I wish the other pro-Windows posters in here were as reasoned as you are.
You've tried it, don't like it & know exactly the reasons why not - nobody can fault you for it.
I just hope that someone somewhere listens to what difficulties you had and makes a note of it - then maybe some time in the future, you might have a mind to try again.
Actually, it's usually "gunzip" and "tar xvf" to do that.
find where program was uncompressed to
Normally in your current directory, found out by issuing the command "pwd".
config, compile,
If you're installing from a CD, you'll probably have to run an "install.sh" script. Otherwise, you'll run an installation packager like RPM.
On the compile front, normally you do:
configure
make
make install
find where program was compiled to
That's usually defined in the configure script although most people usually just go read the INSTALL file included with the source.
Sigh! If you don't like Linux, that's fine, but at least do some research first and make the rest of us feel like you know what you're talking about...
Generalised statements like these always leave me in some doubt about the person that made the statement. Surely you can remember whether it was "SuSE 9.0", "RedHat 7.3", "Acme Linux 12.3", etc. that you installed?
Sorry but Linux is not for the main stream user and won't be for a very long time.
Linux will always assume that you are taking some responsibility for your computer & the applications you run on it - with that responsibility comes a requirement to sit down and learn how the software works & how you configure it. If you're not prepared to do that, don't use it... it really *IS* that simple.
Linux is still playing catchup and will be for a very long time.
"Catchup" with what??? The concept of what Linux is, namely a UNIX-type operating system, has been around now for more than 30 years! Sure, it's become more user-friendly with better desktop environments, etc, but it's *STILL* UNIX.
BTW why is Linux content copying everything MS?
I presume you mean copying the GUI-type functionality of windows, icons & mouse-clicks - the same one Microsoft copied from Xerox who originally invented it.
You're also contradicting yourself - you say Linux is not for the mainstream user yet you complain when it tries to emulate the GUI environment of Windows that most people are familiar with. I think you need to decide what it is you want...
If I wanted windows I'd buy windows.
..then go buy Windows...
You cannot get the most out of Linux working only in a GUI environment - the power of any UNIX is the sheer number and variety of command-line tools that allow you to very quickly create immensely powerful programs & scripts to achieve the job you want. If you're not prepared to work at the command line then don't bother switching - it's not for you.
There is a "recommended" way of installing software on a UNIX-type system which most applications do tend to adhere to.
Simplified, everything in/bin is core operating system stuff like the shell, permissions tools like chmod, etc.
Additional tools that provide extra functionality to the system like editors, Internet clients (ftp, etc) generally go in/usr/bin.
Applications installed by users generally go in the/home/[user]/bin.
All of these directories normally live in the shell search-path although there is a security issue with putting home directories in that path - therefore some distributions will not do that by default.
You are always able to change your search path and you can interrogate RPM to find out where it has installed all of the files from a particular package - it's just about familiarity.
Please remember that the big upside of UNIX over Windows is that user-specific configuration files always live in the user's home directory so it is very easy to delete a rogue configuration file & start again.
In Windows, not only do you have progressive registry bloat over time but it is very easy to trash a Windows machine simply by removing the wrong key from the registry.
I would also add that you're thinking about UNIX in entirely the wrong way. With Windows, you have a totally GUI-based OS with some additional functionality at the command prompt. However, in UNIX, the power is at the command prompt but a lot of applications have GUI front-ends to make them more intuitive - but even so, the GUI is just another set of programs that you can choose to run or not to run.
Not that I actually agree with Gates' statement about Open Source costing jobs but so what if it does?
It could just as easily be argued that the IBM-PC for whom Mr. Gates' company creates software has killed thousands of draughtsman & engineering jobs with the advent of CAD and computer-controlled lathes, for example.
Sure, it's unfortunate that many skilled people have been replaced by computers but those very same people want their cheap electronics goods & mass-produced household items.
Gates' is being a total hypocrite here - on one hand he wants to head an organisation that produces software to make our lives easier (thereby taking work away from somebody else) but when it affects the jobs in his scope of business, it's a different story.
When all said and done, the great thing about this issue is that Gates' has no other weapon than words to fight with - with all his billions in the bank, he is almost totally powerless.
Ultimately, the world, not Gates, will decide whether Open Source or commercial software is the future - although I believe it will always be a combination of both. That can only mean it's good for the consumer because the commercial software houses will need to fight for the remaining commercial software space which has to mean better quality & cheaper products for all of us.
I've worked at Microsoft for 14 years and I have always felt like the underdog
"..but they paid me too much for doing too little which is why I have stayed here 14 years."
Maybe the road behind us looks easy, but at the time going it wasn't.
"It's going to be just as difficult in future."
I welcome the feedback today.
"...but I'm going to do nothing about it."
Getting informed is the only way I know to get better.
"I've really messed up in the past."
The day we don't get heated feedback I'll be concerned.
"..because that means our products work as they should and I'll be out of a job."
To defend Microsoft a little, they are not the only purveyors of corporate bullsh*t. But I get so annoyed that they think we, as the general public, cannot immediately see through this coverage of facts.
How many good books have you read that you just know will never be made into a movie?
Unfortunately, unless any of those books are based on simplistic superheroes (how about "The Watchmen" or "V For Vendetta" movies?), big gun action or teenage stalker horror, they probably won't be made in the current Hollywood climate.
Just look at the output of movies today - sure, there are a few good ones but they are all formulaic and only got made because there is a very good chance they do well at the box office.
Unfortunately, we are all being "dumbed down" by the movie industry because, for most people, seeing a movie is just "something to do with a few friends at the weekend that doesn't need a lot of thinking about.
A lot of people need to just grow up and accept that they simply are not modern day "Robin Hoods" because they steal (movies) from the rich (movie companies & theatre) & give to the poor (themselves).
There are three reasons for piracy & three only:
1. An unwillingness to spend money.
2. Laziness - unwillingness to go to the movie theatre to see a film.
3. Kudos - being the "first kid on the block" to get a pirated copy of a movie.
As far as I am concerned, the whole movie & music industry sucks with little exception - artificial price-hiking, poor quality products & just generally ripping-off the consumer.
But I get them where it hurts - in their profits. I simply do not buy any CD or DVD unless I can get it as cheap as possible and only when I am sure it is worth the money, in my opinion. If everybody did this, we, the consumer, would dictate their industry - instead, most of us act like packs of sheep and blindly consume their poor-quality products, handing over hard-earned cash in the process.
Piracy achieves nothing positive. It gives the movie & music industry the justification they want to treat us all like criminals, locking us into their sub-standard proprietary formats and ensuring that our rights to "fair use" of the products that we buy are taken away.
Pirates are nothing more than spoilt children who just want something they cannot have. Adults, on the other hand, exercise reasoning and self-control and simply don't pay money for rubbish products - they just go without.
If everyone behaved like an adult, both the music & movie industry would lose profits and would have to sit up and take notice of us - ultimately giving us the products we want at the price we want to pay.
Buddy, we can argue semantics & vocabulary "until the cows come home".
While I respect your opinions on Windows, you have done nothing to convince me that you have any knowledge of the Linux side of things to be able to put up a convincing argument so your comparisons, from the Linux perspective at least, are based on hearsay, not true fact.
I, on the other hand, have worked with both Windows and Unix for many years and recognise the merits of both flavours of operating system.
However, there is no denying that all OSes have become complex to maintain properly and Microsoft's continued "sales-talk" that Windows is easy to maintain and secure is wrong - this results in a high proportion of insecure Windows machines making life on the Internet hard for all of us - both Unix people and Windows sysadmins who put in a lot of work to secure their systems properly.
Accept it or don't - but the fact is that in the same way you cannot be deemed safe on the road driving a car until you have passed a driving test, in the same way you cannot keep any operating system secure until you have taken the time to learn about it.
Saying windows is less user-friendly than linux is plain ridiculous.
Sorry, I don't recall saying that at all. What I actually said was that Windows has got less user-friendly as time has progressed.
Windows has automatic updates for one thing, which will download SP2 for you.
Oh, I see now. Since Windows automatic update does everything for me, I'll never have to worry about another security update again then, will I?
I'll be able to forget about understanding the inner workings of my PC, I'll never need to run any security tools against my PC anymore and I can throw away my network sniffer also? Wow!!! SP2 is amazing!!!
No looking at logfiles of installing the occasional security update.
Ah, so you run a firewall but never check logs, do you? Hmmm....
I really have a hard time trying to understand how someone can stick to their guns when so clearly and utterly wrong on a point.
Very simple to understand, really. I know Windows well and I know Linux well. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, I make use of the advantages of both.
Unfortunately, administrator control and security is definitely not an advantage of Windows.
Heh. Windows catastrophe of the week versus Unix catastrophe of the decade.
Hmmm. 1988, huh? That would have been before the proper commercialisation of the Internet when mainly military and university machines were on the ARPANet network. A time when most machines were VAXes, running very specific versions of VMS where servers were not really secured anyway because everyone trusted each other.
Oh, and Robert Morris was not an intruder on that network but a user within that network...
It's a credit to UNIX the fact that the only occasion people can recall a UNIX work was 16 years ago!!!
Can someone please, please, please write a decent Unix worm so we can get some interesting headlines?
If you're going to attack UNIX/Linux insecurities, please do some homework first.
1. If someone writes a worm virus, it has to spread via an insecurity in a very specific application.
In Windows, most people run an Outlook-engine-based email client and/or probably have IE installed (because MS bundles it with the OS)- those are points of attack for worms particularly
with ActiveX, VB Macros, etc.
Perhaps you would like to tell me what single application is run on 95% of the world's UNIX/Linux boxes that becomes a similar point of attack for a UNIX worm?
Answer: None. Apache web server is probably the most common cross-UNIX app, it gets run on servers but generally not on desktops - that's the closest you'll get.
2. If you're a sensible UNIX sysadmin, then you never run any Internet services as the root user anyway. (This is not the same as in Windows where many apps have full system access whenever they need it.)
Therefore, even if a worm or virus exploits a UNIX box, it'll get in and do limited damage at a user - but it still needs root access to do real damage.
Just so I'm not seen to be biased, here's how you attack a UNIX box:
1. Port scan it to find what services it is running.
2. Interrogate it further to find out what versions of FTP, web, email, etc servers it runs.
3. Work out an exploit that does a buffer overflow against one of those specific daemon versions and get to a shell prompt. If it was running as "root" you then have a root shell and you can do what you like...
Sure, UNIX and Linux have insecurities but attacks on those OSes are always localised and targetted at very specific applications running on very specific servers. That's the difference...
I find it amusing that about 10 years ago, Microsoft's tact on Windows (3.11 or 95) was how easy it was for Joe Average to use a PC.
Now Joe Average has to download endless service packs, update his virus checker & scan his machine for worms & virii on a regular basis, run and configure a firewall, use a spam filter & run a spyware checker... when he's done all this, he can finally type his letter or play his game!
Are these the same people that say "Linux is too difficult to use" when all I do is keep an eye on logfiles, install the occasional security update and make sure I understand what access points there are into my systems?
1. Which of the two browsers is simpler / less bulky, Mozilla, or Firebox?
Firefox is less bulky (about 5MB download) as it is just the browser. Mozilla also has an email/news client, chat client & HTML editor built in.
2. Can either of them merge with Windows the way IE does?
Not quite. A URL is really just a filetype determinied by the file extension (.htm,.html, etc.) In Windows, you can point those (and other) filetypes to whatever applications you want - even when you install Mozilla/Firefox, it asks to be the default browser, in which case it will open most URLs, even from the run box.
Unfortunately, Microsoft specific sites, like "Windows Update" never seem to open anything other than IE and seem to deliberately bork any other browser. Also, because IE essentiall underpins Windows Explorer, you can never really weld in a 3rd party browser as tightly as IE.
3. Does Mozilla still have that stupid "download manager"? How do I turn it off?
There is a download manager that opens a smaller window for the files you are downloading. It has been improved in Firefox, it is not obtrusive particularly and I find it more useful to have it there than to not have it there. You can set it to download each file to a directory of choice or just have it download everything to one place you specify.
Firefox is also themeable, has the Google search bar built in and a lot of pop-up blocking. It REALLY is a better browser, full stop.
Kind of a related topic to the main thread because I like mutt for email, slrn for news, vim for editing and command line tools for as much else as I can.
I'm happy with Gentoo Linux, KDE is nice but far too bloated for my tastes, Gnome's more my minimalist style but I just cannot get on with Nautilus so I'm looking for suggestions for a different WM.
I tried Fluxbox but found it had quite a few display quirks plus it seems difficult to set up a nice clean theme without resorting to a MAC-like Aqua one. (Sorry, Apple-type peeps, it's a nice looking theme but everyone seems to use it.
)
I was thinking of trying IceWM with maybe the Rox file manager - anyone got any further suggestions?
I think it's the wrong approach to just suddenly try to "switch" to Linux - the dual boot approach is best, followed by finding common applications (like Mozilla, GIMP, OpenOffice, etc) that work in both environments.
At least when you used these in Windows, when you fire up your Linux environment, you immediately have some confidence because of the apps you are already familiar with.
In my environment at home, I have all my files on a SAMBA-share Linux server that are mapped drives to Windows 2000 machines or NFSed to other Linux boxes. That means I can use my files in both enviroments in whatever way I please.
As a matter of principle, I want to ditch Windows completely at some point because I feel I'm a hypocrite supporting Microsoft when I hate their business practices so much - however, I quite like Windows 2000, I still hack about with a low-power Windows 98 box and I'm not going to "cut off my nose to spite my face" - I'll switch when I'm good and ready to.
It's just not productive for ESR to encourage the OSS community to wage war on Microsoft - just keep churning out the good software and spread the word; people themselves will decide what they like.
Writing code that doesn't suck always has to be our base-level and most important response
To put the Open Source movement in some kind of "battle" with Microsoft only serves to belittle what the F/OSS community does.
Let's put things a little into perspective:
1. A huge amount of OSS software runs on Windows also - Mozilla, GIMP, OpenOffice, etc. etc.
This means that whether you run Windows, Linux, BSD, whatever, you have a choice. You do not need to be tied into one of a few commercial software vendors for your applications. It also means that you have the opportunity to try out new applications at little risk and no cost - as a result, you get a comparitive benchmark and can make a decision for yourself whether a particular application you need is better served by a commercial or OSS application. End of story.
2. It's closed standards, not Microsoft, that's the problem.
Using a computer brings with it a responsibility - namely that you take charge of the data that you store on it. You decide how shareable that data is to be, you decide how portable it needs to be and you decide how deeply you lock it away from the eyes of others.
DRM and closed formats simply mean that you hand over that responsibility to a commercial organisation, nothing more. That means that they charge you for taking control of your data and, because they are interested in making a profit, will naturally try to charge you more as time goes on. When use of that DRM format becomes widespread, it becomes the norm and all of a sudden, everyone has had their responsibilities handed over to that organisation. This is the potential loss of personal freedom we must focus on not becoming reality.
Microsoft backs DRM heavily and it is that issue we should fight against because that's the only danger to Open Source - OSS and Microsoft can co-exist provided standards and formats remain open to all. If Microsoft cannot accept that, then that's their problem...
3. Users need to be educated to make a choice.
Spreading the word of Open Source & Linux is the only way forward because people then start to make choices for themselves as to what software best fulfills the job that they need to do, rather than simply just blindly consuming every piece of software Microsoft churns out. If the F/OSS community has no remit to "destroy Microsoft" then it can simply focus on creating good software and listening to the users of that software as to how to improve or change that it for the better.
For example, while I can work wonders with UNIX command line tools that can format text just about any way I want it, my teenage niece who does her homework in Word, Excel & Powerpoint is not suddenly going to get a knock on the door from her uncle armed with his Linux CD, just because he thinks "grep" and "sed" are better... Everyone has their own perceptions of what is usable.
The OSS community is doing what it should be doing right now - keep churning out the good software, not rising to Microsoft's little tantrums & letting the users know they have a choice.
1. There's far too much willingness to put hobby projects from seventeen year olds with no software engineering experience on the same footing as Perl and gcc.
But the fact is that the "peer-review" nature of Open Source means that code from "hobby-projects" is considered good or bad very quickly - whereupon it is improved upon, accepted or just thrown away.
It might equally be argued that a paid programmer just doing it "for the money", with little or no say in the appearance of the finished product, might be less inclined to produce good code than an enthusiastic hobbyist with a great idea and the time and devotion to turn that idea into reality.
2.... You have people talking about how more eyes find more bugs, when in reality hardly anyone really understands the source to something like gcc, and this only applies in a significant way to fundamental applications that many people use as a basis for further development....
Code is code whether it's Open Source or commercial. Programmers move in and out of commercial projects as much as in Open Source projects.
The understanding of any code comes from good formatting, commenting and version control - that's the same the world over.
3. "Making the source freely available" is turning out to be more valid than "open source development."
What's your point here?
I don't personally C program (particularly well) but I will take "freely available source" and try to compile it. If it doesn't compile, I'll do some trawling round the web/Usenet for an answer and if it's still a problem, let the source writers know - they, in turn, might develop the code further.
I don't see it matters where programmers are located, whether they are paid or not, etc. etc. It's simply a case of whether or not their output is open to or closed from public view.
Re:Microsoft - The "Spoilt Brat" Corporation
on
When Think Tanks Attack
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
To me, the slashdot/OSS crowd here cuts far more of a whining child figure, toiling in relative insignificance (market-share wise) and whining "Why is everyone picking on me?! It's because of that big bully, Microsoft!"
I don't see anyone "whining" here whatsoever. I see Open Source advocates defending themselves against a lot of blatant lies spread by Microsoft and its funded quangos.
OSS has not got to where it is today by constantly attacking Microsoft or by large glossy magazine or billboard adverts - it's got there just through word of mouth.
And if you bother to read my original post properly, you'll see that I was actually questioning the logic of MS funding such "think tanks" when ultimately their public image is so low that no-one believes it anyway - in turn, damaging their public image more, in the same way a spoilt brat having a tantrum just ends up looking even more spoilt.
MS may make products a lot of people like but the company is nothing more than a bullying organisation that's now in a tizzy because things are no longer going its way.
Gates and Co. would spend their money better giving their "monopoly" a facelift...
So by your logic, we should have stuck to vinyl recordings because CDs "threatened" LPs. Correct?
Just because you are sat there making money from software now (and good luck to you for recognising a market and filling it) does not mean that you are always entitled or able to do so.
It's just evolution at work - if you don't adapt, you die.
Slashdot Mirror
...Microsoft .Net Money 2005 will be leaner?
After all, could anyone working at Microsoft be named after an OPEN SOURCE network diagnostic utility?
You've tried it, don't like it & know exactly the reasons why not - nobody can fault you for it.
I just hope that someone somewhere listens to what difficulties you had and makes a note of it - then maybe some time in the future, you might have a mind to try again.
Actually, it's usually "gunzip" and "tar xvf" to do that.
find where program was uncompressed to
Normally in your current directory, found out by issuing the command "pwd".
config, compile,
If you're installing from a CD, you'll probably have to run an "install.sh" script. Otherwise, you'll run an installation packager like RPM.
On the compile front, normally you do:
configure
make
make install
find where program was compiled to
That's usually defined in the configure script although most people usually just go read the INSTALL file included with the source.
Sigh! If you don't like Linux, that's fine, but at least do some research first and make the rest of us feel like you know what you're talking about...
Generalised statements like these always leave me in some doubt about the person that made the statement. Surely you can remember whether it was "SuSE 9.0", "RedHat 7.3", "Acme Linux 12.3", etc. that you installed?
Sorry but Linux is not for the main stream user and won't be for a very long time.
Linux will always assume that you are taking some responsibility for your computer & the applications you run on it - with that responsibility comes a requirement to sit down and learn how the software works & how you configure it. If you're not prepared to do that, don't use it... it really *IS* that simple.
Linux is still playing catchup and will be for a very long time.
"Catchup" with what??? The concept of what Linux is, namely a UNIX-type operating system, has been around now for more than 30 years! Sure, it's become more user-friendly with better desktop environments, etc, but it's *STILL* UNIX.
BTW why is Linux content copying everything MS?
I presume you mean copying the GUI-type functionality of windows, icons & mouse-clicks - the same one Microsoft copied from Xerox who originally invented it.
You're also contradicting yourself - you say Linux is not for the mainstream user yet you complain when it tries to emulate the GUI environment of Windows that most people are familiar with. I think you need to decide what it is you want...
If I wanted windows I'd buy windows.
You cannot get the most out of Linux working only in a GUI environment - the power of any UNIX is the sheer number and variety of command-line tools that allow you to very quickly create immensely powerful programs & scripts to achieve the job you want. If you're not prepared to work at the command line then don't bother switching - it's not for you.
Simplified, everything in /bin is core operating system stuff like the shell, permissions tools like chmod, etc.
Additional tools that provide extra functionality to the system like editors, Internet clients (ftp, etc) generally go in /usr/bin.
Applications installed by users generally go in the /home/[user]/bin.
All of these directories normally live in the shell search-path although there is a security issue with putting home directories in that path - therefore some distributions will not do that by default.
You are always able to change your search path and you can interrogate RPM to find out where it has installed all of the files from a particular package - it's just about familiarity.
Please remember that the big upside of UNIX over Windows is that user-specific configuration files always live in the user's home directory so it is very easy to delete a rogue configuration file & start again.
In Windows, not only do you have progressive registry bloat over time but it is very easy to trash a Windows machine simply by removing the wrong key from the registry.
I would also add that you're thinking about UNIX in entirely the wrong way. With Windows, you have a totally GUI-based OS with some additional functionality at the command prompt. However, in UNIX, the power is at the command prompt but a lot of applications have GUI front-ends to make them more intuitive - but even so, the GUI is just another set of programs that you can choose to run or not to run.
It could just as easily be argued that the IBM-PC for whom Mr. Gates' company creates software has killed thousands of draughtsman & engineering jobs with the advent of CAD and computer-controlled lathes, for example.
Sure, it's unfortunate that many skilled people have been replaced by computers but those very same people want their cheap electronics goods & mass-produced household items.
Gates' is being a total hypocrite here - on one hand he wants to head an organisation that produces software to make our lives easier (thereby taking work away from somebody else) but when it affects the jobs in his scope of business, it's a different story.
When all said and done, the great thing about this issue is that Gates' has no other weapon than words to fight with - with all his billions in the bank, he is almost totally powerless.
Ultimately, the world, not Gates, will decide whether Open Source or commercial software is the future - although I believe it will always be a combination of both. That can only mean it's good for the consumer because the commercial software houses will need to fight for the remaining commercial software space which has to mean better quality & cheaper products for all of us.
I've worked at Microsoft for 14 years and I have always felt like the underdog
"..but they paid me too much for doing too little which is why I have stayed here 14 years."
Maybe the road behind us looks easy, but at the time going it wasn't.
"It's going to be just as difficult in future."
I welcome the feedback today.
"...but I'm going to do nothing about it."
Getting informed is the only way I know to get better.
"I've really messed up in the past."
The day we don't get heated feedback I'll be concerned.
"..because that means our products work as they should and I'll be out of a job."
To defend Microsoft a little, they are not the only purveyors of corporate bullsh*t. But I get so annoyed that they think we, as the general public, cannot immediately see through this coverage of facts.
How many good books have you read that you just know will never be made into a movie?
Unfortunately, unless any of those books are based on simplistic superheroes (how about "The Watchmen" or "V For Vendetta" movies?), big gun action or teenage stalker horror, they probably won't be made in the current Hollywood climate.
Just look at the output of movies today - sure, there are a few good ones but they are all formulaic and only got made because there is a very good chance they do well at the box office.
Unfortunately, we are all being "dumbed down" by the movie industry because, for most people, seeing a movie is just "something to do with a few friends at the weekend that doesn't need a lot of thinking about.
There are three reasons for piracy & three only:
1. An unwillingness to spend money.
2. Laziness - unwillingness to go to the movie theatre to see a film.
3. Kudos - being the "first kid on the block" to get a pirated copy of a movie.
As far as I am concerned, the whole movie & music industry sucks with little exception - artificial price-hiking, poor quality products & just generally ripping-off the consumer.
But I get them where it hurts - in their profits. I simply do not buy any CD or DVD unless I can get it as cheap as possible and only when I am sure it is worth the money, in my opinion. If everybody did this, we, the consumer, would dictate their industry - instead, most of us act like packs of sheep and blindly consume their poor-quality products, handing over hard-earned cash in the process.
Piracy achieves nothing positive. It gives the movie & music industry the justification they want to treat us all like criminals, locking us into their sub-standard proprietary formats and ensuring that our rights to "fair use" of the products that we buy are taken away.
Pirates are nothing more than spoilt children who just want something they cannot have. Adults, on the other hand, exercise reasoning and self-control and simply don't pay money for rubbish products - they just go without.
If everyone behaved like an adult, both the music & movie industry would lose profits and would have to sit up and take notice of us - ultimately giving us the products we want at the price we want to pay.
While I respect your opinions on Windows, you have done nothing to convince me that you have any knowledge of the Linux side of things to be able to put up a convincing argument so your comparisons, from the Linux perspective at least, are based on hearsay, not true fact.
I, on the other hand, have worked with both Windows and Unix for many years and recognise the merits of both flavours of operating system.
However, there is no denying that all OSes have become complex to maintain properly and Microsoft's continued "sales-talk" that Windows is easy to maintain and secure is wrong - this results in a high proportion of insecure Windows machines making life on the Internet hard for all of us - both Unix people and Windows sysadmins who put in a lot of work to secure their systems properly.
Accept it or don't - but the fact is that in the same way you cannot be deemed safe on the road driving a car until you have passed a driving test, in the same way you cannot keep any operating system secure until you have taken the time to learn about it.
Sorry, I don't recall saying that at all. What I actually said was that Windows has got less user-friendly as time has progressed.
Windows has automatic updates for one thing, which will download SP2 for you.
Oh, I see now. Since Windows automatic update does everything for me, I'll never have to worry about another security update again then, will I? I'll be able to forget about understanding the inner workings of my PC, I'll never need to run any security tools against my PC anymore and I can throw away my network sniffer also? Wow!!! SP2 is amazing!!!
No looking at logfiles of installing the occasional security update.
Ah, so you run a firewall but never check logs, do you? Hmmm....
I really have a hard time trying to understand how someone can stick to their guns when so clearly and utterly wrong on a point.
Very simple to understand, really. I know Windows well and I know Linux well. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, I make use of the advantages of both.
Unfortunately, administrator control and security is definitely not an advantage of Windows.
Hmmm. 1988, huh? That would have been before the proper commercialisation of the Internet when mainly military and university machines were on the ARPANet network. A time when most machines were VAXes, running very specific versions of VMS where servers were not really secured anyway because everyone trusted each other.
Oh, and Robert Morris was not an intruder on that network but a user within that network...
It's a credit to UNIX the fact that the only occasion people can recall a UNIX work was 16 years ago!!!
If you're going to attack UNIX/Linux insecurities, please do some homework first.
1. If someone writes a worm virus, it has to spread via an insecurity in a very specific application.
In Windows, most people run an Outlook-engine-based email client and/or probably have IE installed (because MS bundles it with the OS)- those are points of attack for worms particularly with ActiveX, VB Macros, etc.
Perhaps you would like to tell me what single application is run on 95% of the world's UNIX/Linux boxes that becomes a similar point of attack for a UNIX worm?
Answer: None. Apache web server is probably the most common cross-UNIX app, it gets run on servers but generally not on desktops - that's the closest you'll get.
2. If you're a sensible UNIX sysadmin, then you never run any Internet services as the root user anyway. (This is not the same as in Windows where many apps have full system access whenever they need it.)
Therefore, even if a worm or virus exploits a UNIX box, it'll get in and do limited damage at a user - but it still needs root access to do real damage.
Just so I'm not seen to be biased, here's how you attack a UNIX box:
1. Port scan it to find what services it is running.
2. Interrogate it further to find out what versions of FTP, web, email, etc servers it runs.
3. Work out an exploit that does a buffer overflow against one of those specific daemon versions and get to a shell prompt. If it was running as "root" you then have a root shell and you can do what you like...
Sure, UNIX and Linux have insecurities but attacks on those OSes are always localised and targetted at very specific applications running on very specific servers. That's the difference...
You've done your homework, obviously.
1. I think you mean RPM.
2. I haven't used RPM for years. Just do an "emerge" with Gentoo Linux. (Please don't pretend you know what that is either!)
Now Joe Average has to download endless service packs, update his virus checker & scan his machine for worms & virii on a regular basis, run and configure a firewall, use a spam filter & run a spyware checker... when he's done all this, he can finally type his letter or play his game!
Are these the same people that say "Linux is too difficult to use" when all I do is keep an eye on logfiles, install the occasional security update and make sure I understand what access points there are into my systems?
1. Which of the two browsers is simpler / less bulky, Mozilla, or Firebox?
Firefox is less bulky (about 5MB download) as it is just the browser. Mozilla also has an email/news client, chat client & HTML editor built in.
2. Can either of them merge with Windows the way IE does?
Not quite. A URL is really just a filetype determinied by the file extension (.htm, .html, etc.) In Windows, you can point those (and other) filetypes to whatever applications you want - even when you install Mozilla/Firefox, it asks to be the default browser, in which case it will open most URLs, even from the run box.
Unfortunately, Microsoft specific sites, like "Windows Update" never seem to open anything other than IE and seem to deliberately bork any other browser. Also, because IE essentiall underpins Windows Explorer, you can never really weld in a 3rd party browser as tightly as IE.
3. Does Mozilla still have that stupid "download manager"? How do I turn it off?
There is a download manager that opens a smaller window for the files you are downloading. It has been improved in Firefox, it is not obtrusive particularly and I find it more useful to have it there than to not have it there. You can set it to download each file to a directory of choice or just have it download everything to one place you specify.
Firefox is also themeable, has the Google search bar built in and a lot of pop-up blocking. It REALLY is a better browser, full stop.
I'm happy with Gentoo Linux, KDE is nice but far too bloated for my tastes, Gnome's more my minimalist style but I just cannot get on with Nautilus so I'm looking for suggestions for a different WM.
I tried Fluxbox but found it had quite a few display quirks plus it seems difficult to set up a nice clean theme without resorting to a MAC-like Aqua one. (Sorry, Apple-type peeps, it's a nice looking theme but everyone seems to use it. )
I was thinking of trying IceWM with maybe the Rox file manager - anyone got any further suggestions?
At least when you used these in Windows, when you fire up your Linux environment, you immediately have some confidence because of the apps you are already familiar with.
In my environment at home, I have all my files on a SAMBA-share Linux server that are mapped drives to Windows 2000 machines or NFSed to other Linux boxes. That means I can use my files in both enviroments in whatever way I please.
As a matter of principle, I want to ditch Windows completely at some point because I feel I'm a hypocrite supporting Microsoft when I hate their business practices so much - however, I quite like Windows 2000, I still hack about with a low-power Windows 98 box and I'm not going to "cut off my nose to spite my face" - I'll switch when I'm good and ready to.
It's just not productive for ESR to encourage the OSS community to wage war on Microsoft - just keep churning out the good software and spread the word; people themselves will decide what they like.
It'd bring a whole new meaning to having "worms"...
Writing code that doesn't suck always has to be our base-level and most important response
To put the Open Source movement in some kind of "battle" with Microsoft only serves to belittle what the F/OSS community does.
Let's put things a little into perspective:
1. A huge amount of OSS software runs on Windows also - Mozilla, GIMP, OpenOffice, etc. etc.
This means that whether you run Windows, Linux, BSD, whatever, you have a choice. You do not need to be tied into one of a few commercial software vendors for your applications. It also means that you have the opportunity to try out new applications at little risk and no cost - as a result, you get a comparitive benchmark and can make a decision for yourself whether a particular application you need is better served by a commercial or OSS application. End of story.
2. It's closed standards, not Microsoft, that's the problem.
Using a computer brings with it a responsibility - namely that you take charge of the data that you store on it. You decide how shareable that data is to be, you decide how portable it needs to be and you decide how deeply you lock it away from the eyes of others.
DRM and closed formats simply mean that you hand over that responsibility to a commercial organisation, nothing more. That means that they charge you for taking control of your data and, because they are interested in making a profit, will naturally try to charge you more as time goes on. When use of that DRM format becomes widespread, it becomes the norm and all of a sudden, everyone has had their responsibilities handed over to that organisation. This is the potential loss of personal freedom we must focus on not becoming reality.
Microsoft backs DRM heavily and it is that issue we should fight against because that's the only danger to Open Source - OSS and Microsoft can co-exist provided standards and formats remain open to all. If Microsoft cannot accept that, then that's their problem...
3. Users need to be educated to make a choice.
Spreading the word of Open Source & Linux is the only way forward because people then start to make choices for themselves as to what software best fulfills the job that they need to do, rather than simply just blindly consuming every piece of software Microsoft churns out. If the F/OSS community has no remit to "destroy Microsoft" then it can simply focus on creating good software and listening to the users of that software as to how to improve or change that it for the better.
For example, while I can work wonders with UNIX command line tools that can format text just about any way I want it, my teenage niece who does her homework in Word, Excel & Powerpoint is not suddenly going to get a knock on the door from her uncle armed with his Linux CD, just because he thinks "grep" and "sed" are better... Everyone has their own perceptions of what is usable.
The OSS community is doing what it should be doing right now - keep churning out the good software, not rising to Microsoft's little tantrums & letting the users know they have a choice.
But the fact is that the "peer-review" nature of Open Source means that code from "hobby-projects" is considered good or bad very quickly - whereupon it is improved upon, accepted or just thrown away.
It might equally be argued that a paid programmer just doing it "for the money", with little or no say in the appearance of the finished product, might be less inclined to produce good code than an enthusiastic hobbyist with a great idea and the time and devotion to turn that idea into reality.
2. ... You have people talking about how more eyes find more bugs, when in reality hardly anyone really understands the source to something like gcc, and this only applies in a significant way to fundamental applications that many people use as a basis for further development. ...
Code is code whether it's Open Source or commercial. Programmers move in and out of commercial projects as much as in Open Source projects.
The understanding of any code comes from good formatting, commenting and version control - that's the same the world over.
3. "Making the source freely available" is turning out to be more valid than "open source development."
What's your point here?
I don't personally C program (particularly well) but I will take "freely available source" and try to compile it. If it doesn't compile, I'll do some trawling round the web/Usenet for an answer and if it's still a problem, let the source writers know - they, in turn, might develop the code further.
I don't see it matters where programmers are located, whether they are paid or not, etc. etc. It's simply a case of whether or not their output is open to or closed from public view.
I don't see anyone "whining" here whatsoever. I see Open Source advocates defending themselves against a lot of blatant lies spread by Microsoft and its funded quangos.
OSS has not got to where it is today by constantly attacking Microsoft or by large glossy magazine or billboard adverts - it's got there just through word of mouth.
And if you bother to read my original post properly, you'll see that I was actually questioning the logic of MS funding such "think tanks" when ultimately their public image is so low that no-one believes it anyway - in turn, damaging their public image more, in the same way a spoilt brat having a tantrum just ends up looking even more spoilt.
MS may make products a lot of people like but the company is nothing more than a bullying organisation that's now in a tizzy because things are no longer going its way.
Gates and Co. would spend their money better giving their "monopoly" a facelift...
Just because you are sat there making money from software now (and good luck to you for recognising a market and filling it) does not mean that you are always entitled or able to do so.
It's just evolution at work - if you don't adapt, you die.