I swear we just had an article about Earthlink patenting broadband over powerlines mere days ago. I'm in links right now and can't be arsed to do a search...am I wrong?
Uh, hello? We had a VPN link on our desktops. It's how we had to set up. We would connect to a remote VPN by double-clicking it. I don't know what else to tell you. That's how it worked, and that's how Windows 2000 sets it up when we ran the VPN wizard.
It's just my opinion that Gnome's interface is cleaner and better, and that that sort of approach is better for mainstream desktop Linux.:) You're welcome to disagree, of course.
You may call Gnome's button-ordering "totally stupid," but it forces people to know what they're clicking on and prevents user error. Try it for a day and you get used to it quickly.
"Virtually everything else" I say points to why we need ONE desktop environment.
Why should I have to switch from one to the other when I want a framework/interface? Why the hell aren't these two things integrated together?
A single desktop environment project IS good if it lets you make configuration decisions. Obviously one that doesn't let you make decisions would be bad. What does that have to do with anything?
It takes ages to start, and munches through RAM like there's no tomorrow?
And this hasn't been what KDE has been known for since its inception? I can't even browse my Home directory without waiting for three seconds, even with KDE 3.2.
Sorry, but while KDE may be more Windows-esque on the surface, underneath GNOME is far more Winlike.
So key-redefining and a registry suddenly make Gnome internals like Windows internals? What a troll.
Er, dude. Why are dialogue boxes popping up for secretaries for connecting to a VPN?
Because last year when we ran Windows 2000, a box would pop up "Connecting" to VPN, with a Cancel button.
This stuff sounds like something that should be happening transparently - in other words your problem. I've seen a lot of people shift their problems onto usability issues.
Me, too. Luckily, that isn't the case here.
Besides, he wasn't actually talking about the ambiguous OK stuff, which I agree with in many ways. He was talking about the button ordering which just looks stupid - plain and simple.
No, it doesn't. Gnome actually follows usability tests and guidelines. Use it for a while, it makes sense. KDE still gives me a headache if I use it for too long, which is bizarre because I also work with Windows XP all day with no problems.
The logical conclusion is that people have a problem with this issue regarding Trolltech, and it has yet to be resolved, so the memes continue. Perhaps the issue should be fixed on their end?
was the button order so broken as to warrant creating such a huge and obvious inconsistency? no, it wasn't.
so please, don't bring up the button ordering issue in public again, especially not as a benefit. it's embarrassing to everyone who develops for the X11 environment.
What's embarrassing is an ambiguous "OK" button. Apparently, you've NEVER actually sat a user down to use your software.
I handle technical support for my company. We run Windows XP. There is no end of accidental closes, minimizing, cancelling, saving, and more. I've watching secretaries connecting to VPN and then hitting the "Cancel" button when the dialog pops up, thinking they needed to click that to get rid of the box.
"OK" and "Cancel" are embarrassments to user interface design. To see you call fixing that "silliness" says a lot about you and KDE.
This is the precise reason having multiple desktop environment projects is a bad idea.
Witness your other post in this thread, calling Gnome's button order "silliness" even though it logically makes sense and merely points out how other GUIs like Windows and KDE have been doing it wrong. This is why I prefer Gnome--it concentrates on the user experience, not another Konquerer sidetab to add to the clutter. "OK" is one of the worst GUI decisions ever made.
Sit a new user in front of Windows, and they get confused every time. I deal with technical support for my co-workers, and they're always accidentally cancelling things, saving over things, closing things. Gnome is actually attempting to address usability and works with strict human interface guidelines. KDE is trying to add more sidebars, more buttons, more gadgets.
It's just a user preference for me. When I use KDE, I see all the cool stuff it can do. But when I use Gnome, I actually feel comfortable as though this is something I could use all day and not go insane! Things just "make sense." I can't even attach an app's menu bar to the top in KDE without encountering silliness--moving the cursor to the topmost pixel and clicking won't register a click on the menu, defeating the whole purpose. MacOS users are used to slamming the cursor up to the top of the screen and clicking. A KDE user would slam to the top and then have to adjust the cursor down a few pixels. Even Windows XP addressed this by causing the cursor to raise a few pixels when it's at the bottom of the taskbar, in order to click on the button.
This is why I prefer GNOME to KDE. KDE may have cool underlying technology, but GNOME is concentrating on actually creating a mainstream, accessible desktop.
KDE is about copying Windows, GNOME is about innovating and becoming its own.
I'm with you, I love the underlying technologies of KDE. But I dislike the desktop implementations of them.
I always end up going back to Gnome because the interface is cleaner and more elegant. 2.6 is due out in March. I just run Gnome and run KDE apps inside Gnome when I need to. If I had to make a poor analogy, I would compare KDE to Windows and Gnome to MacOS--one has the wider support for technologies and applications, but the other actually feels like a GUI should.
In other words, you've decided to arbritrarily disregard the data. Now you're claiming they're "just making up statistics."
Can you prove it? Or are you just going to post your baseless opinion randomly to Slashdot so other clueless moderators can mod it up as "Interesting?"
As others have pointed out--let's face facts here.
Meanwhile, let's rally around the next IBM/FSF-sponsored Linux study that--surprise, surprise--paints Linux in a really good light! No bias there, right...
"When we ignore most of the break-ins that windows had, it had less than linux!"
Yes, in a study like this, believe it or not, they're going to disregard user-ran executable attachments, which is what they were referring to. Therefore, that criticism is baseless.
The study measured overt hacks. User-ran trojans-of-the-month don't count. They have nothing to do with Windows, but dumb users--this was a study of servers anyway, so of course those worms still don't count even if you think they should (unless you are running Outlook on Win2k3 for some reason...).
This completely ignores the proportion of these OS's that got hacked. If there are only 556 of them deployed, then this is a terrible break-in rate. Obviously there are more than 556, but there are fewer BSD servers than linux servers.
You're right, it's a terrible break-in rate. A terrible break-in rate is a good thing.
It's interesting that something that was always used to "prove" Linux's security--its wide usage in the face of apparently low breach rates--is suddenly being used now to JUSTIFY those breaches, which have turned how to be a very high number.
Besides, you're SEVERELY underestimating the amount of BSD servers in use.
* It's a troll! It's from Mi2g! Let's ignore the breaches!
* Linux is more widely used, so that's the reason (even though this was the very reason given for Linux being so secure--it's wide usage and it's apparently low hack-rate).
* Distros aren't usually "secure by default" (even though that's a criticism that's been levelled at Windows for years...now it's used to justify Linux hacks)
* *I* spend more time patching Windows on *my* network, so my anecdotal experience must mean this study is completely wrong!
* "M$" is now doubt behind this. If not, then just look at the fact that Mi2g sells Linux security solutions. It's bias...meanwhile, let's rally around the next IBM-sponsored Linux study that gives us positive results!
Let's repeat it--ADMINS MAKE OR BREAK THE SYSTEM. The OS is irrelevant. Many of the more rational Slashdotters here have known this for years. But in the past five years, it seems a lot of new people have joined in the fray and taken on the Slashdot mindset of "M$ is evil, Linux is always good." Real UNIX veterans know this is idiotic--the best OS for the job is what counts, and the best admin is what gets you a secure network.
The discussion threads here amount to a bunch of Linux guys putting their fingers in their ears and chanting "La-la-la-la-la..." It's yet another nail in the coffin. The BSD people are just sitting back, laughing and laughing...
Would you want them counting user-ran executable attachments as inherent security flaws of an operating system? OF COURSE they're going to ignore them in a study like this. How ridiculous.
To say that "...while Linux servers were the most vulnerable,,," only means that they may have been the most targeted.
Not to mention that this was the argument was used pro-security for Linux--Apache is all over the net yet no hacks, so it must be the greatest thing ever.
Now the wide usage of Linux is suddenly an excuse for the security breaches. The turnaround is interesting.
And yet, when there's an IBM-sponsored study showing Linux as the next greatest thing, all of Slashdot welcomes it with open arms!
Look--unlike most of you here, my ego is not at all affected simply because an operating system I use was revealed not to be the magic security skeleton key. Relax.
This article will be dismissed by all you biased Linux users who joined up in the past five years and who still think "M$" means something, and Slashdot will try desperately to follow up with something anti-Microsoft in the vein of "Microsoft Violates Human Rights in China" (never mind that the article didn't even dream of mentioning that China has its very own custom Linux distribution...no "OSS Violates Human Rights in China" article ever appeared).
Oops, yet another armchair critic shows his credulity by swallowing a sensational headline and jumping to a conclusion.
You're another one of these armchair data information crunchers who believes studies that are pro for your mindset and discredits those against.
"Linux was never more or less secure than Microsoft. It's "security" was based on it's obscurity."
While that may be the typical joe sixpack understanding of the matter, it's completely wrong.
See? I am NOT surprised this drivel was modded up.
It's absolutely, 100% true. Linux was never more secure than Microsoft. It ALL boils down to the admin doing the operating system installation and always has. You've bought into the mindless Slashdot mindset that is slowly crumbling as Linux becomes more widely-used and adopted.
The fact is, unix was a multiuser, networked OS decades ago, and many of the baby steps that microsoft is now beginning to take represent steps towards the type of sophistication unix has enjoyed since the early 80s.
I fully expect you to not provide examples of anything you're talking about. NT was always multiuser and networked as well. So? Linux 2.6.3 just recently patched a vulnerability that affected ALL kernels up to that point. It got barely a secondary blurb at the bottom of an article summary, a few days after the fact.
Linux, as a modern unixlike OS, inherited a rather sophisticated security model which is in stark contrast to the microsoft culture of "personal computer", where things like networking, security, multiple users etc were afterthoughts.
Again, no specific examples. Just endless rhetoric. "Linux is secure because it's UNIX-like, unlike Microsoft which puts out operating systems for personal computers!" Wow, you really proved something there. Meanwhile, the data shows otherwise.
As to the so-called surver, do yourself a favor and see if you can actually find out the data behind this mileading headline - and I must caution you that you are most likley in for a rude awakening if you expect to have your beliefs bolstered.
Calm down (your typos reflect your heart-pounding reaction to this news that your precious girlfriend Linux is not the flawless supermodel you thought she was) and recognize that SECURITY BOILS DOWN TO THE ADMIN DOING THE JOB.
The rational readers of Slashdot have known that fact for years. We just aren't as vocal as you new Linux users who have joined us in the past five years who have bought into the yearly "Linux will overtake the desktop; M$ is inherently insecure" BS.
Reading the discussion threads here is the equivalent of watching monkeys stick their fingers in their ears and chant, "Lalalalalala...give us a new 'Microsoft Violates Human Rights in China' article!"
Those millions of systems must not have had Automatic Updates turned on--or their users must have run an executable attachment via Outlook. For instance, the RPC hole was patched a good two months before. I didn't even know Blaster was going around until I heard from people who didn't patch that their machines were rebooting...
Okay, this is the SECOND study posted to Slashdot that has shown that Linux is the most breached operating system on the Internet.
If it were shown to be Windows, nobody would be arguing, but because there is insane bias around here, we get lots of yimmer-yammer trying to run circles around the data.
How many studies have to come out before Slashdotters stop proclaiming Linux as the magic security solution? GNU was hacked twice last year, and GNOME, Debian, and Gentoo were all hacked. What gives?
Just my two cents. I'm compiling Gentoo right now...I love Linux. But I'm not so naive to pretend it's the end-all solution. I haven't read all the comments, but I fully expect to read the same, typical, anectdotal bullshit--"Well, where *I* worked..." or "Well, *I* spend more time on Windows patching..." or "Well, if *I* were conducting the study, I would..."
Slashdot Mirror
I swear we just had an article about Earthlink patenting broadband over powerlines mere days ago. I'm in links right now and can't be arsed to do a search...am I wrong?
The directory structures and file locations, silly.
Uh, hello? We had a VPN link on our desktops. It's how we had to set up. We would connect to a remote VPN by double-clicking it. I don't know what else to tell you. That's how it worked, and that's how Windows 2000 sets it up when we ran the VPN wizard.
:) You're welcome to disagree, of course.
It's just my opinion that Gnome's interface is cleaner and better, and that that sort of approach is better for mainstream desktop Linux.
You may call Gnome's button-ordering "totally stupid," but it forces people to know what they're clicking on and prevents user error. Try it for a day and you get used to it quickly.
"Virtually everything else" I say points to why we need ONE desktop environment.
Why should I have to switch from one to the other when I want a framework/interface? Why the hell aren't these two things integrated together?
A single desktop environment project IS good if it lets you make configuration decisions. Obviously one that doesn't let you make decisions would be bad. What does that have to do with anything?
It takes ages to start, and munches through RAM like there's no tomorrow?
And this hasn't been what KDE has been known for since its inception? I can't even browse my Home directory without waiting for three seconds, even with KDE 3.2.
Sorry, but while KDE may be more Windows-esque on the surface, underneath GNOME is far more Winlike.
So key-redefining and a registry suddenly make Gnome internals like Windows internals? What a troll.
Er, dude. Why are dialogue boxes popping up for secretaries for connecting to a VPN?
Because last year when we ran Windows 2000, a box would pop up "Connecting" to VPN, with a Cancel button.
This stuff sounds like something that should be happening transparently - in other words your problem. I've seen a lot of people shift their problems onto usability issues.
Me, too. Luckily, that isn't the case here.
Besides, he wasn't actually talking about the ambiguous OK stuff, which I agree with in many ways. He was talking about the button ordering which just looks stupid - plain and simple.
No, it doesn't. Gnome actually follows usability tests and guidelines. Use it for a while, it makes sense. KDE still gives me a headache if I use it for too long, which is bizarre because I also work with Windows XP all day with no problems.
The logical conclusion is that people have a problem with this issue regarding Trolltech, and it has yet to be resolved, so the memes continue. Perhaps the issue should be fixed on their end?
was the button order so broken as to warrant creating such a huge and obvious inconsistency? no, it wasn't.
so please, don't bring up the button ordering issue in public again, especially not as a benefit. it's embarrassing to everyone who develops for the X11 environment.
What's embarrassing is an ambiguous "OK" button. Apparently, you've NEVER actually sat a user down to use your software.
I handle technical support for my company. We run Windows XP. There is no end of accidental closes, minimizing, cancelling, saving, and more. I've watching secretaries connecting to VPN and then hitting the "Cancel" button when the dialog pops up, thinking they needed to click that to get rid of the box.
"OK" and "Cancel" are embarrassments to user interface design. To see you call fixing that "silliness" says a lot about you and KDE.
You seem way too competitive over this issue.
This is the precise reason having multiple desktop environment projects is a bad idea.
Witness your other post in this thread, calling Gnome's button order "silliness" even though it logically makes sense and merely points out how other GUIs like Windows and KDE have been doing it wrong. This is why I prefer Gnome--it concentrates on the user experience, not another Konquerer sidetab to add to the clutter. "OK" is one of the worst GUI decisions ever made.
Sit a new user in front of Windows, and they get confused every time. I deal with technical support for my co-workers, and they're always accidentally cancelling things, saving over things, closing things. Gnome is actually attempting to address usability and works with strict human interface guidelines. KDE is trying to add more sidebars, more buttons, more gadgets.
It's just a user preference for me. When I use KDE, I see all the cool stuff it can do. But when I use Gnome, I actually feel comfortable as though this is something I could use all day and not go insane! Things just "make sense." I can't even attach an app's menu bar to the top in KDE without encountering silliness--moving the cursor to the topmost pixel and clicking won't register a click on the menu, defeating the whole purpose. MacOS users are used to slamming the cursor up to the top of the screen and clicking. A KDE user would slam to the top and then have to adjust the cursor down a few pixels. Even Windows XP addressed this by causing the cursor to raise a few pixels when it's at the bottom of the taskbar, in order to click on the button.
This is why I prefer GNOME to KDE. KDE may have cool underlying technology, but GNOME is concentrating on actually creating a mainstream, accessible desktop.
KDE is about copying Windows, GNOME is about innovating and becoming its own.
I'm with you, I love the underlying technologies of KDE. But I dislike the desktop implementations of them.
I always end up going back to Gnome because the interface is cleaner and more elegant. 2.6 is due out in March. I just run Gnome and run KDE apps inside Gnome when I need to. If I had to make a poor analogy, I would compare KDE to Windows and Gnome to MacOS--one has the wider support for technologies and applications, but the other actually feels like a GUI should.
Is it Microsoft who is evil for spending money or the UN for being influenced by it?
Strange, The Cable Guy is the movie generally regarded as the beginning of his decline. That movie was off-putting.
In other words, you've decided to arbritrarily disregard the data. Now you're claiming they're "just making up statistics."
Can you prove it? Or are you just going to post your baseless opinion randomly to Slashdot so other clueless moderators can mod it up as "Interesting?"
As others have pointed out--let's face facts here.
Meanwhile, let's rally around the next IBM/FSF-sponsored Linux study that--surprise, surprise--paints Linux in a really good light! No bias there, right...
"When we ignore most of the break-ins that windows had, it had less than linux!"
Yes, in a study like this, believe it or not, they're going to disregard user-ran executable attachments, which is what they were referring to. Therefore, that criticism is baseless.
The study measured overt hacks. User-ran trojans-of-the-month don't count. They have nothing to do with Windows, but dumb users--this was a study of servers anyway, so of course those worms still don't count even if you think they should (unless you are running Outlook on Win2k3 for some reason...).
This completely ignores the proportion of these OS's that got hacked. If there are only 556 of them deployed, then this is a terrible break-in rate. Obviously there are more than 556, but there are fewer BSD servers than linux servers.
You're right, it's a terrible break-in rate. A terrible break-in rate is a good thing.
It's interesting that something that was always used to "prove" Linux's security--its wide usage in the face of apparently low breach rates--is suddenly being used now to JUSTIFY those breaches, which have turned how to be a very high number.
Besides, you're SEVERELY underestimating the amount of BSD servers in use.
* It's a troll! It's from Mi2g! Let's ignore the breaches!
* Linux is more widely used, so that's the reason (even though this was the very reason given for Linux being so secure--it's wide usage and it's apparently low hack-rate).
* Distros aren't usually "secure by default" (even though that's a criticism that's been levelled at Windows for years...now it's used to justify Linux hacks)
* *I* spend more time patching Windows on *my* network, so my anecdotal experience must mean this study is completely wrong!
* "M$" is now doubt behind this. If not, then just look at the fact that Mi2g sells Linux security solutions. It's bias...meanwhile, let's rally around the next IBM-sponsored Linux study that gives us positive results!
Let's repeat it--ADMINS MAKE OR BREAK THE SYSTEM. The OS is irrelevant. Many of the more rational Slashdotters here have known this for years. But in the past five years, it seems a lot of new people have joined in the fray and taken on the Slashdot mindset of "M$ is evil, Linux is always good." Real UNIX veterans know this is idiotic--the best OS for the job is what counts, and the best admin is what gets you a secure network.
The discussion threads here amount to a bunch of Linux guys putting their fingers in their ears and chanting "La-la-la-la-la..." It's yet another nail in the coffin. The BSD people are just sitting back, laughing and laughing...
Interesting--not being "secure by default" was always a criticism levelled against Windows.
Now it's being used to justify Linux breaches.
...what I usually hear.
:D
Slashdotters will tell me to no end that Linux is PROVEN more secure because there are more Linux server and yet they get less hacked.
Now, their wide usage is suddenly an excuse for being MORE hacked. Interesting, is all I'm saying. I'm compiling Gentoo as I type this using Links
But I love all the reasons people are giving to desperately make this data go away. "Normalize your data!" you say, haha.
Would you want them counting user-ran executable attachments as inherent security flaws of an operating system? OF COURSE they're going to ignore them in a study like this. How ridiculous.
To say that "...while Linux servers were the most vulnerable,,," only means that they may have been the most targeted.
Not to mention that this was the argument was used pro-security for Linux--Apache is all over the net yet no hacks, so it must be the greatest thing ever.
Now the wide usage of Linux is suddenly an excuse for the security breaches. The turnaround is interesting.
And yet, when there's an IBM-sponsored study showing Linux as the next greatest thing, all of Slashdot welcomes it with open arms!
Look--unlike most of you here, my ego is not at all affected simply because an operating system I use was revealed not to be the magic security skeleton key. Relax.
This article will be dismissed by all you biased Linux users who joined up in the past five years and who still think "M$" means something, and Slashdot will try desperately to follow up with something anti-Microsoft in the vein of "Microsoft Violates Human Rights in China" (never mind that the article didn't even dream of mentioning that China has its very own custom Linux distribution...no "OSS Violates Human Rights in China" article ever appeared).
Oops, yet another armchair critic shows his credulity by swallowing a sensational headline and jumping to a conclusion.
You're another one of these armchair data information crunchers who believes studies that are pro for your mindset and discredits those against.
"Linux was never more or less secure than Microsoft. It's "security" was based on it's obscurity."
While that may be the typical joe sixpack understanding of the matter, it's completely wrong.
See? I am NOT surprised this drivel was modded up.
It's absolutely, 100% true. Linux was never more secure than Microsoft. It ALL boils down to the admin doing the operating system installation and always has. You've bought into the mindless Slashdot mindset that is slowly crumbling as Linux becomes more widely-used and adopted.
The fact is, unix was a multiuser, networked OS decades ago, and many of the baby steps that microsoft is now beginning to take represent steps towards the type of sophistication unix has enjoyed since the early 80s.
I fully expect you to not provide examples of anything you're talking about. NT was always multiuser and networked as well. So? Linux 2.6.3 just recently patched a vulnerability that affected ALL kernels up to that point. It got barely a secondary blurb at the bottom of an article summary, a few days after the fact.
Linux, as a modern unixlike OS, inherited a rather sophisticated security model which is in stark contrast to the microsoft culture of "personal computer", where things like networking, security, multiple users etc were afterthoughts.
Again, no specific examples. Just endless rhetoric. "Linux is secure because it's UNIX-like, unlike Microsoft which puts out operating systems for personal computers!" Wow, you really proved something there. Meanwhile, the data shows otherwise.
As to the so-called surver, do yourself a favor and see if you can actually find out the data behind this mileading headline - and I must caution you that you are most likley in for a rude awakening if you expect to have your beliefs bolstered.
Calm down (your typos reflect your heart-pounding reaction to this news that your precious girlfriend Linux is not the flawless supermodel you thought she was) and recognize that SECURITY BOILS DOWN TO THE ADMIN DOING THE JOB.
The rational readers of Slashdot have known that fact for years. We just aren't as vocal as you new Linux users who have joined us in the past five years who have bought into the yearly "Linux will overtake the desktop; M$ is inherently insecure" BS.
Reading the discussion threads here is the equivalent of watching monkeys stick their fingers in their ears and chant, "Lalalalalala...give us a new 'Microsoft Violates Human Rights in China' article!"
Those millions of systems must not have had Automatic Updates turned on--or their users must have run an executable attachment via Outlook. For instance, the RPC hole was patched a good two months before. I didn't even know Blaster was going around until I heard from people who didn't patch that their machines were rebooting...
Okay, this is the SECOND study posted to Slashdot that has shown that Linux is the most breached operating system on the Internet.
If it were shown to be Windows, nobody would be arguing, but because there is insane bias around here, we get lots of yimmer-yammer trying to run circles around the data.
How many studies have to come out before Slashdotters stop proclaiming Linux as the magic security solution? GNU was hacked twice last year, and GNOME, Debian, and Gentoo were all hacked. What gives?
Just my two cents. I'm compiling Gentoo right now...I love Linux. But I'm not so naive to pretend it's the end-all solution. I haven't read all the comments, but I fully expect to read the same, typical, anectdotal bullshit--"Well, where *I* worked..." or "Well, *I* spend more time on Windows patching..." or "Well, if *I* were conducting the study, I would..."