Everything else was cheaper in holland, gas has always been cheaper in germany... It was not uncommon for germans living near the border to buy food and such in holland. The Euro has levelled the prices for a lot of things.
Trying to get people to stop using cars is basically forcing them to reduce their quality of life... There are simply no viable alternatives to many car uses for a lot of people.
Public transport is useless, its dirty, unreliable, often unsafe, overcrowded (yes i know the roads can be crowded too, but at least you have somewhere comfortable to sit in a car and can stop to take a break), doesn't run all night and is even more useless outside of large cities.
Riding bikes is only practical for short distances, where its not too hilly and where it's safe to do so... This is why so many people ride bikes in holland, the population is densely packed, the ground is flat and there are cycle routes everywhere. In other places, cyclists are expected to share the roads with large dangerous vehicles and aren't allowed to ride on the sidewalk - even if the sidewalk is empty and the road is full of vehicles, thus slowing down the vehicles (causing them to waste more fuel) and increasing the danger for the cyclist.
Taking away people's personal transportation is a terrible thing to do, having your own car massively increases your quality of life and this is not a new thing, having your own horse has done this for hundreds of years and now people are trying to force us to take a massive step backwards.
Lack of personal transportation will force people to live in overcrowded ghettos, since public transport is not profitable/practical without a high population...
Ubuntu's major updates bring an optional UI change, there's nothing stopping you continuing to use the old UI. Ubuntu also supports various alternative interfaces (kubuntu, xubuntu etc).
Depends on your definition of "fine", XP certainly ran fine on 2001 era desktops, but SP3 slows it down quite a lot.
And as you point out, Ubuntu will perform ok on older hardware if you turn off the optional graphical effects. Windows generally doesn't give you the option, XP doesn't have anything like that, and vista/7 will disable aero if they decide your hardware isn't up to it. Ubuntu users have the choice of turning the effects on, even on hardware that might struggle with it.
It's all about choice, it might not be a good idea to enable fancy graphical effects on an old lowed desktop, but that should be the user's choice, not a decision forced upon him by the software author.
They will most likely sell the DC itself for a fraction of what it cost the taxpayers to build... Coincidentally, the company that gets the bargain new DC will probably have a few politicians on the board.
The failure of Unix GUIs has more to do with cost than anything else... Even a lowend SGI desktop cost considerably more than an NT box, and as the performance gap closed it became increasingly hard to justify the extra cost.
Windows also has it's own incompatible GUI, it is far less compatible with anything else than unixes have ever been with each other. And not just the GUI, the entire user land is simply not compatible with anything else at all. The same was also true of MacOS 10, AmigaOS, etc...
Similarly, the windows interface has always been pretty crude, and in many ways worse than the various guis offered by proprietary unixes (the lack of virtual workspaces being my biggest gripe).
The beauty of unix however, has always been that you could replace the default gui with a different one easily. I used to run Afterstep on a Sun box because CDE/OpenWin were terrible as you say.
Linux provides choice, and in virtually every other aspect of daily life there are choices... The idea of a computing monoculture is an anomaly, not something to aspire to.
There are many brands of virtually all consumer goods, and most brands then have a large number of models to choose from. There's no reason software should be any different. The only thing we need, is standards so people can choose the software they want and then interoperate on a level playing field.
You started out on a platform that encouraged you to learn, windows actively discourages curiosity and learning... People who start on non windows platforms tend to have no trouble adapting to other systems, but those who start on windows tend to become pigeonholed.
Businesses today may use windows, but when i went to school businesses were using dos, mainframes, and some old unix machines etc. It's pointless for kids of today to get stuck on windows, especially a version that is already out of date. When they leave school and go to find jobs who knows what businesses will be using? If they're still using windows, it will be a very different version to xp.
XP as it shipped originally is a lot less resource hungry than the current iteration with all service packs applied... It's unlikely that those early XP machines will run the current version adequately either, and an install of XP with no service packs is a totally irresponsible thing to use.
Define "unsupported"... When XP becomes unsupported, you have to buy a major upgrade. While XP is still supported, you get minor updates (hot fixes) and major updates (service packs) for free.
Ubuntu works in much the same way, you get minor updates and major updates (which are called released), all of which are free.
If you assume "unsupported" to mean "no more free updates" then even the earliest version of Ubuntu is actually still supported and will continue to be.
Incidentally, XP with no service packs is no longer supported, you are required to install SP3 if you want support.
If these kids are being given computers by a charity, chances are its because they can't afford to buy one themselves... As such, will know jack shit about anything computer related.
Similarly they won't have much money, so they aren't going to be buying software for it at walmart.. They will be using software that is free, wether that means pirated or freely distributable probably won't matter to them.
Also, the idea of buying software at walmart is antiquated, why would anyone want to do that when they have a repository system built in? The repository model is just better, especially for non geeks... That's why Apple is moving that way. Do you think the iPhone or android apps would be so successful if you had to go to a store and buy apps on physical media?
Linux is better as an educational platform because it encourages people to learn, and kids are naturally inquisitive... You don't want to give kids a system that tells them "don't look in this directory, it could be dangerous".. You want a system that encourages them to learn.
If your giving computers to a charity, its likely that the people who end up using the machines are doing so because they don't normally have access to computers, in which case they will be unfamiliar with whatever you put on them...
That said, linux is a better choice because its more complete/usable by default, more difficult to screw up, much safer on the internet by default and you can run a modern version for free. Also linux will encourage them to learn the system in depth if they so desire (and kids are naturally inquisitive), while windows actively discourages such things.
It's important that kids learn about different systems early on, so they won't be afraid of encountering different systems later in life... Lots of people who have never had exposure to anything other than windows have trouble when presented with anything else, even a different version of windows. If these computers are going to young kids, then you can pretty much guarantee that none of their potential employers will be using xp when they leave school.
Similarly when i'm interviewing people for IT jobs, i find that people who started out on Commodore/Atari era machines, early dos or on unix are generally much more skilled and more adaptable than people who started out on windows... People who start out on windows, even if they later tried to learn linux/unix never seem to be quite as good, and generally treat unix as if it was windows (i.e. not making proper use of package management, shell features like pipes or virtual desktops etc).
Under a typical/default configuration, a domain has full control over a local machine once it has been joined to the domain... Buy that's not the point, the fact that having compromised the *server* you can take control of the *clients* is a given in any distributed authentication scheme, be it nis, kerberos, ldap or whatever...
The problem discussed in the article is that having compromised a single *client* you can take control of the server or other clients. Windows has such problems too, for instance once a domain user is logged in their password hash is stored on the system where it can be retrieved and then used. Also since most machines are built from images, local admin passwords are often the same and thanks to hash passing vulnerabilities can be used immediately without having to crack them (and as such irrespective of how strong the password is).
Windows of today still has NTLM and NTLMv2 enabled by default... It also still supports LANMAN although that is disabled by default in the latest versions. It is also apparently possible to do hash passing attacks even with only kerberos enabled, although i'm not aware of tools for doing that being widely available yet.
Ideally compromising a single client should get you nowhere (and many admins incorrectly assume this to be true)... But as some recent high profile attacks show, a serious attack can easily start from a single unimportant workstation, and there are many ways to compromise a single workstation (social engineering, browser exploit, malicious document exploiting whatever app they open it with etc)...
What is really needed, is a complete rethink of the old perimeter defence model... Although you can (and should) take steps to reduce the chances of the perimeter being breached in the above ways, if you don't pay attention to internal security then once a single small breach has happened its game over for you.
AD doesn't require and exclusively make use of kerberos, it can (and by default does, although which ones depend on the version) use weaker authentication schemes (ntlm, ntlmv2, lanman)... Apparently the hash passing vulnerabilities also exist when using kerberos only, its just that tools to exploit this are not publicly available to do this yet.
Windows machines can be pretty secure on their own too, but once hooked up to an active directory domain they are only as secure as the weakest point...
Also, this seems to be a particular authentication scheme which is flawed, windows has similar flawed schemes (google: pass the hash).
Finally this just seems to be a stupid bug in a service used for pushing updates, and should therefore be relatively easy to fix.
Sounds just like outlook and exchange, ignore RFCs whenever you possibly can. Kinda makes sense for zimbra, since its outlook/exchange they're looking to replace but still not good.
Set user limits (memory, cpu etc) on the user that runs each service... I've only ever had mail servers consume huge amounts of ram when they're being flooded (i.e. a very active spam campaign) so the mail server going down for a few minutes usually helps (legitimate mail will wait and try again later).
Or they raise their fees so they can continue paying the same or larger bonuses, and then when on the verge of bankruptcy they go to the government and ask for a handout.
Not just larger cars, but large vehicles in general.. You will always have trucks, buses, etc on the roads. There are also many crashes involving a car hitting other objects. Not all crashes are cars hitting other cars.
But the point is that if you were caught doing 10-20mph above the posted limit you would almost certainly be punished for doing so... Whereas many corporations are caught doing illegal things, and simply aren't punished at all.
There's a difference between simply not being caught, and being caught but let off with little or no punishment. The fact we hear about something in the news means they've already been caught, how many other crimes go undetected?
Only Apple have to support the hardware as well, whereas MS defer hardware support to the third parties who actually make that hardware.
And as someone else has pointed out, this doesn't affect every macbook of a particular model, just some... And the question is, what's different about those particular units? What third party software are they running, have they installed any third party hardware, does the machine still crash if you install a stock lion onto it with nothing else?
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Everything else was cheaper in holland, gas has always been cheaper in germany... It was not uncommon for germans living near the border to buy food and such in holland.
The Euro has levelled the prices for a lot of things.
People will just keep running their old tires as long as they can, long after the point at which they become unsafe...
Trying to get people to stop using cars is basically forcing them to reduce their quality of life... There are simply no viable alternatives to many car uses for a lot of people.
Public transport is useless, its dirty, unreliable, often unsafe, overcrowded (yes i know the roads can be crowded too, but at least you have somewhere comfortable to sit in a car and can stop to take a break), doesn't run all night and is even more useless outside of large cities.
Riding bikes is only practical for short distances, where its not too hilly and where it's safe to do so... This is why so many people ride bikes in holland, the population is densely packed, the ground is flat and there are cycle routes everywhere. In other places, cyclists are expected to share the roads with large dangerous vehicles and aren't allowed to ride on the sidewalk - even if the sidewalk is empty and the road is full of vehicles, thus slowing down the vehicles (causing them to waste more fuel) and increasing the danger for the cyclist.
Taking away people's personal transportation is a terrible thing to do, having your own car massively increases your quality of life and this is not a new thing, having your own horse has done this for hundreds of years and now people are trying to force us to take a massive step backwards.
Lack of personal transportation will force people to live in overcrowded ghettos, since public transport is not profitable/practical without a high population...
Ubuntu's major updates bring an optional UI change, there's nothing stopping you continuing to use the old UI. Ubuntu also supports various alternative interfaces (kubuntu, xubuntu etc).
Depends on your definition of "fine", XP certainly ran fine on 2001 era desktops, but SP3 slows it down quite a lot.
And as you point out, Ubuntu will perform ok on older hardware if you turn off the optional graphical effects. Windows generally doesn't give you the option, XP doesn't have anything like that, and vista/7 will disable aero if they decide your hardware isn't up to it. Ubuntu users have the choice of turning the effects on, even on hardware that might struggle with it.
It's all about choice, it might not be a good idea to enable fancy graphical effects on an old lowed desktop, but that should be the user's choice, not a decision forced upon him by the software author.
They will most likely sell the DC itself for a fraction of what it cost the taxpayers to build... Coincidentally, the company that gets the bargain new DC will probably have a few politicians on the board.
The failure of Unix GUIs has more to do with cost than anything else...
Even a lowend SGI desktop cost considerably more than an NT box, and as the performance gap closed it became increasingly hard to justify the extra cost.
Windows also has it's own incompatible GUI, it is far less compatible with anything else than unixes have ever been with each other. And not just the GUI, the entire user land is simply not compatible with anything else at all.
The same was also true of MacOS 10, AmigaOS, etc...
Similarly, the windows interface has always been pretty crude, and in many ways worse than the various guis offered by proprietary unixes (the lack of virtual workspaces being my biggest gripe).
The beauty of unix however, has always been that you could replace the default gui with a different one easily. I used to run Afterstep on a Sun box because CDE/OpenWin were terrible as you say.
Linux provides choice, and in virtually every other aspect of daily life there are choices... The idea of a computing monoculture is an anomaly, not something to aspire to.
There are many brands of virtually all consumer goods, and most brands then have a large number of models to choose from. There's no reason software should be any different. The only thing we need, is standards so people can choose the software they want and then interoperate on a level playing field.
I used to run Quake and Doom on Linux for the same reason...
Most half decent printers will just work with linux, without needing to insert a cd. I don't even have CD readers in most of my machines.
You started out on a platform that encouraged you to learn, windows actively discourages curiosity and learning... People who start on non windows platforms tend to have no trouble adapting to other systems, but those who start on windows tend to become pigeonholed.
Businesses today may use windows, but when i went to school businesses were using dos, mainframes, and some old unix machines etc. It's pointless for kids of today to get stuck on windows, especially a version that is already out of date. When they leave school and go to find jobs who knows what businesses will be using? If they're still using windows, it will be a very different version to xp.
XP as it shipped originally is a lot less resource hungry than the current iteration with all service packs applied... It's unlikely that those early XP machines will run the current version adequately either, and an install of XP with no service packs is a totally irresponsible thing to use.
Define "unsupported"...
When XP becomes unsupported, you have to buy a major upgrade.
While XP is still supported, you get minor updates (hot fixes) and major updates (service packs) for free.
Ubuntu works in much the same way, you get minor updates and major updates (which are called released), all of which are free.
If you assume "unsupported" to mean "no more free updates" then even the earliest version of Ubuntu is actually still supported and will continue to be.
Incidentally, XP with no service packs is no longer supported, you are required to install SP3 if you want support.
If these kids are being given computers by a charity, chances are its because they can't afford to buy one themselves... As such, will know jack shit about anything computer related.
Similarly they won't have much money, so they aren't going to be buying software for it at walmart.. They will be using software that is free, wether that means pirated or freely distributable probably won't matter to them.
Also, the idea of buying software at walmart is antiquated, why would anyone want to do that when they have a repository system built in? The repository model is just better, especially for non geeks... That's why Apple is moving that way. Do you think the iPhone or android apps would be so successful if you had to go to a store and buy apps on physical media?
Linux is better as an educational platform because it encourages people to learn, and kids are naturally inquisitive... You don't want to give kids a system that tells them "don't look in this directory, it could be dangerous".. You want a system that encourages them to learn.
If your giving computers to a charity, its likely that the people who end up using the machines are doing so because they don't normally have access to computers, in which case they will be unfamiliar with whatever you put on them...
That said, linux is a better choice because its more complete/usable by default, more difficult to screw up, much safer on the internet by default and you can run a modern version for free. Also linux will encourage them to learn the system in depth if they so desire (and kids are naturally inquisitive), while windows actively discourages such things.
It's important that kids learn about different systems early on, so they won't be afraid of encountering different systems later in life... Lots of people who have never had exposure to anything other than windows have trouble when presented with anything else, even a different version of windows. If these computers are going to young kids, then you can pretty much guarantee that none of their potential employers will be using xp when they leave school.
Similarly when i'm interviewing people for IT jobs, i find that people who started out on Commodore/Atari era machines, early dos or on unix are generally much more skilled and more adaptable than people who started out on windows... People who start out on windows, even if they later tried to learn linux/unix never seem to be quite as good, and generally treat unix as if it was windows (i.e. not making proper use of package management, shell features like pipes or virtual desktops etc).
Under a typical/default configuration, a domain has full control over a local machine once it has been joined to the domain... Buy that's not the point, the fact that having compromised the *server* you can take control of the *clients* is a given in any distributed authentication scheme, be it nis, kerberos, ldap or whatever...
The problem discussed in the article is that having compromised a single *client* you can take control of the server or other clients. Windows has such problems too, for instance once a domain user is logged in their password hash is stored on the system where it can be retrieved and then used. Also since most machines are built from images, local admin passwords are often the same and thanks to hash passing vulnerabilities can be used immediately without having to crack them (and as such irrespective of how strong the password is).
Windows of today still has NTLM and NTLMv2 enabled by default... It also still supports LANMAN although that is disabled by default in the latest versions. It is also apparently possible to do hash passing attacks even with only kerberos enabled, although i'm not aware of tools for doing that being widely available yet.
Ideally compromising a single client should get you nowhere (and many admins incorrectly assume this to be true)... But as some recent high profile attacks show, a serious attack can easily start from a single unimportant workstation, and there are many ways to compromise a single workstation (social engineering, browser exploit, malicious document exploiting whatever app they open it with etc)...
What is really needed, is a complete rethink of the old perimeter defence model... Although you can (and should) take steps to reduce the chances of the perimeter being breached in the above ways, if you don't pay attention to internal security then once a single small breach has happened its game over for you.
AD doesn't require and exclusively make use of kerberos, it can (and by default does, although which ones depend on the version) use weaker authentication schemes (ntlm, ntlmv2, lanman)... Apparently the hash passing vulnerabilities also exist when using kerberos only, its just that tools to exploit this are not publicly available to do this yet.
But it doesn't *require* DHX, therefore it should be a relatively easy patch to make it possible to force DHX off at all times.
Windows machines can be pretty secure on their own too, but once hooked up to an active directory domain they are only as secure as the weakest point...
Also, this seems to be a particular authentication scheme which is flawed, windows has similar flawed schemes (google: pass the hash).
Finally this just seems to be a stupid bug in a service used for pushing updates, and should therefore be relatively easy to fix.
Sounds just like outlook and exchange, ignore RFCs whenever you possibly can. Kinda makes sense for zimbra, since its outlook/exchange they're looking to replace but still not good.
Set user limits (memory, cpu etc) on the user that runs each service...
I've only ever had mail servers consume huge amounts of ram when they're being flooded (i.e. a very active spam campaign) so the mail server going down for a few minutes usually helps (legitimate mail will wait and try again later).
Or they raise their fees so they can continue paying the same or larger bonuses, and then when on the verge of bankruptcy they go to the government and ask for a handout.
Not just larger cars, but large vehicles in general..
You will always have trucks, buses, etc on the roads. There are also many crashes involving a car hitting other objects. Not all crashes are cars hitting other cars.
But the point is that if you were caught doing 10-20mph above the posted limit you would almost certainly be punished for doing so...
Whereas many corporations are caught doing illegal things, and simply aren't punished at all.
There's a difference between simply not being caught, and being caught but let off with little or no punishment. The fact we hear about something in the news means they've already been caught, how many other crimes go undetected?
Only Apple have to support the hardware as well, whereas MS defer hardware support to the third parties who actually make that hardware.
And as someone else has pointed out, this doesn't affect every macbook of a particular model, just some... And the question is, what's different about those particular units?
What third party software are they running, have they installed any third party hardware, does the machine still crash if you install a stock lion onto it with nothing else?
Why does your fileserver require a video card?