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Longhorn Skinning A Reality
AlphaAlien writes "AlphaAlien of HardwareGeeks.com has figured out how to skin all of Microsoft's upcoming Windows release codenamed Longhorn. We can now skin Longhorn in the same manner we can skin Windows XP. Here's a picture of a very early copy of the first ever non-Microsoft skin for Longhorn. The only possible issue at this point is that Microsoft appears to be planning to move away from BMP based skinning altogethor and move to PNG based skins in which case any skins made for Longhorn at this point in time will not work far into the future. Also the patch to allow the skins to be loaded may not work many builds from the present as well. But for now we'll be able to hack away at the skinning engine at our leisure. in co-operation with BetasIRC.net we will be releasing the first few longhorn skins and a guide on how to get started on creating your own Longhorn skins."
The fact that the have Windows set up to use Outlook Express as the default e-mail app is an indicator that they are stupid.
Why is PNG a good format to use? This has already been discussed on slashdot but for those of you that are new to: PNGs
First PNG is an open standard that doesn't rely on proprietary formats like LZW for compression like in Gif that is owned by Unisys. PNG has a better compresses algorithm than GIF anyway.
PNG is a loss-less compression method meaning that you open and save and get back to original data. Think of it like a ZIP file, you can always get the data back from a ZIP files as you stored it in.
PNG supports three main image types: true color, grayscale and palette-based. Good for Normal Pictures, Documents and Web Based Images.
Servers do not require GUIs to be part of the server OS. Period. My servers are in another room that I don't even have access to. Why does the SERVER need a GUI OS? I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation, other than to make it easier for newbie admins. I have yet to find anything in Linux or Solaris server that requires a GUI to administer it. This makes for very tight and small servers that can ignore 95% of security issues because the software simply isn't installed.
Windows IS a GUI OS, there is no way to separate it. GUI OSes take up resources, even if it is only disk space, and introduce unnecessary security risks.
Why include a browser if you can't use it anyway until you configure it. Here is an idea, make it an option at build time so if I never need it, it is never installed. Oh, I forgot, it is part of the monolithic OS and can't be separated. Which is exactly my point. MS doesn't know how to, or chooses not to, build an OS that uses plug in components. My guess is that is one of the reasons why Longhorn is taking so long. It is hard to fix security issues when one change can impact every component.
The point about kernel and Open SSH are almost right on, except if no one has access to the command prompt then kernel hacks are irrelevant (which is how my servers are setup, and if someone gets root I'm toast anyway, no matter what kernel hacks there are) and I have a choice which SSH software to use. While I can install any browser on my desktop, I can't remove IE. And that is true of all MS products.
An 'Operating System' manages resources, like memory, disk, etc. It does not provide telnet, ssh, browser, media player, or even directory listings. These things should not be coupled to an OS, rather the OS provides the environment for these things to operate in. This then provides the skilled admins of the world the tool sets to truly administer a server based on business requirements rather than Microsoft's.
Let's look at Unix systems. I can completely replace evry single command and shell in the system if I chose to with whatever I want to use. I can strip down the OS so far that it will only run on one specific hardware configuration and only with a subset of commands. I can completely eliminate the ls command if I chose (not that that would make any sense.) I can remove the hardware auto-configure option. I can make the box a web server and only a web server, which is what security is all about, minimizing risks.
You simply cannot do that with MS products. You must install numerous software components that you will not use, and depend on the OS to lock them down, as was your point with IE. There are exactly three open ports on my webserver, 80, 443, and a non-standard SSH port (that only responds to a specific IP address). Do a netstat on your most secure web server and tell me how many ports are open. I'll bet it ain't 3.
And that is the real problem, having an OS do my work their way.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.