So you're argument is that since viruses can exist and proliferate without root access, the only factor in determining which operating system is more virus resistant is how resistant each one is to running arbitrary code (with or without priveleges)?
Perhaps another wrench to throw in this equation is that Windows users are going to be, on average, less computer, shall we say, savvy? Nothting against them, I mean computers aren't that important, but one of the biggest components in spreading a virus is user gullibility.
Linux users range from being somewhat knowledgeable about Windows but clueless at Linux to full blown pros. The most clueless among us will still have dealt with Windows and viruses at some point. Basically, very few Linux users will be gullible enough to perform many of the actions required to perpetuate many if not mosf viruses. So perhaps more than Linux being more "secure," or Windows being more popular, the biggest reason viruses exist on Windows is that Windows has a large userbase of people that will actually "fall for it."
On a side note, Windows ActiveX componets make running arbitrary code (with or without priveleges) easy beyond imagination. There is no equivalent to this in Linux, and is just horrible design from a security standpoint (every Windows developer who works with ActiveX knows it too, or perhaps only the ones I've talked to.). Also, most distributions are set up, or can be easily configured, to automatically updating software (at least with security fixes).
When you give tech support, then you deal with our nation's stupidest.
Windows could, by default, just ask for a user name and password. Then, create two accounts with the same password, one as "Administrator" and the other as the user himself. Then by default you run as the user. Of course, whenever something needing root priveleges comes around, it will ask for his password for verification. The user will think "oh it's asking me for my password again. Well, I'll just type it in." In actuality, he'll be giving superuser priveleges to a program that needs it.
Sigh, perhaps that would only create new problems. I dunno, I'm pretty dumb when it comes to Windows.
You can back up your data. In fact, you should be backing up critical data anyways. Companies are worried about getting taken over because they down want certain data to leave the company, and also losing uptime means losing money.
For home users, actually getting a virus, or getting exploited, is not nearly so much of a problem, unless you lose data. Hence, back it up:)
A root exploit is usually caused by a buffer overrun. Software that uses a port that happens to be open might have a buffer overrun, in which case someone else can feed the software packets larger than what it "expects," and that leftover data in the packet can get executed.
Viruses work in a variety of ways, but most of the time, they don't enter Windows through a root exploit. They can be an email attachment, embedded in a video or picture, etc. In Windows, most users are running as the Administrator, in which case if they're foolish enough to run an untrusted piece of code, or start watching the wrong video, once code gets executed, it automatically has Administrator priveleges. If it doesn't, the fact that Windows message protocols don't carry with them permissions structure, as they do in Unix, getting root priveleges is very easy.
Code executed by a non-root user in Linux cannot do much to gain root access, because the Linux knows that the code is being run with user priveleges, not root priveleges.
Microsoft has since patched their end of the problem, but as another person in this thread mentioned, they covered it up for months. Microsoft high ups have testified in court on several occasions that software design flaws exist in the Windows codebase (including NT) that cannot be fixed that could compromise the security of any Windows computer connected to the net. Not only does the Unix architecture strictly limit what code run by users can do, the response from Open Source projects when discovering security issues is faster in almost all cases, and, well, no one has anything to hide.
That is beyond the scope of my original point, but I thought it worth mentioning.
1) Root exploits aren't viruses.
2) If they tried writing a virus for Konqueror, they would find it a lot more difficult due to Unix being much more virus-resistant by design.
Because it's harder for a cracker to write a virus for Linux than for Windows. Because you have to be an idiot let someone's executable run in Linux with root permissions.
Don't thank KDE, though. Thank the guys that came up with UNIX. Viruses would be tougher than they are now in Windows, too, if MS didn't have you using it as "Administrator" by default because they think you're too stupid to create a user account.
I see you have chosen to take offense at a harmless joke.
My feelings on Gentoo are pretty simple: It's a really cool distribution with a great development team, great forums, and by and large a pretty sharp user base.
Same goes for Debian. But remember when you couldn't find a single Linux related forum (including/.) without seeing a Debian zealot post about how "apt" is "superior" to rpm? There is a small section of Gentoo's userbase that likes to run around the internet telling everyong how great Gentoo is, based on completely silly reasons, such as the ones the employees in my parody had.
If you believe what you have just written above, then you have obviously never actually tried Gentoo.
I don't know what you mean, but I do believe that there are zealots who constantly evangelize Gentoo for stupid reasons. Among the reasons are "no more dependency hell" and "building from source is faster." My personal least favorite reason is "Gentoo gives you way more control." Knowledge gives you control, not your operating system.
There are a lot of cool reasons to use Gentoo, and if I were you, as a Gentoo user, I would be upset at such zealots, who only make you look bad by proliferating the opinion that all Gentoo users are wannabe "l33t" zealots. I choose to look beyond them to formulate my opinion of Gentoo, but nevertheless I am still annoyed by them. I don't generally run around bashing Gentoo, either. Remember, this was a joke. My.sig is merely a passive way to express my opinion of Gentoo zealots, not to "bash" the distribution as a whole.
In reality, I respect Gentoo, and understand it's real strenghts and weaknesses, and my own system looks a lot like a lightweight cousin, actually. Most Gentoo users are sharp, knowledgeable, and friendly. My beef is not with Gentoo, but with Gentoo zealots. Please, don't take my attacks personally, because they're not intended for you. Lighten up, and laugh. That was my intention, not to prove to you that I'm "l33t."
You can expect that Corporations won't look on Slashdot to find the best solution for their needs. I've maintained that position throughout this thread, though. My post you replied to was just a joke, though:) I agree with what you said, however.
PHB: Since we've switched to Gentoo, our power costs have tripled, our systems are constantly bottlenecked by compiling, and bandwidth consumption has doubled. In addition, many employees are wasting company time posting Gentoo plugs at OS-related websites. Care to explain?
Employee (chanting): Gentoo is faster than the other distributions because software is built and optimized for the computer that it will be run on. I have way more control of my system, as well. Gentoo marks the end to dependency hell because of it's superior package management system, portage. I will never use "b0rked" rpm again. Installing software is as easy as "emerge app," and all the dependencies are installed for me! I can update my entire system with one command, "emerge -u world."
PHB: What the hell are you talking about?
Other employees enter the office, all chanting in sync with eachother. They begin to slowly walk towards the PHB. PHB gets frightened.
All the employees (chanting): Gentoo is faster than the other distributions because software is built and optimized for the computer that it will be run on. I have way more control of my system, as well. Gentoo marks the end to dependency hell because of...
Why? Why on earth would Gentoo be a good distribution for the parent post? Can you think of one reason why corporations would ever embrace Gentoo? Gentoo is made by hackers, for hackers. Unfortunately, a bunch of clueless idiots also use it, and try and let the whole world know how bad ass they think it is.
Here's a clue...there's nothing that can be done in Gentoo that can't be done in other distributions, and what Gentoo aims to facilitate (building from source) merely wastes time in large networks. Dependency handling is not a problem when you have smart sysadmins at the helm, anyways.
Red Hat is targeting corporations, and corporations don't care about personal recommendations. They know they need UNIX, and they know that Red Hat Enterprise is as stable and reliable for production servers, and beats most of them at TCO.
My point was that at the very least, gun control should not exist at the federal level, since even if it were the case that cities without gun control are more violent, agrarian communities still need guns to get by.
Guns aren't as necessary in big cities, but they are important in farming communities. Hence, federal regulation of guns is a bad idea, but local and perhaps even state is a good idea. It's senseless to impose the desires of one group against the needs of another.
He could very easily be harborring terrorists and deserve the same attention we paid to Iraq.
Not unless you do what liberals do and stretch the definition of "terrorism" so much that painting the United States as being as bad as Al Quaeda is a matter of fancy footwork.
Honestly, I want to see Bush out of office as much as the next guy, but please. If Bush is harboring terrorists, then the Democrats are too (otherwise they would speak up about it).
You can bet that the Republicans are working harder to find some poop on Howard Dean than they are on finding WMD right now.
The sad thing is, they will probably find something.
This is why we need a strong third party in this country. Mudslinging between three candidiates just wouldn't work as well. Plus debates would be a lot more interesting.
Well, I usually avoid posting about Gentoo zealots, but keep my.sig around because I still see Gentoo zealots all the time. Next time I see an off topic anti-Gentoo zealot post, I'll tell them that they're a hypocrite:)
One of Gentoo's real strenths is that it provides the tools that take the tedium out of dependency resolution and compilation (a form of *BSD 'ports' on steroids), without obfuscating the underlying *NIX configurations and filesystem organization. This allows relative newcomers to learn how to setup a GNU/Linux system step by step, understand its organization and how it all fits together, without getting lost in the quagmire of learning the intricacies of autoconf, make, gcc, python or perl scripting.
I agree, Gentoo does this very well. However, there is no rule that forces distributions like Mandrake to include so much software by default. If they would just focus on getting hardware detection right, and setting up a nice, clean desktop, then installing the software they need on top of it. The goal for most users is to know that nothing is on their system that isn't necessary, and any distribution that builds from the "ground up" philosophy is going to give the user this. Any distribution that tries to install everything, then expect the user to either remove what he doesn't want or live with the extra cruft, is not helping the user reach this goal at all.
People who are in to such things tend to become quite ecstatic when they discover such a platform, and such an implimentation. The rest of us, who like to just get work done with a minimum of fuss, may or may not find it appealing. I personally find it to be the best distro I've used by far (and I've been using Linux since the days before distros of any kind even existed...before X even ran on it)... but I'm sure in the not so distant future something even cooler, from some other quadrant, will come along and surpass it.
Perhaps. I believe Gentoo is a really good distribution. My beef is with the zealots, of which you are clearly not part of. And those who "become quite ecstatic" should express that feeling, where appropriate.
Well, as with any project, there are those few who are rabidly zealous and seem to have an overdeveloped evangelical streak. Debian, Mandrake, and others have had their fair share of overzealous enthusiasts as well (as does Mac OS X and, I fear, Windows...though one never knows how many of the latter aren't simply bought and paid for, at sub-industry wages and without medical benefits, no doubt).
Yes, but for some reason the Gentoo zealots really annoy me. I guess I just see them around more.
I am glad, however, that they are evangelizing a Linux distro rather than a real-world religious cult a la $cientology or Mormonism. That having been said, it is natural for people who discover something new that really, really rocks in their mind to want to tell others, particularly if they think it might help someone who is having trouble.
I agree.
An example where I was guilty of this was with 'transcode', a swiss-army knife tool for converting between various audio and video formats, backing up DVDs, and even authoring one's own DVDs from home video footage. It is a bear to compile, having done so myself under Mandrake, Debian, and others. Someone was having an inordinant amount of trouble getting the thing to work under Mandrake (the binaries didn't work properly, and the source dependencies are, well, hellacious to put it mildly). Having been down that road myself under both Debian and Mandrake, and having found it incredibly easy to install under Gentoo, I suggested that the user might want to try out Gentoo as an alternative. He did, got the thing installed with no trouble, and was greatful.
That's cool...that was totally cool. But there is a difference between that and saying "dude, rpm sucks. everything is easy for me. i just type 'emerge app' and everything is taken care of." You solved a problem. Spreading help is one thing, self promotion is another.
The question is, was that an off-topic bit of gentoo zealotry, or an ontopic suggestion to someone having trouble getting a notoriously difficult-to-insta
What we need is respect for the Constitution in America. Enough of this BS of Congress passing laws that are unconstitutional and the President signing off on them. Congressmen should be fined or punished or something similar every time a law is found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. That would get them back to passing good laws quickly.
I totally agree with that. I think you called me a "sorry sorry fool" because my agreement bconway implied that I believed that the Chinese have free access to information. I know the CHinese government to be exactly the opposite, but I agreed with bconway on the fact that Americans and Chines alike know that the Chinese government is unruly, corrupt, and totalitarian. The American government (and it pains me to say this) is quickly headed in the same direction. That was the source of my agreement, not that the Chinese have a more free society than ours.
You fool. You sorry sorry fool. You have no idea how good you have it.
I really had a hard time taking this post seriously.
Until you've seen the face of a person terrified at the idea of meeting any police, or a person shaking after getting a ticket, or a person afraid to talk to anyone in government, then you should talk.
Given that I have lived in China (and other underdeveloped nations), and have seen all of this first hand, I do believe that you must grant me the authority to speak on this matter, based on the statement above.
We are free. We are very free. You can walk up to the White House and picket it. You can drive your truck with a rifle in the back. You can say what you want on the Internet. You can read the books you want.
Let's keep it that way, mmm kay? Although your tone resembles a dogmatic chant more than an argument....
Even if another terrorist attack occurs, do you think they're going to take these liberties away? No. The government won't. In fact, they can't. Because people like myself speak up and let people like you know what is going on. Because people like myself are armed and watching.
In my opinion, everyone should be armed and watching. I don't like the idea of a nation who entrusts their liberties in "people like yourself," who claim to be experts without introducing themselves first.
Our founding fathers knew what they were doing a hell of a lot better than you give them credit for.
What do I give them credit for? What did they do that exceeds my acknowledgement?
My point is that just like a GUI is cool = My point is that, just like a GUI may be really cool, it still needs programs to go along with it, so do the shells.
I disagreed that differences... = I disagreed, since differences...
I didn't make myself clear initially. No, I'm not confusing a shell for command line tools. My point is that just like a GUI is cool, it needs programs to go along with it, so do shells. They need good command line tools.
The essential command line tools have already matured to the point where they work well for everyone. My parent post hypothesized that this next generation CLI could be miles ahead of any other. I disagreed that differences in shells are negligible next to the tools being used. Were Microsoft to release a CLI that blew bash+GNU *tools out of the water, for example, it would require Microsoft to develop entirely new, and much improved tools. Hence, an undertaking of similar size as rewriting DOS.
My original statement was off, and I admit that, but do you see what my point is now? I know how much fun it is to take people's quotes and nitpick them, but it is important to also try and understand what people are *saying* as well.
Slashdot Mirror
So people are buying individual songs off the internet more often than CD singles. That's great, but what about CDs themselves?
Perhaps another wrench to throw in this equation is that Windows users are going to be, on average, less computer, shall we say, savvy? Nothting against them, I mean computers aren't that important, but one of the biggest components in spreading a virus is user gullibility.
Linux users range from being somewhat knowledgeable about Windows but clueless at Linux to full blown pros. The most clueless among us will still have dealt with Windows and viruses at some point. Basically, very few Linux users will be gullible enough to perform many of the actions required to perpetuate many if not mosf viruses. So perhaps more than Linux being more "secure," or Windows being more popular, the biggest reason viruses exist on Windows is that Windows has a large userbase of people that will actually "fall for it."
On a side note, Windows ActiveX componets make running arbitrary code (with or without priveleges) easy beyond imagination. There is no equivalent to this in Linux, and is just horrible design from a security standpoint (every Windows developer who works with ActiveX knows it too, or perhaps only the ones I've talked to.). Also, most distributions are set up, or can be easily configured, to automatically updating software (at least with security fixes).
Windows could, by default, just ask for a user name and password. Then, create two accounts with the same password, one as "Administrator" and the other as the user himself. Then by default you run as the user. Of course, whenever something needing root priveleges comes around, it will ask for his password for verification. The user will think "oh it's asking me for my password again. Well, I'll just type it in." In actuality, he'll be giving superuser priveleges to a program that needs it.
Sigh, perhaps that would only create new problems. I dunno, I'm pretty dumb when it comes to Windows.
I'm not against Gentoo, just Gentoo zealots.
For home users, actually getting a virus, or getting exploited, is not nearly so much of a problem, unless you lose data. Hence, back it up :)
Viruses work in a variety of ways, but most of the time, they don't enter Windows through a root exploit. They can be an email attachment, embedded in a video or picture, etc. In Windows, most users are running as the Administrator, in which case if they're foolish enough to run an untrusted piece of code, or start watching the wrong video, once code gets executed, it automatically has Administrator priveleges. If it doesn't, the fact that Windows message protocols don't carry with them permissions structure, as they do in Unix, getting root priveleges is very easy.
Code executed by a non-root user in Linux cannot do much to gain root access, because the Linux knows that the code is being run with user priveleges, not root priveleges.
Microsoft has since patched their end of the problem, but as another person in this thread mentioned, they covered it up for months. Microsoft high ups have testified in court on several occasions that software design flaws exist in the Windows codebase (including NT) that cannot be fixed that could compromise the security of any Windows computer connected to the net. Not only does the Unix architecture strictly limit what code run by users can do, the response from Open Source projects when discovering security issues is faster in almost all cases, and, well, no one has anything to hide.
That is beyond the scope of my original point, but I thought it worth mentioning.
1) Root exploits aren't viruses.
2) If they tried writing a virus for Konqueror, they would find it a lot more difficult due to Unix being much more virus-resistant by design.
Don't thank KDE, though. Thank the guys that came up with UNIX. Viruses would be tougher than they are now in Windows, too, if MS didn't have you using it as "Administrator" by default because they think you're too stupid to create a user account.
My feelings on Gentoo are pretty simple: It's a really cool distribution with a great development team, great forums, and by and large a pretty sharp user base.
Same goes for Debian. But remember when you couldn't find a single Linux related forum (including /.) without seeing a Debian zealot post about how "apt" is "superior" to rpm? There is a small section of Gentoo's userbase that likes to run around the internet telling everyong how great Gentoo is, based on completely silly reasons, such as the ones the employees in my parody had.
If you believe what you have just written above, then you have obviously never actually tried Gentoo.
I don't know what you mean, but I do believe that there are zealots who constantly evangelize Gentoo for stupid reasons. Among the reasons are "no more dependency hell" and "building from source is faster." My personal least favorite reason is "Gentoo gives you way more control." Knowledge gives you control, not your operating system.
There are a lot of cool reasons to use Gentoo, and if I were you, as a Gentoo user, I would be upset at such zealots, who only make you look bad by proliferating the opinion that all Gentoo users are wannabe "l33t" zealots. I choose to look beyond them to formulate my opinion of Gentoo, but nevertheless I am still annoyed by them. I don't generally run around bashing Gentoo, either. Remember, this was a joke. My .sig is merely a passive way to express my opinion of Gentoo zealots, not to "bash" the distribution as a whole.
In reality, I respect Gentoo, and understand it's real strenghts and weaknesses, and my own system looks a lot like a lightweight cousin, actually. Most Gentoo users are sharp, knowledgeable, and friendly. My beef is not with Gentoo, but with Gentoo zealots. Please, don't take my attacks personally, because they're not intended for you. Lighten up, and laugh. That was my intention, not to prove to you that I'm "l33t."
You can expect that Corporations won't look on Slashdot to find the best solution for their needs. I've maintained that position throughout this thread, though. My post you replied to was just a joke, though :) I agree with what you said, however.
Employee (chanting): Gentoo is faster than the other distributions because software is built and optimized for the computer that it will be run on. I have way more control of my system, as well. Gentoo marks the end to dependency hell because of it's superior package management system, portage. I will never use "b0rked" rpm again. Installing software is as easy as "emerge app," and all the dependencies are installed for me! I can update my entire system with one command, "emerge -u world."
PHB: What the hell are you talking about?
Other employees enter the office, all chanting in sync with eachother. They begin to slowly walk towards the PHB. PHB gets frightened.
All the employees (chanting): Gentoo is faster than the other distributions because software is built and optimized for the computer that it will be run on. I have way more control of my system, as well. Gentoo marks the end to dependency hell because of...
PHB: No, this isn't happening. NOOOOOOOOO!
Fadeout. Credits.
Here's a clue...there's nothing that can be done in Gentoo that can't be done in other distributions, and what Gentoo aims to facilitate (building from source) merely wastes time in large networks. Dependency handling is not a problem when you have smart sysadmins at the helm, anyways.
Pay no heed to Gentoo zealots, for they know not what they speak of.
Red Hat is targeting corporations, and corporations don't care about personal recommendations. They know they need UNIX, and they know that Red Hat Enterprise is as stable and reliable for production servers, and beats most of them at TCO.
My point was that at the very least, gun control should not exist at the federal level, since even if it were the case that cities without gun control are more violent, agrarian communities still need guns to get by.
Guns aren't as necessary in big cities, but they are important in farming communities. Hence, federal regulation of guns is a bad idea, but local and perhaps even state is a good idea. It's senseless to impose the desires of one group against the needs of another.
Yes, that is all correct. Civil liberties good, Republicans bad. But it's a long shot to suggest that Dubya is harboring terrorists.
Not unless you do what liberals do and stretch the definition of "terrorism" so much that painting the United States as being as bad as Al Quaeda is a matter of fancy footwork.
Honestly, I want to see Bush out of office as much as the next guy, but please. If Bush is harboring terrorists, then the Democrats are too (otherwise they would speak up about it).
The sad thing is, they will probably find something.
This is why we need a strong third party in this country. Mudslinging between three candidiates just wouldn't work as well. Plus debates would be a lot more interesting.
Well, I usually avoid posting about Gentoo zealots, but keep my .sig around because I still see Gentoo zealots all the time. Next time I see an off topic anti-Gentoo zealot post, I'll tell them that they're a hypocrite :)
I agree, Gentoo does this very well. However, there is no rule that forces distributions like Mandrake to include so much software by default. If they would just focus on getting hardware detection right, and setting up a nice, clean desktop, then installing the software they need on top of it. The goal for most users is to know that nothing is on their system that isn't necessary, and any distribution that builds from the "ground up" philosophy is going to give the user this. Any distribution that tries to install everything, then expect the user to either remove what he doesn't want or live with the extra cruft, is not helping the user reach this goal at all.
People who are in to such things tend to become quite ecstatic when they discover such a platform, and such an implimentation. The rest of us, who like to just get work done with a minimum of fuss, may or may not find it appealing. I personally find it to be the best distro I've used by far (and I've been using Linux since the days before distros of any kind even existed...before X even ran on it) ... but I'm sure in the not so distant future something even cooler, from some other quadrant, will come along and surpass it.
Perhaps. I believe Gentoo is a really good distribution. My beef is with the zealots, of which you are clearly not part of. And those who "become quite ecstatic" should express that feeling, where appropriate.
Well, as with any project, there are those few who are rabidly zealous and seem to have an overdeveloped evangelical streak. Debian, Mandrake, and others have had their fair share of overzealous enthusiasts as well (as does Mac OS X and, I fear, Windows...though one never knows how many of the latter aren't simply bought and paid for, at sub-industry wages and without medical benefits, no doubt).
Yes, but for some reason the Gentoo zealots really annoy me. I guess I just see them around more.
I am glad, however, that they are evangelizing a Linux distro rather than a real-world religious cult a la $cientology or Mormonism. That having been said, it is natural for people who discover something new that really, really rocks in their mind to want to tell others, particularly if they think it might help someone who is having trouble.
I agree.
An example where I was guilty of this was with 'transcode', a swiss-army knife tool for converting between various audio and video formats, backing up DVDs, and even authoring one's own DVDs from home video footage. It is a bear to compile, having done so myself under Mandrake, Debian, and others. Someone was having an inordinant amount of trouble getting the thing to work under Mandrake (the binaries didn't work properly, and the source dependencies are, well, hellacious to put it mildly). Having been down that road myself under both Debian and Mandrake, and having found it incredibly easy to install under Gentoo, I suggested that the user might want to try out Gentoo as an alternative. He did, got the thing installed with no trouble, and was greatful.
That's cool...that was totally cool. But there is a difference between that and saying "dude, rpm sucks. everything is easy for me. i just type 'emerge app' and everything is taken care of." You solved a problem. Spreading help is one thing, self promotion is another.
The question is, was that an off-topic bit of gentoo zealotry, or an ontopic suggestion to someone having trouble getting a notoriously difficult-to-insta
I totally agree with that. I think you called me a "sorry sorry fool" because my agreement bconway implied that I believed that the Chinese have free access to information. I know the CHinese government to be exactly the opposite, but I agreed with bconway on the fact that Americans and Chines alike know that the Chinese government is unruly, corrupt, and totalitarian. The American government (and it pains me to say this) is quickly headed in the same direction. That was the source of my agreement, not that the Chinese have a more free society than ours.
You fool. You sorry sorry fool. You have no idea how good you have it.
I really had a hard time taking this post seriously.
Until you've seen the face of a person terrified at the idea of meeting any police, or a person shaking after getting a ticket, or a person afraid to talk to anyone in government, then you should talk.
Given that I have lived in China (and other underdeveloped nations), and have seen all of this first hand, I do believe that you must grant me the authority to speak on this matter, based on the statement above.
We are free. We are very free. You can walk up to the White House and picket it. You can drive your truck with a rifle in the back. You can say what you want on the Internet. You can read the books you want.
Let's keep it that way, mmm kay? Although your tone resembles a dogmatic chant more than an argument....
Even if another terrorist attack occurs, do you think they're going to take these liberties away? No. The government won't. In fact, they can't. Because people like myself speak up and let people like you know what is going on. Because people like myself are armed and watching.
In my opinion, everyone should be armed and watching. I don't like the idea of a nation who entrusts their liberties in "people like yourself," who claim to be experts without introducing themselves first.
Our founding fathers knew what they were doing a hell of a lot better than you give them credit for.
What do I give them credit for? What did they do that exceeds my acknowledgement?
My point is that just like a GUI is cool = My point is that, just like a GUI may be really cool, it still needs programs to go along with it, so do the shells.
I disagreed that differences ... = I disagreed, since differences ...
The essential command line tools have already matured to the point where they work well for everyone. My parent post hypothesized that this next generation CLI could be miles ahead of any other. I disagreed that differences in shells are negligible next to the tools being used. Were Microsoft to release a CLI that blew bash+GNU *tools out of the water, for example, it would require Microsoft to develop entirely new, and much improved tools. Hence, an undertaking of similar size as rewriting DOS.
My original statement was off, and I admit that, but do you see what my point is now? I know how much fun it is to take people's quotes and nitpick them, but it is important to also try and understand what people are *saying* as well.