Well, then bad hardware and application software are a lot more

JJust to clarify. SuSe linux can be installed on the first attempt by Windoze-only gurus (I did such experiment) and never require any command line interaction (except if you decide to run something complicated). redHat is a good syste... for admins and servers, not for the home. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe Johnson" <jjohnson@jmdn.net> To: "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com>; <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2004 12:31 PM Subject: RE: WashingtonPost computer security stories Owen Wrote: prevalant

under Windows than Linux. I install/deinstall games and other application software all the time under Linux. I have the usage pattern you describe for others (except the part about patching my system regularly), and I just don't have any difficulty keeping the system up for months at a time, not having to reinstall the OS until I choose to upgrade major versions, and, generally, it just keeps on ticking.

Admittedly, it's even better under MacOS with Apple hardware, but, given the extent to which Linux is more reliable than Windows in the same usage pattern as you described, I find it hard to blame the hardware.

Windows is a poorly designed operating system, which, although they have plugged lots of holes, is constantly discovering new ones. Worse yet, Micr0$0ft has always chosen a "functionality at any cost" approach to their software, so, if they want to implement a feature and it can't be done securely, they implement rather than scale back. Yes, their current default settings are more secure than ever before, but, they're still pretty leaky.

Owen

Everyone can argue until they are blue in the face over Linux vs. Windows, but the big point is: what comes on your machine when you buy it? Windows does. Now, there is definitely a big backstory to why it does, but the point is that people buy it knowing (or maybe not knowing) that it is a flawed product. The manufacturers still put it on the machines because they know people will buy it and because Microsoft makes it cheap for them. I can agree that Linux makes a good product for the niche market that it fills now, but there needs to be a dumbed-down version for home machines that is widely available and supported across the market for it to really make an impact. The closest thing now is maybe a Red Hat or a Mandrake, but both require you to pay for their OS (or download the CDs in iso format and burn them to CD yourself, a task beyond most suburban soccer moms and the like). Not everyone needs kernel level access and the such, they just want a machine that turns on and gets them online and their email (whether that's IE and Outlook or Thunderbird and Firefox). Now, I love Gentoo and use it on my 2nd home desktop and for the servers at work (the few I trust on Linux, haha. Just kidding, we use Linux first and Windows as a last resort). But, the first time I installed Gentoo it took me three tries to get it right. Now, Windows installs right the first time, every time, and lays itself out in regular plain English. The day that someone creates a wildly popular, easy to install Linux that has a basic user interface much like Windows, then Linux will win. Unfortunately, the only possible business model that works is to market such a product for a profit, not for free. Joe Johnson

I can agree that Linux makes a good product for the niche market that it fills now, but there needs to be a dumbed-down version for home machines that is widely available and supported across the market for it to really make an impact.

http://www.linspire.com Small computer shops can buy Seagate hard drives with this preinstalled. I believe WalMart sells computers with Linspire instead of Windows. The product was previously named Lindows until Microsoft started attacking them in foreign courts where they actually have some rights to Windows as a brand name. -- Michael Dillon