These people are selfish and arrogant. If it was worth it to develop Debian for free before some people started getting paid, then it was still worth it after; nothing changed
While what you say is true, the problems stemming from paying some developers should have been anticipated. If you and I are both working on a project for free, and the organization running that project decide to pay you but not me, what they are essentially saying is "tyke, you're contribution is not as important as drinkypoo's". That is a slap in the face, especially if I think my contribution is as important as yours. True, I haven't lost anything, but you can't overlook the de-motivational impact of rewarding some people but not others.
There are many valid technical and business reasons for using an open format, that's why there are frequent stories about large organisations switching.
There are, I agree, but do not underestimate how wedded the world at large is to Office. I would love OO.o to kill it off tomorrow, but we're years away from that point. I personally have never even been in and office that did'nt use, um, Office. I have a job application form on my desk. It does not ask for "experience using word processors and spreadsheets", it asks for experience with MS Office. If your business needs to exchange files with another company, not using MS Office will likely put you at a disadvantage.
As part of my job I have to e-mail over a daily log of support incidents to a client. I have to send it as an excel file. No choice in the matter. On one occasion, when there were only two jobs logged, I sent it as a plain text e-mail. They were on the phone five minutes later demanding an excel file. Yes, copying and pasting two lines of text was beyond them. Imagine how they'd cope with any little niggles an OO.o generated excel doc had.
You're wasting your time replying pal. Just try reading this thread. He accused me of being an MS shill and a liar because I voiced the opinion that a lot of malware is installed by end users on purpose after they are duped into doing so (you know, toolabrs for IE and the like). When I replied to him, his idea of rebuttal was to quote my post and insert "bullshit" every other line, then go off on some rant about a power failure corrupting the registry.
A reasoned argument is wasted on this person. He is of the "anyone who disagrees with me is dumb or lying" mindset.
Stop Using the Proprietary MS Formats - The vast majority of people complaining about OOo complain that it doesn't open MS Documents 100% Accurately. If you would simply start to use the default file format - ODF you won't have this problem.
Maybe our places of employment use MS formats. Maybe our customers use MS formats. Most people do. If your customers demand you send them MS office files, what are you going to do?
I often work from home. Without MS software on my home machine, I would not be able to do that. You work in a school, and persuaded them to change their IT policy and adopt an open alternative. That's great.I work for a multinational company employing tens of thousands of people. They are not going to change their IT policy just to suit little old me.
Seriously though, and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought PS3 controllers didn't have rumble. Will you have to buy a new controller, or will this be some sort of plugin pack, like the N64 rumble pack was?
Are you from the UK? Were you playing video games in the UK in the early 90s? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then sensi is anything but obscure. It was the first really good football game, and, in my not-so-humble opinion, its gameplay has yet to be surpassed.
The second is the fact that Linux is harder to write malware for -- this is the beneficial flip side of the "many distros" problem that vendors of commercial Linux software face. Of coure, if one Linux flavor really takes over, or the ongoing standardization efforts make significant progress, this "advantage" will disappear.
Of course, the real reason Linux isn't a malware target at present is that Windows is a much *better* target. From the perspective of a malware author, it makes more sense to put X hours of effort into improving your malware's ability to infect Windows machines than it does to put the same hours into grabbing some fraction of a fraction of the already-small Linux "market".
Well, we appear to have reached something at least approaching agreement, and I don't really have much to add, but I had to smile when I saw this. I agree completely with both points, but I've never dared voice them in a Slashdot discussion. This is due to the fact that there is simply no faster way to attract a dozen responses calling you an MS astroturfer than to put forward the "Linux would have more malware if it had a higher market share" argument. Mind you, I've been told MS are paying me twice already today.
No, there was this thing called windows 95. Perhaps you've heard of it? Mind you, you come across as being about 12 years old yourself, so perhaps you haven't. I still use windows 2000 on one of my machines, by the way.
"I use Linux around 80 percent of the time myself"
Bullshit.
Painful for you to believe, I know, but it's true. I'm typing this on Ubuntu Edgy.
You're a Microsoft shill. You're a liar.
You're the second person to accuse me of that in this discussion. I'm curious, perhaps someone else reading this could help me out, how does one become an MS shill? Is there an online application form or something? Because really, if someone wants to pay me for doing this, I'm in. Actually, someone already is, since I'm typing this at work, but I don't work for Microsoft.
Bullshit.
I can tell you were on the debating team at school. Truly you have exposed the fragility and incoherence of my position with your brilliantly reasoned and incisive logic.
I'll concede that point, but I would be happy enough to put a hundred pound bet on that any virus scan of one of my windows machines would not find any virus'.
My XP experience is limited to cleaning up other peoples crapware-infested machines
That's mainly my experience with XP as well, outside of work.
Given the huge number of IE and Outlook exploits that are floating around, though, odds are good that there were some remote infections there as well.
You're probably right, although IE is certainly a lot better than it used to be. As I said earlier, most of the active X horrors are disabled now, or at least require user conformation. Outlook is another matter, and I personally recommend people use a web based e-mail service. To be fair though, outlook is not windows, and more and more home users are using web mail now anyway. Besides, all mail clients seem to have their share of flaws.
in addition to the fact that you're leaving yourself open to the other 5% of problems, note that you're advocating securing the user, rather than the system. That's fine, when you're dealing with users that you can train effectively, but it's not a practical approach in general.
Again, I agree with you, but I don't think you can secure the system. I'm typing this on an Ubuntu system. If you write a program, I download the deb and install it, and your program asks for my root password and I type it in, You can do pretty much anything you want with my system. Now the only difference in this scenario between Linux and XP is that Linux asks for the password before I install anything. That's good practice, to be sure, but it still can't protect me from myself. Besides, Vista does this too. I actually had some lunatic tell me the other day that the obvious solution was for MS to set up repositories and only allow windows to install software from there. Can you imagine the lawsuits?
Ultimately, I can't think of a model that allows users to control their systems and still protects them from malware, adware, spyware, and any other $ware you care to mention. Linux certainly doesn't.
Oh, really? I guess that explains all the popups and viruses I have on my Linux machine that have automatic root access because Linux default installs set up only one user as root...
Where, exactly, did I say that Windows was as secure as Linux, and that linux has as big a virus problem as windows? What I said was that most malware is installed purposefully by end users. It is virtually impossible to protect end users from damaging their own systems, and Linux is no better at this than Windows (I'll grant that by default you need to enter your root password to do so on Linux, but that is true of windows now vista is out).
Now, try answering a question for me. I'd answer it myself, but I'm a moron apparently. If write a program called "Nude Celeb Viewer", and you download the.deb from my website, install it by double clicking on it and typing in your root password, what does Linux do to protect you from my malware?
The reason this is relevant is because that's how most malware gets installed. Admittedly, XP and earlier skip the root password part, but that's been dealt with now by Vista.
It is NOT easy to set up a secure Windows machine. It requires at least FOUR antispyware tools, at least one antivirus (maybe two for a second opinion since the first one gives false positives), one firewall (preferably hardware), one antitrojan tool, one browser hijack tool, one rootkit revealer, and a different browser than IE, and several hardening steps requiring turning off services and editing the Registry
And yet, I've been using windows for 12 years, have never done any of those things beyond running a firewall, and have had zero problems. How do you explain that? Oh that's right, I'm a lying moron.
Another goddamn Microsoft shill without a clue...
"Moron", "Godddamn Shill". You're a class act, you really are. What makes me a shill, by the way? Do you have some evidence I'm being paid to say this, or do you just think that you are so obviously correct that no one could ever disagree with you except those paid to do so? I call people like that zealots.
I'll get the incredibly smart ass reply out the way first, since it's just too good to pass up.
None, same as Linus. Linux is Kernel, not an OS.
Sorry, back on track now. Could you explain why writing a kernel makes you an expert on user interface design? If not, perhaps you could explain why Linus' thinks he knows better than anyone else how Gnome should be designed?
What I personally disliked about that whole flame war was not Linus opinions, it was his attitude. Linus thinks Gnome sucks. Fine, that his opinion, he has every right to think it, voice it, shoot it from the rooftops. But the impression given by reading his posts was that he thought anyone who disagreed with him was just flat out wrong. Well there is no right or wrong here. Just opinions and preferences. Personally I hate KDE, but that doesn't mean I think anyone who uses it is an idiot, which Linus apparentley thinks about Gnome.
12 years using windows. Never used any form of AV software. Number of viruses infections in that time? Zero.
doing something about ActiveX,
The dangerous bits of ActiveX are either set to display a prompt or are turned off by default since SP2 ( or possibly earlier, I'm not too sure on that one. I only switched to XP after SP2).
keeping up to date on the patches
If I'm doing a new XP install, I apply one patch, SP2. Then I turn off automatic updates, and, as I keep saying, I've never had a problem. Although if you want the updates, Windows is set to automatically check for updates and alert you when new ones are available. Very similar to Ubuntu, if you've used that.
spyware/adware cleanup tools
Never used them. As I've said elsewhere in this discussion, most of that stuff is installed by the end user, on purpose. No OS can protect the end user from themselves. Well, unless you think Treacherous Computing is a good idea. I don't.
I do get the impression that you don't have a ton of recent experience with XP. Good for you. I use Linux around 80 percent of the time myself. But really, Windows is not as bad as a lot of Slashbots want you to believe. 95 percent of real world security problems I see with XP could be solved by doing two things: run a firewall, don't install crap.
Well, I never had any sort of problem with any kind of malware (virus, worm, whatever) in the whole time I was using Windows. Perhaps you could explain what else I needed to do ?
I've been using windows since '95. I have never, ever, had to edit the registry. Additionally, I can only think of one consumer device for which I was unable to locate drivers, which was a particularly old graphics tablet a friend of mine found in his loft a few years back.
By comparison , I've been using Linux since '99. I have edited more config files than I could hope to count. I had to edit config files on three occasions while setting up the PC I'm typing this on. In addition, I have three consumer devices on this desk that I have been unable to locate drivers for. Actually, one of them I have found drivers for, it just refuses to work, and I gave up trying to figure out why.
The obvious proof that it is difficult to set up a secure windows machine is the millions of Windows zombies on the net. If things were as rosy as you claim, we would not have this problem.
I'm not too sure your conclusion nesseceraily follows from your evidence. It could be easy to set up a secure Windows machine, but people might still not do it, for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they are ignorant of the dangers posed, perhaps they just can't be bothered (I think ignorance is the most likely, by the way).
All I ever did to secure my windows machines was install Zone Alarm. It has a lovely, brightly coloured, non intimidating installation dialog, lets you choose your experience level, uses a minimum of jargon and automatically configures itself to allow standard stuff through (IE, Firefox, etc). It's as simple as anything I have ever installed.
In any case, any windows PC you buy nowadays ships with SP2, and will have a firewall turned on by default. Really, most malware is installed by end users intentionally, although not knowingly, when they download and install toolbars, smilies, P2P clients and the like. It is virtually impossible for the OS to protect the end user from this sort of thing, and Linux is no different in this regard.
I use an all gnome desktop as far as possible, so that wasn't an option for me.
'm not pretending that life isn't sometimes difficult with unsupported hardware (e.g. iPod), but my family, who uses e-mail, web, instant messaging, documents, digital photo management, and not much else, would have all their needs met, be more secure, and require less maintenance with a Linux Dell.
The problem, as I see it, is that there's always one show stopper. My wife will never, ever switch completely until her mobile phone software supports Linux. Just not an option. My brother will never switch until he gets a Linux port of Football Manager (No, Cedega will not do). I would love Dell to offer Linux pre-installed, but I can just see them weighing the few thousand extra sales against the deluge of calls asking why the shrink wrap software they bought from PC world won't work on their Dell.
Unfortunately, I sea this as a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Third parties (hardware and software) will not support Linux until their is a large consumer market. Their will not be a large consumer market until third parties support Linux.
Config files?! I'm not using config files for my e-mail, browser, office apps, multimedia, desktop environment, etc. For someone who tried Linux recently, you certainly have antiquated ideas of its current state.
Just for the record, I installed Ubuntu edgy at the weekend, and I had to edit config files manually three times.
xorg.conf to get my (ATI) graphics card to display the correct resolution, and fstab twice, once to set a windows share to mount at boot, and once to get my Ipod to work.
Admittedly, I like editing config files. If a GUI config tool were available to do all of those things, I'd probably still prefer opening the file in a text editor.
As I have pointed out elsewhere in this thread, my lack of knowledge on the American legal system is equalled only by my lack of interest in the American legal system, but I do know a thing or two about UK law.
The interesting question is whether MS, in its shrink wrap agreement, can eliminate the implied warranty of Merchantability, especially considering that most people don't read the license agreement before they buy.
In the UK, anything the MS EULA says about eliminating the implied warranty of merchantability is completely irrelevant when you ask for a refund, because you will be asking the vendor for the refund, not MS. The validity of EULAs in general aside, they have no bearing on the contract of sale you enter into with the vendor. That contract is formed at the check out in the store, long before anyone sees a EULA, and is subject to all the usual statutes of the sale of goods act.
requires that you tell the seller what your purpose is, or that your purpose is implied from the circumstances,
Absolutely correct, but as regards this particular story, this really should not be a problem. I think "installing onto a computer and activating it" is a fairly heavily implied purpose if you are buying a copy of an operating system.
Just for the record, I once managed to get my money back on a copy of Windows ME in the Leicester branch of PC World. I had to go through two drones and the store manager, but they acquiesced in the end.
Sorry, that's their EULA. You have two choices when you purchase anything M$, return the package unopened for a full refund or use it.
That may be the case in the US, but in the UK things work slightly differently. If I buy a copy of Vista from a store and it is faulty, for what ever reason, I can return it to the store for a full refund or a replacement. The legalese is "fit for purpose" and "of merchantable quality". Clearly, a copy of vista with an invalid licence key is not fit for purpose.
Incidentally, most of the big shrinkwrap software stores in the UK try to get out of doing this if they can. Just be persistent.
I will buy a Dell for my next laptop, if it comes preloaded with a decent Linux distro and without a bunch of crap. (I will not pay for the crap.)
You never pay for the crap. Rather, the crap pays for (part of) your laptop.
Most of those "craplets" like anti virus trials and ISP sign up programs are there because Dell was paid to put them there. There was a story on Ars Technica a few weeks ago (sorry, don't have the link) where a CEO from one of the big vendors was doing a Q&A session. Someone asked him how much extra it would cost to buy a PC if they dropped the craplets, and the figure he quoted was $60.
This does mean that any saving they make by not paying a Windows license fee could well be swallowed up by not having any craplets installed. After all, most ISPs don't even officially support Linx, and most home software packages are windows only, so its hard to see who would be willing to pay have their software preloaded in a Linux PC.
You're absolutely right. If somebody committed a crime which wasn't violent, why the heck should we put him in a prison?
I fully expect to be modded into oblivion for saying this, but I can tell you why. To punish him.
The rights and wrongs of this particular case aside, I believe that if you commit a crime you should be punished. I live in the UK, and we are currently suffering from massive overcrowding in our prisons. Needless to say a lot of the ensuing debate has centred around whether we need to send people to prison at all, whether prison is really the best way to rehabilitate criminals.
That, to me, misses the point. Prison may not be the most effective rehabilitation, but it is a horrible punishment, and I want criminals punished. If we can rehabilitate them, great. But punish them first.
Yes. As usual, the only acceptable thing for Microsoft to do is to unconditionally surrender their codebase and release it GPL.
What on earth does that have to do with setting up a repository for third party software? Do you think that if the only way to distribute third party software for windows was to get it officially approved by MS, smaller developers might accuse them of abusing their monopoly status? You realise that for it to work, it would have to be impossible to install software other than from the official repos?
"apt-get search smiley", followed by "apt-get install gaim-themes" works great and so does the GUI equivalent, so Johny gets what he wants without having to trust a net nasty like yourself. Contrary to M$ opinion, Johny is not stupid.
Let me repeat myself. What if the software I want is not in the repositories? Either you say I am not allowed to install non repo software, in which case I no longer have control over my PC or my OS, or you say I can download and install anything I want approved or not, in which case peo0ple will still install malware.
Just about any user application can be installed in the user's home directory, no root access needed
Yes, but be honest here, what do you think is going to happen when Joe Sixpack is confronted with a dialog saying "Type your root password to install the free porn viewer!"?
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These people are selfish and arrogant. If it was worth it to develop Debian for free before some people started getting paid, then it was still worth it after; nothing changed
While what you say is true, the problems stemming from paying some developers should have been anticipated. If you and I are both working on a project for free, and the organization running that project decide to pay you but not me, what they are essentially saying is "tyke, you're contribution is not as important as drinkypoo's". That is a slap in the face, especially if I think my contribution is as important as yours. True, I haven't lost anything, but you can't overlook the de-motivational impact of rewarding some people but not others.
There are many valid technical and business reasons for using an open format, that's why there are frequent stories about large organisations switching.
There are, I agree, but do not underestimate how wedded the world at large is to Office. I would love OO.o to kill it off tomorrow, but we're years away from that point. I personally have never even been in and office that did'nt use, um, Office. I have a job application form on my desk. It does not ask for "experience using word processors and spreadsheets", it asks for experience with MS Office. If your business needs to exchange files with another company, not using MS Office will likely put you at a disadvantage.
As part of my job I have to e-mail over a daily log of support incidents to a client. I have to send it as an excel file. No choice in the matter. On one occasion, when there were only two jobs logged, I sent it as a plain text e-mail. They were on the phone five minutes later demanding an excel file. Yes, copying and pasting two lines of text was beyond them. Imagine how they'd cope with any little niggles an OO.o generated excel doc had.
You're wasting your time replying pal. Just try reading this thread. He accused me of being an MS shill and a liar because I voiced the opinion that a lot of malware is installed by end users on purpose after they are duped into doing so (you know, toolabrs for IE and the like). When I replied to him, his idea of rebuttal was to quote my post and insert "bullshit" every other line, then go off on some rant about a power failure corrupting the registry.
A reasoned argument is wasted on this person. He is of the "anyone who disagrees with me is dumb or lying" mindset.
Stop Using the Proprietary MS Formats - The vast majority of people complaining about OOo complain that it doesn't open MS Documents 100% Accurately. If you would simply start to use the default file format - ODF you won't have this problem.
Maybe our places of employment use MS formats. Maybe our customers use MS formats. Most people do. If your customers demand you send them MS office files, what are you going to do?
I often work from home. Without MS software on my home machine, I would not be able to do that. You work in a school, and persuaded them to change their IT policy and adopt an open alternative. That's great.I work for a multinational company employing tens of thousands of people. They are not going to change their IT policy just to suit little old me.
Rumble was a "last gen" feature?
Seriously though, and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought PS3 controllers didn't have rumble. Will you have to buy a new controller, or will this be some sort of plugin pack, like the N64 rumble pack was?
Are you from the UK? Were you playing video games in the UK in the early 90s? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then sensi is anything but obscure. It was the first really good football game, and, in my not-so-humble opinion, its gameplay has yet to be surpassed.
The second is the fact that Linux is harder to write malware for -- this is the beneficial flip side of the "many distros" problem that vendors of commercial Linux software face. Of coure, if one Linux flavor really takes over, or the ongoing standardization efforts make significant progress, this "advantage" will disappear.
Of course, the real reason Linux isn't a malware target at present is that Windows is a much *better* target. From the perspective of a malware author, it makes more sense to put X hours of effort into improving your malware's ability to infect Windows machines than it does to put the same hours into grabbing some fraction of a fraction of the already-small Linux "market".
Well, we appear to have reached something at least approaching agreement, and I don't really have much to add, but I had to smile when I saw this. I agree completely with both points, but I've never dared voice them in a Slashdot discussion. This is due to the fact that there is simply no faster way to attract a dozen responses calling you an MS astroturfer than to put forward the "Linux would have more malware if it had a higher market share" argument. Mind you, I've been told MS are paying me twice already today.
So you used Windows 98 and 2000 for 12 years?
No, there was this thing called windows 95. Perhaps you've heard of it? Mind you, you come across as being about 12 years old yourself, so perhaps you haven't. I still use windows 2000 on one of my machines, by the way.
"I use Linux around 80 percent of the time myself"
Bullshit.
Painful for you to believe, I know, but it's true. I'm typing this on Ubuntu Edgy.
You're a Microsoft shill. You're a liar.
You're the second person to accuse me of that in this discussion. I'm curious, perhaps someone else reading this could help me out, how does one become an MS shill? Is there an online application form or something? Because really, if someone wants to pay me for doing this, I'm in. Actually, someone already is, since I'm typing this at work, but I don't work for Microsoft.
Bullshit.
I can tell you were on the debating team at school. Truly you have exposed the fragility and incoherence of my position with your brilliantly reasoned and incisive logic.
Zero that you know of!
I'll concede that point, but I would be happy enough to put a hundred pound bet on that any virus scan of one of my windows machines would not find any virus'.
My XP experience is limited to cleaning up other peoples crapware-infested machines
That's mainly my experience with XP as well, outside of work.
Given the huge number of IE and Outlook exploits that are floating around, though, odds are good that there were some remote infections there as well.
You're probably right, although IE is certainly a lot better than it used to be. As I said earlier, most of the active X horrors are disabled now, or at least require user conformation. Outlook is another matter, and I personally recommend people use a web based e-mail service. To be fair though, outlook is not windows, and more and more home users are using web mail now anyway. Besides, all mail clients seem to have their share of flaws.
in addition to the fact that you're leaving yourself open to the other 5% of problems, note that you're advocating securing the user, rather than the system. That's fine, when you're dealing with users that you can train effectively, but it's not a practical approach in general.
Again, I agree with you, but I don't think you can secure the system. I'm typing this on an Ubuntu system. If you write a program, I download the deb and install it, and your program asks for my root password and I type it in, You can do pretty much anything you want with my system. Now the only difference in this scenario between Linux and XP is that Linux asks for the password before I install anything. That's good practice, to be sure, but it still can't protect me from myself. Besides, Vista does this too. I actually had some lunatic tell me the other day that the obvious solution was for MS to set up repositories and only allow windows to install software from there. Can you imagine the lawsuits?
Ultimately, I can't think of a model that allows users to control their systems and still protects them from malware, adware, spyware, and any other $ware you care to mention. Linux certainly doesn't.
Oh, really? I guess that explains all the popups and viruses I have on my Linux machine that have automatic root access because Linux default installs set up only one user as root...
.deb from my website, install it by double clicking on it and typing in your root password, what does Linux do to protect you from my malware?
Where, exactly, did I say that Windows was as secure as Linux, and that linux has as big a virus problem as windows? What I said was that most malware is installed purposefully by end users. It is virtually impossible to protect end users from damaging their own systems, and Linux is no better at this than Windows (I'll grant that by default you need to enter your root password to do so on Linux, but that is true of windows now vista is out).
Now, try answering a question for me. I'd answer it myself, but I'm a moron apparently. If write a program called "Nude Celeb Viewer", and you download the
The reason this is relevant is because that's how most malware gets installed. Admittedly, XP and earlier skip the root password part, but that's been dealt with now by Vista.
It is NOT easy to set up a secure Windows machine. It requires at least FOUR antispyware tools, at least one antivirus (maybe two for a second opinion since the first one gives false positives), one firewall (preferably hardware), one antitrojan tool, one browser hijack tool, one rootkit revealer, and a different browser than IE, and several hardening steps requiring turning off services and editing the Registry
And yet, I've been using windows for 12 years, have never done any of those things beyond running a firewall, and have had zero problems. How do you explain that? Oh that's right, I'm a lying moron.
Another goddamn Microsoft shill without a clue...
"Moron", "Godddamn Shill". You're a class act, you really are. What makes me a shill, by the way? Do you have some evidence I'm being paid to say this, or do you just think that you are so obviously correct that no one could ever disagree with you except those paid to do so? I call people like that zealots.
How many operating systems have your written?
I'll get the incredibly smart ass reply out the way first, since it's just too good to pass up.
None, same as Linus. Linux is Kernel, not an OS.
Sorry, back on track now. Could you explain why writing a kernel makes you an expert on user interface design? If not, perhaps you could explain why Linus' thinks he knows better than anyone else how Gnome should be designed?
What I personally disliked about that whole flame war was not Linus opinions, it was his attitude. Linus thinks Gnome sucks. Fine, that his opinion, he has every right to think it, voice it, shoot it from the rooftops. But the impression given by reading his posts was that he thought anyone who disagreed with him was just flat out wrong. Well there is no right or wrong here. Just opinions and preferences. Personally I hate KDE, but that doesn't mean I think anyone who uses it is an idiot, which Linus apparentley thinks about Gnome.
but antivirus software
12 years using windows. Never used any form of AV software. Number of viruses infections in that time? Zero.
doing something about ActiveX,
The dangerous bits of ActiveX are either set to display a prompt or are turned off by default since SP2 ( or possibly earlier, I'm not too sure on that one. I only switched to XP after SP2).
keeping up to date on the patches
If I'm doing a new XP install, I apply one patch, SP2. Then I turn off automatic updates, and, as I keep saying, I've never had a problem. Although if you want the updates, Windows is set to automatically check for updates and alert you when new ones are available. Very similar to Ubuntu, if you've used that.
spyware/adware cleanup tools
Never used them. As I've said elsewhere in this discussion, most of that stuff is installed by the end user, on purpose. No OS can protect the end user from themselves. Well, unless you think Treacherous Computing is a good idea. I don't.
I do get the impression that you don't have a ton of recent experience with XP. Good for you. I use Linux around 80 percent of the time myself. But really, Windows is not as bad as a lot of Slashbots want you to believe. 95 percent of real world security problems I see with XP could be solved by doing two things: run a firewall, don't install crap.
Well, I never had any sort of problem with any kind of malware (virus, worm, whatever) in the whole time I was using Windows. Perhaps you could explain what else I needed to do ?
I've been using windows since '95. I have never, ever, had to edit the registry. Additionally, I can only think of one consumer device for which I was unable to locate drivers, which was a particularly old graphics tablet a friend of mine found in his loft a few years back.
By comparison , I've been using Linux since '99. I have edited more config files than I could hope to count. I had to edit config files on three occasions while setting up the PC I'm typing this on. In addition, I have three consumer devices on this desk that I have been unable to locate drivers for. Actually, one of them I have found drivers for, it just refuses to work, and I gave up trying to figure out why.
The obvious proof that it is difficult to set up a secure windows machine is the millions of Windows zombies on the net. If things were as rosy as you claim, we would not have this problem.
I'm not too sure your conclusion nesseceraily follows from your evidence. It could be easy to set up a secure Windows machine, but people might still not do it, for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps they are ignorant of the dangers posed, perhaps they just can't be bothered (I think ignorance is the most likely, by the way).
All I ever did to secure my windows machines was install Zone Alarm. It has a lovely, brightly coloured, non intimidating installation dialog, lets you choose your experience level, uses a minimum of jargon and automatically configures itself to allow standard stuff through (IE, Firefox, etc). It's as simple as anything I have ever installed.
In any case, any windows PC you buy nowadays ships with SP2, and will have a firewall turned on by default. Really, most malware is installed by end users intentionally, although not knowingly, when they download and install toolbars, smilies, P2P clients and the like. It is virtually impossible for the OS to protect the end user from this sort of thing, and Linux is no different in this regard.
I added iPod support to Amarok from the GUI.
I use an all gnome desktop as far as possible, so that wasn't an option for me.
'm not pretending that life isn't sometimes difficult with unsupported hardware (e.g. iPod), but my family, who uses e-mail, web, instant messaging, documents, digital photo management, and not much else, would have all their needs met, be more secure, and require less maintenance with a Linux Dell.
The problem, as I see it, is that there's always one show stopper. My wife will never, ever switch completely until her mobile phone software supports Linux. Just not an option. My brother will never switch until he gets a Linux port of Football Manager (No, Cedega will not do). I would love Dell to offer Linux pre-installed, but I can just see them weighing the few thousand extra sales against the deluge of calls asking why the shrink wrap software they bought from PC world won't work on their Dell.
Unfortunately, I sea this as a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Third parties (hardware and software) will not support Linux until their is a large consumer market. Their will not be a large consumer market until third parties support Linux.
Config files?! I'm not using config files for my e-mail, browser, office apps, multimedia, desktop environment, etc. For someone who tried Linux recently, you certainly have antiquated ideas of its current state.
Just for the record, I installed Ubuntu edgy at the weekend, and I had to edit config files manually three times.
xorg.conf to get my (ATI) graphics card to display the correct resolution, and fstab twice, once to set a windows share to mount at boot, and once to get my Ipod to work.
Admittedly, I like editing config files. If a GUI config tool were available to do all of those things, I'd probably still prefer opening the file in a text editor.
Given the way government projects are run, I think the whole thing could be done for a mere 4 billion. =)
So you're an optimist then?
As I have pointed out elsewhere in this thread, my lack of knowledge on the American legal system is equalled only by my lack of interest in the American legal system, but I do know a thing or two about UK law.
The interesting question is whether MS, in its shrink wrap agreement, can eliminate the implied warranty of Merchantability, especially considering that most people don't read the license agreement before they buy.
In the UK, anything the MS EULA says about eliminating the implied warranty of merchantability is completely irrelevant when you ask for a refund, because you will be asking the vendor for the refund, not MS. The validity of EULAs in general aside, they have no bearing on the contract of sale you enter into with the vendor. That contract is formed at the check out in the store, long before anyone sees a EULA, and is subject to all the usual statutes of the sale of goods act.
requires that you tell the seller what your purpose is, or that your purpose is implied from the circumstances,
Absolutely correct, but as regards this particular story, this really should not be a problem. I think "installing onto a computer and activating it" is a fairly heavily implied purpose if you are buying a copy of an operating system.
Just for the record, I once managed to get my money back on a copy of Windows ME in the Leicester branch of PC World. I had to go through two drones and the store manager, but they acquiesced in the end.
Sorry, that's their EULA. You have two choices when you purchase anything M$, return the package unopened for a full refund or use it.
That may be the case in the US, but in the UK things work slightly differently. If I buy a copy of Vista from a store and it is faulty, for what ever reason, I can return it to the store for a full refund or a replacement. The legalese is "fit for purpose" and "of merchantable quality". Clearly, a copy of vista with an invalid licence key is not fit for purpose.
Incidentally, most of the big shrinkwrap software stores in the UK try to get out of doing this if they can. Just be persistent.
I will buy a Dell for my next laptop, if it comes preloaded with a decent Linux distro and without a bunch of crap. (I will not pay for the crap.)
You never pay for the crap. Rather, the crap pays for (part of) your laptop.
Most of those "craplets" like anti virus trials and ISP sign up programs are there because Dell was paid to put them there. There was a story on Ars Technica a few weeks ago (sorry, don't have the link) where a CEO from one of the big vendors was doing a Q&A session. Someone asked him how much extra it would cost to buy a PC if they dropped the craplets, and the figure he quoted was $60.
This does mean that any saving they make by not paying a Windows license fee could well be swallowed up by not having any craplets installed. After all, most ISPs don't even officially support Linx, and most home software packages are windows only, so its hard to see who would be willing to pay have their software preloaded in a Linux PC.
You're absolutely right. If somebody committed a crime which wasn't violent, why the heck should we put him in a prison?
I fully expect to be modded into oblivion for saying this, but I can tell you why. To punish him.
The rights and wrongs of this particular case aside, I believe that if you commit a crime you should be punished. I live in the UK, and we are currently suffering from massive overcrowding in our prisons. Needless to say a lot of the ensuing debate has centred around whether we need to send people to prison at all, whether prison is really the best way to rehabilitate criminals.
That, to me, misses the point. Prison may not be the most effective rehabilitation, but it is a horrible punishment, and I want criminals punished. If we can rehabilitate them, great. But punish them first.
Do those games on your PC run at the exactly the same frame rates on exactly the same hardware when you switch resolutions around?
Yes. As usual, the only acceptable thing for Microsoft to do is to unconditionally surrender their codebase and release it GPL.
What on earth does that have to do with setting up a repository for third party software? Do you think that if the only way to distribute third party software for windows was to get it officially approved by MS, smaller developers might accuse them of abusing their monopoly status? You realise that for it to work, it would have to be impossible to install software other than from the official repos?
"apt-get search smiley", followed by "apt-get install gaim-themes" works great and so does the GUI equivalent, so Johny gets what he wants without having to trust a net nasty like yourself. Contrary to M$ opinion, Johny is not stupid.
Let me repeat myself. What if the software I want is not in the repositories? Either you say I am not allowed to install non repo software, in which case I no longer have control over my PC or my OS, or you say I can download and install anything I want approved or not, in which case peo0ple will still install malware.
Just about any user application can be installed in the user's home directory, no root access needed
Yes, but be honest here, what do you think is going to happen when Joe Sixpack is confronted with a dialog saying "Type your root password to install the free porn viewer!"?