Can you, oh Wise Ones of Slashdot, recommend a Lunix setup that will be as similar as possible to a Windows environment (Windows 7 or XP)
Yes, I can: Don't.
What you are trying is creating a rip-off. No matter how much better Linux is, no matter how close you come to the experience your test subjects have now, there will be some tiny little detail that is different and that will convince them that Linux sucks.
"Humans are funny", in the words of Tim Minchhin.
You should face their fears. Give them something that is different, but so well set up that they appreciate the difference. Look at Apple - every single one of their successful products for the past years worked like that. It was different - and better - than what else was on the market at the time. Getting used to an iPhone when you had a Nokia for several years did take a short while, but very, very quickly you wanted to do it, because it was the better experience.
You will not succeed in convincing someone that Linux is better by making it look like a cheap rip-off of their old windows environment. In the workplace, retraining costs are a factor that might justify such a decision, because most office drones have no intrinsic motivation for a change. But that is exactly what you need to tap. Don't find out what your test subjects like about windows, you shouldn't care. Find out what they hate about it, and make sure that your Linux system is better in that regards and put this advantage in their face. If they hate the start menu (and who doesn't?), find a nice launcher application that opens automatically when they log in. If they hate how long it takes to boot, do everything to speed up your systems boot process and window system startup. If they hate UAC and all the other thousand notifications windows throws at you every other second ("scan started", "mouse found", "keyboad in different USB port this time", "someone posted something on the Internet", "look, I have WiFi!", "driver out of date", "are you still reading this?"...) then make sure that the notification system on your Linux box is set to be as unobtrusive and silent as possible.
Don't make the same mistake that some Linux freaks have been making for 10 years, probably the main reason the year of the Linux desktop has never happened and never will. Don't try to provide a better windows. Convince them of Linux, including the fact that it is different. Fear of change is vastly overrated. People don't fear change per se, they fear loss (of skills and knowledge) and disorientation. Address these fears instead of trying to avoid them.
Yes, he is. He's also very passionate and has a sharp mind. I've had the pleasure of discussing POSIX compatability of SELinux with him after a conference at which we both spoke. He is very persistent on things that most others consider nitpicking and philosophical, but there is a strong consistency to his views that I admire. And he is usually right in the factual points he makes.
Seriously, if you would institute any of the measures you mentioned on me, I would consider resigning.
But apparently, you have an existing problem. I find it hard to believe that everyone on your team is problematic, so why don't you, you know, focus on the actual problem, the people who are an issue?
I am really, really sick and tired of this pre-assumption that all men are chauvinist pigs.
Our culture has an irrational fear of nuclear power, much like in the early trains of steam trains, people thought they would die from asphyxiation if the train went too fast.
Some nuclear technology is dangerous. Thorium reactors (see other comments), for example, aren't.
But through our irrational fear, we've actually put us into a worse situation. In most western countries, we have nuclear reactors running well beyond their lifetimes, because we are too afraid to allow the construction of new, modern reactors. So instead we have old, less reliable, less safe and slowly falling apart reactors. Do you really think that's an improvement?
Burning coal and oil and gas is what has to stop, right now. I'm with a power company that offers renewable energy right now. But if there was one that offered renewable plus nuclear, I'd sign up immediately. For some reason, there isn't. You either get totally dirty power, with nuclear and fossil, or renewable. But nobody has the balls to ask the market if maybe there are enough people like me who don't really mind nuclear, but do mind fossil.
On the philosophical level, you are correct. However, it requires a conversation partner willing to engage in a philosophical discussion. I find that confronting them with a slightly off-center point that hits home works a lot better at getting their attention. From there, it is easier to move towards the philosophical points and differentiate between hiding and privacy, etc.
That's totally wrong and everyone who modded that up should go sit in the corner and re-read "Applied Cryptography".
You can build a service providing data exchange between two parties with a server handling the connection without that server (or anyone else) being able to listen in. What we don't know if Skype was built this way or not. And that's the problem.
Zero-cost, but certainly not Free Software; one has to wonder whether Open Source games with a "donation" build in the store would do better than proprietary games with upfront costs.
They might, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Open Source or Free Software.
I've tried this experiment a few years ago and sold a tool I made for Unity 3D for four different price points, telling people to pay whatever they thought was the fair price. It was an interesting experiment. Around 60% of the people picked the lowest price. That's surprisingly few. It taught me that people are willing to pay for something they consider worthwhile. You just have to make it easy for them.
So I'm sure if you make a good game, post it for free and include an in-app purchase for, well basically nothing, maybe a bling-bling in-game item or something, you would certainly get some money.
If more or less than upfront, I can't say. But from my experience I would suggest to give it a try.
The "magical invisible unicorn" is based off of a very real force: human self-interest.
Which science has disproven. Well, not completely, but we have enough evidence that human behaviour does not fit the Free Market theory to pull that theory into doubt. Humans are not always rational, they do not always put their self-interest above everything else, and they do not always (actually, they fail most of the time) evaluate their choices correctly.
The Free Market is a nice concept, but many of its basic assumptions are not true for the real world we inhabit, so it should serve as an idea, not as a theory. Which means a lot more care when extrapolating actions, rules and consequences.
If the EU has power to fine Google, they have just as much power to fine your business.
Of course they do. Tell me something new.
What stops them from creating a new regulation that will affect your business next year?
Nothing. I will have to adapt. Other than Google, I'm too small to bribe/lobby or otherwise influence the government. Which is why more power for them benefits me, compared to the big guys. If the government has a power, it should have enough of it to cover everyone, not just the weak.
In reality, a weak government is more oppressive than a strong one, because it oppresses those who can't fight it.
What stops them from fining you some arbitrary amount in the future?
The courts. You know, the thing you spoke about? Division of powers and all that.
Perhaps you can trust the EU bureaucrats to always stick to reasonable regulations. Perhaps you can influence their policies with democratic elections.
No and yes. I do think elections still matter. Not because they really change anything, but because they mean staying in power isn't automatic and guaranteed, which is the one thing that gives the corrupt bastards in charge of our countries something to consider. Elections are the MAD of the democracy, just like the assassination was for the monarchy. Politicians know they can't get way with everything. They continuously try the boundaries, which is why an outrage and a scandal every now and then are important.
I don't like government abuse, either. However, it is easier to control. Voting the scum out might take a bit of time (because it's not just the elected politicians, but also the bureaucrats they put into office), but it is possible.
One is stuck with a politician's legacy for far longer than one might be stuck with a monopoly's business product.
Some, some not. The new french president has already undone quite a bit of the "legacy" of his predecessor, as he promised. My country still has some legacy from over 10 years ago, but that's because the current government still supports the same ideology.
Windows, on the other hand, has been around for a lot longer than any of that.
Something that works. The main police officer busied by this is the PR guy. Sure they'll track the SMS source down and do something about it. Total manpower expended? Ridiculous.
Plant a real bomb with a non-working but dangerously looking detonator near the train station so that it's discovered 20 minutes before you rob your bank (say, by putting it near the trash bins and knowing when the waste disposal truck comes). You'll have the C&C center busy and quite a bunch of policemen to control the area.
It really would be a worthwhile thing to have, even as a satire, to point out just how serious the problem is. And it could easily be expanded to cover politicians for whom we seem to get "agreement ratings" all the time, but never "hate metrics", which as any student of election theory knows are just as important.
It's extremely shady on Apple's part to allow developers to label apps that require in-app purchases as "free". The way I see it, this is karma.
This. It is high time the App Store is split into 3'categories, with one for really free stuff. If you ask me, I'd even want 4, with one for really, really free stuff as in: No ads, either.
At least let me, the customer, truthfully know what your business model is. I don't mind paying for software and regularly do. But I dislike the dishonesty in the pseudo-free sector.
To be fair, it DOES offer protection against one specific scenarios: If they want to beat the pass out of you, they have to have access to both you and the system at the same time so they can make you play the game. It doesn't work to beat you up in the garage and then send in a lookalike.
But as soon as the target system has a remote login, you're fucked.
I'd like to see the proof. Not because I don't believe you, but because I've done research in this area and hadn't heard of it before. Can you post a link or citation, please?
If I can seize your system, I can usually install a key logger just as well. Storing hashes protects against a compromised database or OS, not against physical access.
Depends. "password strength" is usually used to judge the complexity of the password, not attacks on the server. So strictly speaking, storing plaintext passwords does not make the passwords any weaker (nor stronger), but it does weaken the system as a whole.
You know that ain't true. It's the other way around. You install what's available, and ask yourself, why would I ever need anything again?
You can't read my mind, so stop projecting yours.
I don't use an iPad as my main computer, I need it as a mobile device for when I'm on the road. I have a developer license specifically so I can write stuff for myself that's not available. Know what? I've yet to find something non-trivial that I need and that's not there. Most of what I'd love to see is iPad ports of software I use on my main computer. The issue with that is never the App Store and never will.
No, I'll be honest, thinking about it there is in fact one piece of software that will probably be available for jailbroken devices only if at all - a WiFi analyser/cracker. I've never really needed one, but it's something I could imagine I might want to have one day.
I'm running a full Debian install on top of my Ice Cream Sandwich install on my Galaxy. That includes Apache, mysql and PHP. It's a portable webserver, and it comes in handy more than once when you are a dev. Try doing that on your phone...
I don't see why I would want to, and I am doing software development on LAMP stacks. But my phone is a client, not a server. I deploy my web apps to my server, not to my phone. But if for whatever reason you do it the other way around, hey I'm not going to stop you at all.
Do you realize you need a LICENSE to install software ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER (Yes, the iPhone is a computer)?
Yes, I do. That is why I wrote that I do see the philosophical argument. However, I should have mentioned that my profession is IT security and compliance. I understand the geek desire to have admin rights on your machine, and I understand the organisations need to limit admin rights. That's a slightly different scenario, because the organisation owns the computers, but a similar argument can be constructed.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you, oh Wise Ones of Slashdot, recommend a Lunix setup that will be as similar as possible to a Windows environment (Windows 7 or XP)
Yes, I can: Don't.
What you are trying is creating a rip-off. No matter how much better Linux is, no matter how close you come to the experience your test subjects have now, there will be some tiny little detail that is different and that will convince them that Linux sucks.
"Humans are funny", in the words of Tim Minchhin.
You should face their fears. Give them something that is different, but so well set up that they appreciate the difference. Look at Apple - every single one of their successful products for the past years worked like that. It was different - and better - than what else was on the market at the time. Getting used to an iPhone when you had a Nokia for several years did take a short while, but very, very quickly you wanted to do it, because it was the better experience.
You will not succeed in convincing someone that Linux is better by making it look like a cheap rip-off of their old windows environment. In the workplace, retraining costs are a factor that might justify such a decision, because most office drones have no intrinsic motivation for a change.
But that is exactly what you need to tap. Don't find out what your test subjects like about windows, you shouldn't care. Find out what they hate about it, and make sure that your Linux system is better in that regards and put this advantage in their face. If they hate the start menu (and who doesn't?), find a nice launcher application that opens automatically when they log in. If they hate how long it takes to boot, do everything to speed up your systems boot process and window system startup. If they hate UAC and all the other thousand notifications windows throws at you every other second ("scan started", "mouse found", "keyboad in different USB port this time", "someone posted something on the Internet", "look, I have WiFi!", "driver out of date", "are you still reading this?"...) then make sure that the notification system on your Linux box is set to be as unobtrusive and silent as possible.
Don't make the same mistake that some Linux freaks have been making for 10 years, probably the main reason the year of the Linux desktop has never happened and never will. Don't try to provide a better windows. Convince them of Linux, including the fact that it is different. Fear of change is vastly overrated. People don't fear change per se, they fear loss (of skills and knowledge) and disorientation. Address these fears instead of trying to avoid them.
It's time for the programmer community to develop easy to use, robust, strongly encrypted, point to point programs.
"easy to use" being the keyword on which Free Software has consistently been failing because it is by geeks, for geeks.
Yes, he is. He's also very passionate and has a sharp mind. I've had the pleasure of discussing POSIX compatability of SELinux with him after a conference at which we both spoke. He is very persistent on things that most others consider nitpicking and philosophical, but there is a strong consistency to his views that I admire. And he is usually right in the factual points he makes.
So you are already assuming everyone guilty?
Seriously, if you would institute any of the measures you mentioned on me, I would consider resigning.
But apparently, you have an existing problem. I find it hard to believe that everyone on your team is problematic, so why don't you, you know, focus on the actual problem, the people who are an issue?
I am really, really sick and tired of this pre-assumption that all men are chauvinist pigs.
Seems the shootings in Colorado hurt a lot more people, but for some reason, they haven't banned the sale of bullets.
It would be really interesting to find out how many children require surgery every year because they swallowed a bullet, and compare.
Then again, this would probably lead to a ban on small caliber ammunition only, because beyond 7.62 it's unlikely that a kid would swallow it...
Welcome to the USA, leave your logic with the border guards, you won't need it, we have our own. :-)
yes, nuclear is the answer.
Our culture has an irrational fear of nuclear power, much like in the early trains of steam trains, people thought they would die from asphyxiation if the train went too fast.
Some nuclear technology is dangerous. Thorium reactors (see other comments), for example, aren't.
But through our irrational fear, we've actually put us into a worse situation. In most western countries, we have nuclear reactors running well beyond their lifetimes, because we are too afraid to allow the construction of new, modern reactors. So instead we have old, less reliable, less safe and slowly falling apart reactors. Do you really think that's an improvement?
Burning coal and oil and gas is what has to stop, right now. I'm with a power company that offers renewable energy right now. But if there was one that offered renewable plus nuclear, I'd sign up immediately. For some reason, there isn't. You either get totally dirty power, with nuclear and fossil, or renewable. But nobody has the balls to ask the market if maybe there are enough people like me who don't really mind nuclear, but do mind fossil.
no real reason other than the fact its fashionable to trash Microsoft
and why is that fashionable, I wonder. It's almost as if there was a reason. Or several.
It depends on what you want to accomplish.
On the philosophical level, you are correct. However, it requires a conversation partner willing to engage in a philosophical discussion. I find that confronting them with a slightly off-center point that hits home works a lot better at getting their attention. From there, it is easier to move towards the philosophical points and differentiate between hiding and privacy, etc.
Yes, I know. But the conception mentioned wasn't murdered by Google, it was dead and buried when Google started acting this way.
That's totally wrong and everyone who modded that up should go sit in the corner and re-read "Applied Cryptography".
You can build a service providing data exchange between two parties with a server handling the connection without that server (or anyone else) being able to listen in. What we don't know if Skype was built this way or not. And that's the problem.
Zero-cost, but certainly not Free Software; one has to wonder whether Open Source games with a "donation" build in the store would do better than proprietary games with upfront costs.
They might, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Open Source or Free Software.
I've tried this experiment a few years ago and sold a tool I made for Unity 3D for four different price points, telling people to pay whatever they thought was the fair price. It was an interesting experiment. Around 60% of the people picked the lowest price. That's surprisingly few. It taught me that people are willing to pay for something they consider worthwhile. You just have to make it easy for them.
So I'm sure if you make a good game, post it for free and include an in-app purchase for, well basically nothing, maybe a bling-bling in-game item or something, you would certainly get some money.
If more or less than upfront, I can't say. But from my experience I would suggest to give it a try.
I have plenty to hide
Of course you do. One of my more common answers to "if you've got nothing to hide..." is: "So you're ok with me installing a camera in your bedroom?"
Whatever happened to the concept of "it's just not your business?"
It was slaughtered by the corrupt politicians when they realized that fear makes for much easier ruling than visions.
Now it's "if you've got nothing to hide..."
The "magical invisible unicorn" is based off of a very real force: human self-interest.
Which science has disproven. Well, not completely, but we have enough evidence that human behaviour does not fit the Free Market theory to pull that theory into doubt. Humans are not always rational, they do not always put their self-interest above everything else, and they do not always (actually, they fail most of the time) evaluate their choices correctly.
The Free Market is a nice concept, but many of its basic assumptions are not true for the real world we inhabit, so it should serve as an idea, not as a theory. Which means a lot more care when extrapolating actions, rules and consequences.
If the EU has power to fine Google, they have just as much power to fine your business.
Of course they do. Tell me something new.
What stops them from creating a new regulation that will affect your business next year?
Nothing. I will have to adapt. Other than Google, I'm too small to bribe/lobby or otherwise influence the government. Which is why more power for them benefits me, compared to the big guys. If the government has a power, it should have enough of it to cover everyone, not just the weak.
In reality, a weak government is more oppressive than a strong one, because it oppresses those who can't fight it.
What stops them from fining you some arbitrary amount in the future?
The courts. You know, the thing you spoke about? Division of powers and all that.
Perhaps you can trust the EU bureaucrats to always stick to reasonable regulations. Perhaps you can influence their policies with democratic elections.
No and yes. I do think elections still matter. Not because they really change anything, but because they mean staying in power isn't automatic and guaranteed, which is the one thing that gives the corrupt bastards in charge of our countries something to consider. Elections are the MAD of the democracy, just like the assassination was for the monarchy. Politicians know they can't get way with everything. They continuously try the boundaries, which is why an outrage and a scandal every now and then are important.
Yes and no.
I don't like government abuse, either. However, it is easier to control. Voting the scum out might take a bit of time (because it's not just the elected politicians, but also the bureaucrats they put into office), but it is possible.
One is stuck with a politician's legacy for far longer than one might be stuck with a monopoly's business product.
Some, some not. The new french president has already undone quite a bit of the "legacy" of his predecessor, as he promised. My country still has some legacy from over 10 years ago, but that's because the current government still supports the same ideology.
Windows, on the other hand, has been around for a lot longer than any of that.
What would you do?
Something that works. The main police officer busied by this is the PR guy. Sure they'll track the SMS source down and do something about it. Total manpower expended? Ridiculous.
Plant a real bomb with a non-working but dangerously looking detonator near the train station so that it's discovered 20 minutes before you rob your bank (say, by putting it near the trash bins and knowing when the waste disposal truck comes). You'll have the C&C center busy and quite a bunch of policemen to control the area.
Start a project on github, I'm in.
It really would be a worthwhile thing to have, even as a satire, to point out just how serious the problem is. And it could easily be expanded to cover politicians for whom we seem to get "agreement ratings" all the time, but never "hate metrics", which as any student of election theory knows are just as important.
Certainly. But once it gets traction, would YOU dare sue it?
It's extremely shady on Apple's part to allow developers to label apps that require in-app purchases as "free". The way I see it, this is karma.
This. It is high time the App Store is split into 3'categories, with one for really free stuff. If you ask me, I'd even want 4, with one for really, really free stuff as in: No ads, either.
At least let me, the customer, truthfully know what your business model is. I don't mind paying for software and regularly do. But I dislike the dishonesty in the pseudo-free sector.
To be fair, it DOES offer protection against one specific scenarios: If they want to beat the pass out of you, they have to have access to both you and the system at the same time so they can make you play the game. It doesn't work to beat you up in the garage and then send in a lookalike.
But as soon as the target system has a remote login, you're fucked.
I'd like to see the proof. Not because I don't believe you, but because I've done research in this area and hadn't heard of it before. Can you post a link or citation, please?
If I can seize your system, I can usually install a key logger just as well. Storing hashes protects against a compromised database or OS, not against physical access.
Depends. "password strength" is usually used to judge the complexity of the password, not attacks on the server. So strictly speaking, storing plaintext passwords does not make the passwords any weaker (nor stronger), but it does weaken the system as a whole.
Oh dear, where do I even start?
It's not crypto, it's not unbreakable, and the rest is debatable.
It is certainly an interesting experiment. Utterly impractical in this form, but maybe the start of something. But the /. summary is bollocks.
You know that ain't true. It's the other way around. You install what's available, and ask yourself, why would I ever need anything again?
You can't read my mind, so stop projecting yours.
I don't use an iPad as my main computer, I need it as a mobile device for when I'm on the road. I have a developer license specifically so I can write stuff for myself that's not available. Know what? I've yet to find something non-trivial that I need and that's not there. Most of what I'd love to see is iPad ports of software I use on my main computer. The issue with that is never the App Store and never will.
No, I'll be honest, thinking about it there is in fact one piece of software that will probably be available for jailbroken devices only if at all - a WiFi analyser/cracker. I've never really needed one, but it's something I could imagine I might want to have one day.
I'm running a full Debian install on top of my Ice Cream Sandwich install on my Galaxy. That includes Apache, mysql and PHP. It's a portable webserver, and it comes in handy more than once when you are a dev. Try doing that on your phone ...
I don't see why I would want to, and I am doing software development on LAMP stacks. But my phone is a client, not a server. I deploy my web apps to my server, not to my phone. But if for whatever reason you do it the other way around, hey I'm not going to stop you at all.
Do you realize you need a LICENSE to install software ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER (Yes, the iPhone is a computer)?
Yes, I do. That is why I wrote that I do see the philosophical argument. However, I should have mentioned that my profession is IT security and compliance. I understand the geek desire to have admin rights on your machine, and I understand the organisations need to limit admin rights. That's a slightly different scenario, because the organisation owns the computers, but a similar argument can be constructed.