I must disagree here.
Linux Mint is, I believe, more user-friendly.
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
Posted on 06/22/2015 6:33:19 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Lubuntu Linux is the one to try ,been running it on this laptop forever and it will run on a very old laptop
Yes it is...it’s awful. You have to do on a library hunt to compile. I’ve been fooled several times saying...oh RPM fixes it. Or library hunts are no longer the case. It ALWAYS is the case for what I need to do (for some reason).
Most PC users couldn’t use the command line if that had to, so no point in fearing it.
no need for command line anymore , just Bing what you want to install if it’s not in the Software Center and copy and paste
Users of complex tools (such as computers) should be required to demonstrate some semblance of competency.
If you cannot demonstrate any competency above point and click, then use a phone.
I began using Linux for the same reason you did. I have been using Linux Mint and am very impressed. The layout very similar to Win XP or 7.
“Honestly, how to do know you have no viruses, malware, sniffers, etc if you have nothing watching for it?”
Because the fundamental design of the OS precludes such things from happening.
To use your home security example:
Windows was like a home with absolutely no locks, alarms, etc. which had them retrofitted later as burglars did their thing, requiring a profusion of keys and monthly live monitoring service costs. New security must be installed by the user whenever someone finds another way in, such as cutting holes in the walls or crawling thru ducts. Word is Windows 10 will offer any passer-by the house key along with suggestion they come in and make toast.
UNIX (which OS X is a robust implementation of) is like a house built with strong security implemented everywhere from the beginning, from biometric locks on every door to bulletproof windows and stone walls. Viable attacks are rare and pervasively addressed by the builder; most attacks are either academic (requiring very specific conditions & tools) or require gratuitous stupidity on the user’s part (like opening every door at the explicit request of shady-looking strangers). Viruses aren’t a problem because every surface is treated with Micro-Ban (kills microbes on contact). Malware isn’t a problem unless the user explicitly provides the root password to suspicious software which has no reason to request such access. Sniffers aren’t a problem because sensitive information is encrypted. I know that nobody has walked into my home, made toast, cleaned up and left because the front door is ALWAYS locked, the windows & walls are unbreakable (short of serious power tools leaving a proliferation of evidence), the pantry won’t open without biometric clearance (I never think of it because it recognizes my fingerprints on contact), and security logs record every room entered & exited and every door opening; insofar as any of those security features CAN be broken/beaten, doing so (without observable consequence!) would require effort far beyond the payoff of making toast.
Every few years (and this has been going on for _decades_) I’ve made a valiant attempt to embrace Linux.
Every time I give up, stymied by the proliferation of “oh, you just need to...” twiddling required to make anything work, plus the propensity of the platform to do nothing at all when something goes wrong (instead of, say, tell me in plain English that something went wrong - much less actually what in a comprehensible manner). It just requires so much d@med FIDDLING with everything - which is remarkable, in that my JOB is software engineer focused on “fiddling” with making things work. Oh, sure, I can make it work, but that’s just costing me no less than a premium OS X setup in terms of the voluminous time & frustration required to make anything work sensibly. Proponents can’t seem to grasp this, unable to get past their acceptance of endless “oh, you just need to ...” involving things which no user should be expected to know or do.
I must disagree here.
Linux Mint is, I believe, more user-friendly.
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
While I agree with you, "user-friendliness" is very subjective. The more you know a system the more "user-friendly" it is.
I hate Ubuntu. I much more prefer the Red Hat family of OSes. I find them much more user friendly because that is what I know.
sudo apt-get install...
RPM can go pound sand.
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
That didn’t do everything I needed either. Not sure why, but it didn’t.
I’m a retired engineer, a user but not a software engineer. If I couldn’t afford a Mac I’d use Windows or Linux - but I wouldn’t like my computer nearly as much. But then, the one advantage of Linux would be to have a Fortran compiler I could use to program in the only programming language with which I have any fluency.
GIMP is hard for me to use
I have used Linux for at least five years now. Microsoft Vista pushed me over the edge and I was ready to try some alternative. I don’t know Unix, so the OS had to be Mac-like in simplicity - I was not going to compile anything, write arcane scripts, or spend much time at a command prompt. I put myself in the shoes of Joe Blow and went looking.
Both Ubuntu and Mint offer the “Mate” desktop - very like Windows XP and runs efficiently on older hardware. If you choose a Dell “business” computer model (such as Optiplex, Inspiron, or Latitude) that has been out for a few years, and a HP USB printer, you can hardly go wrong. Fancy video cards might be more problematic on some models. Usually some flavor of Ubuntu or Mint will work with those.
If Apple published iTunes for Linux, I would have everything I need.
Installing Ubuntu and Mint is just as easy as installing Windows (sometimes easier), and certainly faster.
You have icons on your desktop?
I generally don’t allow that. :-)
# time chkrootkit
ROOTDIR is `/'
Checking `amd'... not found
Checking `basename'... not infected
Checking `biff'... not found
Checking `chfn'... not infected
===big chunk of stuff snipped===
chkutmp: nothing deleted
Checking `OSX_RSPLUG'... not infected
real 0m2.942s
user 0m1.373s
sys 0m2.146s
It never hurts to check. I generally keep an eye out for suspicious behavior. I also have root run chkrootkit as above nightly just for grins. If it finds anything, It'll notify me. For a while there was a Redhat process that triggered false positives. Thankfully that is no longer the case.
In general, because of the way that Linux partitions user and admin space, you aren't much at risk, and since there are very few programs that you need to be root to run them, it's not a big deal. The biggest problem from a historical basis with Windows is that there was a huge base of (broken IMO) programs that senselessly required Admin access to run. This caused users to just make their user account administrator, which is extremely dangerous and stupid.
That, and the fact that Microsoft still thinks it is a good idea for files to execute based on the name of the file. (again, stupid).
Then you get things like microsoft "helping" you out by doing incredibly dumb things, like autorunning programs on CDs.
No operating system is fool-proof of course, because fools are sometimes such clever bastards. On the other hand, both OSX and Linux are safer by default, because they have essentially always been multi-user systems. with all the design consierations that implies. Having more than one user on a computer is something that was essentially bolted on years afterwards, and the need for backwards compatibility caused some serious compromises to be made in design decisions.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
Yeah, I know. For some folks, it's the preferred workflow. Doesn't really work for me. That's why I'm glad we have choices.
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