Here is what I have learned and will say evry time some one dismiises mircrosoft windows as a error,bug or virus prone Operating system. it is not microsofts' fau,lt your computer crashes it is mearilly your fault sa a irresopnsible netizen that your computer running A microsoft based operating system crashes so listen up when your parents or guardians tell you not to go out and down every peice of "crap ware" you can and for pete sake update you anti spyware virus softwares' data base when it asks you to, and please don't purchase any anti virus spyware product from MaCafee or Symantech (Nortan) bu instead for christ sakes use Zone Alarm Security Suite from Check Point who is well known for their incredible security track record of their Vitural private Network serverd and client side (V.P.N) software.

All I am saying is it isn't mircrosofts fault that windows system is thwe most widely used and hacked, istead it is the afault of all the 5to 15 year old idiots whodwnload Aol instant Meesenger and all of the Wild tangent crap ware rhat they download


Topic has been relocated with SlowCoder's responce attached to the original post.

Don't download and install suspect software with exploits? You mean like WMP?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...1/article.html

Here are some other examples of MS not-at-fault for crashes.
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/10/25.10.shtml
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/23/1255235
... this is just off the top of my head.

The last Windows I used was Win98SE. I installed it fresh and had the box just sitting doing nothing for 5mins while I sorted out some cables... when I turned back: BSOD. Admittedly, this is unusual... especially for OEM boxes, which this was not. But, in what way was that crash my fault?

You insist hotly on third-party security products - singling out specific non-free products (Zone Alarm). However, MS includes security products with Windows... that these are not good enough to do the job, that's not MS's fault right?

You claim that Windows is the most hacked because it is the most used. And, by implication, that Free Software is no more secure. The implication does not stand up to close scrutiny. I situations where a MS product is not market-dominant we still see more attacks on it than the alternatives (Apache vs WinIIS in '04 for eg.) The reason is that the payoff is better when you succeed against Windows - successful attacks get the run of the machine.

If you don't lock your car when you leave it, and someone steals it, that's not your fault right? If you make cars with easily circumvented door-locks, you can always require that owners install their own security system right - it's not your fault that there are thieves about after all? But why do users suddenly seem interested in the car that has good locks or cannot be driven very far even if it is broken into? That is so unfair! What a harsh marketplace punishing innocent capitalists that way!

I think you may have a point here if the car in question wasn't so poorly designed.

BTW: If you want to respond to someone - respond to them! Where is this "Vagrant" post to which you refer? Surely this missive should have been a reply to that?


Aside:

Quote:

We believe that our other worthy goals (such as gaining market share for Linux) will be accomplished best by a myopic, utterly self-absorbed focus on solid Hardware and honest customer support.

... difficult to know what to make of statements like that in a sig, even as a quote. The inclusion of "myopic" suggests that it in intended to be derogatory, but this is bundled with "honest customer support". Is the intent to suggest that FOSS advocates should be less myopic and more dishonest, just like their competitors?

This really isn't a statement of fact. It's an opinion. You, of course, are allowed have your opinions.

But your post sounds like it was emotively written, perhaps in response to some other reading or statements. I'd almost bet that if you reread it, you'll wonder what state of mind you were in.

My opinion, from my relatively long IT past (15 years), is that both Windows and Linux have their pluses and minuses. Stability and security of a newly installed, and unpatched installation of either will likely present a number of problems. The eventually available patches will fix many of the problems.

But Linux, but it's very nature, provides us with the ability to fix issues much quicker, either through readily available source (not found for Windows OS), or through extensively configurable configuration files (generally unavailable for Windows 1st party services).

(Not tostart a flame war SlowCoder but I have been using windows based machines sense the inception of windows 95 which my father bought as an upgrade to an old Pentium 1 based dell machine we had as our .)Firstt Family Computer

Which means even though i have not been around computers but 12 years I have learned alot from the constant vists from high priced technology professionals my father would have to higher on undo my mistakes and having my computer privileges taken away some tomes for up to 20 days depending on how much money i cost my parents, however, after six years of doing that my dad put me in charge of the family network because I got so damn good at waiting on the Internet service provider's support phone lines when ever our digital subscriber line (Seattle) or Optimum on Line (Cablevision Tenafly, Bergen County, NJ) that he put me in charge of maintaining our whole house net work at my former fulltime residents in Tenafly, NJ. My fellow students also ask me to trouble shoot their computer problems.

As far as my former comments about Windows being the most flawed and therefore most hacked OS the statistics are in my favor when it comes to reliability, stability, Uptime and widest user base (Unix and Linux . the backbone operating system infrastructure of the internet),BSD (Berkley Software Distribution)Mac OS and PcBsd)) and UNIX (Minnix and others).

On the other hand, the statistics for legacy in a corporate environment windows wins out against Mac OS accept in industries like graphic design.

I have even had some of my new (four mounth old) Friends ask me to taalk to Comcast (CrapCast) The local cable Internet Service Proivider here in Davi, Fl) on their behalf to solve connection problems.

I don't think you're flaming me. Don't worry.

And I don't think I said I disagree with you. My primary statement was about the way you presented your topic and first post. Seems to me you were hot on the topic. Maybe you had a recent Windows crash (for the thirty-somethingth time), or you're just tired of people saying "Yay Windows! Go Windows!" I don't know. I'm just conjecturing.

In general: when you want to take issue with the presentation of an opinion, how it is written, it is good etiquette to do so in private, and calmly. This gives the accused a chance to edit the original post and so save face in the long run.

And, of course, should it turn out that you have made a mistake... then you get to save face also. (Of course, then you have to put your e-mail in your profile...)

Responding emotively to an emotive-seeming post only compounds the error.
As there is already a windows vs linux superthread, and this issue seems to have reachod an amicable solution... perhaps we should leave it there?

Despite OP's horrible grammar (is he drunk?) he's largerly right. Sad fact is that you acually need more insight and knowledge to succesfully operate Windows machine just for daily tasks (internet, email, writing etc) than you need for Linux. Even sadder is that Windows is terribly documented unlike Linux, so that even people with +10 years of daily usage behind don't really know how to fix errors, although for a trained person who know where to seek info it's easy feat.
One page to rule them all: http://support.microsoft.com plus something that really comes in handy but only few utilize: http://www.computerhope.com/msdos.htm and rule of the thumb; avoid shell extensions.

Even I had no clue how easy it actually is until I went to work as a MS front-line techie. Ironically, before I worked to help other people with their problems I had loads of problems of my own on my computer. Nowadays thanks to that experience I have none.

Thanks For your empathy guys and you are all more than welcome to post walk troughs and contribute stories on my blog college Daze I will definitely keep contributing to Linux questions and I may even-save up and build a custom Linux box for my self and my room mate (Wee are both Apple guys) to play around with I would lie some advice on wireless cards as I would like o build this feature Linux Box so that it may be placed any where in our apartment so that both he and I may use it as well as member of Linux club that I hope to start after I graduate Broward Community College with my Linux Server Administrator certificate and Microsoft System Administration Certificate< because I hope hat some day I might be able to help Jeremy run and manage the Linux questions community

**don't worry I cut and pasted back and fourth between word for mac and Safari to spell check this post.

You can also find me on sdf.lonestar,org as topgun17 I am a personal friend of Stephen Jones (smj@sdf.lonestar.or) because he took advantage of my dyslexia as well as some of the other members and to make up for his impolite actions and those of the othe sdfers he caught he agreed to send me an sdf Tee Shirt and Travel mug so I considered him a close Internet friend.


On Oct 31, 2007, at 6:38 PM, Stephen Jones wrote:

Porter -

I'm sorry for not being aware of your condition. I agree you are doing
pretty well considering your disability. Keep at it! As a token of
friendship I want to give you one of the new SDF shirts .. if you'd like
it, please email me your address and size.

http://sdf.lonestar.org/store/more/sdf26.html

Hmmm? I get spell-checking automatically... somehow I figured it was a profile thing.

On dislexia:
Have you heard of Read Regular?
Unfortunately, not available for love or money... perhaps the owner can be pursuaded to release the font under a free license?

On linux HW:
Depends on your timing... if you were to buy the HW today, I would suggest intel all the way... especially wireless. Printers and scanners by hp.

However, there seems to be a bit of a run on linux HW drivers as more manufacturers get on board. In a few years... it's anybodies guess.

You are quite right here. Though in my own mind I was not being emotional to the situation, I can see how it could be taken that way. For that, I apologize to the OP, and hope he hasn't taken offense.

Yeah..if there are security holes in Windows operating system, no matter why, it is the responsibility of Microsoft (because they own the closed-source code) to close them and not let them be exploited. Users can't be fully responsible, because you can't expect every user to know everything about security, and even if they did, new things come up all the time. I bet at least part of the "security industry" have their fingers in security holes and malware, because that's how they get money - but still, the main responsibility is on the creator of the code, as long as they don't allow anybody else to fix it.

If you say "don't download malware/buggy software", you're saying "don't download at all". That post doesn't make any sense.

To tell you the truth, I have not had so many crashes for the past two years. Most of the crashes I have had on the past were because of bad third party drivers. For example my ATI card would make Windows crash upon startup. The solution for this problem was to either use the ASUS drivers or to use an older ATI driver.it took ATI quite a long time to release a driver that actually worked. Using ASUS drivers was a good workaround, but I found that its performance were pretty bad. I also had similar issues with my web cam.

In all fairness, I also had some crashes in Linux in the past with some incompatibility with an old Intel mother board,giving me a nice kernel panic. So in my honest opinion no operating system is crashproof.

Well, my two cents.

When it comes to usable uptime and usable time after performed installation, any *nix wins Windows hands down. It's still a mystery for me why Windows tends to slow down horribly after time passes no matter what you do - and then starts the crashing. I'm excited to see wether Windows Server 2003 based Vista do the same trick.

I've been hearing nice things about Win2003S stability... but that's as a server. Vista has built-in instability as a feature.

My fav. story is when I had a school sysadmin demonstrate their new network. I asked if they didn't have trouble with crashes and network outages. I was assured that, no, this system is flawless... while this was being expounded, the system crashed twice. The admin didn't even pause to take a breath fixing this. When it got online, a sample user login produced admin access. The admin did not see needing to reboot twice as evidence of a crash, nor the final access as a security problem.

I read the manual for W2003 that it should bu closed down for servicing every three-four days... every place I've worked has brought the system down at least once a week... but Win professionals tell me that you can have 5-6months of trouble-free uptime. Maybe as much as a year. Which seems odd: surely they have to reboot after each patch-tuesday? But they don't see that as "bringing the system down".

When hearing about proprietary OS reliability, this stuff is worth remembering.

Windows is good at stuff... another story was when I needed to hardcopy some photos quickly and I had no printer. I stuck the jpgs on a key and legged it to the local internet cafe.

XP loaded the photos and asked if I wanted to print them... curious, I said yes. It then provided page layout options so I picked one for four pix to a page. XP autmatically arranged them and printed them off.

Some of the images had been cropped, but XP resized them to fit the template and I couldn't work out quickly how to turn this feature off. So some of the images were distorted - rotating the images I could live with - distortion was annoying. However, it wasn't very bad, and I was in a hurry. In fact, they were good enough for the purpose I had in mind.

Now, in linux, I would have opened some heavy-duty powerful app to do the layout etc. The result would have been better, yes, and taken longer.

And this is the point - Windows is very good at being good enough.

In the XP world, this is fine. But but but... can MS really justify getting users to pay $300+ for "good enough"? Of course, commerce isn't about "justice".

That said, there is a Linux vs Windows mega-thread exactly for this sort of comparison. Let's use it shall we.

This is a case in point - while HW Vendors are crying for a binary API in linux, windows has always had one. Yet this does not help.

Third party software is notorious for making windows less stable... I recall a terminal package I got with my modem, that won awards, had a habit of writing files to C:\temp and not erasing them. If I used it for a month, the memory would max out. There was a game that got associated with "illegal action" faults, which I never managed to pin down.

In many cases, programmers are actually exploiting windows weaknesses a a way to make up for deficiencies in the API. Which is why you can get spotty performance with cheaper software and partly why free software has got a bad name.

many of the vulnerabilities are there by design: why is it possible to put a rootkit on windows - at all? This is seen as a feature, not a bug. MS want themselves and their paid partners to be able to do stuff which the user isn't aware of... this doesn't have to be sinister to be bad.

However: DRM/hdcp by default is "broken by design". There is no excuse for this.

A change in OS which increases system resource consumption without improving functionality or useability is not an upgrade, at best, it is a horizontal migration. When the target actually reduces overall functionality, this is a downgrade.

Oh drat - I'm getting sucked in to breaking my own suggestions... do as I say, not as I do...