[plug] Linux viability on the desktop

[sol]

On Tue, 23 Apr 2002 15:33, Brad Hill wrote:
> The main advantages of moving to linux are immunities to viruses, and the
> main disadvantages are lack of support for various applications.  What you
> must realise is that these are essentially one and the same.  If (or when)
> the market realizes there's good reason to support a linux environment and
> produce nice stable applications for users to run, and everyone starts to
> move across to Linux, you'll also get more people writing viruses
> specifically for linux.  At the moment to only reason both of these things
> are lacking is because the userbase is lacking.
It's not quite that simple. The Linux environment is much more heterogenous. 
M$ Windows users' tend to use the same apps, like Outlook Express, IE and 
Word. But consider how many email clients, web browsers and word processors  
are in use on Open Source machines. Diversity is a strength for Linux. I 
cringe when I hear people going on about how Linux has to "standardise" in 
the sense that everyone should use one word processor, database, email 
client, etc. Choice is not only good in itself, it actually makes the 
platform safer, because there is not one virus that can take out a whole 
class of applications. Sure it's possible to write a virus for one popular 
application, but that probably won't even effect a quarter of Linux users.

Then there's the inherent security consciousness of Open Source developers. 
The Apache webserver hosts about 70% of the world's web pages, and hasn't had 
a security flaw in (what is it?) 5 years. That's not to say that security 
flaws never exist in OSS, but there is more transparency in the process to 
ensure safer software and more vigilance should flaws arise.

Then's there's the design of Linux itself. Using Windoze is comparable to 
being in root (on Linux/Unix) all the time. If a Windoze user gets a virus or 
has a system freeze/crash, the whole system goes down. The design of 
Linux/Unix prevents this sort of thing happening (unless you're logged on as 
root).

During the last 18 months of being a Linux desktop user I've had numerous 
incidents which have demonstrated to me the superiorty of Linux over 'doze on 
the desktop. For instance: on one occasion a guy who i worked with asked me 
to visit his website. I did, a got back to him the next day and told him how 
impressed I was  by his site. He looked at me puzzled and asked, "What system 
do you use?"
I told him, "Linux, of course." :-)
It eventually came out that he was trying to trap my IP domain or email so 
that he could send me a Trojan (just for fun) but his site hadn't registered 
my details when I visited.
Then there's the complete lack of spam.
And the fact that I can leave my machine running without any doubt that it 
won't crash and destroy all my files.
And then there's the cost. I bought my own set of Debian disks. $11  vs  $400 
+ for WinXP  :-)   -- easy decision. And when I want new software 
applications I don't need to go to the shop, all I need to do is "apt-get 
install <$application> " and go make myself a coffee whilst I wait for it to 
download and install. 

The bottom line I have found so far, is that Windoze users are Windoze users 
because they HAVEN"T used Linux. Linux users are Linux users because they 
HAVE used Windoze.

Sol
 
>
> Sure Linux is far more robust than windows when set up correctly, but if Mr
> Average off the street sets up a machine and doesn't maintain it, after a
> couple of months security holes will become visible that can be taken
> advantage of by anyone who does actually keep up to date with these things.
> Mr Average might not keep up with it but Mr Virus writer will.
>
> Your trade off for using open source over closed is that having the code
> available means anyone can find a security hole.  The good thing about this
> is patches become available when they're found by people with ethics, and
> thus the holes get fixed, the bad thing is when the holes are found and not
> patched, anyone can find out how to abuse the system.  With closed code,
> it's up to the developpers to patch the code which is both good and bad: if
> someone manages to find a security flaw in some code and doesn't report it
> to developpers it'll be left open for a much longer time, on the other
> hand, without the source code such holes are significantly harder to
> discover. This is, like it or not, the main reason most organizations will
> avoid using an open source platform.
>
> Having said that, i am still personally in favour of pushing towards an
> open source platform for desktop users.  It will just mean very smart
> implementation of the network and individual user's workspaces, and a full
> time employee to maintain everything.. that means less money going to
> microsoft, and more going to Linux professionals, which is a Good Thing
> (tm).  The hard thing is trying to convince everyone to go down this path:
> software developpers (who wont write software unless there's users to sell
> to), and businesses (who wont use the operating system unless there's
> software to run on it) have gotten themselves into a viscious circle of
> reliance on MicroShaft.  There are always ways to overcome this though.
> Things like vmware or wine will let users migrate to Linux and still use
> Windows programs.  The moment you find a piece of open source software that
> exceeds the features of the Windows based software, make the change, untill
> all such pieces of software have been migrated, and the need for vmware
> (and the guest operating system running within it) will disappear.
>
> (Apologies if this post is all over the place... that's just the way my
> mind is working right now =P)