companies hire full-time workers on projects such as KDE and Gnome, OpenOffice and so on.
Only thing Linux/OpenSource needs anymore is the support for games. For looooots and lots of games. And .. hm, Cad makers and Adobe too. That’s it.
Opensource operating systems are gaining share quietly, more and more software and games gets released for Linux…
That forces Microsoft to compete harder, and that’s good for customers. They now really have alternative for most of the tasks. And there’s little shining Apple too which answers for some customer’s needs.
In my opinion software market has need for all current operating systems. Only thing should change is that Microsoft’s desktop share should from 95 to something near 50 at least. That would bring even more competetition. That means better products. That would be good for everyone
Surprisingly Mac users can’t install Windows packages and they are expected to know that. People should know something about their computer before they install software. Otherwise they will stuggle to know where their cup holder and foot pedal (mouse thingy) are.
In a perfect world it would be fantastic if every Linux package worked on every distribution. I personally think it is great that there are so many distributions all taking Linux in different directions, all filling a niche and developing and improving it. It is a real shame they can’t all work together, but the differences all come from improvements that may or may not pan out.
Hell, go dovote your time to Wine and hopefully you will never have to install a Linux package again just install the Windows one, no more dependancy hell.
Linux has improved a lot, but it still isn’t ready for the desktop. I have hope for it.
Three Points
Point One
==========
Wheres the Money???? (development costs)
What I cant understand with ms products are… the cost to produce $BILLions n $BILLions $BILLions n $BILLions $BILLions (((so says the spin when new MS product is released)))… but when you get your hands on the product they pretty much the same OLD thing…
95 – 95os2 – 98 – 98os2 me
nt – 2000 – xp – 20003 -Lorn-bored-horn-
Office 95 – Office 98 – Office 2000 – Office XP – Office 2004
Exchange 5.5 – Exchange 2000 – Exchange 2003
These things cost more to make then building a space staion on pluto…. and sending the worlds population on holiday there… (charged to ms)….
I think a lot of people might not want to go to pluto i am also sure that a lot of people are bored of the ms money game… (its just a cd….. thats all your buying every time just no cost zero cost involved)…
-ms- have they added anything new… ???
they take standards or other peoples products and tweak them and hold people to ransom..
Point Two
==========
Its the same spin every time round n round n round…
someone dig up the spin on 95, 98, ME, XP, NT4, 2000, 20003 it says the same things….
faster, safer, easier, better multimedia….
Point Three
============
The day the OS is an option/choice not forced on customers then your see what the real price costs are.
The fear of compertition might make ms into doing some development…
IE shows you where ms like things going not moving… it does not matter if customers stay purchasing nt4 ms would stay there for 100years
OH GOD I cant wait until Autopackage reaches a 1.0 release(there was estimates on the mailing lists that put it at the end of this year).
No more RPM,DEB,tar.gz,etc, BS!!!
no one is.
“not true. activex vulnerability has been there for more than a year”
i said: ms has given its customers a much better response time to security vulnerabilities
“last time i checked on major security reporting sites, linux had more major vulnerabilities listed than windows. ”
wrong. dont spread FUD here.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/0,2000061733,39116229,00.htm
the site says: “An analysis of hacker attacks on online servers in January by security consultancy mi2g found that Linux servers were the most frequently violated, accounting for 13,654 successful attacks, or 80 per cent of the survey total. Windows ran a distant second with 2,005 attacks. A more specific analysis of government servers also found Linux more susceptible, accounting for 57 per cent of all breaches.
In a similar analysis last year, Windows proved far more vulnerable, with 51 per cent of successful attacks on government servers made on some version of the Microsoft operating system.” (this despite the fact that windows remains the most installed server os in the world)
so let linux and apache grow in popularity, and see the attacks surpass windows.
dont rely on mainstream press shouting from the rooftops, go to any of the major security sites and see for yourself: the number of very serious security holes in linux is high.
>>”Surprisingly Mac users can’t install Windows packages…</I.
OS X and Windows are two differnet operating systems. Linux is one operating system. A Mac or Windows user can download and install a program from any server and it will work the same as ut would from any other server. That’s not true in Linux. Placing the blame on users is an exercise in arrogance.
>>[i]I personally think it is great that there are so many distributions all taking Linux in different directions,..”
Rubbish. That’s true only if you forget that packaging schemes are necessary evils. The code is all the same. What value accrues to users because Yet Another Distribution invents Yet Another Packaging Scheme? Instead of conjuring one more way to package software they didn’t write, maybe these people ought to write some useful code.
would take apache BILLion years to surpass windows IIS in attacks.
I use slackware 10 on my laptop, and sure, it was a bit of an adventure to get fully running. I think that if you really want to step into linux, itll require some work on your part, as opposed to windows, where it does everything for you. Sure, for people just using their computer to check email, do some online shopping, windows is perfect, they dont want to be bothered by configuring hardware, and compiling software. Then again, if thats all you plan on doing, you don’t really need to go to linux. Linux is meant for the power user, at least at its current stage. In the future I can see linux entering the homes of your average email-checking, web-browsing user, but what the article is saying is very obvious, and very well known to the community, that linux is not windows.
“linux machine is still cheaper”
How much cheaper?
“linux is cheaper and we will say that. if you cannot accept facts then tough”
Yes, Linux may be cheaper, but one has to ask if it is worth the savings. I certainly dont mind paying $200 bucks for an OS that right out of the box that just works! I can rest assured that upon install, most everything will work. Should something not work, locating a driver for your non working device (not too hard to do) and then getting it to work is a snap. Not having to recompile this or update that in the kernel is a great bonus. On top of that, I have a huge selection of software to use, whether it be free or something that (heaven forbid!) you have to pay for! So in the end, I could save a few bucks by switching to Linux, but for the time I save by running Windows, I am happy to pay a few bucks more. You do, afterall, get what you pay for!
My Mac Vs Windows package analogy was in answer to your suggestion that people shouldn’t have to worry about what Linux package they install and users shouldn’t be required to know there is a difference distributions. Well it is a fact that Mac and Windows users know a difference between what they can install, the same goes with Linux distributions. It is all very simple.
We are having a very circular arguement over diversity in Linux. Can you not see the possibility it will lead to evolution where eventually the superior systems prevail. That is what I am hoping for. It is a free enviroment to develop in, leading to collective creative geneous, and the users votes with their support.
So again yes it is unfortunate that all packages are not installable on all distributions, but Linux is a live evolving beast and change will slow down when the best system is found. For now sit back and enjoy the ride, it could get rocky, please don’t say KDE Vs Gnome, emacs Vs Vi, Xfree Vs X.org………..
All very healthy signs of competitive evolution, one of the things that is scaring the hell out of Microsoft, Apple, Sun………
just use the o.s. that you feel comfortable in using. i’ve tried many different distros, mandrake, redhat 9, fedora, suse, slackware, hell even gentoo and knoppix, i’ve managed to get them to work for me, but i didn’t like them, i’ve always reverted back to windows xp, which i never had any problems ever since, since its an updated machine, I also use that machine for development, and as a test server for jsp and php. i also program in c++ and java. I’ve never encountered any problems in xp, not even spyware and all. Any OS is good if it is well maintained.. oh btw, the one am using is also connected to the net 24/7, its the gateway machine for my dsl. My sisters pc is also using xp and is connected to the net through my machine.. no problems their too.
Install XP SP1 on the average spankin’ new machine without downloading drivers, then come crying to me about in-the-box hardware support.
The author is unresearched and speaking out of his knowledge base. If he is uncapable of installing an OS, maybe he should not try.
Where is his Windows install review. No OS installation is without flaw and easy for people who cannot understand mount points. This is more unresearched and barely well written editorializing on the average user’s inability to understand how an OS works.
If he wants a fair comparison to his new Dell with XP preinstalled, maybe he should go buy a new machine with linux preinstalled. Major corporations do it, http://www.walmart.com . I’ll avoid swearing, but if you are to lazy to read the [explicitive] docs than you have no business whining when things go wrong. Now maybe he should whine about the difficulty of finding said docs, I’d understand that complaint.
…but desktop Linux _CERTAINLY_ has its place. I migrated to a 100% linux setup about 2 months ago, sickened by the frequency of the following conversation going on in Windows’ little head:
<explorer> ooh! the user opened a FOLDER! quick, i need preview frames for all these videos. media player? your turn!
<windows media player> ooh! yay! codec?
<codec> sorry, bad video frame. no dice.
<windows media player> omgwtfbbqlol? *crashes*
<explorer> oh look. a child process crashed. what do i do here? i know! *crashes*
the gui went down with it. it came back, sure, but all my open explorer windows, and half my system tray icons, would go – EVERY SINGLE TIME.
i dropped windows. i moved to GNU/Linux (Linux isn’t an operating system any more than NTOSKRNL.EXE), more specifically Debian. Yes, it was a pain to set up, but it is FAR more stable and less frustrating than my Windows setup.
Not only that, but I’ve had a DISTINCT improvement in the performance of games, such as Unreal Tournament 2004.
@centurytel.net anonymous coward, $200 for an os that works? almost _NO_ hardware functions fully with windows out of the box. ide controllers, network cards, graphics cards, sound cards, if they work at all then it’s in castrated form (e.g. no RAID on RAID controllers, JBOD only). Do users of Windows really find themselves that attached to the Microsoft applications? Do you really use Internet Explorer to surf the net, despite it being dismissed by CERT & the Dept of Homeland Security as a serious liability? My network card isn’t supported under Windows, without extra downloads on another machine & transfers via floppy. It is under Linux. what does that say about the better OS?
The “dependency” problem is very real. And, it’s the result of too much choice: Too many packaging schemese, too many dependency resolution schemes, too many magic installation tools. Not only to prospective Linux users need to learn how to install and use it, they also need to learn about window dressing like rpm, deb, emerge, yum, apt, urpmi, tar files, dpkg, dselect, and all their dressed-up equivalents.
I agree it is a problem in some degree, but you overdramatize the issue. Say we have a home user here who installed SuSE 9.1. It was bought, came with an installation booklet, and everything got all set and running. The user wishes to install some software.
What does the user do:
A) Google to learn about what RPM is.
B) Call a friend about using APT.
C) Search the manual for a reference to URPMI.
D) Click on “YaST”, and install the software.
If YaST (or whatever repository) contains the software the user wants, A, B or C are all not needed. The user doesn’t need to know, the user doesn’t need to compile, the package management tool does it all for him/her.
Problems start when the software isn’t available as a package; with that i’d agree. However, all the “Linux” or BSD distributions i’ve used recently were pretty complete on these regards which mitigates the problem. Problems also start when the user wishes to use a different “Linux” distribution. The new learning curve includes things like this which make it harder; by that time however, the user is not a “newbie” anymore, meaning the learning curve on other aspects is less hard leaving space for other things, like this one.
And, i think the problem rather lies in the fact that by popular definition people tend to see a “Linux” distribution as “Linux” and name it accordingly. This is untrue and inaccurate: these are rather all OSes with its own identity, pro’s, con’s, sharing some similar software, solutions to problems, support (license), etc. However not necessarily all the same; hence don’t expect it is all the same, or preach like that’s true.
“The MI2G study of servers “did not include other methods of intrusion such as viruses and worms””
Nice Job, troll.
yeah, that was a study on servers. not on desktop oses. worm and virus attacks are much less common on servers.
if you are unfamiliar maybe this will help
http://secunia.com/advisories/11981/?show_all_related=1#related
“Secunia Advisory: SA11980
Release Date: 2004-07-01
Last Update: 2004-07-02
Critical:
Moderately critical
Impact: DoS
Where: From remote
OS: Linux Kernel 2.6.x
Choose a product and view comprehensive vulnerability statistics and all Secunia advisories affecting it.
Description:
Adam Osuchowski and Tomasz Dubinski have reported a vulnerability in the Linux kernel, which can be exploited by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service).
The vulnerability is caused due to the use of an incorrect variable type within the “tcp_find_option()” function of the netfilter subsystem. This can be exploited by sending a specially crafted TCP packet, which causes the kernel to enter an infinite loop and consume all available CPU resources.
Successful exploitation requires that iptables is used with rules matching TCP options (“–tcp-option”).
Solution:
Don’t use any rules matching TCP options.”
take a look at the site. you will see many kernal exploits, in addition to many other varieties, still unfixed for linux. sometimes, altering your system can defend you, but many times there is no recourse.
and of course, just like windows, altering system settings to defend against attack only helps if the user/system admin is aware and takes the corrective action.
the list of serious vulnerabilities for linux is quite extensive so please dont be a parrot and just repeat after others “linux is more secure because we say so and we see more news stories about ms windows vulnerabilities”
Linux Kernel Sbus PROM Driver Multiple Integer Overflow Vulnerabilities 2004-07-02
Linux Kernel File Group ID Manipulation Vulnerability 2004-07-02
Linux Kernel Netfilter TCP Option Matching Denial of Service Vulnerability 2004-07-01
Linux Kernel IEEE 1394 Driver Integer Overflow Vulnerabilities 2004-06-24
Linux Kernel Various Drivers Userland Pointer Dereference Vulnerabilities 2004-06-21
Linux Kernel “__clear_fpu()” Macro Denial of Service Vulnerability 2004-06-15
Linux Kernel e1000 Network Driver Kernel Memory Disclosure Vulnerability 2004-05-21
Linux Kernel IO Bitmap Access Permissions Inheritance Vulnerability 2004-05-10
Linux Kernel Framebuffer Driver Direct Userspace Access Vulnerability 2004-04-28
Linux Kernel CPUFREQ Proc Handler Kernel Memory Disclosure Vulnerability 2004-04-23
Linux Kernel setsockopt MCAST_MSFILTER Integer Overflow Vulnerability 2004-04-20
Linux Kernel File Systems Information Leak and Denial of Service 2004-04-15
Linux Kernel ISO9660 Buffer Overflow Privilege Escalation Vulnerability 2004-04-15
Linux kernel ncpfs Privilege Escalation Vulnerability 2004-02-19
Linux Kernel Vicam USB Driver Insecure Userspace Access 2004-02-19
Linux Kernel “mremap()” Missing Return Value Checking Privilege Escalation 2004-02-18
Linux Kernel R128 Direct Render Infrastructure Privilege Escalation 2004-02-04
Linux Kernel Real Time Clock Kernel Memory Disclosure Vulnerability 2004-01-05
Linux Kernel “mremap()” Privilege Escalation Vulnerability 2004-01-05
Linux Kernel “do_brk()” Privilege Escalation Vulnerability 2003-12-02
Linux Kernel NFS XDR Denial of Service 2003-08-01
Linux Kernel 2.4 Multiple Vulnerabilities 2003-07-22
Linux Kernel 2.4 execve() Vulnerability 2003-07-01
Sun Linux update for kernel 2003-06-24
Linux Kernel 2.0 Information Leak 2003-06-11
Fedora didn’t accept an ancient IBM desktop’s network card
If it doesn’t work, get a new one. How much does a network card cost today? An average $5. I have got 3 network cards for FREE (after rebate); I am willing to donate one. It pisses me people who complain about hardware incompatability; harware components are dirt cheap, there’s no excuse not to get one or two components for Linux.
>>”…can you not see the possibility it will lead to evolution where eventually the superior systems prevail.
No. Nothing Darwinian is happening here. Linux is a single system. Everything that counts is the same in every distribution. It’s one kernel, one great wad of the same bloody gnu programs, etc., etc.
In a mature system, people would not be wasting each other’s time inventing different ways to deal with the same annoying problem. Linux needs a single packaging scheme, a single dependency resolution scheme, and a network of identically configured servers to support that. The only thing standing in the way is Geek Ego and the Not Invented Here Syndrome.
>>”..these are rather all OSes with its own identity, pro’s, con’s, sharing some similar software..”
Nope. It’s all one OS. Windows 98 and Windows XP are worlds apart compared to any two Linux distributions.
The biggest difference between distibutions are in their install routines, packaging schemes and dependency resolvers, Those are all userspace issues and peripheral to the OS. Take them away and Linux runs just fine.
“You do, afterall, get what you pay for!”
classical strawman implying that you get nothing good for free. pathetic argument
“http://secunia.com/advisories/11981/?show_all_related=1#related“
do you even know how serious that is compared to the IE exploit recently in windows which MS has only provided a poor work around
http://fedoranews.org/updates/FEDORA-2004-202.shtml
read that. its a rarely used option. the number of bugs isnt important. what is important is the severity of the bugs. so compare
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/005909.html
Windows XP Pro v Linux 2.4x
http://secunia.com/product/22/
http://secunia.com/product/763/
xp
Based on 45 advisories from 2003 – 2004
Criticality Highly 31%
Moderately 22%
Less 40%
Not 7%
Linux 2.4x
Based on 17 advisories from 2003 – 2004
Criticality Highly 0%
Moderately 19%
Less 63%
Not 19%
Next interesting is where the exploit is coming from
Windows XP Pro
Remote 49%
Local Network 27%
Local System 24%
Linux 2.4
Remote 15%
Local Network 11%
Local System 74%
“By Anonymous (IP: —.home1.cgocable.net) – Posted on 2004-07-04 23:24:16
wrong. dont spread FUD here.
Because only you are allowd to do that, right?”
werent you the one who was preaching other to ignore me. why dont you heed your own advice or provide your own arguments.
so much for good discussions huh?
[i]” the list of serious vulnerabilities for linux is quite extensive so please dont be a parrot and just repeat after others “linux is more secure because we say so and we see more news stories about ms windows vulnerabilities” ”
Have a look at the list, kernel 2.0 eh .. hmmm well why don`t we include all the windows 3.0 bugs on the windows side aswell.
Honestly i`m never going to say the Linux kernel is perfect but you can`t tell me that an unexploitable buffer overflow that “may be in theory” able to be exectued is as bad as the exploit used by sasser,doom,mellisa etc just because someone posted an advisory about it can you?
All this posturing about which is more secure reminds me of TV adds, they tell you half the story to make the opinion seem true but if you ever found out the other half there would ALWAYS be a very large BUT afterwards.
Nothing in life is simple why would computers be any different?
Bad luck that your Matrox G550 card didn’t work.
I had a similar problem with a Matrox G400 and windows 2k server. So my box ended up using Linux.
Regardless of what OS you use, you need to make sure that your hardware support it. I wouldn’t say that modern Linux is any worse than Windows.
I mean, seriously – this article, simply points out again that Linux has serious shortcomings from the point of view of somebody who wants ‘Windows, but free, and stable, and secure’.
Well holy crap! What a surprise. An OS with no commercial desktop support, a non-existant desktop market share and no coordinated development process aimed at making it a ‘Windows replacement’ isn’t perfectly suited to this role??
Linux does not exist to fill the role of ‘Windows replacement for the masses’. It might evolve to fill that niche one day, but most of the people working on Linux and Linux related technologies have better things to do than waste their hours satisfying the rather dull whims of the ‘average user’
The ‘average users’ will simply have to put up with the crappy support for their hardware etc. until they demand the manufacturers of said hardware do something about it.
Posting endless web articles stating the glaringly obvious ad nauseum doesnt actually help get the work done.
As users of open source, you should realise you are in this with the developers together – the developers aren’t some faceless monolithic corporation who you have to fight your way through 20 levels of mindless phone-farm to get to.
The product is free. It comes with no warranty. If you wanted something that was guaranteed to work, why did you license your software under these clearly-inadequate-for-your-requirements terms?
Developers really do care what their users think of the product, but they aren’t supermen, and they need your help.
If hardware support isn’t available from the manufacturer, then it’s up to you, as the owner of that hardware, to bitch at them about it. If support isn’t there for your modem on your motherboard, that’s not a failing of the linux developers’.
The motherboard manufacturer knowingly built an incompatible product and refused to release the specifications to allow a driver to be built – or, nobody has bothered to build a driver for it yet. Nobody owes you a driver for your product, except the manufacturer of that product.
You need to call your motherboard manufacturer and ask them why you can’t use their product with your OS of choice.
If you bought an unsupported product, then just shut up. It’s unsupported by the manufacturer. It shouldn’t work at all. You couldn’t make it work yourself, but yet you feel you have been somehow wronged because it mostly works under Linux?
Open source developers don’t sit round thinking ‘hmm, who can we piss off today by releasing an OS with inadequate support for modern hardware’ – they try their best to work with what they have and free that information under the GPL so that the users and other developers ‘downstream’ can make use of it.
If you don’t want to be part of a community, and want shrink-wrapped, bulletproof software ‘free as in beer’, you’ll be waiting a long time for it. I suggest you stick with Windows, and keep reinforcing their belief that they can release whatever crapware they want and people like you will mindlessly buy it because you ‘have no choice’.
If enough people demand support for linux, and the trend towards linux is reflected in sales figures, then you’ll see support in very short order.
But that is something only the users, not the developers, can make happen.
Get off your ass and do your bit for the community. If you don’t feel you should have any desire or responsibility, as a user, to help develop the product, then you simply don’t count, and your opinion is not worth the bandwidth it consumes.
I love my Gnu/Linux.
Linux will probably always be more complicated than win98.
This is not really a flaw in Linux, but a result of being a more network oriented multiuser OS. It will be more complicated just like winXP Pro is more complicated than win 98.
It is however not necessarily so that Linux is, or will be more complicated than windows XP Pro
Just look at install times:
Fedora RC2 2.07 GB took 13 minutes
Mandrake Linux 10 1.29 GB took 8.5 minutes
SuSE Linux 9.1 1.49 GB took 19.5 minutes
Microsoft XP Pro 1.03 GB took 22 minutes -bare no drivers.
The Linux figures includes Office Software, The windows figure doesn’t. Windows needs activation, Linux doesn’t
The figures above is from
http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=70
If people is able to install windows 2000 server, including service packs (took over 10 hours including download of various service packs over a ADSL connection) And in the end it didn’t work since it was not possible to get my Nokia screen to work with my Matrox video card. Please, nothing could be more complicated.
“Linux is a single system. Everything that counts is the same in every distribution”
nope. that would called windows. Linux has very significant differences between distros.
>>..these are rather all OSes with its own identity,
>>pro’s, con’s, sharing some similar software..
>Nope. It’s all one OS. Windows 98 and Windows XP are worlds
>apart compared to any two Linux distributions
So if you expect linux distributions to accept any package you must expect windows to accept any windows package you throw at it?
Give me a break there are even going to be binary incompatibilities between XP sp1 and sp2. Let alone incompatibilities between 9x and nt series.
Autopackage won’t solve any problem. What really matter is a policy.
I can install any RPM on my Debian machine, today, period. You install “alien”, you click RPM download link on the website, and the browser will ask whether you want to install RPM with “alien”. Answer yes, and it usually works. Same for Slackware TGZ.
Problems come in where Debian and Redhat differs in policy. Configuration file location, startup scripts, etc. Alien does good job of handling them, but it’s not perfect. And without unified policy, Autopackage would suffer from same problems.
“Nope. It’s all one OS. Windows 98 and Windows XP are worlds apart compared to any two Linux distributions.”
Oh, if it is all one OS, then there’s no incompatibility either. There is no such thing as incompatibility between 2 versions of the very same OS. It is also all the very same.
(And Windows “98” vs. Windows “XP” is 3 years my friend. Compare that with MSDOS 3.x vs. MSDOS 4.x. Or, compare that with RedHat 4.x vs. 7.x.)
“The biggest difference between distibutions are in their install routines, packaging schemes and dependency resolvers, Those are all userspace issues and peripheral to the OS. Take them away and Linux runs just fine.”
Unless you remove dependancies for the Linux kernel, the Linux kernel will run fine. Indeed.
Big differences is the price vs. support and what software is provided. But you don’t seem to agree on that. In contrast, a commercial customer would care.
‘the list of serious vulnerabilities for linux is quite extensive so please dont be a parrot and just repeat after others “linux is more secure because we say so and we see more news stories about ms windows vulnerabilities”
‘
Well, you have to give credit where credit is due, even Homeland Security realizes the risks involved in running Windows.
“The “dependency” problem is very real. And, it’s the result of too much choice: Too many packaging schemese, too many dependency resolution schemes, too many magic installation tools.”
You’re dead wrong and don’t understand the concept of a shared library if you think dependencies are caused by too much choice. They’re caused by shared libraries, you should thank whatever you worship for them… They save memory! Yes they can be annoying, but if everyone rewrote similar functionality in each program there would be 100MB of redundant code loaded into your memory (maybe not quite so much, depends on the user). You really want that? Windows also has dependencies, they don’t have the issue because people often just deal with longer downloads, they download deps with the app or they don’t have dependencies not covered by Windows default.
So if you expect linux distributions to accept any package you must expect windows to accept any windows package you throw at it?
No, but I think the major difference here is that if there are (for example) two versions of an app – one for Win9x and one for 2kXP, it’s usually available on the vendor’s web page – I don’t have to go hunting for it. In the Linux world, if my distro maker doesn’t have a package readily available for me, then I either have to a) Ask nicely for someone to package it for me and wait b) configure, make, make install and hope to hell that works or c) Use a package from another distro and hope to hell that works either.
Of course, depending on the app and the distro you’re using, this might or might not be a problem. But when it does become a problem, it’s terribly annoying for someone who just wants to install the damn app.
Amen brother.
Have a look at the list, kernel 2.0 eh .. hmmm well why don`t we include all the windows 3.0 bugs on the windows side aswell.
Well, one reason that springs immediately to mind is that kernel 2.0 is ca. 1996 and Windows 3.0 is ca. 1990.
There are still quite a lot of kernel 2.0 machines out there. There aren’t many Windows 3.0 machines at all.
Honestly i`m never going to say the Linux kernel is perfect but you can`t tell me that an unexploitable buffer overflow that “may be in theory” able to be exectued is as bad as the exploit used by sasser,doom,mellisa etc just because someone posted an advisory about it can you?
Uh, the ony difference between “may be in theory” exploitable and sasser/slammer/whatever is that in the latter case a) someone bothered to turn the theory into practice and b) there’s a lot more potential victims out there.
All this posturing about which is more secure reminds me of TV adds, they tell you half the story to make the opinion seem true but if you ever found out the other half there would ALWAYS be a very large BUT afterwards.
I agree. The biggest reasons Windows exploits are so much more noticable and do so much more damage is because there’s 10x as many Windows machines out there as anything else.
I had a similar problem with a Matrox G400 and windows 2k server. So my box ended up using Linux.
As someone who quite happily ran a G400 in a Windows 2000 machine for a couple of years (although wtf you are putting a dualhead video card into a server for escapes me), I call shennanigans.
So if you expect linux distributions to accept any package you must expect windows to accept any windows package you throw at it?
Pretty much. I’m rarely disappointed as well – except with obvious things like drivers.
It’s highly unusual for an arbitrary program to work in one version of Windows and not in another.
Give me a break there are even going to be binary incompatibilities between XP sp1 and sp2.
Hardly a fair comparison. It’s been widely acknowledged that SP2 will break a lot of things and the reason that’s news is because it is very atypical.
Incidentally, it won’t be binary incompatibilities that will break most of those things, either, it will be more restrictive security-related settings.
Let alone incompatibilities between 9x and nt series.
Again, quite rare – which is particularly impressive when you consider how fundamentally different they are as OSes.
A Windows program that is OS-specific is an attention getter. A Linux package that is distro-specific – and even distro-*version*-specific – is barely an eyebrow raiser.
I have read the article and the comments. What surprises me is the fact that the author has made 3 mistakes (at least) :
1. Windows partitions can be resized with the tools included in Mandrake (that’s what I tested 2 years ago, I don’t know if it’s true for Suse or Fedora Core).
2. He tested three rpm based distros when he could have taken Mandrake (rpm), Debian (deb) or Slackware (tgz).
3. This point stems from the second. If the author had used Debian for instance, he would have found out that synaptic is a nice graphical software installer. What about Gentoo and its “emerge” command ?
As usual, a reporter wrote a piece about linux but apparently failed to consult long time users or even read FAQs.
“a) Ask nicely for someone to package it for me and wait b) configure, make, make install and hope to hell that works or c) Use a package from another distro and hope to hell that works either.”
You forgot one option commonly used: d) Search for a repository which includes the work of one who did B and shared his/her efforts. Works well for Woody. Possibly not suitable for corporate environments, paranoids though.
Also, as i stated earlier, “Linux” distributions are pretty much complete these days.
Amen.
Warren
This point stems from the second. If the author had used Debian for instance, he would have found out that synaptic is a nice graphical software installer.
Well, it’s a graphical software installer, but I’d hardly call it ‘nice’. Last time I tried it was in Libranet 2.8, and the organization of packages was piss-poor, though maybe it has gotten better since then. If you want to see a nice graphical installer, take a look at Xandros Networks in non-expert mode. Of course, the interface on that one is nice but as far as actual packages go, the time I looked, the pickings were very slim.
dpi
“a) Ask nicely for someone to package it for me and wait b) configure, make, make install and hope to hell that works or c) Use a package from another distro and hope to hell that works either.”
You forgot one option commonly used: d) Search for a repository which includes the work of one who did B and shared his/her efforts. Works well for Woody. Possibly not suitable for corporate environments, paranoids though.
You’re right, I forgot about that one. But that doesn’t sound much more productive than any of the other three, and does also raise some security issues as well. Ever heard of the phrase “Don’t take candy from strangers?”
Also, as i stated earlier, “Linux” distributions are pretty much complete these days
Complete, yes. But current for how long though? For example, how many of the major distros are currently shipping with Firefox 0.9.1 ?
>Complete, yes. But current for how long though? For example,
>how many of the major distros are currently shipping with
>Firefox 0.9.1 ?
What the purpose of that? you can not bring a new distro on the market everytime FireFox upgrades.
What Mac/Windows versions ship with FireFox 0.9.1 than or even
Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1?
Re: Uno Engborg (IP: —.sp.m.bonet.se)
By drsmithy (IP: 61.88.3.—) – Posted on 2004-07-05 04:46:57
had a similar problem with a Matrox G400 and windows 2k server. So my box ended up using Linux.
As someone who quite happily ran a G400 in a Windows 2000 machine for a couple of years (although wtf you are putting a dualhead video card into a server for escapes me), I call shennanigans
Well, it was supposed to be used as development machine for server related software where some of the server stuff was needed.
Dual screens is very usful in software development as you can have one screen for documentation and one for your code. Luckily the software was written in java so it was no problem switching to Linux, where both monitors worked without a hitch.
> Complete, yes. But current for how long though? For example, how many of the major distros are currently shipping with Firefox 0.9.1?
Gentoo does. Firefox 0.9.1 is in the official Gentoo tree, today.
I am not sure why you don’t just install mozilla.org official binary build, if you need latest Firefox. It’s exactly like Windows binary installer.
Dual screens is very usful in software development as you can have one screen for documentation and one for your code.
I wasn’t questioning the usefulness of dual heads, I was wondering what you were putting them one a server for.
And, as I said, I ran a G400 card in Win2k for years with two screens, so I’ve no idea why it wouldn’t work for you.
Luckily the software was written in java so it was no problem switching to Linux, where both monitors worked without a hitch.
Having also run the same card in a few Linux systems, IME the dual screen capabilities of Windows – particularly with the Matrox drivers – a _far_ superior. Not to mention the stuffing about getting them going properly in the first place.
The linux zealots whine as people point out problems with linux.
Most people won’t switch from windows to linux unless they’re fairly proficent with computers. Those that are proficent with computers probally have windows secure.
So why switch?
If it aint broke, don’t fix it.
I’ve seen several arguments thus far…
*Linux has better hardware support. Wtf? Like hell it does. Many devices (USB stuff/scanners/printers) are autodetected with Windows, but not with linux. Who wants to look around (in vain, probally) for some poorly made driver made for linux?
*More secure. Who are you trying to kid? Windows is just as secure as linux if you patch it up (you have to do so with both OSes, after all). Unless you run services like web/ftp/ssh, in which case you’re begging to get hacked.
*Free/lots of choice, when it comes to software. Same as windows, only Linux gives you dependancy issues.
I admit that playing with linux is fun… but that’s all it is, playing. You can’t expect people to switch to linux just because of that (unless they have a hell of a lot of free time), especially with windows working better than linux.
Stop bitching, and pull your head out of the ground.
“I am not sure why you don’t just install mozilla.org official binary build, if you need latest Firefox. It’s exactly like Windows binary installer.”
Doesn’t install stuff to the Gnome/KDE menus, at least for me.
And FF 0.9.1 was out like a week ago, say there were some bad exploit out, how would that help say, last Monday. Windows of users can grab the same mozilla.org installer build and it’ll work fine whether it’s NT or XP or 98.