The Ubuntu development releases are often quite stable, even while undergoing constant changes and development. If you want to be on the cutting edge, while still having a quite stable and usable system, the Ubuntu development branch is very useful.
KDE has far better support for Asian and other non-English languages than GNOME does. I know a Japanese colleague who had to switch from GNOME to KDE because GNOME could not sufficiently handle Japanese text very well. KDE, on the other hand, worked fine for him.
He also said that the GNOME translations were not always very concise and accurate. He found the KDE ones to be much clearer and correct.
Indeed. It will be quite interesting to see if Red Hat and Novell/SuSE will be able to match the momentum of Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
I know many people who have become disenchanted with the Red Hat and SuSE distros. While they were near, if not at, the top of the game once, they may not remain there much longer.
I'm aware of a number of people, myself included, who gave Fedora Core a try. And frankly, we were not impressed. I had the installer crash on me, and the others I talked with ran into a multitude of other problems. They were simple problems that shouldn't exist in a modern distro.
Meanwhile, there's all the nonsense with Novell/SuSE switching SuSE to GNOME. SuSE has been a KDE-based distro for years, and it has worked very well. As a former fan of SuSE, I do not think I'll bother buying their products if they go with GNOME as their default desktop, rather than KDE.
Some of the people I know went back to Slackware, others to Debian, and myself to Kubuntu. Until Red Hat and Novell/SuSE get their acts together, Ubuntu/Kubuntu may very well have a strong future.
Don't blame the screenshots. After all, they do just show GNOME. GNOME is a very small part of Ubuntu. Many Ubuntu users even choose to ditch GNOME in favour of KDE (thus Kubuntu).
The main thing to focus on is the fantastic package management system, the up-to-date packages, and the overall integration of the system. It's a distro that just works, and that is exactly what a busy user needs.
Actually, many of the more advanced developers are switching to Ubuntu because it does offer all the power of Debian, while also being more up-to-date and developed quicker.
It allows serious developers to focus on programming and software design, rather than painstakingly maintaining their computer system(s). After all, productivity is a must these days, and Ubuntu does much to increase it.
If you don't like GNOME, like myself and many others, feel free to try Kubuntu. It offers all the goodness of Ubuntu, but replaces GNOME with KDE.
Of course, you can still install and use GNOME software, although I don't know why you'd want to do that when you've got the power of KDE available to you.
I tried installing Ubuntu PPC on my Opteron machine. It was sooooo unstable! I can't remember the exact details, something about the Opteron missing some of the PowerPC instructions.
I know of one Japanese colleague who ran into many problems with GNOME, even fairly recently. He ended up switching to KDE, and this problems were eliminated.
You realize that KDE was the default SuSE desktop for years, right? It's only now that SuSE has been acquired by Novell that they brought GNOME into the equation.
"Flip-flopping" is a very stupid term, and even stupider when used as an insult.
Novell made what amounted to a mistake in the eyes of many of their users, and such users let Novell know that. So Novell did the responsible thing, listened to their users, and cleared up the problem. That's not a bad thing. They were being responsive to their customers needs.
Indeed, it's very good when people go back and fix a mistake that they made. It's called being responsible.
However, I do agree with you about the GNOME file selector being quite unusable. It is what keeps me from using Firefox.
KDE is used far more than GNOME in many European and Asian countries, just because it offers far better internationalization and localization support than GNOME offers.
Regardless of who gets the money, the end result is that Sony suffers financially. And that may just serve as an example to other companies not to pull a similar stunt, lest they might lose money in a similar fashion.
PHP does very little to prevent an inexperienced developer from programming insecure software. Indeed, as you have found out, they're not doing anything to deal with the known problem of lousy scripts causing severe security problems.
I blame PHP in that it could probably do more to prevent such security problems, but it does not.
We will just have to wait and see. Then again, even if a specific project doesn't go commercial, there is always the knowledge that was gained from it. In many cases that is more valuable than the tangibles the project may deliver.
Now that you're done being sarcastic, go look into some of the research that is being done at Microsoft Research. Like it or not, it is top of the line work. They're at the cutting edge, and they're well financed.
It's not so much about its ability to start thousands of processes. What is important is that it takes Windows XP five times as long as FreeBSD to create a single process, and seven times as long as Linux. That's a significant difference.
Singularity is a very interesting system. But that's not surprising, when you consider some of the brains behind it: Galen Hunt, Wolfram Schulte, Ulfar Erlingsson, Rebecca Isaacs, and many others who are well-known for their research.
In twenty or so years we may look back at Microsoft Research with the same admiration we have for Bell Labs.
Re:I'll stick with OpenBSD and Trusted Solaris.
on
Hardening Linux
·
· Score: 1
pkgsrc supports several versions of OpenBSD and Solaris, in addition to numerous other systems. It does offer pre-compiled binaries for such systems.
I accept your apology. I am glad to see that we both appreciate TripMaster Monkey, and all that he brings to Slashdot.
You wouldn't happen to know if he has any published journal papers available, would you? I would very much like to read more about the research he is most likely partaking in.
Most decent Linux distributions are rather secure by default. Often times that level of security is more that sufficient, while still offering a decent level of performance.
But then there are times when you need to make sure that the system isn't just extremely difficult to crack. That's when you need to make sure the system is basically impenetrable. Of course, you'll probably degrade the performance somewhat, in addition to other tradeoffs.
What about the audits?
on
Hardening Linux
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It's not just about limiting the number of default services. The OpenBSD project has performed years of strenuous code audits. Those have identified, and thus resulted in the fixing, of many bugs.
Then there's the whole emphasis on security in the first place. Code doesn't make its way into OpenBSD without being heavily scrutinized.
OpenBSD is secure because they don't enable potentially dangerous services right off the bat, but also because their development process puts such a heavy emphasis on only including highly secure code.
There are tradeoffs.
on
Hardening Linux
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Like always, a higher degree of security often means that tradeoffs must be made. In many cases such tradeoffs reduce the ease of use of the system, or reduce the performance. Such tradeoffs aren't always suitable.
Take OpenBSD, for instance. While it offers an extremely high level of security, it comes at a price. A system running OpenBSD usually does not perform as well as a system running FreeBSD or NetBSD, for instance. You may also have to use older versions of software, or not use certain software at all (ie. PHP).
In many situations, performance is more of an issue that security. Most Linux distributions, especially those intended for use on servers, are fairly secure out of the box. So users end up getting a higher degree of performance, even if there security level isn't as high as possible. A good blend, one might say. However, if you do need the utmost level of security, you can always use something like SELinux or OpenBSD.
Slashdot Mirror
The Ubuntu development releases are often quite stable, even while undergoing constant changes and development. If you want to be on the cutting edge, while still having a quite stable and usable system, the Ubuntu development branch is very useful.
KDE has far better support for Asian and other non-English languages than GNOME does. I know a Japanese colleague who had to switch from GNOME to KDE because GNOME could not sufficiently handle Japanese text very well. KDE, on the other hand, worked fine for him.
He also said that the GNOME translations were not always very concise and accurate. He found the KDE ones to be much clearer and correct.
Indeed. It will be quite interesting to see if Red Hat and Novell/SuSE will be able to match the momentum of Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
I know many people who have become disenchanted with the Red Hat and SuSE distros. While they were near, if not at, the top of the game once, they may not remain there much longer.
I'm aware of a number of people, myself included, who gave Fedora Core a try. And frankly, we were not impressed. I had the installer crash on me, and the others I talked with ran into a multitude of other problems. They were simple problems that shouldn't exist in a modern distro.
Meanwhile, there's all the nonsense with Novell/SuSE switching SuSE to GNOME. SuSE has been a KDE-based distro for years, and it has worked very well. As a former fan of SuSE, I do not think I'll bother buying their products if they go with GNOME as their default desktop, rather than KDE.
Some of the people I know went back to Slackware, others to Debian, and myself to Kubuntu. Until Red Hat and Novell/SuSE get their acts together, Ubuntu/Kubuntu may very well have a strong future.
Don't blame the screenshots. After all, they do just show GNOME. GNOME is a very small part of Ubuntu. Many Ubuntu users even choose to ditch GNOME in favour of KDE (thus Kubuntu).
The main thing to focus on is the fantastic package management system, the up-to-date packages, and the overall integration of the system. It's a distro that just works, and that is exactly what a busy user needs.
Actually, many of the more advanced developers are switching to Ubuntu because it does offer all the power of Debian, while also being more up-to-date and developed quicker.
It allows serious developers to focus on programming and software design, rather than painstakingly maintaining their computer system(s). After all, productivity is a must these days, and Ubuntu does much to increase it.
If you don't like GNOME, like myself and many others, feel free to try Kubuntu. It offers all the goodness of Ubuntu, but replaces GNOME with KDE.
Of course, you can still install and use GNOME software, although I don't know why you'd want to do that when you've got the power of KDE available to you.
I tried installing Ubuntu PPC on my Opteron machine. It was sooooo unstable! I can't remember the exact details, something about the Opteron missing some of the PowerPC instructions.
I know of one Japanese colleague who ran into many problems with GNOME, even fairly recently. He ended up switching to KDE, and this problems were eliminated.
No, Firefox 1.0.7 uses the horrible GNOME file selector dialogs.
You realize that KDE was the default SuSE desktop for years, right? It's only now that SuSE has been acquired by Novell that they brought GNOME into the equation.
"Flip-flopping" is a very stupid term, and even stupider when used as an insult.
Novell made what amounted to a mistake in the eyes of many of their users, and such users let Novell know that. So Novell did the responsible thing, listened to their users, and cleared up the problem. That's not a bad thing. They were being responsive to their customers needs.
Indeed, it's very good when people go back and fix a mistake that they made. It's called being responsible.
However, I do agree with you about the GNOME file selector being quite unusable. It is what keeps me from using Firefox.
KDE is used far more than GNOME in many European and Asian countries, just because it offers far better internationalization and localization support than GNOME offers.
Indeed, you just lost for a second time in less than 24 hours.
Regardless of who gets the money, the end result is that Sony suffers financially. And that may just serve as an example to other companies not to pull a similar stunt, lest they might lose money in a similar fashion.
PHP does very little to prevent an inexperienced developer from programming insecure software. Indeed, as you have found out, they're not doing anything to deal with the known problem of lousy scripts causing severe security problems.
I blame PHP in that it could probably do more to prevent such security problems, but it does not.
You should not have resorted to those ad hominem attacks. According to the protocol of debate, you have just lost.
We will just have to wait and see. Then again, even if a specific project doesn't go commercial, there is always the knowledge that was gained from it. In many cases that is more valuable than the tangibles the project may deliver.
Now that you're done being sarcastic, go look into some of the research that is being done at Microsoft Research. Like it or not, it is top of the line work. They're at the cutting edge, and they're well financed.
It's not so much about its ability to start thousands of processes. What is important is that it takes Windows XP five times as long as FreeBSD to create a single process, and seven times as long as Linux. That's a significant difference.
Singularity is a very interesting system. But that's not surprising, when you consider some of the brains behind it: Galen Hunt, Wolfram Schulte, Ulfar Erlingsson, Rebecca Isaacs, and many others who are well-known for their research.
In twenty or so years we may look back at Microsoft Research with the same admiration we have for Bell Labs.
pkgsrc supports several versions of OpenBSD and Solaris, in addition to numerous other systems. It does offer pre-compiled binaries for such systems.
I accept your apology. I am glad to see that we both appreciate TripMaster Monkey, and all that he brings to Slashdot.
You wouldn't happen to know if he has any published journal papers available, would you? I would very much like to read more about the research he is most likely partaking in.
Most decent Linux distributions are rather secure by default. Often times that level of security is more that sufficient, while still offering a decent level of performance.
But then there are times when you need to make sure that the system isn't just extremely difficult to crack. That's when you need to make sure the system is basically impenetrable. Of course, you'll probably degrade the performance somewhat, in addition to other tradeoffs.
It's not just about limiting the number of default services. The OpenBSD project has performed years of strenuous code audits. Those have identified, and thus resulted in the fixing, of many bugs.
Then there's the whole emphasis on security in the first place. Code doesn't make its way into OpenBSD without being heavily scrutinized.
OpenBSD is secure because they don't enable potentially dangerous services right off the bat, but also because their development process puts such a heavy emphasis on only including highly secure code.
Like always, a higher degree of security often means that tradeoffs must be made. In many cases such tradeoffs reduce the ease of use of the system, or reduce the performance. Such tradeoffs aren't always suitable.
Take OpenBSD, for instance. While it offers an extremely high level of security, it comes at a price. A system running OpenBSD usually does not perform as well as a system running FreeBSD or NetBSD, for instance. You may also have to use older versions of software, or not use certain software at all (ie. PHP).
In many situations, performance is more of an issue that security. Most Linux distributions, especially those intended for use on servers, are fairly secure out of the box. So users end up getting a higher degree of performance, even if there security level isn't as high as possible. A good blend, one might say. However, if you do need the utmost level of security, you can always use something like SELinux or OpenBSD.