It depends on what the client wants to pay really. They can't do it themselves, and when you get a really snuffed up machine, you can spend 10 hours cleaning it out (with the risk it might not survive anyway). They don't want to pay that, so you do a quick reinstall in an hour.

The difference in linux is you don't get the damage in non user areas like you do in windows, especially when users run as admin, which they tend to do...

Hmm...Maybe because both are fruit?

Sendmail comes with Linux in most instances and has to do with mail. The problem with Outlook Express is that it lets other application send mail through it. That is also one of the main problems with sendmail.

Do you even know what an MTA does? Comparing Outlook Express to an MTA again is like comparing a boat to a car, totally different roles in how they work. Sure they both deal with mail, but a boat and a car both use gas.. next argument please..

I suppose comparing an email client to an MTA is like comparing a car to a road. They are both involved in getting people from A to B...

Or one could think of it like a Mailman and the Recipient.. Mailman just delivers it to it's correct destination, doesn't care what it is he is delivering, just has to have proper address so he knows where to deliver it. The Recipient opens and reads the mail unlike the Mailman..

I get why the myth exist for Windows but why does the same myth not exist for Linux. Say I give my grandpa a Linux computer for Christmas and I move off to Seattle. He screws it up and brings it to you. He doesn't want to spend money for you to troubleshoot for hours and hours he just wants you to fix it in an hour.
Linux is different in this situation because the non tech folks don't run it. If it breaks then 99% of Linux users will search the internets for days to find an answer instead off letting their friends see the GeekSquad car parked out in front of their house.


ok for this next part I will admit that I am speaking from my pre y2k Linux knowledge. It use to be that if you turned off your computer while Linux was booting or shutting down you could screw it up nearly beyound repair. (ok ya you could boot another linux disk, mount it and fix it) But still you could take it down pretty hard.
A lot of Windows users are idiots. You have to give Microsofts marketting team a bit of credit. And yes users will run as admin. You take these same users and put them on a Linux machine and I bet they will try to run as root as much as they can. Or have no problem typing in their root password whenever a little window pops up and ask. If "hackers" (I know bad term for it) wrote their little idiot viruses (virii?) for linux the same way they do for Windows, which is writing it based on the user being a total idiot and click OK or launching it. Then the same type of damage could be done on Linux that is done on a Windows machine.
Remember when "hackers" use to drool when they would get a guest login option for some random Unix machine?

And this is the big issue. You can't blame the mailman for the spam or the letter bomb. It's the sender at fault, which is more likely to be OE than others...

Yes I know what an MTA does. That is why I am calling it by Sendmail and not MTA. I'm not comparing at the total functionality level. I'm comparing the fact that both had/have security issues that stem from letting any old app send mail through them. Yes OE requres an SMTP server and Sendmail is (or can be) an SMTP server. Both allow local applications to send mail externally. And both are exploited based on this feature.

Well, the difference is with linux it's more likely the user will be working as a user and not admin. And this works for XP as well. They can do little real damage as a user and it's easy to fix. Likely just a few minutes.

Of course the biggest issue with windows is the crap people install, both deliberately and accidently. This isn't as big an issue with linux as updates and software tends to come from one safe source these days. While they get all sorts of malware ridden software for windows everywhere and install it... And that takes some fixing. It's really easier to start again.

Hey, I even do a clean linux install every year. Totally fresh, but the difference there is a separate /home partition, so even after a fresh install the data and desktop setup is exactly the same as if nothing happened.

So even a complete reinstall in linux, like windows, is an hour job, but without all the data backup and reinstall of all the apps separately and the drivers and all the reconfiguration.

Doesn't happen. I don't remember it ever happening much. Maybe back in slackware 3 perhaps. Not much since the KDE days anyway. In any case, as I say, even a (rare) reinstall in linux is not anywhere near the same issue as in windows.

Well, to be fair to the users, it was MS who created this situation. They have trained users for many years to be the admin and have permanent root control of the PC...

It's harder to run root in linux and it defaults to a user. New distros make that almost invisible to the user aside from the occasional root password popup. People need to get used to that, even in Vista. They have bypassed it in XP, and hopefully they won't ba able to in Vista. But I have my doubts.

In any case, as I say, MS created the situation.

As for damage. Well, the same sort of damage can be done on linux, but there are reasons it's not. You don't get small pieces of malware installing quite as easily as in the default windows world. You can't click on an email attachment an have it execute in the one click. And there are secure, one stop sources for software. You can set up the servers in urpmi or whatever package system, then safely browse the software, install it, and not have to worry about the security issue.

AFAIK MS is going to be trying something like this. They are starting behind linux that, just like there attempts at getting people away from admin on the desktop, so it will be interesting to see how they go.

Sendmail is an MTA or if you want to call it, an SMTP server. A better example of comparison would be Outlook vs Thunderbird, both of those play the same role as one another. Sendmail and Outlook do not. Yes, you can use the builtin command sendmail to send a message but it is not used to retrieve and view email, it's an MTA. Still, your comparison argument is flawed, you need to pick something different cause Sendmail and Outlook can both have security exploits, but on totally different levels.

You may know what an MTA is but you don't seem to know what Sendmail is.

And speaking of vista security and the MS user base... I see already hints of how to bypass vista security. What a monster MS created in it's users...

Windows Vista Tip: Run as administrator

,----[ Quote ]
| This will make every admin operation prompt you for credentials
| while it is great if you do a lot of remote operations it can
| become tedious if you are performing a lot of local admin operations.
`----

http://windowsconnected.com/blogs/jo...nistrator.aspx
http://tinyurl.com/y64c6r


Microsoft: Turn off Vista's UAC to fix problems

,----[ Quote ]
| I've been fairly critical of the new User Access Control (UAC) in
| Windows Vista, as I feel it is too secure to be usable, which will
| probably result in many users and corporations turning off and
| losing out on what could have been Vista?s best feature.
|
| [...]
|
| He recommends turning UAC back on after fixing the problem, but
| when users need to do this more than a couple of times to get a
| usable system, they will just leave it turned off.
`----

http://beta.amanzi.co.nz/2006/11/13/...-fix-problems/


'Vista's Account Protection: One Click and It's Gone'

,----[ Quote ]
| One of Vista's big security features is 'User Account Protection'
| (or 'User Account Control') which pops up and asks for user
| authentication before software can make any administrative changes to
| the system. But the TweakVista utility can turn off UAP in one click...
`----

http://securitydot.net/news/exploits...2661/news.html


The Truth About User Privileges

,----[ Quote ]
| Has the time finally come for the least-privilege user -- you know,
| setting your Windows client machines to run without system
| administrator rights?
|
| [...]
|
| Today, some Windows applications just won't run properly on a
| desktop without administrative rights. "It's a dirty little
| secret people sweep under the rug because they're not able to
| do much about the problem. A lot of applications and pieces
| of environments won't work if users aren't given admin rights,"
| says Steve Kleynhans, vice president for Gartner's client
| platforms group. "If you can get applications to function
| with lower rights, in a lot of cases it hampers the user
| experience."
`----

http://www.darkreading.com/document....WT.svl=news1_1


SudoWn brings Unix-like sudo to Windows

,----[ Quote ]
| SudoWn is more versatile than the built-in "Run as..." command. Programs
| are run as the user in question, rather than as another, more highly
| privileged user. The password for the Administrator account can stay
| secret, as the user needs only his own password to use sudoWn.
`----

http://software.newsforge.com/softwa...tid=79&tid=138


How to Hack a Window XP Admins Password

,----[ Quote ]
| This is a cool little trick I've picked up in my travels and decided
| to share it with you fine and ethical individuals.
`----

http://internetbusinessdaily.net/how...mins-password/

There are some things that Linux - or the guys - that must be in place to overturn the evil corporate
empire that is Microsoft. No really, MS business model is arcane, and it was sadly never punished
properly for tightening their monopoly market. Big shame and disgrace for the court systems


- Offer easy solution on "high tech" market. If you see expensive applications that cost MILLIONS
of dollar (just think of equipment in companies... not only computers... think of automations and so
on). This is where the smart people sit. Ok, places like CERN will probably already prefer *nix based
systems.
These systems move a lot slower... I know on my university there is still (!!!) Netscape used as
browser in some places (while there was an upgrade to win nt about 5 years ago to most other
software there...)
Here, *nix has to shine by offering MORE, and doing so in a BETTER way.

I think KDE will help a lot there. Gnome, sadly, seems to lack manpower. I have read
the mailing list and bugtrackers for a long time.
(Its long why I think KDE will provide more help there, the reason really boils down to
manpower in the end, people that develop high quality applications. Of course this may
slowly change if more people start hacking on things with an open source model)


- Appeal to BEAUTY
Why is Vista so shiny? Because they saw that Mac would otherwise steal their show.

Compiz, Beryl, Xgl, Aigxl etc.. these are all cool things.
But we should not stop there. We want 3D desktops, we want touchscreens where we
dont have to touch anymore, we want the future, we want to impress...
There are various projects that are cool. Cuiterm for example. Imagine if Cuiterm
would become a 3D shell instead


- Office software
Luckily, with open office, microsoft will slowly lose there.
Open Office is too big for my taste, i prefer abiword and other things, combined, for
office work. But I am optimistic, the open source suites will grow nicely, and
as you can see, some areas already help there :-)

- Games
This is, actually the most important aspect of MS.
MS is a gaming platform. DirectX was mostly pushed BECAUSE of games.
Games are a good seller. They are sold overpriced, and people buy fancy LCDs
nice graphic cards etc... then, see World of Warcraft, they even
pay monthly fee to play it.
Wheeee!
And you know what? The majority of people are YOUNG.
I mean, relatively young. Even if the guy is 30 years, its the time where
you normally have a good income but you are not TOO OLD to learn new things.

Younger people normally have it much easier to learn something new such as
LINUX.

Think of this fantasy world right now:

Imagine aliens land on planet earth
2000 of them. They know all programming languages and start to code games.
The games only work on Linux (heheh ok thats a problem... people want their games to
be multiplattform, but to follow my thought I recommend to SPLIT this world view.)

These aliens make it this way... they release shitloads of nice, small games for
free for all platforms. Then they release some more games that have super quality
and can be played for free (its financed with advertisement) over the
net - but only for NIX based systems. Windows users have to pay, unless they
use a nix based system

Ok this is going a bit too far :P
But I am 100% sure of the last point, that Games is what makes the biggest
difference. I have seen many trailers, like Hellgate London, and many of
the new upcoming ego shooters or ego "fantasy roleplaying" games.

Big graphics engines.... Whatever it takes, Linux must become a
successful market for GAME MAKERs.
You see that MacOSX is a viable alternative? Hey, Mac can be compared
to nix in term of deployment!


Hopefully we will see many many many more high quality open sourced
games

Do not blame Linux if you can not get it to work for you. I am sure with a little help, you would come to love it too. I am running Windows XP Pro and SUSE 10.2 in the same box and both work just fine. I also tried couple of other distribution flavors and they worked just fine...wireless and wire connection, networking with Windows 2003 server too. They all are working perfectly!!!

I think this is the single most important thing for the future of linux on the desktop:

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4586903228.html

When people talk about what's holding linux back, they usually talk about ease-of-use and hardware drivers. Well, I'm a techie, I admin linux web servers, for years, and yet I still wouldn't run linux on the desktop. I'm willing to pay for and install linux compadible parts, I have no "ease-of-use" problems (hell, I'd spend half my time in the terminal window). But there's no way I'd run linux on the desktop in it's present state.

Until major commercial software is ported to linux, linux (on the desktop) will remain an obscure niche, that's what I think. No one cares about the OS, it's the apps that count. If I were James Carville I'd say "It's the applications, stupid."

The fact that it took so long for such a project to begin is sad. 2007? (Have there been other similar projects that you can name? I'd like to research them.)

I still get the feeling that desktop linux enthusiasts don't like commercial software running in linux, they want to it be an OSS-only world. That is doomed thinking in my opinion.

LSB is hardly new... And many of us DO run linux on the desktop, and do run commercial software.

That doesn't remove the MS monopoly position, which is what keeps them at the top and removed commercial competition.

With OSS they are having more trouble with the removal...