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But if I could buy him a mac, keep the administrator account for myself, and give him a user account that could only install and run app store apps

Hi, you appear to be looking for one of these:

http://www.ubuntu.org/
http://www.fedoraproject.org/
http://www.madrivalinux.com/
http://www.opensuse.org/

Seriously, we have been able to do that sort of thing for a really long time now with GNU/Linux. That is exactly what I do with my mother's desktop, and there has not been any problems yet.

Actually, strictly speaking, an OS includes none of those things (nor package managers).

Mine does.

To whit.

Welcome to THE FUTURE(TM).

ubuntu

Nuff sed

genau.
i pulled the eth on my gaming machine when my girlfriend got me a lenovo s10e netbook.
ubuntu. end of story.
i know i can still get xssed and browser fucked, but hey, what you gonna do ? these things happen.

ubuntu

Nuff sed

Sure!

http://www.opensuse.org/
http://www.ubuntu.org/
http://www.winehq.org/
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxlinux/

Absolutely no WGA getting in your way! ;)

ClamWin, ClamAV are fine for remedial action. The best remedy, as in all things, is prevention and that can be accomplished by moving to systems that are resistant to malware. Here even the consumer unions fall flat on their faces and fail to mention the Linux distros. Most mainstream distros are years ahead of Windows as far as ease of use, maintenance and speed. The main weakness of real systems (non-M$) is that Web 2.0 script crap.

Here you sound like a troll. There are no sources for any of your claims and they are false.

Here are the sources, try any one of them:

• Fedora w/KDE default
• Fedora w/GNOME default
• Ubuntu w/Xfce default
• Ubuntu w/KDE default
• Ubuntu w/Gnome default

XSS? Search Google.

Note, different than Windows, easier to use and worlds easier to modify and customize. KDE passed XP in usability years ago. It's not 1996 anymore.

Well, ubuntu as a word does have a separate existence from the OS.

(It's mentioned on the ubuntu (OS) web site, and you'll go somewhere other than Canonical's web site if you try to go to http://www.ubuntu.org.

I disagree. Most guides out there for ubuntu involve terminal commands.

Commands that say things like this?

sudo apt-get install foo

Yeah. That's because it's easier and faster to write that than say 'Click System | Administration | Synaptic Package Manager.' Click the 'Search' button and type 'foo' and hit enter. Right click the 'foo-1.0' package and click 'Install'. When prompted, enter your password.

How about some official reference page like howto install . Easy to link and you can explain some command line there if one really needs to. Common tasks should be very well explained, IMHO.

It's along weekend up here in Canada, the perfect time to try something fun. After hearing endless praise of Ubuntu I decided to download an ISO and try it out on my G4 Powerbook.

I spent close to a half hour on the Ubuntu web site, on the download page, the Ubuntu home page, the FAQ, and anywhere else that seemed likely and couldn't for life of me find a download link. Searches for PowerPC and Powerbook turned up nothing.

Finally in the Ubuntu forums I discovered that Ubuntu no longer formally supports the PowerPC architecture, that PPC is "community supported", and that judging by the forum comments there some issues even though Apple hardware is pretty much standard from one machine to the next.

Is it too much to ask that Ubuntu add a comment and link on their download page directing PPC users elsewhere?

Really it's stupid things like this that seem to crop up every time I decide to try out Linux.

I've checked all over beryl's website http://www.beryl-project.org/ and Ubuntu's http://www.ubuntu.org/ and I'm beginning to think they may be separate entities. weird.

You, uh got the joke wrong. It's like this.

I just recommend Ubuntu. It's the most user-friendly Linux desktop out there today. I know some people will suggest that Linspire is better, but I don't think that's the case. Packages are far easier to find and install on Ubuntu, and Ubuntu uses far more recent versions of the software they do offer (which often include important stability, usability and security fixes).

The one thing I dislike about Ubuntu is that it uses GNOME as the default desktop. Often times I remove it for people, and install KDE instead. Geeks may like GNOME, but many average users find KDE far easier to use, and much more comprehensible. This is especially true if they are coming from Windows or Mac OS 9 (or earlier). I could always use Kubuntu, but I find it's just as easy to stick with Ubuntu instead, and remove GNOME in favor of KDE.

right here

nobody here is really interested in renting (aka licensing) their OS

i have a licence for my driving, one for my dog and my pet fish eric but i also need one to run my computer ? no thanks

Check out Ubuntu, Mepis, and PCLinuxOS. All of those are easy to use and one of those should give you the right mix of hardware support.

What program combinations, or websites do you use to uproot that last bit of unwanted software intrusion?"

http://www.ubuntu.org

'Nuff said.

I just checked the submitters profile

You're not a troll, sorry.

But the question wasn't exactly a tough one.

Real reply: Get broadband and consider moving to linux if you're concerned about spyware. Ubuntu is pretty good.

Kubuntu or Mandriva - both were pretty KDE-centric last time I checked them out.

Kubuntu, which is a KDE version fo the wonderful Ubuntu distribution, which incidentaly standardised on GNOME also. If you wait long enough, I expect you will see a supported version of Novell's distribution, but with KDE as the desktop.

The major innovation of Ubuntu is that it has pictures of bright-eyed bushy-tailed cute young things holding hands and smiling at the camera on the homepage, after a few refreshing glasses of kool-aid, no doubt. Most Linux-based companies are very reticent about putting pictures of their userbase on the advertising propaganda, for very good reasons

The Ubuntu folks seem to have have a similar corporate attitude to that Reiser dude or perhaps the MySQL people in their more touchy-feely moments, which may appeal to you, if you're the type of person who falls for bland and meaningless corporate platitudes written on glossy corporate brochures. Each to their own, I suppose

Otherwise, it's just a friendly debian-based distro...

From TFA:

When Regular People fire up the Linux desktop for the first time, the browser, office suite, email client, IM client, file manager, etc, each need to carry over as much as possible of the Windows application settings and all or very nearly all of the user data. Without this, the hill is just too steep to climb and Regular People will not make the climb.

This is not quite true. People will migrate, even with some pain, if they know the cost of not migrating. From privacy issues to monopolistic/illegal practises to security problems, there are many good reasons to stop using Microsoft products.

The third issue is a lack [of] simplicity.

That's right. Asking someone during an install if they want Gnome or KDE is useless if they have nothing to base a decision on. Give them one and they can explore later. It's traditional to underestimate lusers here on Slashdot, but believe it or not, they can grasp certain concepts... if not all:)

Regular People don't want their OK and Cancel buttons reversed -- tossing out years of finely tuned muscle memory

That's a joke, right? Finely tuned muscle memory? To do what, install spyware? Those who work on GUIs for Linux should feel free to continue improving on the use of meaningless button labels in Windows. I applaud their efforts.

No one can deny that Linux has to overcome some problems. As an outsider, and off the top of my head, some of these problems are: the confusing multitude of different distros (which is at the same time a good thing); the rough-around-the-edges interface; the lack of a single, unified marketing campaign leading to little or no brand recognition; and the merest mention of a CLI to a Windows user.

But it's worth trying. Today I got Ubuntu to run (not a big accomplishment, happily)... and tonight, I was asked "What's Linux?"

I continually advocate open source software, both personally and at the workplace, and I really consider that a natural evolution toward Linux. If you can use, for example, Firefox in Windows, then you can certainly use it in Linux. There is no migration pain, and there is now one less stumbling block to adopting Linux.

I once helped build a house for Habitat for Humanity. A critic asked me, "Do you really think building one house is going to solve the housing crisis?" And I answered "No. But it's going to solve this family's housing crisis."

In the same way, Linux may not be ready for the desktop; but it's ready for mine. Maybe it's ready for someone else, too. Thank you to its developers, and keep up the good work.

Unsurprisingly there's already a lot of "bah, this guy wants Linux dumbed down for n00bs" comments on this thread. Which totally misses the point:

Linux-on-the-desktop isn't just too complicated for n00bs -- it's too complicated for reasonably sharp users, too. And that's the problem.

I offer myself as an example. I am not the God of All Things Computing. But I've been tinkering with PCs since MS-DOS 3 days, I've used Windows, Macs, Linux and even CP/M for pete's sake. Today my primary desktop at home runs Ubuntu Linux. I'm comfortable compiling software from source tarballs and rooting through Google for HOWTOs and FAQs.

In short, I know my way around a computer -- and yet Ubuntu still manages to throw me for a loop more frequently than I'd like.

Example. The other day I installed the new Deer Park preview of Firefox. For some reason, its installer (bonus points to it for even having a graphical installer, btw) didn't add a shortcut for launching it to my GNOME panel. So I wanted to add one myself.

Easy? Right? Bzzt.

On Windows, here's the steps for adding a new item to the Start menu:

1. Click Start menu button
2. Navigate to folder where you'd like to add shortcut
3. Right-click folder name
4. Select "New Shortcut"
5. Wizard launches that walks you through finding the program you want the shortcut to point to, and giving the shortcut a name.

I figured there must be a way to manipulate the GNOME panel in a similar fashion. Nope. There is no direct way in Ubuntu Hoary to add a panel item to the menus through the GUI. Instead you have to open a shell, find /usr/share/applications, and create a .desktop file in there for your application.

But! You don't have permission to do that by default, so you have to use sudo to create the file. ("You do know how to use sudo, right Mom?")

And then -- once you figure out that you need to create a .desktop file, and where this file needs to go, and what format this file needs to be in, and you actually go and create it -- nothing happens! That's right, you don't see the item in your panel until the next time you log in, unless you manually restart the X server with CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE.

(Yes, you have to restart the window manager, or else it will appear that all your work was for naught. "Just restart the X server, Mom. Mom? Hello? Noob.")

The icing on the cake is that to find this answer, you have to go through three levels of redirection:

• Ubuntu tells you to refer to GNOME, since it's their desktop, Ubuntu's just distributing it
• GNOME tells you to refer to FreeDesktop.org, since it's their standard for panel items, GNOME is just packaging it
• FreeDesktop.org hides the instructions on how to write a .desktop file deep in a standards document.

("You do read standards documents, right Mom?")

I went through all that and finally got my shortcut added to the panel. But how many average users are gonna put up with that? (And Ubuntu does better at this stuff than most others.)

With all the spit and polish issues that Linux has, Asa is not the only Mozillian to find fault with it; former Moz UI gadfly Matthew Thomas (aka mpt), who's now with Ubuntu sponsor Canonical, recently posted a list of 69 usability flaws in Ubuntu Hoary, and old skooler Jamie Zawinski gave up Linux for OS X for good.

My case was not a case of "user who could not snap out of Windows-ism". I'm more than willing to embrace a better approach when I see it. But this is not a better approach fo

Do a Google on "Cutter" and "Orwell school" - they've been smart because for some apps you need Windows - all the rest is done via Terminal Servers (note to OpenOffice: why is your memory footprint so much larger than StarOffice?).

The Ubuntu lot have a link into the SchoolTool efforts of Mark Shuttleworth, and anyone who's followed the FLOSS in Government trails will know about the fantastic work that has taken place in the Extramadura region in Spain. Link to all the presentations.

There is far, far more happening out there than the UK Government seems to know - I wonder when they finally try and spend some money efficiently and emulate what the Spanish did. Could be a new concept: actual *efficient* use of tax money...

Whatever happened here? Remember a little over ten years ago there was a new exciting operating system out there? It was called Linux. Where is that now? It was an idea, something cool, something...

Redhat tried to make money and in the end all they are doing is what Sun still offers except they got the labor for free. Now they have a successful business model and their own programmers and their own corporate jets.... They are trying to profit on a base of sharing, goodwill and knowledge.

The GNU License today? A legal document that tries to be fair but is being picked apart by greed.

Now everyone wants a piece, Hell even Slashdot and Sourceforge are bought so is the name Linux.com (by the same company by the way) Note the Dot COM = commercial.

Linus himself is raking in millions

Want a "commercial" solution? Get rid of ALL these distributions. It is insane and idiotic. You want to make a commercial product? Make a new one. How about commercial Linux? Be up front. Say this is what we are going to do and this is how we are going to pay for things, this percentage goes back to the projects (Apache MySql etc. ) in these amount AND it is going to be bullet proof for your business, we will back you. Red Hat's mistake? They come off, as being number one back ten years ago, then we support them then as the years go by they pull away the support or charge for it. They come up with "new products" confusion about what is free what's the difference with this one, lets make Gnome and KDE look the same the list goes on but in the end the community that made them is not welcome unless you can pay. Sure burns me. I can't be the only one.

Whatever happened to United Linux? It is a rhetorical question but you can't unite many distributions. That too is stupid.

Now for a distro solution? There is none. Why should there be? Let people make stuff and let it rock.

Why is Ubuntu doing so well? Maybe it is newest version that hasn't been bent by greed and money yet. They come off as sharing and for the world. I tried to find the site at http://ubuntu.org/ but my mistake it is actually at http://ubuntu.com/

Perhaps www.ubuntu.org would work better?

All Linux distros are the same. If something works in Gentoo and not Debian, it's because Gentoo set it up and Debian didn't. If you knew what you were doing, though, you could get it working in Debian, because Debian is the same OS/drivers as Gentoo (with a different name and init scripts).

Anyway, the solution to your problem is:

# modprobe rtc
# date -s time
# hwclock --systohc

Good luck. (And I hear Ubuntu is a good Debian-based distro.)

I have to respond. The parent was correct. It's amazing seeing what people do to run windows, and what I've had to do in the past.

You say you seriously doubt anyone has done a fresh install of distro-of-choice and not spent time tweaking things to get the system fully usable. Then you go on to say you're hoping to build your first linux box.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, depending on what distro you choose. Someone below mentioned OpenBSD, and that's a good recommendation. I think you'll find that a fair amount of the unix-y environments start you off at a solid base, and allow you to build up. This is in contrast to whenever I have the (in my opinion, of course) displeasure of dealing with a windows install, where I have to tear down and build up.

No, not all distro's are the same. Sometimes they have annoying services listening on all interfaces, like cups or lprd. That's one of the reasons why OpenBSD is nice. It starts you off with a good base from which to build up. I have recently switched to the excellent ubuntu distrobution from debian sarge. I am pleasantly surprised by the fact that very few services are listening by default, so there's really not all that much to do to "secure" the box (at least from a basic point of view). In fact, when I installed ubuntu over debian, I kept my old home directory, so there was no tweaking to get my desktop how I want it. I guess you could do the same with windows, but it's a pain to mess around with the registry to point to a different location/drive for user's home folders. All I have to do is mount the old volume as /home and it works fine.

Not only that, but the installation of new software is tremendously easier for the unix-y domain, at least debian, where apt-get is very good at solving your problems. No cds to look for, no keys to look for, makes it all very easy. So I think you're making a kind of incorrect blanket statement based on your experience with windows (it seems).

That said, I prefer the old tiny personal firewall, but only the old version (2 or 3?) as the new one doesn't have as nice an interface. It seems to barf a fair amount when installed on XP, so I'm actually shying away from that these days. You didn't say which version of windows you're using. I've been using the virus scanner from etrust, free to valid microsoft users: ezarmor. It seems to work okay, and it's free. It also includes a firewall of sorts, but I don't recall being very impressed, so I installed tpf again. AV gets rather expensive, rather quickly. I purchased the symantec AV/Firewall suite for something like $50. As always, there's a linux NAT box protecting it all, allowing easy port forwarding. I've also used the linksys wrt54g and it seems to work okay. It's available pretty cheaply now, and allowed me to reduce the number of crud that clutters up the gf's apartment.

Anyway, I wish you luck with your new linux box, and I think (once you get used to it) you'll find it pleasantly surprising.