Yes exactly, it's not good to have IE as deeply embedded as it has been.
IE was never 'deeply' embedded with the system, as you put it. You can pretty much remove IE from Windows 2k, xp etc. Including it's webbrowser active x component so you can't browse websites in plain just plain windows explorer.
Microsoft themselves said it was an insuperable part of the OS
They lied. It's been proven time and time again that they lied, especially with things like nlite, xp lite in existence makes the claim laughable.
where on any other computer a browser is simply an application and a set of libraries other applications can use for HTML rendering.
As is IE (with the exception that it has a few additional OS specific features too -- much like other browsers have, like Safari).
Rereading your post, I noticed I missed some things (I tend to mix up italic and non-italic text)
You're wrong. Care to provide any links as to why you think you're right?
No, the information I see is provided within the anti-virus software (I have no idea where it is on their sites) (ie: you can see lists of viruses and their types), VBA (script viruses) viruses are less than most other categories. 'Active X' viruses, well, these are viruses that exploit features through a webpage usually, there isn't many. Nor is there many that uses active x todo things locally on the system.
IE. Forgot about the elephant in the room again?
Are you saying Microsoft should remove a web-browser from the system because it's a insecure idea? Because that's the logical path I come to when reading the original poster I was replying to and your post.
But they all have one major showstopper of a problem: I can't use accelerated 3D on the latest graphics cards under virtualized OSs.
In Vmware:
Edit your.vmx file.
Add the following: mks.enable3d = TRUE {- Requires acceleration on the host, because it passes things directly from the guest. svga.vramSize = 67108864 {- This line increases the vram size, you might want to customize it. vmmouse.present = FALSE {- This disables the 'absolute' pointing device in the guest OS (as applications that require directinput relative mode needs to turn off 'relative' mode in the guest). Note: If you unset this option, you should also turn off the preference for motion ungrabbing in the settings dialog
Unfortunately not all aspects of 3D acceleration on the guest are actually accelerated -- Which are some of the following:
Hardware bump-mapping, environment mapping
Pixel & vertex shaders
Textures with one, three, or four dimensions
Multi-vertex streams
Projected textures
Re:Response from Kevin Finisterre, second bug
on
Month of Apple Fixes
·
· Score: 1
I'd still be in #mplayer trying to figure out what to install to view a WMV.
ffmpeg supports WMV9 already... What would you need to figure out in mplayer? It should work just fine.
That was not a virus - that was a trojan (pretty huge difference if you know what the differences are!) And read through the final analysis of the work the user actually had to do to contract it.
A Trojan is a type of virus. Security experts acknowledge this, dictionaries acknowledge this. Heck even anti-virus software classify Trojans as a 'Trojan virus'.
Which they fixed pretty quickly, as noted....
Ah, I apologize. For some reason I remember this particular event being months (I just double checked to make sure, and I'm in the wrong).
Also, we are talking about OS X viruses not "legacy" viruses that in practice no-one will be catching since almost no-one uses Classic anymore.
I saw one a year ago. =)
Which don't matter as much since they come turned off by default (and still didn't see any exploits for OS X in the wild)...
It isn't enabled on most Linux, BSD distributions by default either, but they still patch it faster. Machines have been exploited after the release of exploit information quickly. This is a very real risk, which is still unacceptable.
But anyone who wants to see ALL files in Finder is probably also going to be pretty familiar with the shell and not really mind editing XML files
To be honest, I hate editing XML files -- I would rather have this stuff in the GUI.
Frankly I have never enabled Finder in that manner as if I want to be messing with files Finder cannot see by default, I greatly prefer to be using Terminal anyway.
Yeah, plus theres that annoying fact that you see these hidden files on the desktop (don't get this on KDE). In the end I ended up using mc for most things.
What makes it an advanced OS is that you have a layer that is easily configurable by most users, and then a more advanced layer that is easily adjustable through a few means.
There isn't really a 'more advanced' layer, many things I've found on OS X, particularly todo with the GUI is very unconfigurable unless you start making horrible 'hacks' like ShadowRemover. At least with Windows I could customize the GUI more, even though some of the things had to be done via the registry (ie:.net styles for drop down menus in 'classic theme' on XP).
The situation is still better than what Windows offered, where you had to basically write TweakUI to get at some settings that could not simply be activated in a text file
Actually.. Tweak UI is really just a program that does a few registry switches.
at least OS X comes with means to modify every setting in the system, even if some are not behind GUI's.
I have been spending hours on end trying to disable effects, shadows and all sorts of non-sense in OS X (it slows down VNC related things). I still haven't figured out how to disable all of them. Nor can I find documentation on some of the things I want to disable.
However, that sort of non-sense is why I am using a Linux distribution as my 'main' desktop (I still use many OSes).
Not really, there is a lot more template material online on how to do so, and a number of Windows viruses in the past have been simple variants of existing worms and viruses.
True. There is even generators (I forgot about this until now) for creating things like botnet worm viruses (which don't work on up-to date versions of windows). Most viruses we see on Windows however, aren't the "generated" ones. The popular modified variations we have seen of certain worms weren't created by people with lack of understanding either (judging by the modifications done).
But yes, I would have to agree that in some instances, creating a virus on Windows can be easier for now.
The difference is that OS X gives you a solution, take it or leave it, with the minimum amount of customization such it won't get in the way of you doing what you will.
Which makes no sense to me -- Because it actually does get in my way. I guess I would have to 'leave it' as you put it.
With KDEpanel, you have a plethora of options, and as result can craft any solution your little heart desires.
Macs had viruses in the past. OS X hasn't had any yet.
Yes it has. The first one written specifically for OS X came in the form of a trojan. I've also seen Mac classic viruses work fine on PPC OS X systems.
OS X has had security holes, which could have allowed viruses threw it but Apple patches them rather quickly before any can actually spread.
Not really. Have you forgotten things like auto-installing widgets? Apple being behind other BSD systems in patching old exploits? Apple being behind in patching SSH, Apache?
Plus unlike Windows virus it actually takes a person who actually knows stuff to make an OS X virus.
Uh... You need to know stuff to write a windows virus too.
Most Windows virus take advantage of easy to make Active X controls
Not according to Norton, F-secure and McAfee.
VB Scripts in applications
Not according to Norton, F-secure and McAfee.
and a bunch of other crap that Microsoft put in their OS During the 90's because they wanted to make sure their products could do more then their competitors and because no one cared about security
Uh, again no. Give me some decent examples at least.
All I can think of from the 90s in particular that's causing vulnerability issues, is how current Microsoft office documents are still mostly just memory dumps of the programs themselves.
Now Apple OS X was redesigned with a 21 centrery mindset on security.
I don't know... Most of the security techniques Apple uses were developed back in the early 90s...
However, the OS in my opinion is far from being a 21st century mind set in general. I mean, look at some of the stupid stuff we have todo. Where we have to open a console and type defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE Or where we have to open XML files and change a bunch of values to enable/disable various GUI settings that should be in the GUI preferences pane? Or where the OS is purposely locked into using hardware from a specific vendor? (We've had this long ago, then we kind of evolved with x86, to no longer get locked in... But here comes Apple)
But as times goes on Apple is putting more and more features to the OS many of them are scary in security terms such as integration of iChat and and the other iApps the Automater and other things which could lead to security problems in the future.
Heh, or we could the simple things that have always worked well... Exploits against the user. Just send them a e-mail with a.pkg file that contains a rootkit (there are feasible methods to-do this on OS X), said hidden process scans the address books of users on Mac (Useful, since many Mac users actually do use the mail client on the system), then starts sending copies of that.pkg to those people.
We can even expand it further get it to 'infect' any.dmg files downloaded with it's own files, (hidden files are wonderful for this), so on the off chance a infected machine sends said dmg somewhere, it will infect the other user, who thinks he's only installing (either by.pkg or drag dropping the 'application directory' file) the program he thinks.
Hell, we can even make blah.jpg.app files, which appear to most users as 'blah.jpg', hasn't Apple learned anything from Microsoft?
My point is, coming up with methods to make virii on Mac isn't that hard.
The first version of Ubuntu to have the Desktop (Live/Install) and Alternate (Text-Only Install) instead of Live and (Text-Only) Install CDs was Ubunntu 6.06 LTS, which was released June 06, 2006. So at the time this started, the live and install CDs were seperate.
Ah, I never knew. I started using Ubuntu when Dapper came out.:)
Funny thing is. All my various wireless cards (which have a Atheros chipset) all work out of the box on Linux distributions that have wireless. I didn't even know this was that much of a issue.
I know with some other chipsets (like broadcom), it's just requiring you to install some package that contains extracted firmware images.
Now Windows on the hand (XP SP2, 2k3 sp1), never had a single wireless card in my experience that worked out of the box with it, ever.
"Use a Live CD." Don't have one. "You mean you didn't burn that along with the install CD?" Didn't say to. "You mean you didn't try the install on a spare box first?" You're fucking kidding me, right? (This was before they combined them, geniuses.)
* The Mighty Mouse is at least 3 times as useful as those "wheel-mouse" abominations. It doesn't have a wheel, it has a small trackball. That means a) higher resolution and b) ability to scroll in 2D instead of 1D. If you've ever used a mouse in serious work and not just websurfing, you'll know how infinitly valuable that is.
Scrolling in 2d can be annoying on some websites.
I haven't found a need to scroll horizontal yet.
* OSX windows don't maximize. They optimize. There's a difference there, one you have to see to appreciate. Maximize is simple, wasteful and ugly. Optimize is simple (to use), efficient and beautiful.
I disagree, I find this really primitive in OS X. On KDE, I can maximize windows, making full use of space desktop space. I'm able to set important small windows to always remain ontop (or like in 'Spaces', another virtual desktop).
Feel free to explain how 'Zoom' is a better way to-do things though.
* There is no taskbar on OSX.
The Dock contains information about running tasks
It doesn't really contain information compared to others...
but it is much more, more useful, efficient
I don't agree. I like having my application menus separated from the task list (which is why I usually have just the Applications folder in the dock, nothing else). I know on OSX the idea is that you use pretty window switching, but the visual indications in the dock are very poor.
and nicer to look it.
I don't really find it that pretty... It's a square at the bottom-center of the screen... You call that pretty? The default is a giant rectangle with a bunch of monster sized icons at the bottom of the screen (Is this because Mac users can't use a mouse well, so they need giant icons?). I find the dock rather primitive to other other solutions
By any other definition, the Dock is not a copy of the taskbar.
Have you actually tried to compile the latest VLC without having to install a dozen or more 3rd party libraries' -dev packages just to compile it in linux?
No. But why would I want to? Each library has it's own special function and it does it well.
I also don't see it being difficult to build from the source, a single command for me 'sudo apt-build install vlc' (you can also do this graphically with a package manager -- but I don't feel like explaining how to use a GUI -- as you can figure it out yourself).
The OSS better than the Windows ones. On Windows I can't even play Second life on my ATi mobility LY m6 graphics card. I can on Linux.
Software development has no central respository for documentation
Eh? Just install the -doc packages.
A gazillion distros fog the landscape each with it's own 'version' snapshot of a source code tree, PLUS 'their' changes.
I don't really see how that prevents you from downloading programming documentation packages.
Version problems -the first thing you have to do is figure out what your distro is 'based on' so you can update it then deal with all other incompatibilites with other apps version designed for different version.
Eh? I just do 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade' (I can do this graphically too, just easier to explain when you give a simple command). Don't know what you're talking about. But it sounds like the distribution you were using was a total mess.
Security unknowns abound because hardly anybody is running any paticular version.
I know that some distributions like Debian patch older software versions against new security issues.
Development enviroments - C,C++ horrible.
You know. You can say "it's horrible, it's ugly, it's insecure", but you really need to give some examples, because I disagree with every one of your points.
Linux will NEVER NEVER be a major player in the desktop arena.!!!
It works as my desktop just fine. 'Average' people don't seem to have a problem using KDE 3.5 I've noticed (not seen with other DEs).
The fact that it won't necessarily recognize your hardware, combined with the fact that you will probably end up hunting all over the 'net for drivers.
I don't have such a dramatic issue with hardware on Linux, however. Maybe in future you might want to give Linux a fair trial by buying Linux preinstalled and preconfigured on a system. Like in the same way you most likely bought your Windows system.
I have hardware here that Windows XP SP2 doesn't support out of the box, also hardware (fairly recent -- only three years old) that doesn't have drivers that work under XP SP2. This issue you're experiencing isn't unique to Linux.
I don't quite understand how you can call Linux a 'hobbyist OS' currently when there are all these large commercial ventures in Linux, which seem to be going on just fine.
Could you explain the logic of how you determine what makes a 'hobbyist OS' and what doesn't?
Linux while a good os, is not an alternative to windows and will never be because its far too open ended and overly complex to use for the average person.
The average person in Poland has no problem using a Linux desktop.
How about a new os all together?
Wasting more decades starting from scratch isn't going to help much.
Any new projects in the works by anyone?
Yes.
Why is it either linux or windows?
Eh?
What makes linux so perfect?
Linux isn't perfect. I didn't see anyone mention Linux was perfect
We all hear about what makes windows so bad....
Well... It is a Windows article...
What makes Linux so perfect hmmmmmm?
Linux isn't perfect.
I can't really imagine a OS being 'perfect' either.
Linux is not even close to winning over windows users
Windows users are Windows users because when they goto the computer shop, all computers being sold there, come with windows. No choice. Nothing about winning people over.
A few high end users, perhaps... but they all have their windows installs as well.
That's because "high end users" actually know about Linux.
proof that there is no chance in hell linux will take over the windows market.
Believe it or not. I don't really care about that.
Lets start with hardware support
I think the hardware support is superb, a specific Windows version doesn't even support the amount of hardware out of the box or even with the manufacturer's drivers that most Linux distros do.
and shelf space in stores.
Do you really think your post will make someone go, "Oh, this guy says we should do this.. Let's go do it." Because I don't.
Lets start with games from major developers, and then ultimately the ease of use problem.
Quake (all versions), Unreal Tournament (All versions), Doom (All versions) etc. have native Linux versions already. Many popular (World of Warcraft, Half life etc.) Windows-only games are playable via Wine/crossover now too. I wouldn't really say gaming on Linux is that much of a issue, the way you're presenting your 'suggestion'.
Linux is not easy, and it is overly complicated
I disagree. A presetup system from a vendor (like System76) is in my opinion, even easier than windows is.
often bloated in some places
Which is why World of Warcraft (and other games) tend to run faster on Linux (assuming the hardware is fully supported), under Wine, which should be giving a significan overhead and technically slower than Windows. Yet it isn't. Yes, I see the bloat right there... Well, no, not really.
Why is Linux so perfect when it fails to do so many things compared to windows?
Like what?
It lacks the software
What software is it lacking (specify software types -- like spreadsheet, word processing, photo manipulation etc)?
it lacks the hardware support
It may lack support out of the box for certain hardware, others it may not support at all. But if you buy a Linux system preinstalled, you're unlikely to run that issue. I have hardware here, that Windows XP SP2 cannot use, because it lacks working drivers. I have things like wireless cards, that run just fine off Linux livecds (and harddrive installations obviously) -- Linux just tries to support the chipsets, which works with most cards then. But Windows XP SP2 doesn't even support it
I'll soon be getting a new Dell laptop that'll be running Fedora Core 5 or 6. I need to access the email stored on my home box from the laptop, and also to read new email sent to me while I'm not home (and the home box is shut down).
Slashdot Mirror
They lied. It's been proven time and time again that they lied, especially with things like nlite, xp lite in existence makes the claim laughable.As is IE (with the exception that it has a few additional OS specific features too -- much like other browsers have, like Safari).
No, the information I see is provided within the anti-virus software (I have no idea where it is on their sites) (ie: you can see lists of viruses and their types), VBA (script viruses) viruses are less than most other categories. 'Active X' viruses, well, these are viruses that exploit features through a webpage usually, there isn't many. Nor is there many that uses active x todo things locally on the system.
Are you saying Microsoft should remove a web-browser from the system because it's a insecure idea? Because that's the logical path I come to when reading the original poster I was replying to and your post.
The games I've seen VMware running myself... The sims, World of Warcraft, Half life and Second life.
Edit your
Add the following:
mks.enable3d = TRUE {- Requires acceleration on the host, because it passes things directly from the guest.
svga.vramSize = 67108864 {- This line increases the vram size, you might want to customize it.
vmmouse.present = FALSE {- This disables the 'absolute' pointing device in the guest OS (as applications that require directinput relative mode needs to turn off 'relative' mode in the guest). Note: If you unset this option, you should also turn off the preference for motion ungrabbing in the settings dialog
Unfortunately not all aspects of 3D acceleration on the guest are actually accelerated -- Which are some of the following:
A Trojan is a type of virus. Security experts acknowledge this, dictionaries acknowledge this. Heck even anti-virus software classify Trojans as a 'Trojan virus'.
Ah, I apologize. For some reason I remember this particular event being months (I just double checked to make sure, and I'm in the wrong).
I saw one a year ago. =)
It isn't enabled on most Linux, BSD distributions by default either, but they still patch it faster. Machines have been exploited after the release of exploit information quickly. This is a very real risk, which is still unacceptable.
To be honest, I hate editing XML files -- I would rather have this stuff in the GUI.
Yeah, plus theres that annoying fact that you see these hidden files on the desktop (don't get this on KDE). In the end I ended up using mc for most things.
There isn't really a 'more advanced' layer, many things I've found on OS X, particularly todo with the GUI is very unconfigurable unless you start making horrible 'hacks' like ShadowRemover. At least with Windows I could customize the GUI more, even though some of the things had to be done via the registry (ie: .net styles for drop down menus in 'classic theme' on XP).
Actually.. Tweak UI is really just a program that does a few registry switches.
I have been spending hours on end trying to disable effects, shadows and all sorts of non-sense in OS X (it slows down VNC related things). I still haven't figured out how to disable all of them. Nor can I find documentation on some of the things I want to disable.
However, that sort of non-sense is why I am using a Linux distribution as my 'main' desktop (I still use many OSes).
True. There is even generators (I forgot about this until now) for creating things like botnet worm viruses (which don't work on up-to date versions of windows). Most viruses we see on Windows however, aren't the "generated" ones. The popular modified variations we have seen of certain worms weren't created by people with lack of understanding either (judging by the modifications done).
But yes, I would have to agree that in some instances, creating a virus on Windows can be easier for now.
Not really. Have you forgotten things like auto-installing widgets?
Apple being behind other BSD systems in patching old exploits?
Apple being behind in patching SSH, Apache?
Uh... You need to know stuff to write a windows virus too.Not according to Norton, F-secure and McAfee.Not according to Norton, F-secure and McAfee.Uh, again no. Give me some decent examples at least.
All I can think of from the 90s in particular that's causing vulnerability issues, is how current Microsoft office documents are still mostly just memory dumps of the programs themselves.I don't know... Most of the security techniques Apple uses were developed back in the early 90s...
However, the OS in my opinion is far from being a 21st century mind set in general. I mean, look at some of the stupid stuff we have todo.
Where we have to open a console and type
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
Or where we have to open XML files and change a bunch of values to enable/disable various GUI settings that should be in the GUI preferences pane?
Or where the OS is purposely locked into using hardware from a specific vendor? (We've had this long ago, then we kind of evolved with x86, to no longer get locked in... But here comes Apple)
Heh, or we could the simple things that have always worked well... Exploits against the user. Just send them a e-mail with a
We can even expand it further get it to 'infect' any
Hell, we can even make blah.jpg.app files, which appear to most users as 'blah.jpg', hasn't Apple learned anything from Microsoft?
My point is, coming up with methods to make virii on Mac isn't that hard.
Funny thing is. All my various wireless cards (which have a Atheros chipset) all work out of the box on Linux distributions that have wireless. I didn't even know this was that much of a issue.
I know with some other chipsets (like broadcom), it's just requiring you to install some package that contains extracted firmware images.
Now Windows on the hand (XP SP2, 2k3 sp1), never had a single wireless card in my experience that worked out of the box with it, ever.
I sense you're trying to troll.
- Scrolling in 2d can be annoying on some websites.
- I haven't found a need to scroll horizontal yet.
I disagree, I find this really primitive in OS X. On KDE, I can maximize windows, making full use of space desktop space. I'm able to set important small windows to always remain ontop (or like in 'Spaces', another virtual desktop).Feel free to explain how 'Zoom' is a better way to-do things though. It doesn't really contain information compared to others...I don't agree. I like having my application menus separated from the task list (which is why I usually have just the Applications folder in the dock, nothing else). I know on OSX the idea is that you use pretty window switching, but the visual indications in the dock are very poor.I don't really find it that pretty... It's a square at the bottom-center of the screen... You call that pretty? The default is a giant rectangle with a bunch of monster sized icons at the bottom of the screen (Is this because Mac users can't use a mouse well, so they need giant icons?). I find the dock rather primitive to other other solutions I agree.
I also don't see it being difficult to build from the source, a single command for me 'sudo apt-build install vlc' (you can also do this graphically with a package manager -- but I don't feel like explaining how to use a GUI -- as you can figure it out yourself).
It works as my desktop just fine. 'Average' people don't seem to have a problem using KDE 3.5 I've noticed (not seen with other DEs).
I have hardware here that Windows XP SP2 doesn't support out of the box, also hardware (fairly recent -- only three years old) that doesn't have drivers that work under XP SP2. This issue you're experiencing isn't unique to Linux.
Too bad we don't see any of that on the help channels on Freenode, could do with a bit of humor at times.
Could you explain the logic of how you determine what makes a 'hobbyist OS' and what doesn't?
The average person in Poland has no problem using a Linux desktop.
Wasting more decades starting from scratch isn't going to help much.
Yes.
Eh?
Linux isn't perfect. I didn't see anyone mention Linux was perfect
Well... It is a Windows article...
Linux isn't perfect.
I can't really imagine a OS being 'perfect' either.
Windows users are Windows users because when they goto the computer shop, all computers being sold there, come with windows. No choice. Nothing about winning people over.
That's because "high end users" actually know about Linux.
Believe it or not. I don't really care about that.
I think the hardware support is superb, a specific Windows version doesn't even support the amount of hardware out of the box or even with the manufacturer's drivers that most Linux distros do.
Do you really think your post will make someone go, "Oh, this guy says we should do this.. Let's go do it." Because I don't.
Quake (all versions), Unreal Tournament (All versions), Doom (All versions) etc. have native Linux versions already. Many popular (World of Warcraft, Half life etc.) Windows-only games are playable via Wine/crossover now too. I wouldn't really say gaming on Linux is that much of a issue, the way you're presenting your 'suggestion'.
I disagree. A presetup system from a vendor (like System76) is in my opinion, even easier than windows is.
Which is why World of Warcraft (and other games) tend to run faster on Linux (assuming the hardware is fully supported), under Wine, which should be giving a significan overhead and technically slower than Windows. Yet it isn't. Yes, I see the bloat right there... Well, no, not really.
Because reading the descriptions of the program in the 'start' menu is soo hard.
Like what?
What software is it lacking (specify software types -- like spreadsheet, word processing, photo manipulation etc)?
It may lack support out of the box for certain hardware, others it may not support at all. But if you buy a Linux system preinstalled, you're unlikely to run that issue. I have hardware here, that Windows XP SP2 cannot use, because it lacks working drivers. I have things like wireless cards, that run just fine off Linux livecds (and harddrive installations obviously) -- Linux just tries to support the chipsets, which works with most cards then. But Windows XP SP2 doesn't even support it
That doesn't seem very well thought out to me.
Two things in particular I don't quite understand.