Posted on 08/04/2010 10:58:19 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
"Security through obscurity" may be a catchy phrase, but it's not the only thing that's catching among Windows users.
The expression is intended to suggest that proprietary software is more secure by virtue of its closed nature. If hackers can't see the code, then it's harder for them to create exploits for it--or so the thinking goes.
Unfortunately for Windows users, that's just not true--as evidenced by the never-ending parade of patches coming out of Redmond. In fact, one of Linux's many advantages over Windows is that it is more secure--much more. For small businesses and other organizations without a dedicated staff of security experts, that benefit can be particularly critical.
Five key factors underlie Linux's superior security:
****************************EXCERPT*****************************
1. Privileges
2. Social Engineering
3. The Monoculture Effect
4. Audience Size
5. How Many Eyeballs
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I guess that's why my wife is called on often to support (fix) four or five friends' Windows machines. But I agree that Windows is WAY above 1980s Unix (can't speak to anything post-90s).
Agree 100% with this post. (Sigh, I really liked PL/I, back in the days...)
I like your explanation,..matches my thoughts.
Granted, folks like me will almost always use the command line tools, (because of the power, flexibility and speed you get with them), but they aren't required these days. The great thing is that you have both options available to you if you want them. I'm just glad we have choice of what we want to use in general. If you're happy with MS-windows and the virus scanners, anti-spyware tools, and the abortion that is the windows registry, that go with it, that's great! More power to you, and I wish you well with it. If you prefer OSX, that's great too. Us Unix folk could learn a little about usability from Apple. The fact that we have options is a good thing and just goes to show that it takes lots of different type of folks to make a world.
I have to agree with you about Mint. Its the best Linux distro i’ve used for a home PC. Better than Ubuntu or Debian.
Current project is trying to get Ubuntu (but it's looking more like it'll be Lucid Puppy) to run on this old thing that I inherited this week.
It looks like a laptop, but has no battery nor PCMCIA slot.
Its RAM is a 256MB, PC133 stick (not SODIMM), upgradeable to a whopping 512MB.
Celeron CPU, and a whole 10 gigs on the hard drive.
Yeah, modern versions are a bit simpler. I can manage my Fedora system without ever touching the command line, because the package manager handles all of that for me; I just need to provide the correct password to complete any install or update.
I should also note that the package update runs automatically and lets me know when there are updates and/or patches available for installed packages.
Other than the GUI differences, it’s pretty much exactly like software update on my Windows XP and OS X boxes. (The only exception is that WinXP doesn’t prompt for password for the install.)
I like the Mint scheme...works for me ...Sabayon seems a bit complex.
LOL...that is going back a ways.
Yeah, I wasn’t trying to single out Fedora, I was using it as an example because that’s what I’m familiar with.
The point is, the whole “Linux can’t be used as a desktop for the average person” argument is pretty much obsolete. Once installed, the user experience (including system maintenance) can all be done via point-and-click GUI.
The only time I drop to the command line is to play nethack, and that’s because I’m too lazy to create a launcher for it.
And will run the Firefox browser.
Scratch that, I just checked... I do have a launcher for Nethack.
“As another poster mentioned, the use of zcat and pipelining is quite unnecessary, and has been for years with modern versions of tar, which understand and can deal with gzip, or bzip compression alorythms.”
Yes, for the GNU version of tar, you’re right. For some other versions, eg, Solaris, no. And I’d guesstimate that I’ve used SunOS/Solaris more than any two other variants of Unix, so you can tell I’m a bona fide dinosaur. In thinking about it, I’ve used V7, BSD 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, SunOS, Xenix, Venix, A/UX, Ultrix, SysVR2, SysVR3, Solaris, HP-UX, Irix... Linux, FreeBSD and now OS X. I forget what the variant on Wang machines was called.
I think that’s all of them. I list all of those on a resume as one OS - under “Unix” because I haven’t the time left in life to worry about religion of one vs. the other. Do they have ‘sh’, can they fork a process, have pipes & redirection and do they have a C compiler? Close enough.
re: Usability in Unix: There’s a lesson from Apple that I think Unix hackers will never, ever learn. Apple makes software more usable with fewer options. Give a user more than five to seven options, and s/he will almost never remember them all; they’ll have to keep referring to the documentation or help string to get the right option. As the years have gone on, Unix hackers have added more and more knobs, switches and options to commands, which is going in the wrong direction.
Another source of frustration for many users is X11, if they have an uncommon video configuration. Then the excessive choices in window managers and attending options. If the Linux people wanted to get more people using Linux/Unix, they’d address the window manager issues, and come up with one clean, sufficiently powerful WM and a pretty standard configuration and ship that as the default. Last I looked, there’s ... what, about two dozen WM’s available on Linux now? Utterly insane.
Yep, it can be done via GUI... right up until something goes wrong.
I’ve had enough experience with non-programmer users installing Linux and GNU because it was cheap.... and they’re feeling pretty pleased with themselves at how ‘easy’ it was.... until something goes wrong. And then they’re knocking on my door, saying “Uh.... my system is coughing up these messages and I have no idea what they mean...”
And off I go again, helping some poor schlub with their G-D system.
It has gotten so bad that increasingly, I no longer tell people that I worked in the computer industry. I don’t lie if people ask me directly, but I don’t open my mouth and tell people “Oh yea, used to work with XYZ type of system...”
Increasingly, I hide behind OS X. “I don’t know much about {Windows|Linux|etc}.... I use a Macintosh so I don’t have to learn anything about that stuff....”
Well, to be fair, if something goes horribly wrong with a Windows or Max box, the user is pretty much equally hosed.
Absolutely true.
With the Mac, however, I can take it up to the nice Pod People at the Apple Store and say “I retired. I’m sick of this crap. Been there, done that, I’ve got entire closets full of damn t-shirts. YOU deal with it, Little Miss Shiney-Happy.”
Puppy is very good too.
I agree with the basics of what you are saying (Unix is not really user friendly, but is really programmer-friendly), but the example of tar is not demonstrative because Aunt Tillie won’t be using tar.
She’ll be using whatever the GUI version is that comes packaged in Gnome/Java Desktop (gnome)/KDE/etc. Even in the UI impoverished world of Unix, there are plenty of UI apps to handle compressed files of many kinds.
Wow, a long an interesting comment I must say... You are right on some of your points, but really, all language compilers are the problem for overflow checking, not the language. Yes, Ada had some benefits, and some problems, after all, it was NOT really decided that it would be the language of the future but a government decision - good luck there...
Actually, I think the major problem is that the military suddenly realized that almost all of their proprietary code was written in Fortran and they panicked, as they should - after all, the government is about 40 years behind in advanced programming languages - so Ada became the choice of the future.
Of course, today, Ada is obsolete and has little to do with government...so, what will they proclaim next as the language of the future? You don’t really think that the backward government has any clue as to what will suffice for programming now do you really?
Keep your Ada skills though, they may be valuable for the next 40 years or so if the government has any say...
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