I switched to Linux as my desktop OS in 2002 and haven't looked back. Back it the day it was pretty hairy but it was still such a breath a fresh air that I was willing to put up with it. These days, it's pretty much plain sailing!:-) Running Debian Sid with Awesome window manager, so I can be quietly amused when I hear people bitching about the latest versions of Gnome and Ubuntu.:-)
I do have to run a few windows-only apps in the office - Outlook and Lync being the main ones, but for that I just run a Windows VM - zero problems!
it could be done with an internal debian repository, and a cronjob on each to run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade &&/sbin/reboot at midnight.
Sounds like you've been scarred by Windows - poor you. With Linux you don't actually need to reboot unless you a) need to change hardware, b) need to change kernels, c) need to do some serious repair work (e.g. messed up partitions,) or d) something else that I haven't though of.;-) This is why Linux geeks can brag about their uptime of hundreds of days and still have a fully patched system.
Granted, patched kernels do occasionally appear even in Debian Stable, but that does not mean you have to suffer the downtime every day. There are more eloquent solutions. For my Debian Stable boxes I use a package called "cron-apt" to notify me if there are any updates available and to download the updated packages. I can then SSH in and do "apt-get upgrade" and always know what exactly is being updated. Not that I claim this to be the best solution in the world, but it works for me.
Also, with remote reboots you are always taking a chance that these will fail. Yes, they never should, but sometimes they do. The more complex the setup the more danger there is (e.g. problem with some other device on the network,) although usually it's a "stupid admin" problem. You don't want to have to go out to the remote site just because your server hasn't come back up, whatever the reason.
One of the comments here talks (correctly) about the gradual build-up of annoyance at ads. With advertising being so prevalent and intrusive I personally have reached the end of my tolerance.
I now watch very little TV. I don't listen to radio because I can't handle the constant ads. I will block pretty much any web-ad. Before reading a magazine I will go through it and rip out all the adverts that I can (i.e. the 2-sided ones.) Unfortunately I have not yet figured out a way to block all the adverts in the street, although I am considering some.
It's pretty sad, I know, but I really have had enough. I'm sorry if deserving sites are making less money as a result, but my sanity comes first.
That's actually a "Khah" sound (e.g. loch ness), not a hard 'H' sound.
Sorry, but you are wrong there. It is only pronounced 'khah' when read out from the alphabet (just like the 'F' letter is pronounced 'eff')
An example would be the Russian word for "bread". This is pronounced as 'hlyeb'. The 'h' sound is the same as in the English word 'Hut'
I used this for a few years and it was great in terms of features. In the end I dropped it because I hated the Motif widget set. It looked _really_ horrible next to my mostly GTK programs. But, tastes vary and I am certainly no authority on style.
I have bought myself a Palm Vx off ebay for £20 and it happily handles all my appointments/todos. I can sync it with my computer whether I am in Linux at home, or if I am unfortunate enough to have to use Windows for work. And I have it with me wherever I go. It also handles all my contacts, which I can beam to/from my mobile phone.
Before I used gtodo and plan (although I really could not stand the horrible Motif widget set.)
YMMV, all I can say (all that anyone can say really) is that it has worked for me so far. Networking support is not necessary though, providing you update Ad-aware prior to rebooting.
I agree booting Safe Mode is slow as hell, but it is worth the extra cleaning power (even if that is not necessary for killing most types of spyware.) I have actually come across spyware that will prevent you from installing Ad-aware, so Safe Mode really was necessary - cheeky bastards!
In any case, prevention is definitely easier than the cure, so that is where I focus my efforts (i've even written an article on it, admittedly focused on a specific area.:-p)
I'd mod you up if I had points - your rant is spot on. Unfortunately nothing is going to change any time soon.
One suggestion though. I have found in practice that running the scan in Safe Mode is better than using msconfig (because there is a possibility of a program in memory rewriting the registry before you reboot and because Win2k does not have msconfig).
A friend of mine had a keyring made out of a chunky EDO memory stick sawn in half. It looked very cool (well, if you're a geek anyway). I think EDO sticks even have a hole drilled, so you can just clip them on a ring.
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No, you're not.
I switched to Linux as my desktop OS in 2002 and haven't looked back. Back it the day it was pretty hairy but it was still such a breath a fresh air that I was willing to put up with it. These days, it's pretty much plain sailing! :-) Running Debian Sid with Awesome window manager, so I can be quietly amused when I hear people bitching about the latest versions of Gnome and Ubuntu. :-)
I do have to run a few windows-only apps in the office - Outlook and Lync being the main ones, but for that I just run a Windows VM - zero problems!
We name our lab servers after characters from the Muppets. There is an excellent Muppet Wiki which provides more names than we could ever need!
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Category:The_Muppets_Characters
#img(src*=adimpact)
Yawn...
I think Debian Stable should be safe from this, because the security updates all come from security.debian.org (which is centralised AFAIK).
I can see how this would be a problem for other versions though.
Ah well, at least the first thought isn't "how do we use it to kill people more efficiently", as is with a lot of new technology.
it could be done with an internal debian repository, and a cronjob on each to run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && /sbin/reboot at midnight.
Sounds like you've been scarred by Windows - poor you. With Linux you don't actually need to reboot unless you a) need to change hardware, b) need to change kernels, c) need to do some serious repair work (e.g. messed up partitions,) or d) something else that I haven't though of. ;-) This is why Linux geeks can brag about their uptime of hundreds of days and still have a fully patched system.
Granted, patched kernels do occasionally appear even in Debian Stable, but that does not mean you have to suffer the downtime every day. There are more eloquent solutions. For my Debian Stable boxes I use a package called "cron-apt" to notify me if there are any updates available and to download the updated packages. I can then SSH in and do "apt-get upgrade" and always know what exactly is being updated. Not that I claim this to be the best solution in the world, but it works for me.
Also, with remote reboots you are always taking a chance that these will fail. Yes, they never should, but sometimes they do. The more complex the setup the more danger there is (e.g. problem with some other device on the network,) although usually it's a "stupid admin" problem. You don't want to have to go out to the remote site just because your server hasn't come back up, whatever the reason.
One of the comments here talks (correctly) about the gradual build-up of annoyance at ads. With advertising being so prevalent and intrusive I personally have reached the end of my tolerance.
I now watch very little TV. I don't listen to radio because I can't handle the constant ads. I will block pretty much any web-ad. Before reading a magazine I will go through it and rip out all the adverts that I can (i.e. the 2-sided ones.) Unfortunately I have not yet figured out a way to block all the adverts in the street, although I am considering some.
It's pretty sad, I know, but I really have had enough. I'm sorry if deserving sites are making less money as a result, but my sanity comes first.
Yup. I have a Law degree, which for some reason does not really impress IT recruitment people ;-)
I took a few certifications simply because I needed IT-related pieces of paper. That and a course on CV/job search/interview skills.
The point is that it got me my job (although I had about 2-3 years freelance computer-plumber experience already.)
Unfortunatly I have to agree that a lot of people taking the certs did not really know what they were doing (about 9 out of the 12 on my course.)
Certifications are only a part of the picture.
That's actually a "Khah" sound (e.g. loch ness), not a hard 'H' sound.
Sorry, but you are wrong there. It is only pronounced 'khah' when read out from the alphabet (just like the 'F' letter is pronounced 'eff') An example would be the Russian word for "bread". This is pronounced as 'hlyeb'. The 'h' sound is the same as in the English word 'Hut'
HTH
I used this for a few years and it was great in terms of features. In the end I dropped it because I hated the Motif widget set. It looked _really_ horrible next to my mostly GTK programs. But, tastes vary and I am certainly no authority on style.
I have bought myself a Palm Vx off ebay for £20 and it happily handles all my appointments/todos. I can sync it with my computer whether I am in Linux at home, or if I am unfortunate enough to have to use Windows for work. And I have it with me wherever I go. It also handles all my contacts, which I can beam to/from my mobile phone.
Before I used gtodo and plan (although I really could not stand the horrible Motif widget set.)
I browse /. using Firefox in Linux but I've never had any problems and definitely nothing like on the screen shot in the mozilla bug report. How weird.
YMMV, all I can say (all that anyone can say really) is that it has worked for me so far. Networking support is not necessary though, providing you update Ad-aware prior to rebooting.
I agree booting Safe Mode is slow as hell, but it is worth the extra cleaning power (even if that is not necessary for killing most types of spyware.) I have actually come across spyware that will prevent you from installing Ad-aware, so Safe Mode really was necessary - cheeky bastards!
In any case, prevention is definitely easier than the cure, so that is where I focus my efforts (i've even written an article on it, admittedly focused on a specific area. :-p)
I'd mod you up if I had points - your rant is spot on. Unfortunately nothing is going to change any time soon.
One suggestion though. I have found in practice that running the scan in Safe Mode is better than using msconfig (because there is a possibility of a program in memory rewriting the registry before you reboot and because Win2k does not have msconfig).
HTH
Use Nero together with their Burnrights utility.
HTH
"You can't delete the files because they're locked while the OS is running"
Erm, isn't that what Safe Mode is for? It is usually the best environment to run the scan in anyway.
HTH
A friend of mine had a keyring made out of a chunky EDO memory stick sawn in half. It looked very cool (well, if you're a geek anyway). I think EDO sticks even have a hole drilled, so you can just clip them on a ring.