I have to admit, in the time it takes to find all the patches and drivers and bits and pieces of what it takes to make an efficient Linux system the way I need it to run

I could have earned enough money to buy at least 3 or 4 new Windows XP liscenses, builded some descent pc's and had em up and running with an office suite, firewall, virus protection, disk cleaner, & ad aware --- internet ready installed and then sold them to needy community college students --- making at least 20% profit by now.


The thrill of the scavenger hunt I suppose keeps me going.

sure its faster and easier but the easiest is not always the best way isnt it

Don't blame Linux blame the hardware manufacturers who don't develop the relevant drivers for Linux. The only reason M$ are easier is because the hardware comes with the drivers necessary.

And you wouldn't have the knowledge you gained from going through all of that.

For sure. You also gain a much deeper understanding of the inner workings of computers and networks by going the Linux way.

Remember M$ wants to keep you dumb, that way it makes you dependent on its products. But I have realized people will pay a lot of money to be lazy

And don't forget all the viruses that will hit your poor community of M$ users, and all the rubbish they will install (together with the viruses)... happy trouble shooting.

lol talk about a long tiem, iv been trying to get linux to work for like 3 or so months at least (most of that was with lfs wich just dident work so i ended up taking the first distro i tryed (and cuse it broke when i rebooted the first tiem i tryed it this tiem i took teh time to reinstall every single package (even glibc)), now i know what alomst every file on my system does (given im still having to tweak things cuse each tiem i wanna do something new i have to reinstall the kernel (first with x now with pcmcia, then networking) if ya ask me its defidently worth the trouble, as i get almost what i want (what i realy want is like thsoe 3d virtual reality computers from those sci-fi programs, lol thatll be fun to use ((starts dreaming.................

people taking the path of least resistance is what's caused MyDoom to be in every newspaper around the world... installing these 4 XP machines was quick, it was easy, and now we're plauged by virii.... hurrah.

Chris is correct in his suggestion.

To start with, the fact that the "main" account with eckspee when you start, has root privileges, is a concern.

If you think of how many people just plug the box in and carry on from there, then it's understandable why security exploits are so relatively easy with the majority of windows based systems.

I'll freely admit, that I didn't bother setting up a user account without the root access until recently, the fact that I didn't manage to get any virii, Trojans's or worms is just pure luck. Yes there is anti virus, etc installed, but the day to day management of such software often suffers from complacency/neglect. That applies to commercial versions as well as the home user. to be honest, I haven't tried to apply something to my user account without having the root/sysadmin privileges, but that's only because I don't bother using windows very much, I prefer to use the linux facility I have access to.

All the learning stuff that you go through i.e. finding the best places to find patches for this and that (as in security or just drivers etc etc), does help greatly if you are methodical in your approach to your system.

At least the vast majority of linux based systems ask for confirmation that you actually want to do what you think you are doing whether you're logged in as root or whether you've "su'd" in a terminal. I would suggest that when (and if) linux system's become popular enough for the software developers to automatically ship linux drivers as well as the ubiquitous windows drivers, then linux will start to have a lot more security problems, but the inherently better culture of security matters usually found in the linux world, should, at least in theory, largely negate such matters.

Though it's really about educating linux users to remember to apply the various measures that are available.

As far as taking so much effort to find drivers and patches is concerned, well, the very fact that the patches and drivers are produced by those interested in a particular piece of equipment, and having to reverse engineer, etc means that it would naturally take longer. Individual's won't have the massive resources of M$, to be able to produce, test and apply QA standards to the piece of software produced, let alone store it in one centralized place (well more than one, but I'm sure you can imagine the size of the storage/access systems that are available to "the biggies" i.e. M$, nvidia, etc to name a couple).

And yes, it's fair to say that it's a matter of annoyance to lot's of us out here, that developers sometimes can't or won't produce nice, easily read, understandable help guides, howto's or readme's. Though it's fair to say, that "technical writing" is a completely different skill to writing software.

If you want "nice and easy", but difficult to customize/adapt for your needs, then by all means stick to windows, but if you want to be able to make choices of how and what you can do with your system, then you will probably have to put up with the inconvenience of hunting down patches or drivers.

Oh, and this isn't meant to be a mega criticism, but an honest and constructive answer.

enjoy ?

regards

John

Sounds like a troll to me. If I was an op then I would lock this thread.

There's been a recent influx of them on this site Enigmasoldier - they typically go under the guise of a new Linux user and post reams of problems/errors whilst making regualar references to "glad I can still boot back into XP" and "it works perfect in XP " etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc - keep your eyes peeled chaps/chapesses

Having to learn so much about computers just to install a program or listen to a music CD can make anyone jibber like bigjohn!

Linux is really hard.

There shouldn't be any problem with people venting their frustrations unless it's targeted to unjustifiably insult an individual.

Everything I write is just the truth from one experience from 1 user as he understands things.

It's all part of the MS conspiricy with the men in black trenchcoats to discredit Linux. They pay the bastards to troll all day. That must be it!

Tell me stupidpengiun. Do you work for Microsoft. Hmmmmmmm.

Or maybe MS is afraid that there progress is slowing and linux is starting to make a lot of ground and they now it.