New Internet Virus Spreading Fast

I doubt seriously if any average windows user could fix their windows box if the slightest thing went wrong. In fact I know several which ask me to come over regularly and reinstall their software because the OS became so mucked up it was unusable.

SUSE is no worse no better than windows. If anything SUSE is much easier to install software for since the SUSE repository does it for you over the net using a point and click interface. Yes the wife can do it as well and doesn't need any help from me to do it.

We have a playstation in case anyone wants to use it. With the Sony LINUX kit it also will work as a web box. I would bet that this is the next big thing, game consoles becoming web terminals.

I guess you don't see that the general public buying computers don't really want or need a computer they just want web access and web features. In these cases the box just needs to work. My TIVO runs for years without a hitch. Donwloads and updates roll in from the satellite when needed. This is what is going to be expected in the future.

I guess you don't see that the general public buying computers don't really want or need a computer they just want web access and web features.

I guess you don't see that if that's what you want, your SUSE box will never be as secure or as easy to set up or as cheap as an actual WebTV-style dumb terminal. No matter what you do to it, unless you strip it down to the point where it's not much more than a keyboard and an RF modulator. You may be able to pass that off on your wife, but for some reason I doubt that's what you yourself are willing to accept, and so you get the worst of both worlds - a grossly overcomplicated X-terminal that's comparatively much too expensive, hardware-wise and time-wise.

I don't know if "the general public" will really be happy with a keyboard and an RF-modulator, but I suspect a good many of them will not. In which case, nor will they accept a "solution" that requires either a local guru or some remote third-party to preapprove whatever it is they want to do with the machine they bought as a general-purpose computing device. Locking it down like that eliminates the very purpose of having a general-purpose computer - the ability to do things that the original designers did not anticipate and were therefore not able to explicitly allow you to do.

No, I think that once they think about it, many people will conclude that they prefer decentralized computing that they control, in much the same way that many people prefer to own their own car versus taking the bus everywhere. You don't solve traffic accidents by forcing everyone onto the bus, you teach them how to drive properly - and the solution to poor computer security is to teach people safe computing, rather than pushing them onto Larry Ellison-style internet appliances. Because the reality is that safe computing is a set of behaviors, not an operating system...

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