JoeHill wrote:
On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:23:19 -0500
Jack disseminated the following:
Don't hold back, Joe... Say what you feel!!! :-) Seriously though,
you are right that perhaps I'm attributing to Linux what only exists in
the Windows world. As a sidenote, I am quite diligent in Windows --->
Ad Aware, SpyBot, and SpySweeper have pretty much kept my system clean,
as well as AVG anti-virus. I have also disabled most of the Window
services that try to dial out (Love that gpedit.msc!)
Call me crazy if you will, but I'm not overly impressed by someone having to
hack some obscure system file in order to prevent their OS from divulging info
to it's mothership. To be honest, it would make me a little uneasy, from a
security standpoint, that such a file even exists. If you can hack it, so can
any teenager with a worm kit. It would be even more disturbing to me that I had
to run 4 or 5 different 3rd party apps just so that my supposedly 'state of the
art' OS doesn't become a zombie for some spammer.
Actually, XP could learn from Linux to *force* users (insteading of
just recommending) that users use a limited account to do their
day-to-day computing. This would close a lot of the security holes.
I guess I'm not built that way. I like WinXP; I like Linux. I could
have listed what I don't like about XP here also but the caveats that I
have for XP do not "get in the way" as much as they do for Linux.
However, I *am* a newbie to the Linux world, and my percerption is that
Linux is getting more and more robust as time goes on. God knows, I
would love to see it become a serious player in the OS market. That
would drive Windows prices down, make MS more open to users' needs, and
destroy a de facto monopoly (which is never a good thing in the open
market.) As an example of what I'm talking about, Rogers cable internet
got a whole lot more responsive to the market once Bell came out with
adsl. Besides, there are things in Linux that are superior to XP; it
would be great to be able to go to one or the other as my needs dicated...
No problem here, except perhaps that the only reason you can't do everything on
Linux you can do on Windows is *because* of the MS monopoly and illegal
business practices, and everything you can do on Linux is in spite of it, due to
the largely unpaid efforts of a community of dedicated hackers.
Best of luck in your future efforts with Mandrake, remember we're always here to
help (though, running 9.2 still, I've been about as useful as tits on a bull
around here of late...).
Thanks Joe, I've enjoyed the discourse with you...
- Jack
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