A little background about myself: I am one of the owners of a computer retail/repair shop in a relatively small city here in Virginia. I do most of the technical work which mainly consists of repairing end-user's systems and new system builds. We're mostly consumer oriented and don't deal with too many businesses.

Something I've been seeing more and more of these past few months is how many systems are coming in loaded down with Spyware/Malware and viruses. I mean, it is truly out of control.

It got me to thinking -- could this stuff start to be the downfall of Microsoft? So far MS hasn't done diddly to stop the spyware/malware issue. There is talk about SP2 for XP, but what of Win98/ME/2000 systems? Even if SP2 does stop the current batch of spyware, will it prevent future exploits from being found? I am guessing 'no'.

The viruses are just as bad and the security holes in Windows seem endless. I can't help but wonder if, due to the design of Windows, MS can't stop it from happening no matter how many patches they release.

Could this ultimately be a boon for Linux? Will it get to the point where enough people decide to switch, not necessarily by choice, but almost because they have to in order to keep a functioning system?

With Linux gaining momentium overseas and the push by some companies to get Linux onto the desktop, I think the next couple of years are going to be very interesting.

Any thoughts?

This is not a Linux technical question. It's an opinion piece. Moved to General.

"Could this ultimately be a boon for Linux? Will it get to the point where enough people decide to switch, not necessarily by choice, but almost because they have to in order to keep a functioning system?"

Do you recommend to your customers that they switch to open source? If so, how easy is it to talk people into making the switch?

--------------------
Steve Stites

I've pondered having Linux as an option for our custom builds, but ultimately I think it'll be a support nightmare. At this stage of the game, I would only recommend it to experienced users willing to learn.

I am just wondering if everything that's going on will fuel the Linux desktop revolution (if there is one).

Not true, my wife is happily using mandrake for about a year now.

Of course all she does is surf email and listen to ogg files.

If you take the time to make sure the cust can do everything they want there should be no support issues.

I would suggest if the cust has broadband that you get their IP and setup ssh server to start on boot so you can fix issues that occur later remotely.

What I really think it.

So many people have windows so they create a virus it will affect so many more people. If as many people used Linux as people use Windows then I think there would be just as much virus's and that sort of stuff. It would be a waste of a time to make a virus for linux if only 5 people are going to get infected by it. Now if you make one for windows, it would be millions of people.


So no I don't think Windows is going down. They can only get stronger.

Gosh - I hope that was ironic. (Welcome to LQ, by the way) There are viruses in Linux, but they are mainly proof of concept affairs - to prove that it is possible. With the majority of the webs servers being non-Windows, there are plenty of platforms to try a virus out on if you're a malicious type. Linuxes strength is in it's security - if a virus was sent to you, you would a) have to manually run it (unlike Windows), b) switch to root to allow it to infect your whole system. Otherwise, it would only damage your home directory. Also, not all Linux distros have the same directories - a virus infecting /opt wouldn't affect some boxes because they wouldn't have /opt.

If you were serious, please check out our general forum, there are a number of threads discussing Linu vs Windows where these arguments are hashed out continually.

" Something I've been seeing more and more of these past few months is how many systems are coming in loaded down with Spyware/Malware and viruses. I mean, it is truly out of control. "

It Drove me crazy in the past but ive become accustomed to running adaware, runing disk cleanup and I havent used I.E. in 2 years and have never used outlook, the 2 biggest spyware and virus catchers. Popups and spyware are easy to avoid just by using Mozilla or Opera and setting them up properly.

Most troubles with Linux occur in the initial configuration of the system...If you set up a complete Linux system for your customer (and I assume you are capable of doing this), you're likely to have less support work in the future than you do with your Windows customers.

As Xavier said, if you browse through the bigillions of Win vs Lin threads you'll read over and over about how popularity does not necessarily equal vulnerability....there are many reasons behind Windows being a big fat target besides just the fact that it's everywhere.

And that's what we do. We set them up to run Ad-Aware reguarly and use Mozilla FireFox instead of IE. Unfortuantely, some people either don't listen or don't understand -- they use AOL or MSN and continue to use the built-in browsers. Hell, I'm seeing Spyware coming in through AIM now -- you know how many teenagers use that?

And some of that stuff is extremely difficult to remove too. Ad-Aware and Spybot will get a good bit of it, but they're not 100%.

to remove it all just pop in a live linux CD and type

You I have been thinking about that whole MS is the target becuase they are huge and all. I am not sure what to think about that.

I mean yes, I think if MS were to go down (lets pretend here :-) ) then Linux would prevail. Would the people who create these Virus' and worms really want to hurt Linux? I mean chances are they are using a something similiar like Linux, BSD or UNIX, so why would they want to hurt themselves?

Of course people do crazy things all the time...I suppose in the end they would destroy whatever became the next flagship OS just out of spite.

Mike

you better believe that Microsoft has to be somewhat embarrassed by all of the security flaws in their OS but honestly at this point right now what can they do but work on their next OS to ensure that this doesnt get started in the first place. But as far as their current OS no matter how much they patch people will stop at nothing to find exploits in the code. Again I keep saying this: a) blame the thief and b) blame the guy who leaves his door open for the thief.

Microsoft isn't really destroying themselves but they are turning off some of the loyalist and I don't mean the home user but businesses who will eventually look for alternatives. Its that "geez this is getting old" attitude that will have CEO's and what not on the phone asking whats our alternative?

MS has the power to destroy itself. It simply won't fall anytime soon because they have a frickin' amount of cash. And cash is what drive business.

But keep stepping into costumers toes and you will see: Sega, a big company years ago did wrong with SegaCD (1), then 32X(2), then Saturn (3) and finally Dreamcast, with a very short dead (4). Today, Sega makes only software, to all consoles. Hole point is, peoples (both home users and companies) have a limit, and MS is getting near to it...

I'd love to see one day MS doing softwares(which I think they are good at, such as Office, Visual Studio and DirectX API) for Linux and other OS as well, ratter then their own OS(which I think is "ok", but not nearly as good as their software or Linux for that matter). That'd be cool, but very unlikely

I have read people that absolutely HATE their software...not me though. I think MS Office is one of the best office suite out there. I think they do a good job with almost everything not related to OS or Internet.

Mike