Really 'dumb' question: why does Linux have viruses? linux virus,linux malware

[JEDIDIAH]

No it doesnt. There are oodles of proprietary windows only server
applictions developed over years for large companies. You do know what a

No, not really.

That is primarily a "desktop" problem.

It's the software for SMALL companies that's a problem. This is stuff
that is nearly desktop software despite being "server" software. The
serious stuff for "big companies" tend to run on more serious operating
systems.

In this domain, sometimes even Unix isn't "serious enough".

You're a really deluded little Lemming Hadron.

 

[JEDIDIAH]

As I said : you're a pea brain. Support is not just about things "going
wrong". The cost of Windows is next to nothing compared to annual salary
per operator/user etc. The cost of internal SOFTWARE development to
migrate from Windows to Linux can be and is HUGE. In fact good Linux

...which is pretty much irrelevant when Microsoft is changing programming
models. You simply don't have to migrate away from Windows to be in a position
to pay these costs.

So all of that whining about "migration" has always been rather hollow.

Any company not run by morons is already seeking to insulate itself from
platform changes regardless of where they are coming from.

 

[JEDIDIAH]

Nothing cost more than a Mac. Nothing.

It's hard NOT to beat laptop parts being put in a desktop chassis.

 

[Chris Ahlstrom]

JEDIDIAH wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

Is "Hadron" pushing Windows usage in Linux ngs agsin?

...which is pretty much irrelevant when Microsoft is changing programming
models. You simply don't have to migrate away from Windows to be in a position
to pay these costs.

So all of that whining about "migration" has always been rather hollow.

Any company not run by morons is already seeking to insulate itself from
platform changes regardless of where they are coming from.

I note that the troll clsims that windows usage is cheap. Another
"Get The Facts" propagandidt, of courde.

 

[FromTheRafters]

I run Mint because Windows sucks and Mint works perfectly.

The best endorsement for Mint I've heard yet. I may have to try it.

 

[Snit]

David Brown stated in post (e-mail address removed) on
9/5/11 5:07 PM:

It is far from easy to buy pre-build PC's either with Linux installed,
or at least without Windows.

It is pretty trivial to buy a PC without windows (for an experience user) -
esp. if you include Macs as PCs. But, sure, there is so little demand for
them it is not the norm.

It varies quite a bit from country to country - but certainly you are going to
get a much smaller selection, and pay higher prices.

Sure... when is less demand for a product that is often the case.

(That's for desktops and laptops - any serious server supplier will offer you
machines with Linux pre-installed, or no OS if you prefer.)

You can configure a Dell "server" as you wish... but they used to also have
Linux desktops.

I don't use Linux on the desktop to save money - although one of the
reasons why I use open source software, even on Windows desktops, is for
the cost.

For business use, it is not the zero cost of open source software in
itself that saves money - it is the convenience of not having to think
about licensing or purchasing. MS Office, for example, is not /that/
expensive - not for a company, anyway. But for the few users in the
office who have it, it means getting acceptance for the costs, deciding
on the languages (we have Norwegian and English versions of software),
ordering the packages, waiting for the delivery, installing them, etc.
With Open Office, we can simply download the latest version with the
languages we want, and install it on the machines we want.

Sure... and you then have to balance that with the usability of each
program. It is often a bit of a guessing game as to which will serve any
given business better in the long run. I just moved a business to
LibreOffice (from WordPerfect).

For server usage, the cost savings of Linux and open source software are
substantial - in hardware costs, software costs, client access costs,
and of course in the time saved setting up and maintaining the system.
Although my company uses Windows for most desktop usage, we have used
Linux on servers for over a decade.

Well, on the server side Linux is very, very often the better choice. For
my web hosting, for example, that is what I use.

 

[Chris Ahlstrom]

David Brown wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

It is far from easy to buy pre-build PC's either with Linux installed,
or at least without Windows. It varies quite a bit from country to
country - but certainly you are going to get a much smaller selection,
and pay higher prices. (That's for desktops and laptops - any serious
server supplier will offer you machines with Linux pre-installed, or no
OS if you prefer.)

I'll know the Microsoft monopoly is over when I see Linux desktops and
laptops from DELL, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, Acer, ASUS, etc.
for sale on the shelves of Best Buy, Office Depot, Target, Walmart, Staples,
etc.

 

[Snit]

Chris Ahlstrom stated in post [email protected] on 9/5/11 5:33 PM:

I'll know the Microsoft monopoly is over when I see Linux desktops and
laptops from DELL, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, Acer, ASUS, etc.
for sale on the shelves of Best Buy, Office Depot, Target, Walmart, Staples,
etc.

Several of those companies have *tried* to sell Linux based systems. They
do not sell well. But you blame Microsoft.

 

[Snit]

David Brown stated in post (e-mail address removed) on
9/6/11 1:38 AM:

....

Excluding Macs, obviously, it is not easy to get a PC without windows -
the big shops and big suppliers don't sell them.

*Can't* sell them... at least not in enough quantity to make it worthwhile
to them. It is not as if this is based on some conspiracy or something...

You need to get them from a small place that builds themselves, or a company
that specialises in such machines. That will often mean better quality
machines - but it will mean less choice (especially for laptops) and higher
prices.

Sure, though such biggies as Dell and Walmart have put their toes in the
pool... and then pulled them back out again.

MS do not let big companies sell PC's without windows - if a company does
that, they lose all or most of their rebate on windows licenses.

I would *love* to see support for this. Given how both Dell and HP and
others *have* tried it I find this very unlikely. Yes, I know years ago MS
had some illegal deals and they were fined for it. I am talking *now*.

You have to be /very/ big to negotiate terms with MS that give you good prices
for your windows licenses while also selling Linux (or no OS) machines.
Cite?

So yes, you /can/ buy pre-built machines with Linux or no OS - but they
are a lot harder to find, and they cost more than if they had windows
pre-installed.

But why blame MS for this? I really would love to see your evidence.

That's the main reason, of course.

Right: not Microsoft.

Well, sort of - Dell had a couple of desktop models that they sold with
outdated versions of Ubuntu in a few countries.

Oh, they have a lot more than that: http://goo.gl/V1JBG and
<http://goo.gl/1I2ET>

You can also get FreeDOS if you want.

You had to actively search for them - you couldn't find them from sensible
links from the home page.

And given how they are very much a specialty item, that is exactly what one
should expect!

The machines cost more than equivalent ones with Windows, and the pages were
plastered with "Dell recommends Vista" adverts. When you tried to configure
the machines, they tried to sell you MS Office for it.

recommends *Vista*? Um, no.

Servers are a different matter - there you can get them without an OS, or with
RHEL or SUSe pre-installed.

Right: where there is demand for other options they make them more visible.
Just as one would expect.

....

I agree. I find OpenOffice (well, LibreOffice these days) to be a
better program than MS Office. Opinions vary, of course, and we try to
be flexible at my company. But I would take LibreOffice over MS Office
regardless of the price difference.

What do you like about it more?

Again, I agree - while the cost (especially time) savings is a definite
big advantage of Linux over Windows on servers, it is not the only
reason it is a better choice for us.

I am very much an advocate of informed computing - use the tool that works
best for you (in your budget, of course). Sometimes this means using open
source tools... sometimes it means using close source tools... and sometimes
it means using tools which are a hybrid. That is very much what I do and
what I suggest for my clients.

In other words: more choice than those who push *just* open source
solutions. And for this, in COLA, I am deemed to be "anti-choice". George
Orwell predicted COLA.

....

 

[Snit]

David Brown stated in post (e-mail address removed) on
9/6/11 1:48 AM:

None of them tried very hard!

What? What more do you want of them?

It's a combination of effects - MS's heavy handed business approach is
only one of them.

Please show support for this tie to MS. Remember, when netbooks first came
out and there was some demand for alternate solutions, the market met those
demands. As those stopped selling, they stopped being sold (go figure)!

The main issue is that to be able to build, sell and support a decent
selection of Linux machines, a company has to invest in training,
testing, design, etc. But the margins are so thin in the branch that
none of these suppliers can afford that unless there were a big market.

Right: nothing to do with Microsoft's "heavy hand".

And without Linux machines from these suppliers, there will be no
momentum in the market place. It's a classic chicken-and-egg situation.

Well, without a product that competes well, there will be no demand.
Desktop Linux solutions do keep getting better and better though.

 

[Snit]

chrisv stated in post (e-mail address removed) on 9/6/11
5:26 AM:

Yep. The Linux pre-builts are *not* less expensive than Windows
pre-builts, largely due to bundleware subsidies and Micro$oft
"incentives".

There is also cost to testing of systems for compatibility, cost of support,
etc. Those costs do not go down significantly just because Linux systems do
not sell well.

This has already been explained countless times, of course, but the
Shit troll has to spew the same old lies.

Just because you spread false "advocate" FUD does not mean it is accepted!

 

[Snit]

David Brown stated in post (e-mail address removed) on
9/6/11 8:19 AM:

....

MS didn't have "some illegal deals" - they had mostly illegal deals, but
were only fined for a few.

Cite? And relevance to the current situation?

Manufacturers who tried to complain would quickly find themselves paying
shelf-price for windows (or DOS - it goes that far back). I'm sure you'd have
no problem finding plenty of references to the "one license per cpu sold"
deals, and can look up the history of how IBM could not afford to give away
their own OS, OS/2, on their own PC's - because it would make the windows
licenses too expensive on their other PC's.

What is the relevance to the current situation?

MS was convicted of abuse of monopoly power, and fined - but the fines
were so small (compared to MS profits) that made economic sense to break
the laws and pay the fines. And MS has always had good business sense.
To make sure they did not repeat their offences, they were ordered to
monitor themselves - and even that order has now run its term.

I haven't bothered to keep track of this particular issue in recent
times - but I've seen plenty of other shady business practices from
them. I'll assume that the leopard has not changed its spots.

Ah, the old no-evidence-so-let's-assume-the-worst concept. Got it.

I would like to see current, relevant evidence before I jump to conclusions.

I don't blame MS for this - at least, no more than to a small degree.
There are lots of reasons behind this, as I have explained.

And even for the part MS plays, it is only fair to remember that they
are just following the key commandment of capitalism - you must maximize
the profit for your shareholders.

But why assume - without evidence - that the illegal deals of the past are
still happening? I do not think anyone denies they *happened*, the
contention is in saying that they still exist even thought here is no
evidence and there is contrary evidence (OEMs selling Linux based systems).

Correct.

I dislike MS as a company, and I dislike their business practices (in
case you hadn't guessed). But I don't give them the blame for all the
world's ills - at least not the /whole/ blame

Fair enough.

That's servers...


Digging through the links takes you mostly back to main selection pages
(leading to windows-only machines), outdated information pages, and some
mentions of a couple of end-of-line products that had Linux.

Yeah... when their was more demand they had more on their site. Sad to see
this has diminished so much.

It's okay to say that Dell doesn't sell Linux on desktops and laptops.
But if you (or Dell, or anyone else) wants to claim that they /do/, then
they it should be practical to find them.

They have... they do a lot less now. I did give a list of companies that do
(or at least did fairly recently).

Past tense - I was referring to the brief time when Dell made a vague
effort to sell Linux desktops, and had links that were practical to find.

At the time they were much easier to find. Heck, Linux systems were in
Wal-Mart. Hard to get easier to find than that.

Again, that's fair enough - Dell, like any serious server supplier, sells
servers with Linux. But their vague attempts at selling desktop Linux were a
bad joke.

How much more should they have done? And to whose benefit?

....

The pdf export is, of course, a major feature.

Well, with CutePDF or the like, that exists on Windows, too. And if you are
running MS Office on a Mac, *all* Mac programs have Print to PDF *and* PDF
Services (easy redirecting of the PDFs to other programs or destinations...
comes in real handy in many cases).

But generally I've found it more stable, especially for larger documents, and
I find it works better for structured documents. To be fair, this is biased
by personal use - I don't use MS Office much except to try to help others with
problems. But for some reason, the few MS Office users at the company have a
great deal more problems than the majority who use OpenOffice.

I was helping someone the other day with LibreOffice and then showed them
Apple's Pages. They stopped by this morning - and I asked them if they
could re-do some of the stuff we talked about in LibreOffice and in Pages
(granted, this is not MS Word, but I could compare that, too).

They agreed to let me record them and upload it:
<

>.

I find these types of things in OpenOffice / LibreOffice all the time (or
where complaints about MS Office are not true). From some past experiences
(videos of me working):

Indents / styles:
<http://tmp.gallopinginsanity.com/OOIndents.mov>
<http://tmp.gallopinginsanity.com/OOIndents2.mov>

In response to complaints about how much space the ribbon takes:
<http://tmp.gallopinginsanity.com/ribbon-space.mov>

On and on... there just are not many places where OO/LibrO shine as far as I
can tell. If you can point me to some of those areas, though, I am happy to
look into them and report what I find.

....

I have the same attitude. For operating systems, that currently means
mostly Linux on servers, Windows on desktops (often preferring XP). And
for application software, it depends on the usage.

Fair enough. And even two people with the same philosophy will come to
different conclusions as to what is "best".

For me I tend to use Linux on servers, esp. web servers (the main servers I
work with). I tend to prefer OS X on the desktop, but that depends on what
is needed. I have a client who needed a machine just to show a
PowerPoint-style slide show in an office. I suggested Linux - they ended up
going with Windows, which also works fine for that. I did move their office
to LibreOffice (from Word Perfect). No, I do not think it is as good as MS
Office, but money was a concern and their needs were very minimal (really,
Word Pad would cover most of their needs). They did need to run
Windows-only software so Windows is what they use.

I have set a few schools up with Mac and Ubuntu labs (Macs for the higher
end needs, Ubuntu for the lower end needs). In the future I might opt for
Mint over Ubuntu. Those same schools have Windows in some teacher's rooms
and in many of the admin offices.

I am certainly not a one-size-fits-all type of tech consultant.

The "happy middle" is not always happy...

Very true.

 

[JEDIDIAH]

Myself, the babble of a COLA lunatics like JEDIDIAH mean nothing. It's
the same old excuse, after excuse and after excuse.

If one is broke one is using Linux. If one is on entitlement handouts,
one is using Linux.

If you've got a PC running Linux, then you probably have a WinDOS license.

The idea that people only run Linux "because it is cheap" is clearly absurd.
According to the likes of Hadron the Lemming, anything you can run on Linux can
be run on WinDOS. So there isn't even the "applications" aspect of the
situation.

Clearly those that run Linux just want something that "sucks less".

 

[Snit]

David Brown stated in post (e-mail address removed) on
9/6/11 2:10 PM:

As you say, there is little doubt that such illegal deals did happen.

Without getting too philosophical, I would be willing to say there is no
doubt.

There is little doubt that MS have always considered it better for
someone to use /their/ software without paying, than to use software
from somewhere else. There is also little doubt that MS continues to
engage in behaviour that is at best ethically questionable, and at worst
directly illegal. Big examples involve their influence behind the SCO
farce, and the OOXML "standardisation" - practically destroying the most
important international standards organisation to protect their near
monopoly.

I think the OOXML complaints have been overblown in COLA. For example, look
at the Wikipedia page and see the list of complaints:

The "windows tax" continues to exist - it is rare to find someone who
has successfully got a refund for an unused Windows license.

As long as you do not open the box, you can return most software just fine.
So it is not hard to get a refund on Windows. Where people get bent out of
shape is when they buy a *system* and then want to return parts of the
system and have the company they bought it from set a price on that part.
Alone. And often they want the full selling price of that part. That is
just silly.

Licensing deals between big OEMs and MS are all closed-doors deals.

As are the deals for most of the components of a computer. How much does
Dell pay for memory? How about for the drivers they include?

All in all - no, I have no evidence to claim MS forces (or just
encourages) OEMs into licensing deals that make it hard for them to
offer non-Windows systems.

Ok: fair enough. There is no evidence of the accusation. This I can agree
with.

But I can see it would be /very/ easy for them to get away with such deals -
all in the interests of saving the OEMs money, of course.

Given the level of trouble they got into last time, and the bad publicity, I
would not blindly assume such.

And I can see it would be in MS's interests to make such deals. And I have
seen no evidence of a change of heart in MS leadership suggesting they shy
away from any tactics that help crush the competition.

Whether you agree with that or not is up to you.

I can see saying you would not doubt it. I have no problem with that. To
claim it as something that *is*, however, is wrong. As you noted, you have
no evidence to back it up.

....

To be honest, I expect that most people that were interested in looking
at the site already had PC's running Linux. At that time, Dell was not
a particularly popular choice of OEM for home users - at least, not the
more knowledgeable ones.

I believe at the time it was the #1 choice of OEMs. It no longer is.

They had a bad reputation for customer support for small users in many
countries. And business users looking for professional Linux machines would
be looking for different sorts of models - and an outdated version of Ubuntu
is unlikely to be their first choice of distro. So my guess is that Dell
didn't sell many Linux systems.

There is little demand for Linux on the desktop - and those who do want it
do not need it pre-bundled, by and large. As such, when thinking in terms
of the quantity of computers Dell and HP sell, there is essentially *no*
demand for desktop Linux being pre-installed. What minimal demand there is,
of course, is split between distros: so the only way to meet the demand is
to have multiple distros: Ubuntu and Mint and PCLOS and Debian and who knows
how many others. Then you have to market each type and explain the
difference... and support them.

A mess. A money-losing proposition. Why would Dell or HP even consider
this? The fact that they *have* is a good sign for desktop Linux - but it
would be rather surprising to see it work. As even Shuttleworth has noted:

Question:
-----
What do you see as the main obstacles holding back the
success of the Linux desktop?
-----
Shuttleworth:
-----
I think we don't yet deliver a good enough user experience. I
think we deliver a user experience for people that have a
reason to want to be on the Linux platform, either because of
price or because of freedom. If that was your primary reason,
Linux is the right answer.

But if you are somebody who is not too concerned about price,
who is not too concerned about freedom, I don't think we can
say the Linux desktop offers the very best experience. And
that's something we have to change, that's something I'm
committed to work on, focusing increasing amounts of
resources of Canonical on figuring out on how we actually
move the desktop experience forward to compete with Mac OS X.
-----

And while I do not really like Unity, I think it is hard to argue that
Shuttleworth has not been working very hard to do that - things have gotten
a lot better on desktop Linux in general since he made those comments (to be
clear, not all because of him, in case it sounds that way!).

Recently Roy and I talked about PCLOS. He made claims about current and
past versions and was pretty far off the mark. But, to be fair, I had
underestimated the distance that PCLOS had come (I had not used the current
PCLOS distro, but it really is indicative of the ecosystem).

To show the facts about PCLOS (old and new) I gathered images and linked to
older ones. Roy and I were talking in terms of OS X (as was Shuttleworth) so
that is my comparison for the new version of PCLOS. Here is the PDF:

<http://tmp.gallopinginsanity.com/PCLOS-OSX-comparison.pdf>

Now simply looking at those few tidbits of the user experience is, alone,
not that informative... but it is indicative of the level of detail
competitors to desktop Linux are giving their experiences. Desktop Linux
must rise to that level and perhaps even beat it if it wants people to seek
it in large numbers. The good news is if you look at the links to older
PCLOS at the bottom of the PDF you can see PCLOS has come a *long* way in a
relatively short period of time. Night and day difference. I was
pleasantly surprised and it re-invigorated my advocacy. It is good to get
some eye-openers from time to time.

It has always been the case that most Linux users are happy to install their
own choice of distro themselves. What they want is systems that the OEMs will
sell without an OS, with a statement of the exact hardware and an indication
of the support in modern Linux distros, and an assurance that the OEM will not
consider installation of Linux as an evil act of vandalism that voids the
warranty.

Can you find any OEM whose warranty is dependant on keeping Windows on the
system? They will not, of course, support software they do not sell... but
that makes sense.

And they want that as a choice on standard models - not just the
occasional outdated and underpowered system.

In order for desktop Linux to gain a real foothold it will have to earn it.
The OEMs do not owe it to the open source community to sell them systems at
a loss.

Unfortunately, these mostly either have a similar attitude to Dell
(again, I am referring to desktops and laptops here, not servers), or
they are small, specialist OEMs - most are only a good practical choice
if you happen to live in a particular region of the USA where they are
based.

I have not purchases a computer in a brick and mortar for years... at least
the last decade. If you know what you want, ordering online is just fine.

Full disclaimer: that "last decade" means my last three computers... I have
one that is about a year old, one that is about four and another which is
eight or nine or so. All still in use on a daily basis (the oldest might
get skipped on occasion, but pretty much daily - it is being used right
now).

I didn't know that (I am not in the USA - we don't have Wal-Mart).

There is a corner of the world they have not tried to take over? Wow.

[Sarcasm... they are *everywhere* in the US]

And I certainly didn't know Dell sold through supermarkets.


Well, I'm not sure it made sense for them to try at all - I think their
limited effort was perhaps worse than useless. I would have preferred
that they simply made "no OS" an option in their standard system
configuration.

If they were to do that they would likely end up with higher support costs.
Right now their support is largely: rest to factory default and let your
data die. With a no-OS computer they would get a lot of calls from people
trying to install all sorts of stuff... and running into troubles (that is
inevitable, I am not saying Linux is hard to install). So then they likely
would have to charge *more* for a system with no OS, or at least as much
(and that does not even take into consideration the garbage-ware that they
get paid to include). So they would have the option to buy a full system
for X dollars or an incomplete system for the same amount or perhaps even
more.

Not exactly something one can make a good case for.

Since the no-OS option is not likely to be cheaper than than the Windows
version, and the included copy of Windows does nothing to make it harder to
install Linux, there really is no need for a no-OS version.

We use pdfcreator as standard on all Windows PC's for general pdf
"printing". But pdf export directly from OpenOffice is much better than
just a printout - the pdf file is smaller and faster to use, tables of
contents give you proper bookmarks, and links and cross-references all
work. For structured documents, you get a much more professional result.

Hmmm, I know OS X's print to PDF includes a lot of that... I would have to
play with CutePDF and Word. I thought it did, too. I could be wrong. If I
am, then yes, that is an advantage of OpenOffice / LibreOffice.

I don't have any experience with Pages, but I can give you a hint for
OpenOffice - hold shift down when you resize, and it will keep the
aspect ratio.

I *expected* that. It did not happen. I was surprised. Here, with the
shift-key being shown by an arrow when it is being used:

I'd agree that this is perhaps not intuitive, and that it should be the
default behaviour, but it /does/ work.

If that did work it would not be that big of a deal - that is the norm for
many image programs and it could even be argued that while that is less
intuitive it is a benefit because of the consistency.

And the "original size" button also works - but like the other sizes in the
properties box, it is not real time - it doesn't take effect until you click
OK.

Just tested and you are correct... but the percentages are messed up, as
shown in the original video.

Can you not see why, after working with a modern and professionally designed
package, how LibreOffice would seem a bit... primitive, for lack of a better
term? They YouTube video really is quite telling.

Well, as I say it's a lot to do with taste and how you like to use the
program.

I think I have given some very definite areas where OO.o/LibreO are just
objectively inferior. You have given one where they are better at least out
of the box... though you can pretty easily upgrade MS Word to include pretty
good PDF export support (and if you need more you can get Acrobat plugins
which give you a *lot* of power with PDFs - they are not free however).

I think my LibreOffice / Pages comparison is just striking - LibreOffice is
just primitive by comparison. I really think that is hard to argue against.

To me, the idea of visually modifying margins by selecting bits of text and
then creating styles out of them is working backwards - I set up my styles the
way I want them, and use them consistently in a document. If I want to change
the appearance of a style, I'll modify the style - not manual modification of
the document. OpenOffice suits my way of working here.

If you can show an example of OpenOffice (or LibreOffice... just assume that
when I say OpenOffice!) doing what I show MS Word doing I would love to see
it. I cannot get it to work (I have not tried in a while... maybe it has
been fixed?)

(Actually, I prefer to write serious documents with LaTeX, but I have to make
/some/ sacrifices for compatibility with other people.)

But you can do that on any OS.
....

 

[Snit]

JEDIDIAH stated in post (e-mail address removed) on 9/6/11 2:30 PM:

If you've got a PC running Linux, then you probably have a WinDOS license.

The idea that people only run Linux "because it is cheap" is clearly absurd.
According to the likes of Hadron the Lemming, anything you can run on Linux
can be run on WinDOS. So there isn't even the "applications" aspect of the
situation.

Clearly those that run Linux just want something that "sucks less".

Question:
-----
What do you see as the main obstacles holding back the
success of the Linux desktop?
-----
Shuttleworth:
-----
I think we don't yet deliver a good enough user experience. I
think we deliver a user experience for people that have a
reason to want to be on the Linux platform, either because of
price or because of freedom. If that was your primary reason,
Linux is the right answer.

But if you are somebody who is not too concerned about price,
who is not too concerned about freedom, I don't think we can
say the Linux desktop offers the very best experience. And
that's something we have to change, that's something I'm
committed to work on, focusing increasing amounts of
resources of Canonical on figuring out on how we actually
move the desktop experience forward to compete with Mac OS X.

 

[Snit]

Wolf K stated in post [email protected] on
9/6/11 4:35 PM:

The crazies that "defend" or "advocate for" Linux.

Wolf K.

Yes: the false "advocate" FUD may be a pretty big deterrent to adoption.

 

[Chris Ahlstrom]

Wolf K wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

The crazies that "defend" or "advocate for" Linux.

Wolf K.

You mean like Mark Shuttleworth?

Idiot.

--
According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to live in
America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came in twenty-fifth.
Here in New York we really don't care too much. Because we know that we could
beat up their city anytime.
-- David Letterman

 

[FromTheRafters]

Wolf K stated in post [email protected] on
9/6/11 4:35 PM:


Yes: the false "advocate" FUD may be a pretty big deterrent to adoption.

I don't know if it is a deterrent, but it sure isn't good when the
forever clueless are there to help. )

While we've got the collection of groups we have right now, I would like
to ask just where we should draw the line between the operating system
and the user's choice programs we choose to run.

Windows users tend to think that everything that came with Windows
is "The Windows OS" while in the Linux world you choose your shell and
many other things or just use what came with the distro.

Malware exists largely within this "user's choice" area both in being
bad choices because they present exploitable vulnerabilities or simply
by being malware themselves. Attacks against applications aren't the
same as attacks against an OS. The choice of using managed repositories
and executable bits needing to be set before execution is possible is
not really "Linux" is it? I mean it's not part of the security of the OS
itself, and malware/viruses don't care anyway since they are mainly just
bad choices.

In Windows, is "Notepad" part of the OS? There are some administrative
"tools" that rely on it I think, but are those tools really part of the
OS if you're talking about the security of the OS?

 

[Snit]

Chris Ahlstrom stated in post [email protected] on 9/6/11 6:06 PM:

Wolf K wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:


You mean like Mark Shuttleworth?

Idiot.

Shuttleworth is honest about his advocacy. None of the false "advocates" in
COLA would say what he does:

Question:
-----
What do you see as the main obstacles holding back the
success of the Linux desktop?
-----
Shuttleworth:
-----
I think we don't yet deliver a good enough user experience. I
think we deliver a user experience for people that have a
reason to want to be on the Linux platform, either because of
price or because of freedom. If that was your primary reason,
Linux is the right answer.

But if you are somebody who is not too concerned about price,
who is not too concerned about freedom, I don't think we can
say the Linux desktop offers the very best experience. And
that's something we have to change, that's something I'm
committed to work on, focusing increasing amounts of
resources of Canonical on figuring out on how we actually
move the desktop experience forward to compete with Mac OS X.
-----

 

[Snit]

FromTheRafters stated in post [email protected] on 9/6/11 6:17 PM:

I don't know if it is a deterrent, but it sure isn't good when the
forever clueless are there to help. )

Imagine if they are in the real world as they present themselves in COLA.
They would chase people away from Linux. Lies do that.

While we've got the collection of groups we have right now, I would like
to ask just where we should draw the line between the operating system
and the user's choice programs we choose to run.

Not sure I follow.

Windows users tend to think that everything that came with Windows
is "The Windows OS" while in the Linux world you choose your shell and
many other things or just use what came with the distro.

Many users do not really get the concept of what is the OS vs. apps or even
files and folders and the like. To many, photos are "in" their image
organizer, word documents are "in" their word processor, etc. Most OSs have
no stepping stones to help build these concepts.

Malware exists largely within this "user's choice" area both in being
bad choices because they present exploitable vulnerabilities or simply
by being malware themselves. Attacks against applications aren't the
same as attacks against an OS. The choice of using managed repositories
and executable bits needing to be set before execution is possible is
not really "Linux" is it? I mean it's not part of the security of the OS
itself, and malware/viruses don't care anyway since they are mainly just
bad choices.

In Windows, is "Notepad" part of the OS? There are some administrative
"tools" that rely on it I think, but are those tools really part of the
OS if you're talking about the security of the OS?

When I talk about Windows or Mint or OS X I *generally* mean the
environment. That is far more important in terms of thinking of usage.