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In my experience, there's only one type of software that can be installed to prevent ignorant (not stupid, there's a difference) people from getting infected, and none of that software is called "anti-virus" software.

The pay for version of the software is by far the most user-friendly, but there are also quite a few free options.

But in all seriousness, asking about steps you can take to make securing a Windows install safe is like asking about what precautions you can take to make handling exotic reptiles safe...sure, there's some things you can learn that may help you avoid injury or death for a while, but it's still an inherently-risky activity and if you continue to engage in that activity, you will eventually get bitten.

After years of supporting family and friends on Windows computers, some using paid anti-virus solutions and others using the free alternatives I pointed them to, I've switched to advising people to just buy a Mac. I've found that it just ends up leading to far fewer "support" calls and they end up liking the day-to-day usage as well.

For anyone too lazy, busy, or disinterested to do that link chasing, Ulteo is a Linux Distro, based off of Ubuntu.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ulteo

Although there is an 'Online Desktop' thing as part of the project - but I find my interest too lacking to learn what exactly that is.

Um, the top level link to Apple's open source releases has always been www.opensource.apple.com and the link to Darwin is on the front page. That *is* posting modern releases of Darwin.

Seriously, unless you knew that link or guessed it to begin with. You wouldn't find it on Apple's site. A link from a site that is unlinked in Apple's main site is not useful.

Trolltech's QT documentation is focussed on QT, not Linux, too.

Trolltech does not have a manual section on Linux to begin with. Apple has a section on Darwin and talks about OS X. Darwin is also Apple's creation. The link I linked to is what Apple claimed to be documentation for Darwin.

You don't go to XOrg to get your UNIX documentation either.

Again, this has not related to what I initially brought up. You're just making up irrelevant stories now.

The basic UNIX documentation, on any UNIX system, is in the reference manual.

Uhuh...

And there Apple does a better job than pretty much any Linux distro I've ever used.

I don't know what you're talking about here. Apple's OS X reference manual? Apple's unix (Note: XNU is not Unix) reference manual? Apple's general manuals?

See, Linux documentation itself tends to be a bit scattershot.

What the hell do I care about Linux? I was comparing the openness of OS X to Windows. Linux is just a kernel, period. The documentation for the kernel is available on kernel.org.

Of course, you're probably using some "shrinkwrap" term to describe common Linux desktop distributions... In which case, the documentation is provided with the distribution themselves. Since the major distributions all have regulations that require each and every executable binary, each library in their main repository to have documentation (including the kernel), standardized in a fashion that each module/application has it's own documentation.

You call this worse than OS X's splishsplash of documentation? Where documentation on frameworks and such are often muddled which have numerous bits that refer to different bits of the system and there is often no QA involved in ensuring each piece has accessible documentation in a specific location?

You think? It's missing some subsystems (UNIX tape APIs, for example) but it's a pretty straight UNIX implementation.

And broken threading, signaling, which Apple's own documentation fails to bring up.

Well, first of all, I was responding to your claim that the open source code was "just the kernel and some old BSD tools". That's complete balderdash, and you know it.

Alright, kernel, BSD tools and some pieces of OS X that are not quite useful.

As to the benefit of things like the NeXT code... the whole NeXT application framework model is the best scheme I've seen anywhere for distributing software that has to interoperate with each other, because it bring "late binding" to libraries and shared files. It avoids Microsoft's "DLL Hell" and Linux's "RPM Hell".

Microsoft resolved the DLL hell issues long ago with Windows XP. "RPM hell" -- I think you mean RPM dependency hell, was caused by users installing RPMs for the wrong distribution/version. This isn't much different from forcing a a install of a .pkg file that was made for a specific version of OS X.

Fortunately users aren't doing that anymore and they are using cross-distribution LSB RPMs/universal binaries with loki installers etc. for the works in all distros software.

Oh, and by the way, I have numerous experiences with finf, fink, macports etc. That software runs into numerous problems on OS X than anything else. Requiring you to install very OS X

Then I go to http://www.distrowatch.com/ and see the answer for myself: Yes, there is.

You're confusing fragmentation with competition.

You're correct that this is just regular old competition, and better competition between ANY projects, open or closed, will almost always result in better software all around.

This leads us to an important question: Is there competition in the Open Source world?

Then I go to http://www.distrowatch.com/ and see the answer for myself: Yes, there is.

Not true. While it doesn't have the penetration of Ubuntu, It's still consistently in the top six or seven downloaded from distrowatch. http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity Try it. It's way better than SuSE. I have The 2008 PowerPack, It includes LinDVD already set up, it has nVidia and ATI drivers avalable on install, it's the only distro that picked up my no name StarLogic 1680x1050 monitor and set the resolution correctly. Mandriva is flat out slick.

DragonTHC pretty much nailed it. Nearly every distribution of Linux, BSD, Solaris, <insert your favorite Operating System here> ships with a web server. The darn things are a dime a dozen and can be found on freeware websites, as example code (Java, Python, Perl, C#, take your pick), as part of webapp servers (e.g. J2EE), as programming assignments, etc.

The only real reason to run Apache in a VM is if there are specific applications you wish to configure before deploying them in a production system. e.g. If you're looking at deploying Wordpress or a web forum, you may want to try a test install before sending it to your live server. In that case, the best answer for which OS to run in the VM is: Whatever you're planning on deploying the app on.

Otherwise there is precious little difference between deploying a web server in a VM and deploying it on your desktop. (Regardless of what OS you use.) You can pick and choose to your heart's content. You can even run Apache, IIS, and J2EE on the same box without clobbering each other. (Just make sure you configure the ports to not conflict.)

Heck, I've caught myself running as many as three web servers simultaneously while doing development. (Don't ask. You probably don't want to know.) When I'm done with them, I just shut them down and forget about them until the next time I need them.

So go pick your favorite OS and have fun. There's no need to shy from any of them, especially when you are using a virtual machine. And remember! FreeBSD is the Power to Serve(TM). </kidding!>

Ubuntu is ubiquitous? That's a laugh.

I wouldn't be laughing very hard. It was the dominant distro in 2005, in 2006, in 2007 and in 2008.

There may be a pattern in there.

Ubuntu is ubiquitous? That's a laugh.

I wouldn't be laughing very hard. It was the dominant distro in 2005, in 2006, in 2007 and in 2008.

There may be a pattern in there.

Ubuntu is ubiquitous? That's a laugh.

I wouldn't be laughing very hard. It was the dominant distro in 2005, in 2006, in 2007 and in 2008.

There may be a pattern in there.

Ubuntu is ubiquitous? That's a laugh.

I wouldn't be laughing very hard. It was the dominant distro in 2005, in 2006, in 2007 and in 2008.

There may be a pattern in there.

apparently you have never heard of EvilEntity

I thought that was the reasons for 1,000+ versions of Linux & BSD (noted as being sold by LinuxCD.org, see right sidebar).

In all honesty, from popular to niche, Linux should well provide it's own competition, but not in the same form as the FUD Factory of Microsoft press releases.

I can't get over the feeling that he gets his major points (not so) subtly wrong in ways that are not worth rehashing. For example look at his Fallacy of Choice. Even conceding that choice is Bad, how does he expect us to stop people from forking according to their needs/preferences? Because there's only one way & that's to lock it down like OSX but he knows how well that'll go over so all he talks about is mainstream acceptance. And there is a LAMP of the desktop, it's called ubuntu.

On the distribution front, we have had the pleasure of seeing new releases from all major Linux makers. Once again, Mandriva seems to be a winner here, earning high marks from both the reviewers and the users on various forums for its 2008.1 release. ...SNIP... Still, it seems that Mandriva was the distribution that found the best balance between features and stability. Despite that, the company continues to struggle as its flagship product still lacks the mindshare and popularity of the other three distributions.

Since April I've done fresh installs of the latest versions of Mandriva, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, opensuse11, sidux & Debian testing Lenny (and was scared off from Fedora 9 by the lousy reviews), and I have to say I was most satisfied with the Mandriva process and result.

That said, the Mandriva upgrade process has always been kind of rocky for me, particularly if I try to skip a release or two, and Mandriva only supports its free product with "base" upgrades for about 18 months and "desktop" updates for a paltry year. I hate reinstalling, so I prefer a rolling release like Debian or a release with relatively longer shelf life, like Ubuntu LTS or even opensuse's 2 years of support.

That said, like someone mentioned above, I have been impressed by the efforts made by the Mandriva staff to help me through the bumpy stretches on their forums. I'm secretly convinced that this so-called "Adam Williamson" character is just a code-name for about 50 hard-working guys.

The grandparent asserted that BSD is a valid choice for software that intends to remain open (i.e. So what if a commercial company takes code, improves, and resells when the original free version is available?).

Then the parent tries to refute the point using Motif? WTF? Since when was Motif BSD-licensed?

Finally, the parent closes with a patently absurd statement:

For whatever reasons, the (L)GPL seems to do far more to discourage forking than the BSD or MIT licenses. To anyone who remembers the Unix wars of the eighties, that's definitely a Good Thing(tm).

1. Regarding forking, how many derivatives of BSD have been created since BSD 4.4-lite in 1994? BSDi, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and lately some small ones like Dragonfly and PCBSD (based on freebsd.) And how many Linux distributions since '91?

2. Regarding the Unix wars: How many of those Unixes were BSD licensed? Oh yeah, zero. (Okay, maybe one)

I don't think either the BSD, LGPL, or GPL is any more prone to forking than the others from a license perspective. I think it is the BSD *community* that has done a better job of not forking itself stupid.

Whereas Server 2008 and Vista share a tad more of their code base.

and *that* is relevant.

And could be humorously be alluded to because of the mis-detection of some software.

Whereas Server 2008 and Vista share a tad more of their code base.

and *that* is relevant.

And could be humorously be alluded to because of the mis-detection of some software.

It makes sense, but the implementation leaves something to be desired. In this day and age, an operating system or operating environment is not viable for everyday use unless it has timely and usable mechanisms for installing, reporting, and keeping track of security updates. The problem is that very few linux distributions provide this kind of infrastructure, and of the ones that do, none of them is small enough to fit on a boot device.

What I want to see is something like FaunOS where security updates are reported and published in a transparent and timely fashion, and where a large block of updates can be applied without filling up the disk or reinstalling the system entirely. Ideally, the maintainers would also commit to supporting old versions for seven years (like Redhat), or even three years (like Ubuntu). If this sound impossible, it probably is -- maintaining a linux distribution is a lot of work, and only the large organizations have the resources to do it.

Actually, if you read the latest Distrowatch Weekly, they say that Linux on the Eee PC is almost a thing of the past.

Look at a default Linux/Unix-style installation, you have about 20 groups to start out with.

Next time, name your distro, mmk? There's only a few hundred of them to choose from.

There are a lot of advantages to Windows in a VM.

Windows XP is still available. You can stock up on enough copies to meet your VM needs.

You can keep an activated VM to roll back to when your Windows VM becomes corrupted, as all of them do, with less trouble than imaging a real machine.

It doesn't have access to your real hardware unless you let it.

That Vista isn't pleasant in a VM is a good reason to avoid it. In case you haven't heard, avoiding it looks more and more likely these days. If you're doing development and have to test on Vista then you're already using it in a VM or you're stupid.

In many cases, XP runs better in a VM than it does natively. Imagine that.

When it's time to retire it, you can drag the XP VM to the trashcan where it belongs.

Keeping the status quo is not an option. Microsoft is forcing the migration whether you want it or not. The question is, since you're being forced to migrate would you prefer to not be forced next time? If so, then where you should migrate to should be obvious.

The idea of XP in a VM or in Citrix is to smooth the migration to an open system where control of your IT is up to you, not to a corporation with a profit motive to keep shuffling you along the upgrade path and tying down your options and artificially limiting your choices.

Keep saying "we can't" and eventually you will believe it.

Distrowatch is tracking 566 distributions now, 353 of them active.

Linux.org shows 455.

There's a rather long list on Wikipedia

None of these lists is anywhere near complete or definitive. One of the challenges these days is picking a good distro. Usually people develop a fondness to one family of distributions and stick with it for a single purpose. The thing is that each distribution has its merits and fans. Each one has support forums and repositories and developers. It's a whole ecosystem of operating systems competing for the attention of users. I like the Debian based Ubuntu and its derivative for the desktop but PCLinuxOS spawned from Mandrake seems to have legs these days. It's hard to beat the Knoppix based bootables for recovery, diagnostics and utilities too.

I so much prefer that to an entire ecosystem of malware developers competing to hose my Windows box, and the antithetical software vendors selling cures (mostly snake-oil).

The cool thing about people being free to roll their own distro is that even a little guy can have grand ideas and if he implements them well, kaching! He's got a seller. A few months of good marketing and he can sell services for the rest of his days. If it's good but he loses interest or it doesn't rise to that level, someone will just fold his great ideas into their own distro until it gets absorbed by them all. That's called "progress", and you don't get it from a Windows Distro family like Vista.

If that's what you want to do, go for it. The beauty of free software is that you're entitled to do what you want with it. Even better, if you make the effort, and produce something of value, that effort will be available to other maintainers to backport to their forks.

The converse of that is that you don't have the right to stop me, Joe Bloggs or Abdul Muhaimin from making our own distros if we so choose. In many cases, our wildcard distros are where the innovation happens, and if it's valuable, it's very promptly ported to the major distros.

If you've followed the leaderboard at http://distrowatch.com/, you'd know the top 10 list is very stable. Most of the popular distros have been there for years. A stable, well supported operating system is not a good place to experiments - look at Microsoft's recent experiences for a telling example. The fringe distros are where the evolution is happening, and that freedom to experiment is one of the great advantages of the open source model.

Where are you getting that top 10 list from?
From http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Ubuntu (Gnome, although you might argue that since kubuntu is official and not really a fork, that this could be either)
openSUSE (either)
Fedora (Gnome)
Debian (Gnome)
Mandriva (KDE)
PCLinuxOS (KDE)
MEPIS (KDE)
KNOPPIX (KDE)
Slackware (KDE)
Gentoo (either, neither. same with sabayon)
FreeBSD (not a linux distro, I know. anyway, either, neither)

So, conservatively, I see 3 Gnome, 2 either, and 5 KDE

One could say that it's very popular but at my last check, pclinuxos was more popular. http://www.distrowatch.com/ agrees.

So you presented distrowatch as the basis of your allegation that the obscure PClinuxOS distribution is somehow more popular than Ubuntu. Do you happen to know that what distrowatch measures isn't the install base of the individual linux distributions but in fact the number of hits on a certain distrowatch page that covers a certain distro? That means that, if you have an happy idiot who likes to spend it's day refreshing some obscure distrowatch's distro page then that distro is bound to get hugely popular. Heck, the fact that distrowatch lists something named Sabayon as more popular than Mandriva, Slackware, Gentoo and even Debian should be a clear sign that Distrowatch is a joke at measuring the popularity of linux distributions.

You don't have to go much further to get other sources of statistics that show that Ubuntu is the second most popular distro behind Debian and that pclinuxos doesn't even appear in the chart.

One could say that it's very popular but at my last check, PCLinuxOS was more popular. http://www.distrowatch.com/ agrees. There is a lot I do not agree with when it comes to Ubuntu and I am not surprised that it's not performing that well.

You should probably read an article first, before making an idiot out of yourself (too late for that now, though).

Then the introductory piece simply mentions one Linux distro: Ubuntu.

My question is: Since when has Ubuntu Linux represented the entire Linux community? There are over 200 Linux distros of which Ubuntu is but just one.

One could say that it's very popular but at my last check, PCLinuxOS was more popular. http://www.distrowatch.com/ agrees. There is a lot I do not agree with when it comes to Ubuntu and I am not surprised that it's not performing that well.

Slashdot didn't evolve into a "Microsoft sux" since you joined. It always was one. You're still here after all these years.

It's self moderated and you're right -- posts that disparage Microsoft and discount Ballmer do fly to the top of the moderation. That's not because some corporate sponsor has a geek lab in Bangalore with 1,000 blogdrones astroturfing the moderation. It's because Slashdot attracts geeks and that's what the geeks really think. That's honest opinion survey for you. I think a lot of that is because the observation that "M$ sux" actually is insightful, and the Ballmer's futile thrashing of a chair in helpless frustration over Google really is funny.

When you add that slashdot is still one of the popular sites on the intertubes you have to ask: does Microsoft have a problem?

And remember, an answer to every Microsoft problem is available all over the web.

They have to be running scared now. Vista has been out for a year and a half and OEMs are still introducing new machines that not only don't run Vista -- but never will be able to, and people are buying them up like crazy.

In 2005 I was fed-up with Windows XP and I wanted to switch to other option. Then I used google and I learned about Linux and I started reading about it and about many distributions. I too wondered what was the best and future proof to be worth the effort of learning. So I ran into a site called distrowatch.com that pointed that Ubuntu was the most popular distribution. So I said, "more people, more help" and I wasn't mistaken. From that time to now, Ubuntu has evolved tremendously and it was become easier to use and fancier.

So, for those of you (newbies) who haven't made up their mind yet, I strongly recommend Ubuntu Linux. But don't take my word for it. Go to the same time that I helped me with that choice back in 2005 http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Hope this helps

Maybe you have heard about this groups of people called `distribution makers'? You can check http://www.redhat.com/, http://www.debian.org/, http://ubuntu.com/, and so on. I hear there is a whole site dedicated to simply listing linux distros! They surely are not the developers of all the code they package, you know.

The fact that the GPL is a license on distribution is a hardly a semantic point: it is essentially the whole point of the license!

You claimed that "the developer is the party bound by the license, not the user": one can but conclude that you have not even read the license (nor the many faqs out there explaining in painstaking detail what the license says...)

'Shrike' is the development name for Red Hat 9. Scroll down the distrowatch page to see the columns with release names.

Kind of like calling a Windows release 'Joliet', 'Chicago' or 'Cairo'.

Why all the cities in Illinois?

DistroWatch list is about what people are checking out. It's not about what they're using. DistroWatch has even complained about it in their weekly, "Granted, the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking doesn't mean all that much and we have been saying this for years".
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070827
Ubuntu, Debian, and PCLinuxOS are the top Linux distros used by people when they're browsing DistroWatch.
Windows XP is the most common OS used by people when they're browsing DistroWatch.

The only time I browse Distrowatch or Slashdot is at work on an XP machine.

Anyone have the webserver stats handy for /.?

Yet XP has been pushed onto home and business users alike. If XP is the successor to ME, then everyone has been forced to take M$'s very worst. That's the way a monopoly market works isn't it? If you want to see real differences in software aimed at real categories of users you have to look at a really free market. Today's M$ choices are as trivial as branding on US automobiles, exactly the same obsolete engine and body designs with different stickers, paint and price tags. The major new feature of Vista was digital restrictions that no one wanted.

Every M$ change since the mid 90s has been M$ tightening their monopoly grip. The M$ branching of the early 90s was the result of real competition in the non free software world which is now largely extinct. The Win98 register has been followed by WGA and network enabled kill switches. This kind of spy and malware has always been written into M$ EULAs but they now have the technical mechanisms to enforce them. Proof of M$ code recycling can be found in any listing M$ OS remote exploits. Invariably these hit many versions of M$ that the reporting site cares to list because the binaries are largely unchanged i386 junk. They can't afford a rewrite.

M$'s cash has been flowing out at $10 billion a year. At that rate, they have two years to zero. If they had spent that money on code instead of their billion dollar a month marketing blitz, they might have a competitive product. They did not, so they don't. Good riddance.

An old PC full of hard drives looks cheap, but it will cost you in watts. An old PC server can easily pull 250-400 watts continuously. And don't forget this summer, when you will have to pay twice for the waste heat.

A better solution is a VIA PC1 board, plus a couple of new drives.

The "$60 PC 1" will only pull 20 watts at max. Combine this with 2 "$250 terabyte drives" mirrored, and a small low wattage "$35 case" and the "(Free) Linux" of your choice,

You will have a reliable Terabyte server for less than $700, that only pulls as much power as a small appliance bulb.

Use a Linux desktop distro, disable exec on the /home and /tmp directories, don't allow users to install software, case closed ..

Yes, I know what you're going to say, there aren't any Linux viruses because there aren't many Linux desktops out there. But where are all the server exploits out there being actively used in the wild. I'm talking about commercial servers being hacked not some msging board ..

There are free operating systems that will run well on your Mac hardware and do not shut down websites for revealing "trade secrets". In fact, there are no trade secrets and you are invited to join in on the development process. Begin here.

Distrowatch counts Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Edubuntu, so all 4 share the first spot.

Distrowatch counts Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Edubuntu, so all 4 share the first spot.

Distrowatch counts Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Edubuntu, so all 4 share the first spot.

The two most popular distros in use today are Fedora and Ubuntu(Debian) and both use GNOME by default.

• Ubuntu (Gnome)
• OpenSuSE (Gnome)
• Fedora (Gnome)
• Debian (user chooses)
• Mandriva (Gnome)
• Mepis (KDE)
• Knoppix (KDE)
• Slackware (has KDE packages, no Gnome)
• Gentoo Linux (It's a trap!)

I'm living in Japan at the moment...;-) In fact, I can see a huge Kyocera building from my back door. It's the headquarters I think, about a 10 minute bike ride away. It's tempting to go in and ask a few questions...:-)

However, it would appear that many Japanese have no problem using linux at all:
(Here's a list of 16 Japanese linux distros from Distrowatch :-))
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=All&origin=Japan&basedon=All&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=All

And, of course, Japanese commercial distros, such as Turbolinux, etc. don't seem to have a problem using linux, etc.

Neither does the Japanese government, or the Tokyo Stock Market seem to have a problem using linux:
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=775707

You, (and your uncle, apparently), need to get out more...:-)

Distrowatch http://www.distrowatch.com/ says it too, which means others agree.

Looks like they went underground in 2002 (offering no free ISO download). Now they've resurfaced.
The Turbolinux 10 Desktop now costs 29$

Go even has its on Linix distro: Hikarunix.

http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

solid package requirements, automatic dependency resolution, alternative kernels [Hurd/Mach and kfreeBSD]

I think you might be exaggerating a bit. /. hates Windows a whole lot more than it hates Mandriva. But it's not surprising that /. opinions reflect what http://distrowatch.com/ says - Ubuntu is #1 and Mandriva is #9. I just switched myself - Mandriva has been good from a user perspective, but has had repository / update problems in recent years. Maybe this will signal a turn around, but I'm probably not going to switch back unless I hear the repository problems are gone.

... I don't understand why anyone would connect any machine directly to the Internet without some type of hardware firewall.

That is what the Internet is for. You're projecting Windows' problems onto real computers. There is no reason why a router or hardware firewall should be necessary to add security -- they're both computers with instructions and flaws. Increasing the number of hardware pieces increases the number of failure points at the cost of also increasing latency and reducing actual bandwidth.

There are only three reason why a computer needs to be isolated from the Internet:

• There are not enough addresses in the IPV4 space to expand forever. IPV6 fixes that.
• The network administrator's convenience.
• Experience has shown the software provider doesn't know how to write or fix network code. These links can help with that.

Yeah, because Ubuntu (the number one Linux-distro) is just like just another OSS project...

BTW: To all those people proposing new and funny names: The last word is supposed to be an animal, the first one being an adjective. I'm assuming you still find your alternatives hilarious, but trust the long time users on ubuntuforums.org: It gets really old, really fast.