Linux, a future?
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sanskypotov wrote: Where do you find it more comfortable typing your Creditcard number XP or Linux ??? Given I take a reasonable level of caution doing such things anyway, and also take care of the security of my system regardless of it's OS, it doesn't matter what I type it into. I'm quite happy with the level of security and the tools provided to help keep things secure on XP. On a more critical note, I notice you have attempted to switch the discussion from usability to security, presumably because you agree with my statement but do not like to admit so, and therefore have to change the focus to something you believe Linux is better at. Incidentally, I don't think Linux actually *has* better security, just that the people who run it are more likely to be aware of security issues and address them -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
Usability ??? I run 2 -3 good programs that are time consuming on windows and the whole OS is at mercy of them . I can't even load the TaskManager to kill them. Wonder who controls whom ? programs decides or OS decides to keep the controls? It feels like the OS is carrying unnecessary baggage or needs to rewritten again , keeping cleary in mind that it is an OS and supposed to run fast and reliable. As far as the XP looks are concerned , I prefer the w2k looks more professional , but XP looks are fine for kids!!! John 3:16
For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son ( Jesus Christ ) ,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. -
Usability ??? I run 2 -3 good programs that are time consuming on windows and the whole OS is at mercy of them . I can't even load the TaskManager to kill them. Wonder who controls whom ? programs decides or OS decides to keep the controls? It feels like the OS is carrying unnecessary baggage or needs to rewritten again , keeping cleary in mind that it is an OS and supposed to run fast and reliable. As far as the XP looks are concerned , I prefer the w2k looks more professional , but XP looks are fine for kids!!! John 3:16
For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son ( Jesus Christ ) ,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.sanskypotov wrote: I run 2 -3 good programs that are time consuming on windows and the whole OS is at mercy of them Did you switch the operating system to it's Background Services mode? You might find it performs better, because it increases the "time slice" or quanta for each thread, thus reducing context switches. Running intensive processes in Programs mode is going to kill performance because it context switches a lot more and so less CPU time is used on actual software - the Programs mode is intended for general purpose applications that do not need a consistently large amount of CPU time, and thus enable the computer to be more responsive when a user does something. See My Computer>Properties>Advanced>Performance Settings>Advanced>Processor Scheduling (at least, it is under XP. This setting exists on 2K as well IIRC) sanskypotov wrote: Wonder who controls whom ? programs decides or OS decides to keep the controls? I don't follow you here. sanskypotov wrote: It feels like the OS is carrying unnecessary baggage or needs to rewritten again , keeping cleary in mind that it is an OS and supposed to run fast and reliable. I don't feel that myself, but I guess a lot of this feeling is subjective. sanskypotov wrote: As far as the XP looks are concerned , I prefer the w2k looks more professional , but XP looks are fine for kids!!! I prefer the W2K/Classic look in XP as well, but both themes still look consistent across the board, even though my personal tastes prevents me from using one of them. Linux desktop software generally still finds this consistency very hard to do, and that is one of many things that I consider are holding back my own usage of this operating system. -- Ian Darling "The moral of the story is that with a contrived example, you can prove anything." - Joel Spolsky
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Don't know where you get your figures from, but, what bothers me is the concept of "free software": Why should software be free? I feel no guilt charging enterprise a lot of money for my consulting/jobs. All "professional" do - lawyers, physicians, engineers, accountants, real estate agents, business consultants (yeah, biz processes/reengineering, big deal.)... What makes M$ evil because they charge money for what they make? I don't think programmer generates a lot of sympathy during many sleepless nights debuggin code and making things work. People should realize that they need to "pay" for other people's effort. They should "pay" for their software/services. Linux is one complex piece of software. It's professional work and is result of countless hours of commitment. But..., o well, I will stop bickering like one of them.
CillyMe wrote: Don't know where you get your figures from It was a recent survey, don't remember where I read it though Matt Newman
I am the anti-linux He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something. -
Usability ??? I run 2 -3 good programs that are time consuming on windows and the whole OS is at mercy of them . I can't even load the TaskManager to kill them. Wonder who controls whom ? programs decides or OS decides to keep the controls? It feels like the OS is carrying unnecessary baggage or needs to rewritten again , keeping cleary in mind that it is an OS and supposed to run fast and reliable. As far as the XP looks are concerned , I prefer the w2k looks more professional , but XP looks are fine for kids!!! John 3:16
For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son ( Jesus Christ ) ,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.sanskypotov wrote: I run 2 -3 good programs that are time consuming on windows and the whole OS is at mercy of them . I can't even load the TaskManager to kill them. Either your system is underspecified for running Windows XP, or there's just something really wrong with the hardware. I've currently got 13 buttons on the taskbar: Outlook, phone software, homebrew Work Tracker, two Explorer windows, VB6 with a large project open, TextPad, Word 2000, three IE windows (two processes, one of which had a PDF loaded, so Acrobat 5.1's running too), a January 2001 copy of MSDN Library and an October 2003 copy. I'm also running MSN Messenger and a couple of background services. This is Win2k on an AMD Duron 850 with 256MB RAM. Right-clicking the taskbar currently takes 10 seconds for the menu to pop up, if I haven't used it recently, with the disk thrashing madly - but that's a factor of the slow HDD and the crappy Via disk controller. Windows swaps out anything that isn't currently being used, and it's quite aggressive in doing so. HDD speed is a greater factor in overall Windows performance than on other operating systems.
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So what you are saying about theoretical vs. exploited coroborates the thought that if Linux was as popular as Windows then Linux would be as prone as we see Windows today. Whether I read a bug in code I have written or find out by someone exploiting it, it is still a bug. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Brian Welsch wrote: "blah blah blah, maybe a potato?" while translating my Afrikaans. Crikey! ain't life grand?
Paul Watson wrote: Whether I read a bug in code I have written or find out by someone exploiting it, it is still a bug. Yeah, that's true, but I think that the guy was mainly saying two things: (1) that the majority of Windows bugs are of the variety "This flaw can allow any attacker to run unrestricted code on your machine", which isn't true of the body of found Linux bugs; and (2) that these things are found almost always by community review of Linux code, which is impossible with Windows since it's closed-source, and that Microsoft isn't very proactive in finding these things before the fact. Almost all of the bugs seem to be buffer-overrun vulnerabilities, which makes me really wonder why they don't just review all of their code to find them. They should even be able to automate this! I imagine that Longhorn will be free from lots of these problems; I'll wager that Microsoft is pushing security pretty hard during its development. I still don't understand the unquestioning adulation of Microsoft fans who've been let down so often. Regards, Jeff Varszegi
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Don't know where you get your figures from, but, what bothers me is the concept of "free software": Why should software be free? I feel no guilt charging enterprise a lot of money for my consulting/jobs. All "professional" do - lawyers, physicians, engineers, accountants, real estate agents, business consultants (yeah, biz processes/reengineering, big deal.)... What makes M$ evil because they charge money for what they make? I don't think programmer generates a lot of sympathy during many sleepless nights debuggin code and making things work. People should realize that they need to "pay" for other people's effort. They should "pay" for their software/services. Linux is one complex piece of software. It's professional work and is result of countless hours of commitment. But..., o well, I will stop bickering like one of them.
"Free software" doesn't actually mean that the software is free of charge. It's meant to convey the idea that you can use a piece of software and know that you have certain freedoms; you're guaranteed to be free of vendor lock-in worries, for instance. You're free to extend the code as much as you want, facilitated by being able to review the source, etc. Also, the word "free" means that it's illegal for someone to make the program not "free" again. The problem I have with open source is that really big open-source projects often have some sketchy areas, where lesser-talented people made contributions. I think that open-source works best when strict control is held by one or a few people, but I guess that's true of any project-- and big companies like Microsoft turn out some crappy code themselves. Regards, Jeff Varszegi
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While we're talking about OSes, I'd really like to see an cooperative OS built from the ground up with 21st-century technology and parameters in mind. I'd like to see it set up so that people can replace and extend different parts of the OS, but where the basic "API contract" and interfaces stay same. Both Longhorn (to some extent) and Linux have a lot of potential there, but the latter is built on old (albeit) technology and doesn't cater to being easy for people to set up and easy for developers to develop with, and no variant of Linux that I've seen has a really good GUI system. Longhorn is expensive and ruled by MS, and is not cooperative at all - MS and only MS can develop and change it. I envision an OS platform where people develop and agree on standards, systems, and interfaces together, and then can make money by selling interchangeable OS components based on those standards. Then people can pick and choose what sections they want, and buy OS components based on what counts to them. But I doubt it's going to happen. :sigh:
**"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -- Confucius
I gave you a five. I agree completely. That's why I'd like to see something like .NET or the Java platform that was completely free and owned by the public, in a sense. Lots of things have been learned along the way that make creating a new abstraction of these sorts of systems a good idea-- could do it completely right. And if you had a truly free platform that was adopted by lots of people, the big software vendors would just have to play along. If it was really well-constructed, there wouldn't be any more petty bickering about which platform was better. It's strange, but I think that most bickering about the quality of platform/OS superiority is really generated by company or brand loyalty! I could never imagine being a fan of a brand of anything. In the case of Java, I think most jarheads love Java even more because they hate MS than because of the good qualities of Java itself. Regards, Jeff Varszegi
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Paul Watson wrote: Whether I read a bug in code I have written or find out by someone exploiting it, it is still a bug. Yeah, that's true, but I think that the guy was mainly saying two things: (1) that the majority of Windows bugs are of the variety "This flaw can allow any attacker to run unrestricted code on your machine", which isn't true of the body of found Linux bugs; and (2) that these things are found almost always by community review of Linux code, which is impossible with Windows since it's closed-source, and that Microsoft isn't very proactive in finding these things before the fact. Almost all of the bugs seem to be buffer-overrun vulnerabilities, which makes me really wonder why they don't just review all of their code to find them. They should even be able to automate this! I imagine that Longhorn will be free from lots of these problems; I'll wager that Microsoft is pushing security pretty hard during its development. I still don't understand the unquestioning adulation of Microsoft fans who've been let down so often. Regards, Jeff Varszegi
Jeff Varszegi wrote: these things are found almost always by community review of Linux code, which is impossible with Windows since it's closed-source, and that Microsoft isn't very proactive in finding these things before the fact. I am guessing if these people are so anti Microsoft, they probably don't work for Microsoft. In which case they have no justification on saying what Microsoft does or does not do behind closed doors. Jeff Varszegi wrote: I still don't understand the unquestioning adulation of Microsoft fans who've been let down so often. I don't question Microsoft because I know it is just another buisness. People are gonna have to realize that this is buisness. Microsoft is a buisness, not an organization for the betterment of the world. Matt Newman If you chose to continue this discussion, I am fully prepared to make you my bitch. I invite you to ask around, and you'll find out that I'm quite capable of doing so - John Simmons on Trolls
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Usability ??? I run 2 -3 good programs that are time consuming on windows and the whole OS is at mercy of them . I can't even load the TaskManager to kill them. Wonder who controls whom ? programs decides or OS decides to keep the controls? It feels like the OS is carrying unnecessary baggage or needs to rewritten again , keeping cleary in mind that it is an OS and supposed to run fast and reliable. As far as the XP looks are concerned , I prefer the w2k looks more professional , but XP looks are fine for kids!!! John 3:16
For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son ( Jesus Christ ) ,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.sanskypotov wrote: I run 2 -3 good programs that are time consuming on windows and the whole OS is at mercy of them . I can't even load the TaskManager to kill them. You either are not actually running XP or your system is totally under spec or completely hosed. My computer is constantly at full load and running 5-6 extra apps on a slow day. On a busy day I will be working with 2 different dev enviroments Matt Newman If you chose to continue this discussion, I am fully prepared to make you my bitch. I invite you to ask around, and you'll find out that I'm quite capable of doing so - John Simmons on Trolls
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Jeff Varszegi wrote: How about the many SQL Server 2000 bugs, Exchange bugs, etc.? Actually, that would be comparing apples to rocks! Insecure applications can exist on any platform as well as trojans. You run software that opens a port you have breached your security no matter what platform you choose. I would imagine that over 90% of the security issues with Windows are based on people running applications on their systems from email attachments. The actually breaches in the OS core would only be a fraction on a properly configured machine. Many of the issues found to attack Windows are due to inexperenced users breaching their own systems by either running trojan software or not locking down their system. If Windows was "Just" a server OS as is the majority of Linux installations, you would normally have more people who would know how to secure their systems. Microsoft has to build their OS and applications to work for the desktop user while trying to prevent them from shoot themselves in the foot. It is a little hard to protect a person from an exploit when a patch has been out for six months and they users do nothing about it. Of course Windows is primarily a Desktop OS that is reaching into the Enterprise while *inuxes are Server OS's trying to reach to the desktop. And with Microsoft, when a fix is released it is usually a simple auto notification that you can click one button and have your system patched ;) Rocky <>< www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com
Rocky Moore wrote: Rocky Moore wrote: Actually, that would be comparing apples to rocks! Insecure applications can exist on any platform as well as trojans. One problem I see is that Microsoft has always integrated all of their applications as tightly as possible with the operating system. Microsoft is the company that brought us the possibility of viewing a webpage compromising one's system, with their insistence on tightly integrating IE with all of their OSes. They also gave us the gift of simple email messages compromising our machines. If it's possible for any Microsoft product to compromise the operating system, I count bugs that exploit this to be OS bugs as much as appliction bugs. I count ActiveX as one big window into the operating system; it's been the source of lots and lots of bugs. And it's even integrated tightly into the NTFS file system. Many of the issues found to attack Windows are due to inexperenced users breaching their own systems by either running trojan software or not locking down their system. If Windows was "Just" a server OS as is the majority of Linux installations You keep saying this "just a server OS" thing about Linux, but it doesn't seem to be true. Linux has a bigger install base on clients than on servers now. China just bought 500,000 client seats of Linux from Sun. (I'm not a Linux junkie, I found this out browsing around last night after Chris Maunder's reply to me. I currently have four Windows machines at my house and one from work, and I'm getting ready to go through my first Linux installation ever mostly out of curiosity.) I think that it's true, what you say about most Windows users being inexperienced about security. But it's Microsoft's fault if they build software for ignoramuses to use and make it easy for said ignoramuses to louse things up. Also, I don't consider reading an email message to be launching a trojan horse program. Or maybe I do on Windows, with Outlook, but it shouldn't have been that way in the first place. Know what I mean? I think that the strength of Microsoft software is that most of it's very easy to use. I don't think that Microsoft would have all of their current security concerns if they hadn't tried to monopolize the desktop. In an effort to do that, they integrated everything more tightly than it should have been, so that it was always in users' best interest to keep buying Microsoft stuff once they started down that path. I also don't see the h
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Hmm, I might have to give it a rent. Thanks for the suggestion. BTW, I love Star Trek, just not enough to want to dress like a Klingon.;P Brad Jennings Sonork: 100.36360 AIM: hongg99
Brad Jennings wrote: just not enough to want to dress like a Klingon. I thought that was the first requirement to being a Trekkie? ;P The kindest thing you can do for a stupid person, and for the gene pool, is to let him expire of his own dumb choices. [Roger Wright on stupid people] We're like private member functions [John Theal on R&D] We're figuring out the parent thing as we go though. Kinda like setting up Linux for the first time ya' know... [Nitron]
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Jeff Varszegi wrote: these things are found almost always by community review of Linux code, which is impossible with Windows since it's closed-source, and that Microsoft isn't very proactive in finding these things before the fact. I am guessing if these people are so anti Microsoft, they probably don't work for Microsoft. In which case they have no justification on saying what Microsoft does or does not do behind closed doors. Jeff Varszegi wrote: I still don't understand the unquestioning adulation of Microsoft fans who've been let down so often. I don't question Microsoft because I know it is just another buisness. People are gonna have to realize that this is buisness. Microsoft is a buisness, not an organization for the betterment of the world. Matt Newman If you chose to continue this discussion, I am fully prepared to make you my bitch. I invite you to ask around, and you'll find out that I'm quite capable of doing so - John Simmons on Trolls
Matt Newman wrote: they have no justification on saying what Microsoft does or does not do behind closed doors I totally agree! I don't think that anyone was saying that Microsoft should or has to make their source code available, but that (1) they don't, (2) they have security problems, and hence (3) they don't have the benefit of other eyes helping them find the many flaws. And they're not fantastic at doing it themselves, either. You tackled "unquestioning" but stayed away from "adulation". :) With warmest unbiased regards, Jeff Varszegi