[Leaplist] Linux Advocasy: What they'll miss

[Hank Lambert]

I believe it is both, but the uneducated user is also due to micro$oft 
marketing. Micro$oft's power comes from marketing; how else could it 
beat out Novell? It sure isn't because micro$oft created a better, 
faster, more secure, or more efficient server, it is marketing. And Bill 
Gates primary goal from the very beginning was to have a computer on 
every desktop and in every home, and to have a computer so easy to use, 
that everyone can have one. You can have an easy to use computer, or a 
secure computer, but you cannot have both for the computer illiterate. 
The most logical conclusion would be a combination of both, but 
micro$oft chose easy to use, and has openly admitted that they chose to 
ignore security in their desktop OS's to make sure the uneducated 
computer user could get on the Internet. So as long as micro$oft 
continues telling uneducated users that all you have to do is open IE 
and their security will protect them, people will continue doing such.

I also fully believe that their OS by design is flawed. In my job, I do 
a lot of installs, primarily XP Pro. I have ever had a single 
installation where it was usable after installing the OS. Following the 
install, the process of installing all of the drivers starts, followed 
by the 100+ updates, anti virus software, and more depending on the 
customer. Once all of those are installed, quite a few of the 
installations no longer perform well or have errors. But this doesn't 
just pertain to installs. An average of once a year, micro$oft updates 
will include a bad update that will blue screen machines. I know this 
cannot always be avoided, but about 6 months ago, micro$oft updates were 
installing non-nVidia drivers on nVidia chipsets. The result was around 
100 machines all over town we had to go to and re-install nVidia drivers 
on to get the machines back up.

We have clients who we maintain their computers and networks with a 
maintenance plan. The machines are constantly updated and cleaned, and 
generally run well because of this. All of a sudden, we will get a call 
from a client who has machines that are blue screening or locking up. 
After investigation, an update to a particular program had damaged the 
OS; it didn't damage the program, but damaged the OS. Sometimes it takes 
hours to repair the damage to XP, usually including working in the 
registry, then we can try to get the application going. This is not a 
rare occurrence; it doesn't happen all of the time, but it sure happens 
more than it should. While the update was not written by micro$oft, XP 
allowed the program to damage itself to the point of complete failure. I 
am not a programmer, but that just cannot be acceptable. I have never 
been able to do that to my Mac, and I have never rendered any of my 
Linux installs completely damaged beyond use with an update. I have 
damaged modules, or lost my GUI environment or networking, but the OS 
continued.

If you don't believe that IE is integrated into the OS, uninstall it and 
see how well your OS runs, if it runs at all. And I don't mean 
uninstalling IE 7 after an upgrade, because IE 6 is still their. If you 
have problems with IE, you usually have no choice other than to 
re-install the OS, and that is complete BS. I have a client right now 
who has to use IE because of an Active X (don't even get me started on 
active x) requirement with an online business application. When 
launching IE to any Web site, it takes about 5 minutes for the page to 
load. Then the following pages load faster, but still takes too long. I 
have installed both Firefox and Opera, and both run beautifully, but 
cannot be used for their business application because of active x. We 
have eliminated dns issues, network issues, tried repairs, installing 
IE7, and even registry repairs per micro$oft's recommendation, nothing 
has worked. We are scheduled to reinstall the OS next week, again per 
micro$oft's recommendation.

My windoze machines run very well. My last bsod was years ago, and I 
rarely have any issues. But that is because I know how to use a 
computer, and I know what not to do. I also spend time working with the 
OS, verifying updates and patches are installed, being careful where I 
go on the Web, run cleaning applications weekly, making sure my anti 
virus and anti malware applications are updated and run nightly, and 
defrag weekly. I am not surprised that Derek and others in this group do 
not have issues, because we are educated users. But it shouldn't take an 
educated user to safely use an OS.

--Hank

P.S. Fred, what security model???


Fred Moore wrote:
> Derek Konigsberg wrote:
>   
>> On Tue, 6 May 2008, Damien McKenna wrote:
>>     
>>> On May 6, 2008, at 10:11 AM, patrick wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Tons of new folks are attending install fests after some horrific
>>>> experiences with Microsoft, bad things like not knowing they need to
>>>> defrag often, fully format and re-install at least 3 times each year,
>>>> and the constant barrage of adware bots, exploits, trojans, worms.
>>>>         
>>> I tend to reinstall my wife's machine every 18 months, it just gets
>>> too gunked up with the different software I test out on it, not too
>>> bad really. And we don't have problems with adware, exploits, trojans
>>> or worms either.
>>>       
>> What's with this?  Every rabit Linux advocate *assumes beyond the
>> shadow of a doubt* that *every* Windows machine *must* have horrible
>> problems of being gunked up with all that crap.
>>
>> However, I have *never*, I repeat, *never*, had those problems on
>> *any* of the Windows machines I've regularly used.
>>
>> I seriously think the problem is *not* Windows itself.  Rather, I
>> think the problem is careless "clicking on every stupid thing" and
>> "installing every stupid add-on" through the app known as MS Internet
>> Explorer.  Its the only browser that practically self-infects itself,
>> and makes it very easy for a dumb user (not us) to crap up their
>> systems by browsing to shady websites.  Oh, and MS Outlook, to some
>> extent as well.  (though I've never had problems with MS Outlook in a
>> business environment, which is the only place I've ever actually used
>> it.)
>>
>> ---------------------------
>> Derek Konigsberg
>> octo at logicprobe.org
>> http://hecgeek.blogspot.com
>> ---------------------------
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>>
>>     
> How can everyone else enter your world?  I contend the problem *is*
> windows itself.  No matter how crappy any application is if it can
> corrupt the OS then that is the underlying problem.  And BTW IE is and
> embedded part of the operating system, (thats what so many law suites
> are about)  as is every other shared DLL application distributed...  You
> should be able to click any web site out there safely.   As for stupid
> people who install crap from all over the place again.. an OS that out
> of the box has no security to stop this crap is broken.    A friend is a
> perfect example.  He and his wife never install anything.   But I
> constantly assist him as his kids trash it..   its just a plan broken
> security model.. 
>
>