What do you want? An OS that lets do what you want with it, or an OS that won't let you do shit. I've dealt with ultra secure machines, mainly Windows, that have policies set to protect the system and information on it, and I can tell you that tight security and ease of use don't go hand in hand. Computers are complex machines that are easy to abuse, just like a car, and in the end, its up to the user to make sure their machine is behaving itself. MS does puts effort in making Windows secure, and its a balancing act; go look at the UAC beta to see what I mean. And no matter what, in the end, it comes down to the user.RThurmont wrote:Ahh, so because one company's broken, insecure operating system has created an internet security problem, you propose restricting people's freedom to use computer systems? Brilliant! While we're at it, lets also require people to buy a license for using a stove, since we all know that an inexperienced user of stoves can be badly burned by accidentally touching the fire/element.
And how many of the thousands of apps that its incompatible are still widely used and required? How many will be updated in short order to be compatible? This is a non-argument. The vast majority people's day-to-day software will work just fine.Some OSes aren't worth messing around with, period. Windows ME, for example. In my opinion, Vista falls into the same category. Vista may offer improved security relative to XP, but it fails miserably from the standpoint of application compatibility. As I see it, the ONLY reason to use Windows is because of its application library, and when only 800 or so out of the hundreds of thousands of Windows apps run on Vista, it makes sense to use a different OS that offers better security and stability. Vista is probably a better OS than XP, but it is not good enough to warrant its use over superior rivals when it can't run most Windows apps!
As for superior rivals, prove it. Can I run MS Office on those rival OSes, because I don't Open Office (and yes, I tried using for a couple of weeks, and hated it). Can I play all my games on it? How long do I have to wait for drivers for the latest hardware? Can I get drivers (specifically, manufacturer supported) for my cell phone or my camera?
So, in theory, Linux is more secure. Its never been hammered on, so you can't say its more secure than Windows for certain. The only real security it has right now is the size of the user community and the differences when the distros.Most people don't mess with configuration files, and the default installs of many Linux distros can be said to be secure out of the box, so you can simply give Joe Sixpack a copy of, say, Fedora, and forget about it. The chances of an actual security problem on a Linux desktop are infinitesimal, and furthermore, to negate this extremely remote possibility, every serious distro releases routine security updates, and there are anti-virus tools availible in the extremely unlikely event a Linux virus ever starts going around (IIRC here has been exactly one Linux virus in recorded history, and it was created in a lab, similiar to the experimental Mac OS X virus).
I'm referring to OS X and the older Mac OS, both of which have always been billed, from the community if not Apple directly, to be easy to use and fool proof.Mac OS was pathetic by the time it was finally replaced by OS X, so that is no suprise (unless of course you mean OS X). If you are referring to OS X, which is a completely different OS in almost every respect, well, OS X is also massively overrated, from my perspective. It doesn't have a malware problem, per se, but it does suffer from really poorly engineered interaction design, and a number of useful features in the OS are hidden out of site by retarded minimalist design decisions (similiar to the GNOME desktop). While OS X can trace its heritage back to UNIX, much of what makes UNIX like operating systems great is gone from OS X.
Lets look at my experience with Ubuntu, which I decided to try after the last Linux thread. It lasted all of five minutes. Ubuntu encountered my 8800GTXs, didn't know what they where, and bitched at me because it couldn't launch its GUI, and stopped. Yeah, that's an easy install right there. And lets not start on my RedHat experience, where it couldn't load drivers for the fucking mouse!I'd hate to see you on it, but you probably aren't even l33t enough to install Mandriva. Seriously though, many Linux distros can be extremely easy for even Windows n00bs to migrate to (something I've witnessed firsthand). Linux, additionally, is extremely secure relative to most other operating systems, and is very hard to break completely (I've managed to do this by overwriting part of the OS while attempting to install another on the same HD, something that if Joe Sixpack even attempted to do, he'd deserve the results he would inevitably wind up with).
Windows, on the other handle, ships with default drivers for everything you'll find in a PC case and the monitor.
And Windows has several tools available for repartitioning, making it easy to install another OS on the same drive without killing your system. Maybe you should fire up XP the next time you need to prep a disk for an additional OS.
And Windows does provide a powerful tool for their objectives, especially in the area of entertainment, communications and productivity. I can't believe you used those examples, especially the last one!In my opinion, the goal of an operating system developer should NOT be to "idiot proof" it, but rather to create a powerful tool that allows people to interact with a computer system and accomplish their objectives (in terms of entertainment, communications or productivity). This kind of "idiot proofing" that Windows has engaged in, in my opinion, apart from protecting users, turns them into idiots, by completely shielding them from the actual mechanics of their system. Thus, people get used to doing things in an idiotic way, becoming dependent on overly complex graphical configuration tools and loosing the ability to truly control their systems.
Most people don't care about the mechanics of their system, just like they don't care how their powering steering pump works, or the air conditioner, or the elevator, so long as it works. And make up your mind: do you want Windows to be a secure system or do you want the user to have control over the system? Because in the former, only the vendor and the Admin have control.
Hey, the command prompt has always been in Windows. Its not the OS's fault you didn't use it.In the DOS era, I knew how to write a batch file, but by 2003, Windows, and its "idiot-proof" approach to UI design, had turned me into a n00b. I've spent the past four years relearning what Windows caused me to forget.
