Hi
As a Mac user for 10 years I often get asked 'why do you use a Mac', actually it is more in a mocking way than anything but it does make you think. When the rest of the computing world is happy to sit in the puddle of Microsoft there are others who strive for something better either via Mac or via Linux.
I moved to Mac after years of slogging it with Windows partly because I started working in a design house but partly because I liked the Mac interface - which at the time was pre-OSX. A year or so later OSX came out and I have been through them all. I was also not impressed with the whole Windows experience. I bought a new machine and it was terrible, it didnt even run the OS it came with very well.
I started an interest in Linux about 5 years ago - playing with Ubuntu and Vector to name a few but it wasnt until about 18 months ago that I thought about ditching the Mac and moving over full time. However, funds were very tight and I picked up a low end P2 which gave me a good experience of Linux - Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint, DSL, Puppy to name some - but the hardware was not up to being used as your main machine. I was also missing the Mac, so picked up an old G3 and that is where I am today. I never returned to the Mac with the one fanboying enthusiasm I had.
Financially, I do not have a lot of money to spend on computers - my family has expanded in the last few years and funds are tight. Macs are not cheap, even older ones. I had a new Mac which died after only a few years and I have never climbed back again, scrappling with old G3 and G4 models.
I did not want to go down the Microsoft route and with a fair amount of Linux knowledge under my belt decided to jump back into the non-Mac world, bought a ThinkPad (which I am still waiting to arrive) and that is where I am now.
So in short, what make me a Linux user. Well, an ex-Mac user with a disgust for Microsoft and a fan of being different and a nerd at heart.
So what make you lot a Linux? Why do you decide to walk on the other side of M?
Simon
On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 08:55:46PM +0000, Simon Royal wrote:
So what make you lot a Linux? Why do you decide to walk on the other side of M?
I think it was the girls, the leather, and the machismo.
Oh wait, no, that's not it.
Simply put, it's the only OS I can use for more than half an hour without wanting to tear bits out of something :) The very reason for that is that I can configure my Linux system to run and do exactly how and what I want.
In other news, it's home time \o/
Steve
On 21/12/10 18:02, Steve Engledow wrote:
On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 08:55:46PM +0000, Simon Royal wrote:
So what make you lot a Linux? Why do you decide to walk on the other side of M?
For me I actually use both, Microsoft has a pretty much exclusive playground on the desktop at my place of work and my home is almost exclusively Linux. I can't see a sound justification for moving my place of employment to OSS because simply the tools we need to work the way we do don't exist of if they do exist aren't similar enough that I wouldn't have to manage a migration of something beyond simple user education.
At home I use Linux because pretty much anything I want to do is an apt-get away, the machines are for the most part stable and trouble free and the system never feels like it is getting in the way of the task in hand. If I do get problems at home it is either hardware related or because I have done something very stupid.
When I first tried Linux it came on a cover disk in ooooh 1997 and it was just something different to play with, I think by 1999 it was my main desktop simply because it did everything I wanted it to do without fuss. I think the true turning point came during a period of dual boot where I realised that my W2k installation had been broken for 3 months and I hadn't really missed it.
It's interesting that most people who have passed negative comment on my desktop of choice tend to be sitting on a Windows machine with several thousand pounds of pirated software to achieve the same thing I manage with Free software, I often retort by asking them if they would feel the same way if they had actually paid for everything.
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 07:17:00PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
It's interesting that most people who have passed negative comment on my desktop of choice tend to be sitting on a Windows machine with several thousand pounds of pirated software to achieve the same thing I manage with Free software, I often retort by asking them if they would feel the same way if they had actually paid for everything.
This one annoys me too.
I've written a handful of blog articles about why I use Linux, mainly as a thinking out loud exercise. It was inspired by the discovered that I might end up having to use Windows at work, and wondering exactly what it was about that which made me unhappy. They're not all up yet (I'm drip feeding them out to avoid flooding Planets/boring people too much), but you can see what I have so far at:
http://the.earth.li/~noodles/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=1&tag=whyl...
(Hmm. That's an ugly URL for searching. I should play with some rewrite rules at some point.)
(Also, as a spoiler, I didn't end up having to run Windows and have put Debian on my shiny new work laptop.)
J.
On Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:26:17 -0800 Jonathan McDowell noodles@earth.li allegedly wrote:
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 07:17:00PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
It's interesting that most people who have passed negative comment on my desktop of choice tend to be sitting on a Windows machine with several thousand pounds of pirated software to achieve the same thing I manage with Free software, I often retort by asking them if they would feel the same way if they had actually paid for everything.
This one annoys me too.
And me - bigtime. And a major problem with pirated software (particularly, but not uniquely) for windows is that it is often a vector for malware.
Which brings me to another major reason for using Linux - its relative security and freedom from such crud. This means that I don't have to run a CPU/memory intensive hog of an "internet security suite" because my OS of choice is not susceptible to 99.99+% of all the malicious code out there.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to think that "linux is inherently more secure than windows", nor am I blind to the problems of application level exploits running in that universal firewall bypass we all love (i.e the browser, which to make things even worse may run flash). But I do like the fact that Linux in all its variants is a very, very, small and specialist target so malware developers leave it alone. Perversely, whilst I would love to see desktop lonux and free software in much greater use, I know that it that were the case we would all face the problems the commercial world currently faces in its use of a fat, juicy, well known, exploitable target. A target that is often unpatched, out of date, and realtively unprotected. (And believe me, the state of IA in major corporates is nothing short of deplorable.)
I've written a handful of blog articles about why I use Linux, mainly as a thinking out loud exercise. It was inspired by the discovered that I might end up having to use Windows at work, and wondering exactly what it was about that which made me unhappy. They're not all up yet (I'm drip feeding them out to avoid flooding Planets/boring people too much), but you can see what I have so far at:
http://the.earth.li/~noodles/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=1&tag=whyl...
Agree with all of that.
Mick
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The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 22/12/10 14:24, mick wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to think that "linux is inherently more secure than windows", nor am I blind to the problems of application level exploits running in that universal firewall bypass we all love (i.e the browser, which to make things even worse may run flash). But I do like the fact that Linux in all its variants is a very, very, small and specialist target so malware developers leave it alone.
I disagree with this. I agree that Linux isn't absolutely bullet proof, but there are a number of reasons why Linux is better prepared for the threat than Windows. The fact that anyone can audit the code really is a strength, but also the fact (that you alluded to) that with Linux, most of the software you want is an apt-get away, rather than downloaded from PirateBay or similar. The package management also makes it a lot easier to keep things up to date; Windows does a reasonable job these days of installing system updates but you're very much on your own when it comes to application updates, and the myriad of "update available, click here to install" messages you get on Windows is a gift to trojan writers.
Windows has improved from a position of real weakness (eg the Windows equivalent of sudo), but it still suffers from things like driver validation, which (because most aren't) requires that users get used to clicking past the warnings.
And the worst browser is still IE (at least with all the legacy versions out there - and a lot of systems that cannot update past IE6), which although it is way better now than it used to be has again started weak then got better, rather than starting strong where most Linux applications have taken security seriously for longer. Of-course it "helps" that the cost of a Windows licence is substantially offset on most PCs by kickbacks from security software trials, so the incentive isn't fully there to fix the problem. Whilst the business model includes selling updates, it's "useful" that old versions have problems that you have to pay to upgrade, and upgrading between distro releases is way easier than between Windows versions in any case.
Linux distros would be wise not to be complacent (but I don't think they generally are). Being a smaller target is part of why Linux is currently safer but it really is not the whole story. A bigger concern would be a major shift to closed-source drivers and applications on Linux (it's no coincidence that Flash is one of the biggest problems right now).
Good idea this post... be interesting to see where folk are coming from! as they say.
2007 i only had an old machine that could still just about run win98. I was given a couple of P3 1ghz. I was going to put win2k on one of them but after a browse in PC world in Ipswich i thought i'd give Ubuntu (ver 6.10 CD enclosed) a go. I had read about Red hat back in about 2000 but didn't get round to trying it.
My father had just died and i found myself coping with my mother who was then diagnosed with Alzheimer's. While i was coping with her (a rather stressful disease to cope with to say the least) i tinkered with linux and read as much as i could. I could run all the applications i wanted to in linux apart from a mind mapping app, autocad, turbocad and a scanner. Most of the applications better than a doze equivalent although i'd used OO, Thunderbird and other common ones. But i also wanted to know more about linux. It seemed to me that unix in late 80s and early 90s didn't see the potential of the mini or home PC - microsoft jumped in there.
What i liked was the cli - made almost redundant by microsoft and yet very much at the heart of the earlier windows. I have a liking for the simple but effective things in life - like my seven classic cars... there's nothing i can't do on them - can't do a lot on modern vehicles. On linux i enjoy the mix of graphical and cli. To me it's not either or - each have their place e.g. i like llgal (cli) for photo albums [http://jessejazza.110mb.com/photos/dogs/best-09/index.html] but i'll stay with graphical text editors.
I got a better machine later and ran ubuntu 8.04 (tried the 9's and 10's and weren't to my liking), and have just bought my first new machine. I'm tinkering at present with what distro to use for a while as i've decided to move on from ubuntu. I'm also GOING TO do a Gentoo, slackware or LFS installation in the New Year - i've been promising to do this ever since i started using linux and still haven't got round to it. The linux 'MUST DO' they say 'then you'll know linux' - yet i've failed to get round to it so far.
Perhaps it's worth a mention: what's the future of linux? Linux has certainly come into it's own for websites due to the security. Windows holds it's place in the market for office use and at home. Too many distros i feel give linux a bad name and a fair number produce more than the main three desktops. Yes; linux is about choice but i also wonder about the long term of too much choice. Ubuntu is produced in so many forms now and yet the project is still in the red... and that can't continue for much longer. Do i donate; yes to releases that don't have problems. The three distros i've tried where i feel they have gone the extra mile are Pclos, Mint and Mepis yet these are one-man-bands. But each distro i've tried i find there are things i like and then things i don't. Mepis (kde) ran nicely and faster than ubuntu on the P3 - Mepis gets first place for kde imo. Pclos have taken a step that i feel is significant for the future - 'mini' releases. [This Texstar fellow intrigues me... seems full of new ideas - e.g. in pclos before you can use synaptic (i think there the only rpm distro using APT) one runs a speed test and thus select the fastest download server (don't think anyone else does that)]. The basics are on the CD and you add your selection. With ubuntu i'd remove evolution and a lot of stuff i didn't like and put on Thunderbird and so on. So why don't distros save themselves development time and use mini versions for releases? Another development taking place it seems is the replacement for gnome. Gnome is hard to package (apparently) - slackware have dropped it and as other distros seem to be developing xfce maybe we'll be left with xfce and kde. xfce i gather sits on gnome partly and there's also standalone xfce on some distros. But then again certain distros seem to be keen to develop enlightenment, openbox, lxde - lighter versions for older machines! The majority of users probably have a dual core machine - perhaps the next generation of machines are going to be much more expensive! Currently computers are very cheap compared with what they were a decade ago. Quality certainly down - the motherboard on my old compaq P3 is vastly superior in my view. Bit like a landrover compared with a car - all rugged and reliable.
Anyway rant over - got to ice the Christmas cake.
james
On 22 December 2010 14:59, Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk wrote:
On 22/12/10 14:24, mick wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to think that "linux is inherently more secure than windows", nor am I blind to the problems of application level exploits running in that universal firewall bypass we all love (i.e the browser, which to make things even worse may run flash). But I do like the fact that Linux in all its variants is a very, very, small and specialist target so malware developers leave it alone.
I disagree with this. I agree that Linux isn't absolutely bullet proof, but there are a number of reasons why Linux is better prepared for the threat than Windows. The fact that anyone can audit the code really is a strength, but also the fact (that you alluded to) that with Linux, most of the software you want is an apt-get away, rather than downloaded from PirateBay or similar. The package management also makes it a lot easier to keep things up to date; Windows does a reasonable job these days of installing system updates but you're very much on your own when it comes to application updates, and the myriad of "update available, click here to install" messages you get on Windows is a gift to trojan writers.
Windows has improved from a position of real weakness (eg the Windows equivalent of sudo), but it still suffers from things like driver validation, which (because most aren't) requires that users get used to clicking past the warnings.
And the worst browser is still IE (at least with all the legacy versions out there - and a lot of systems that cannot update past IE6), which although it is way better now than it used to be has again started weak then got better, rather than starting strong where most Linux applications have taken security seriously for longer. Of-course it "helps" that the cost of a Windows licence is substantially offset on most PCs by kickbacks from security software trials, so the incentive isn't fully there to fix the problem. Whilst the business model includes selling updates, it's "useful" that old versions have problems that you have to pay to upgrade, and upgrading between distro releases is way easier than between Windows versions in any case.
Linux distros would be wise not to be complacent (but I don't think they generally are). Being a smaller target is part of why Linux is currently safer but it really is not the whole story. A bigger concern would be a major shift to closed-source drivers and applications on Linux (it's no coincidence that Flash is one of the biggest problems right now).
-- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
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On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 10:09:41PM +0000, James Freer wrote:
very much at the heart of the earlier windows. I have a liking for the simple but effective things in life - like my seven classic cars... there's nothing i can't do on them - can't do a lot on modern vehicles. On linux i enjoy the mix of graphical and cli. To me it's
I dispute your analogy heavily, modern cars require a very different set of skills and knowledge to work on them. I chipped my old car from 170hp to around 235hp using some bits of old wiring loom a Thinkpad PSU a magic parallel port adaptor and some software, was very enjoyable. If anything I see older cars more like Windows... held together with bodges and bits of string :)
I'm much happier hacking around with software than with hardware and getting my hands covered in grime (although can quite happily do both, and have been paid to both professionally in the past).
Adam
Adam
We can agree to disagree.
Well done on some clever tinkering. I've had nothing more than trouble with electronic ignition systems and they are still in the 85%+ causes of recovery breakdown call outs. I should have worded it better - i wasn't intentionally attempting to make a direct comparison with pc operating systems and vehicles.
james
On 22 December 2010 23:51, Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 10:09:41PM +0000, James Freer wrote:
very much at the heart of the earlier windows. I have a liking for the simple but effective things in life - like my seven classic cars... there's nothing i can't do on them - can't do a lot on modern vehicles. On linux i enjoy the mix of graphical and cli. To me it's
I dispute your analogy heavily, modern cars require a very different set of skills and knowledge to work on them. I chipped my old car from 170hp to around 235hp using some bits of old wiring loom a Thinkpad PSU a magic parallel port adaptor and some software, was very enjoyable. If anything I see older cars more like Windows... held together with bodges and bits of string :)
I'm much happier hacking around with software than with hardware and getting my hands covered in grime (although can quite happily do both, and have been paid to both professionally in the past).
Adam
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On 23/12/10 17:03, James Freer wrote:
Adam
We can agree to disagree.
Well done on some clever tinkering. I've had nothing more than trouble with electronic ignition systems and they are still in the 85%+ causes of recovery breakdown call outs. I should have worded it better - i wasn't intentionally attempting to make a direct comparison with pc operating systems and vehicles.
Is that really true ? and if it is then 20-30 years ago what percentage of breakdown cases or running problems were due to carbs or contact breaker ignition systems. ?
I have owned several fuel injected classics, some with electronic fuel injection, some like my current one with mechanical injection. Rarely have I had problems with those systems (hoping to god the Saab 99turbo in the driveway isn't listening). When I do experience problems I find the solution particularly with running problems is easier to pinpoint (thanks largely to the diagnostic functions available on most electronic systems)
On the other side we have just tracked down a problem on a friends 20's Bugatti that has had 3 of us running round in circles for weeks, one of which is an expert on the marque. I also remember tearing my hair out trying to balance the carbs on my Dad's old XJ12, I'd take on any problem on any fuel injection system than tackle that again :)
with electronic ignition systems and they are still in the 85%+ causes
Is that really true ? and if it is then 20-30 years ago what percentage of breakdown cases or running problems were due to carbs or contact breaker ignition systems. ?
That is the figure that is quoted time and time again - over many years.
I have owned several fuel injected classics, some with electronic fuel injection, some like my current one with mechanical injection. Rarely have I had problems with those systems (hoping to god the Saab 99turbo in the driveway isn't listening). When I do experience problems I find the solution particularly with running problems is easier to pinpoint (thanks largely to the diagnostic functions available on most electronic systems)
Very good. Mechanical units are better in my opinion. The nice useful electronic gadget that tells you what's wrong is great... when it's right. More often than not you're told you need a new fuel pump and it's £2k + fitting (if diesel maybe be about the same for petrol).
On the other side we have just tracked down a problem on a friends 20's Bugatti that has had 3 of us running round in circles for weeks, one of which is an expert on the marque.
So what was the problem? If the carbs getting fuel... is there a spark correctly timed - the engine will start! Fuel pump working? [remove and check], carb [check float level], dirt], fit new hose anyway and filter, check for spark at each plug with SP tester. All of that can be checked and replaced in a morning - you can't have been 'running around for weeks'.
I also remember tearing my hair out trying to balance the carbs on my Dad's old XJ12, I'd take on any problem on any fuel injection system than tackle that again :)
XJ12 Zenith Stromberg? - along with SUs they are the simplest carbs to balance either by ear, hiss sound with a narrow pipe or the Gunson flow meter - just by ear one can get a pretty good result. If correct parts are fitted and the carb hasn't been messed about with - there are no problems. If the diaphragm was broken you'll have problems. Webers don't have any problems either, unless they've been messed about with - downdraught ones are prone to the flange 'bowing' (mill or file flat) - channels can get gunged up but an aquablast clears all that out. The only place a Weber can wear is on the valves (air leaks) and can be replaced with teflon seals. With carbs there are so few working parts the only problem you can have is with a meddled one. Bring me your next carb.
Adam - we're being rather hasty. As the saying goes 'There are lies, yet more lies and statistics'. The AA list consists of people who never carry out the weekly and monthly checks in the motorists manual supplied with the car. Some people even forget to put fuel in a vehicle. Can't be bothered to check battery, tyre pressure or look for slow puncture. If they lose their keys they shouldn't be driving anyway - more likely locked in the car - but you can't do that so easily now with electronic keypads. Cooling problems - since transverse engines became the norm with the electric fan, most of the time sit idle until a baking hot summers day... overheat.
That's a ridiculous list - where's the list of stat for responsible road users. Taking that list into account removing; lost keys, tyres, fuel - apart from two the others are related which is often the problem and depends how it's reported if one's making up data. So 6/7 = 0.857 (85.7%) which is what i said.
james
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 05:03:40PM +0000, James Freer wrote:
Well done on some clever tinkering. I've had nothing more than trouble with electronic ignition systems and they are still in the 85%+ causes of recovery breakdown call outs. I should have worded it better - i
Source for your statistic?
http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/breakdown_advice/top_ten_causes.html
The AA disagree. In fact, with all my experience of working in the trade that list looks reasonably accurate although I did only work with one make of car. Even so, all the old hands I know are glad that they no longer have to muck about with carbs...
Adam
On 22/12/10 14:59, Mark Rogers wrote:
Windows has improved from a position of real weakness (eg the Windows equivalent of sudo), but it still suffers from things like driver validation, which (because most aren't) requires that users get used to clicking past the warnings.
UAC in Windows is broken for several reasons, the most obvious one is the amount of legacy software (strangely a lot of which came from MS themselves) that does not follow best practices for file/registry management and therefore only runs with UAC turned off.
Unfortunately UAC can only be turned off in a global manner, so if you have one bit of software like this you can either figure out where the file or registry permission is getting in the way and fix it or you can turn of UAC. Guess what most users do ?
The other problem is that by default the first user on a new Windows box gets full Administrator rights which gives them the equivalent of putting "ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL" in your sudoers file. It's really more a problem in the home and small business environment, in corporate world the domain will assign proper rights.
The driver validation thing is slowly getting fixed. 64bit editions of Windows (which are only going to become more common as we are really batting up against the limitations of 32bit now) Will only load signed 64bit drivers.
Well almost,There is a boot time option to disable this and sadly some 3rd party software is appearing that will do it permanently but I seem to recall doing so will leave a small banner on the desktop.
On 23/12/10 11:10, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
UAC in Windows is broken for several reasons, the most obvious one is the amount of legacy software (strangely a lot of which came from MS themselves) that does not follow best practices for file/registry management and therefore only runs with UAC turned off.
I think this is the biggest problem with starting from a weak position and trying to retain backwards compatibility, and is one reason why *if* Windows is ever to catch up is must take years (probably until Win7 is where XP is now) to achieve.
The switch to 64-bit is helping - slowly. But MS make it very difficult, as far as I can tell, for a "normal" developer to develop code using UAC cost-effectively, and turning it off globally tends to be the result. I have some USB devices that work fine under Win7 but need UAC turning off first.
The other problem is that by default the first user on a new Windows box gets full Administrator rights which gives them the equivalent of putting "ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL" in your sudoers file.
This isn't much different from a default Ubuntu install which gives the first user access to everything, albeit having to re-enter their login password. It seems to me to be a reasonable compromise for home users; if there is no system admin then the owner of the system has to be able to do everything (if only so that when someone who knows what they're doing supports them over the phone they can do what is needed).
Ultimately, no operating system will ever be secure in some users hands because they'll turn off anything that gets in their way to get the job done, and at the moment those users don't tend to use Linux. In the same way, you can look at which cars have a better safety record but I've seem some idiots driving in the past few days that really could crash any car they get into!
On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:22:16 +0000 Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk allegedly wrote:
Ultimately, no operating system will ever be secure in some users hands because they'll turn off anything that gets in their way to get the job done, and at the moment those users don't tend to use Linux. In the same way, you can look at which cars have a better safety record but I've seem some idiots driving in the past few days that really could crash any car they get into!
As Kevin Mitnick said, there is no patch for stupidity.
Mick
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 23/12/10 11:22, Mark Rogers wrote:
This isn't much different from a default Ubuntu install which gives the first user access to everything, albeit having to re-enter their login password. It seems to me to be a reasonable compromise for home users; if there is no system admin then the owner of the system has to be able to do everything (if only so that when someone who knows what they're doing supports them over the phone they can do what is needed).
No I think the Ubuntu model is far better, asking for the password means that UAC isn't just putting another "next" button in the way of a user that blindly clicks "install now" "next" "next" "I agree" "finish".
Of course a number of people would at in that case just blindly type in their password, but we can't account for that level of stupidity. Let's just catch the ones that don't read all the "computery jargon" but might stop and think when something asks for a password.
As well as Ubuntu this model has done ok at protecting OSX for a while now, and I don't buy the "not a big enough target" thing because there is a huge and rapidly growing base of OSX machines out there and most of them have no malware protection. If it was as easy to exploit then it would be rampant with malware now.
On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:30:45 +0000 Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk allegedly wrote:
As well as Ubuntu this model has done ok at protecting OSX for a while now, and I don't buy the "not a big enough target" thing because there is a huge and rapidly growing base of OSX machines out there and most of them have no malware protection. If it was as easy to exploit then it would be rampant with malware now.
I disagree :-)
It /is/ as easy to exploit as windows - ask Charlie Miller for example. And so is Linux. In fact, linux server based apps are pretty vulnerable to lots of exploits.
Most commentators put MS desktop OSs at around the 90% mark, OSX at around 6-7% (though that may include IOS because of the dumb way that desktop usage is estimated) and Linux at around 1-2% (though that may be an underestimate for the same reason). Further the profile of desktop OS usage is skewed, with an almost 100% penetration by MS in the home (apart from the inevitable apple fans) and in large corporates (outside the specialists such as design houses etc) by far the majority of the desktops will be MS - and a very specific and common build of OS and applications stack at that.
Now consider the malware business (it is a business). The intention is to make money. Trojan writers can make a few simple assumptions about the target environment and reap huge rewards. They don't /need/ to write multiple variants of attack tools to cover multiple environments. We have an effective monoculture out there.
But don't believe that they are not capable of writing tools which do evaluate the envirionment and behave accordingly. The more sophisticated tools (aimed at commercial espionage) will evalute the environment and get a second stage implant to match that enviroment then attempt one of several exploits (usually aimed at privilege escalation and/or persistence) before eradicating immediate evidence of the initial exploit.
The /only/ reason we do not see the same problems that beset the MS world is that we /are/ a minority. If Linux were running on 90% of all corporate desktops then we would be drowning in Linux malware.
Mick
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 02:05:21PM +0000, mick wrote:
The /only/ reason we do not see the same problems that beset the MS world is that we /are/ a minority. If Linux were running on 90% of all corporate desktops then we would be drowning in Linux malware.
Except who wants a corporate desktop? Surely a nice Linux computer in a datacentre with a 1 gigabit/second link to the Internet is far more useful than something sitting on a slower connection behind a firewall.
Adam
On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:22:51 +0000 Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk allegedly wrote:
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 02:05:21PM +0000, mick wrote:
The /only/ reason we do not see the same problems that beset the MS world is that we /are/ a minority. If Linux were running on 90% of all corporate desktops then we would be drowning in Linux malware.
Except who wants a corporate desktop? Surely a nice Linux computer in a datacentre with a 1 gigabit/second link to the Internet is far more useful than something sitting on a slower connection behind a firewall.
I'm not at all sure what you are saying here. Large corporates roll out huge desktop installations across their estate (quarter of a million PCs to upgrade anyone?) as a matter of routine. Those desktops are interconnected with each other and with the corporate servers over gig ethernet. They access the wider net through (often multiple) gateways which mediate the traffic.
And they do have "nice Linux computer(s) in datacentres with gigabit/second link to the Internet".
Mick
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The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 10:40:49AM +0000, mick wrote:
I'm not at all sure what you are saying here. Large corporates roll out huge desktop installations across their estate (quarter of a million PCs to upgrade anyone?) as a matter of routine. Those desktops are interconnected with each other and with the corporate servers over gig ethernet. They access the wider net through (often multiple) gateways which mediate the traffic.
And they do have "nice Linux computer(s) in datacentres with gigabit/second link to the Internet".
What I'm saying is... why would a corporate desktop which may have locked down access to the internet be a better target than a linux server on a fast gigabit link. Most corps may have gigabit in their internal network but not many have a gig to the internet at large. Compared to most hosting companies which do provide a gigabit connection to the internet in a well connected data center.
I'm not sure that there are /that/ many companies out there with 250,000 desktop computers in their inventory. You'll still find that number will be dwarfed by the number of desktops in smaller companies.
Adam
On Fri, 24 Dec 2010 11:23:05 +0000 Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk allegedly wrote:
What I'm saying is... why would a corporate desktop which may have locked down access to the internet be a better target than a linux server on a fast gigabit link.
Because of the bozo at the keyboard. Social engineering is highly sophisticated and it works.
I'm not sure that there are /that/ many companies out there with 250,000 desktop computers in their inventory. You'll still find that number will be dwarfed by the number of desktops in smaller companies.
There are a surprising number of multi nationals with huge desktop estates.
Mick
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The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 24 Dec 2010 11:34:57 +0000 Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk allegedly wrote:
On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 11:28:22AM +0000, mick wrote:
There are a surprising number of multi nationals with huge desktop estates.
I bet that there aren't /that/ many. Name them :)
Adam
:-)
There are probably at least 50 companies in the US alone with estates larger that 100,000 (including the likes of Verizon, ATT, EDS, IBM, Northropp Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, HP, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, General Electric etc etc. In the UK we have Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Rolls Royce for example.
Do some research...
Mick
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The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 11:58:41AM +0000, mick wrote:
There are probably at least 50 companies in the US alone with estates larger that 100,000 (including the likes of Verizon, ATT, EDS, IBM, Northropp Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, HP, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, General Electric etc etc. In the UK we have Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Rolls Royce for example.
You said 250,000... 100,000 is quite a bit less...
Do some research...
Some of the American companies are large, granted, can't find figures on how many computers they have, as for your UK companies...
BP = 80,000 employees worldwide (11,000 UK) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bp
Royal Dutch Shell = 102,000 employees worldwide (8,600 UK) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell
Rolls Royce = 38,900 employees worldwide (21,000 UK) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_plc
More than 6 desktop computers per employee at Rolls Royce sounds....
Excessive.
Adam
On Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:13:49 +0000 Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk allegedly wrote:
Do some research...
Some of the American companies are large, granted, can't find figures on how many computers they have, as for your UK companies...
BP = 80,000 employees worldwide (11,000 UK) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bp
Royal Dutch Shell = 102,000 employees worldwide (8,600 UK) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell
Rolls Royce = 38,900 employees worldwide (21,000 UK) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_plc
More than 6 desktop computers per employee at Rolls Royce sounds....
Heh! Nice response! Serves me right for not checking those myself. (Note to self, check before being sticking head in noose.)
In my defense I plead poor memory.
Mick ---------------------------------------------------------------------
The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 23/12/10 14:05, mick wrote:
The/only/ reason we do not see the same problems that beset the MS world is that we/are/ a minority. If Linux were running on 90% of all corporate desktops then we would be drowning in Linux malware.
I dispute that.
What percentage of say hosting services are running on linux ? A lot more than 1-2%, more than 10% in fact last time I paid attention it was over 50%
Yet most of the exploits attack platform independent code (like PHP) running on those systems which is equally vulnerable or perhaps even more vulnerable when it is hosted on a Windows system. Compare that to the amount of attacks that target platform dependant flaws on Windows.
Also malware writers have proven they will attack a platform that has minimal market share when that platform is unguarded and the infection is likely to go undetected for a long time. 8% of your target infected for a very long time is almost as effective as 80% infected for a short time till the AV vendors catch up.
Case in point, recently some malware has been discovered in the wild for S60 phones, a platform that has nothing like market share, but it's easier to infect than iOS or Android.
I am not saying market share isn't a factor but it is far from the only one.
Also your statistic that says effectively 100% of home users are on Windows is out of date..Apple have made big steps and a lot of home and college student machines are running OSX now...go into any internet enabled cafe and count up the macbooks and you generally hit a number not far from the number of Windows laptops.
On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:42:29 +0000 Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk allegedly wrote:
On 23/12/10 14:05, mick wrote:
The/only/ reason we do not see the same problems that beset the MS world is that we/are/ a minority. If Linux were running on 90% of all corporate desktops then we would be drowning in Linux malware.
What percentage of say hosting services are running on linux ? A lot more than 1-2%, more than 10% in fact last time I paid attention it was over 50%
Sorry Wayne, you are comparing apples and pears. I was talking about the desktop, not the server base. Sophisticated attackers target the desktop because they use social engineering techniques to gain the first beachhead. And only 1-2% of desktops are estimated to be running linux (though as I said, I think this may be a slight underestimate).
For an interesting view of current attack techniques take a look at Mandiant's M-trends report. You can get a copy here:
http://www.mandiant.com/services/advanced_persistent_threat/
Yet most of the exploits attack platform independent code (like PHP) running on those systems which is equally vulnerable or perhaps even more vulnerable when it is hosted on a Windows system. Compare that to the amount of attacks that target platform dependant flaws on Windows.
Again I think you are talking here about servers not desktops. I agree that the application is what is attacked (but that is the same on the desktop - nobody attacks the windows OS per se, they exploit vulnerabilities in the applications running on those desktops (Office used to be the most popular target, but of late poor old Adobe is taking most of the flak) in order to run code on the underlying OS.
Also malware writers have proven they will attack a platform that has minimal market share when that platform is unguarded and the infection is likely to go undetected for a long time. 8% of your target infected for a very long time is almost as effective as 80% infected for a short time till the AV vendors catch up.
Case in point, recently some malware has been discovered in the wild for S60 phones, a platform that has nothing like market share, but it's easier to infect than iOS or Android.
Engel's attack on the SMS component is reminiscent of Charlie Miller's attack on the iPhone via SMS. (See http://www.iphoneexploit.com) No security professional I know is happy with the state of security of the iPhone. And expect to see a huge rise in attacks on Android as it becomes more dominant in both the phone and tablet space - particularly as they start to be rolled out to senior execs ("ooooh shiny give me one and connect it to the corporate LAN" says CEO even when his IT director says "NO WAY"). Given the huge amount of valuable personal data held on the average smart phone, I'll bet that that 2011 is the year of phone exploits.
I am not saying market share isn't a factor but it is far from the only one.
I still contend that market share is the most important factor - and Symantec said recently:
"Of the Web browsers analyzed by Symantec in 2009, Mozilla® Firefox® had the most reported vulnerabilities, with 169, while Internet Explorer had just 45, yet Internet Explorer was still the most attacked browser. This shows that attacks on software are not necessarily based on the number of vulnerabilities in a piece of software, but on its market share and the availability of exploit code as well."
(See Symantec's Internet Securoty Threat Report at http://www.symantec.com/business/theme.jsp?themeid=threatreport )
Also your statistic that says effectively 100% of home users are on Windows is out of date..Apple have made big steps and a lot of home and college student machines are running OSX now...go into any internet enabled cafe and count up the macbooks and you generally hit a number not far from the number of Windows laptops.
Beware of sample bias. Western (and in your observation probably a small sample in GB alone) students are not representative of the typical demographic of the home user worldwide. I could as easily say that if you go into any large corporate conference (and believe me, I have attended more than I care to think about) you will find nearly 100% windows laptop usage. But that will simply reflect the fact that attendeees are using their standard issue machines, and very probably using the corporate VPN to access systems back at base.
Mick
(We seem to have strayed way off topic, but this is an interesting discussion)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 23 December 2010 18:42, Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk wrote:
On 23/12/10 14:05, mick wrote:
The/only/ reason we do not see the same problems that beset the MS world is that we/are/ a minority. If Linux were running on 90% of all corporate desktops then we would be drowning in Linux malware.
I dispute that.
What percentage of say hosting services are running on linux ? A lot more than 1-2%, more than 10% in fact last time I paid attention it was over 50%
Yet most of the exploits attack platform independent code (like PHP) running on those systems which is equally vulnerable or perhaps even more vulnerable when it is hosted on a Windows system. Compare that to the amount of attacks that target platform dependant flaws on Windows.
Also malware writers have proven they will attack a platform that has minimal market share when that platform is unguarded and the infection is likely to go undetected for a long time. 8% of your target infected for a very long time is almost as effective as 80% infected for a short time till the AV vendors catch up.
Case in point, recently some malware has been discovered in the wild for S60 phones, a platform that has nothing like market share, but it's easier to infect than iOS or Android.
Wayne, you can't attack Mick's figures then come out with something ridiculous like S60 has "nothing like market share"...! Where'd you get that from?! http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1466313 says Symbian S60 devices hold the biggest chunk at 36.6% of smartphone market share in Q3 2010.. (See table 2) It might be a different story this time next year though.
Cheers, Si
On Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:53:56 +0000 Simon Elliott alug@sionide.net allegedly wrote:
It might be a different story this time next year though.
Yep! :-)
Mick ---------------------------------------------------------------------
The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 10:53:56AM +0000, Simon Elliott wrote:
Wayne, you can't attack Mick's figures then come out with something ridiculous like S60 has "nothing like market share"...! Where'd you get that from?! http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1466313 says Symbian S60 devices hold the biggest chunk at 36.6% of smartphone market share in Q3 2010.. (See table 2) It might be a different story this time next year though.
Only 20% of worldwide phone sales are smart phones too. Although, counting S60 as a smartphone OS is a bit rich imo ;)
Adam
On 20 December 2010 20:55, Simon Royal mrsimonroyal@gmail.com wrote:
So what make you lot a Linux? Why do you decide to walk on the other side of M?
Oh thats an easy one, freedom.
To be honest my main home machine is actually Windows, my place of work is mostly Windows (about 75/25 Windows/Mac) and so it helps being able to run the software we use at work, at home and test things at home. Originally I did have a Windows work laptop which meant I could move away from Windows at home and I could still be on Windows for all work purposes but then as the number of Macs we have increased I now have a MacBook Pro for work and never got round to moving off Windows at home. Despite this I have about 10 Linux and BSD VMs on my home PC so I can be in Linux any time I like and my work laptop is dual booted with Ubuntu so again I'm never far away. One day I will move at home to Linux as my main desktop, just need to get off my arse and do it!
But for now, it does help having a Mac laptop for work when managing the Mac clients/servers, and having Windows desktop at home to keep up to date with Windows stuff for managing the Windows clients/servers; and having my Mac dual booted with Ubuntu/Linux VMs at home, for managing the Linux servers.
Hi
This is one of my main gripes with moving to Mac. I spent 10 years owning a Mac only and it has left me kind of behind in the Windows world. I left just as XP was released so anything prior to that I am extremely well versed in.
Ive dabbled with XP but to no real extent - my boys have XP laptops - and Vista/7 I have merely played with.
Sticking with one OS has left me out in the cold with others. So moving from Mac a my main OS is what I am doing. I still have an old Mac - which my wife is using - and I am about to dedicate my time to Linux.
However I will be dual booting with either XP or 7 to keep my hand in.
Helping others has always been a passion of mine. Computing knowledge is a gift, you can try and learn but if you dont have that natural nerd in you it is a struggling battle. I am like a techno-sponge and I bestow what I can on others.
Simon
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 8:15 PM, James Bensley jwbensley@gmail.com wrote:
keep up to date with Windows stuff for managing the Windows clients/servers;
On 20/12/10 20:55, Simon Royal wrote:
So what make you lot a Linux? Why do you decide to walk on the other side of M?
For me, I'd dabbled a bit with Linux on the desktop but been using it on the server for years (I'd guess since RH7 or about the turn of the millennium, whichever was first). I had a Linux desktop at home since Ubuntu 5.10, which was my main desktop but to be fair pretty much only used for web browsing and email, so it made little difference which OS I ran (and I'd built the PC myself so it didn't come with a "free" Windows OS). [1]
The turning point for me was at work. My Windows desktop was working fine one minute, but the next reported that it couldn't find a file on my hard disk, which after some investigation turned out to be some serious corruption of the partition (I think I had a background defrag going on, if memory serves me right - this was a few years ago). I shut the PC down to go get some Linux tools to start recovering files, and when I came back the PC had clearly got part way through the shutdown, crashed, rebooted, and Windows was busily "fixing" my hard disk. I did my best to recover the data but got very little back (although I'm much better versed in photorec and scalpel now that I was back then).
So, out of pure frustration (anger would be closer to the truth) which would have seen the PC go out of the window were there no alternatives, I put Ubuntu on (7.04 I think), swearing never to go back to Windows, knowing that within a week I'd have had to reinstall Windows just to get my day job done. Except I never did. In fairness I do have a second PC with Windows for those Windows-only jobs (part of my job requires me to use Windows-only development tools), but my main desktop has been Linux since then and it's enabled me to do a lot of things the others can't do (just the simple availability of tools like whois is surprisingly handy).
NB: For anyone like me managing two desktops side by side, synergy is a fantastic tool for making it almost seamless!
[1] A side note on this: I have replaced the PC hardware on my home desktop twice; once because the PC died, and once because of a planned upgrade. On both occasions I took the hard disk from the old PC and plugged it into new hardware, and everything just worked (aside maybe from failing to start X on older versions because the drivers were wrong, but that can be fixed from the command line fairly easily). You simply cannot do this with Windows, and I love that it makes my OS hardware-proof.
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 09:01:46AM +0000, Mark Rogers wrote:
So what make you lot a Linux? Why do you decide to walk on the other side of M?
In my case it's very simple, I worked on Unix machines (mostly Sun Solaris but also a Tektronix development system back in the 1980s and several HP and DEC unix boxes) just about all my 'recent' (i.e. the last 25 years or so) working/programming life. So Linux was a 'home from home' that I could run on my own hardware.
When MS-DOS PCs first appeared I run that but soon had various 'Unix lookalike' things to run on it (MKS Toolkit in particular). I ran Windows 3/3.1 when it arrived and then Windows NT, for a while I used OS/2 (again with MKS Toolkit and others to make it more Unix-like) but finally moved wholly over to Linux ten years or more ago.
At Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:55:46 +0000, Simon Royal wrote:
So what make you lot a Linux?
Flexibility and features. GNU is good because it comes with tools! Windows has been acceptable as a desktop operating system since the XP release, but it's immensely frustrating to use because it has almost no tools. Linux-based systems are slightly more liable to misbehaviour in hardware related things such as suspending, but the trade-off is that anything you can imagine that you want to do will be possible somehow (except computing when a computation will halt, but that's also impossible in Windows).
Price. When I first started using GNU systems I was a poor student and very much appreciated having access to useful software without having to spend money. Access to free but industrial grade software is also invaluable for learning. For example, anyone can learn to set up and configure Apache just as it would be in a production context on their own computer at no personal expense. But in order even to learn how to use IIS, you need to buy it. What if you do so and it turns out to be rubbish?
I like Debian specifically because of the package manager and package management. My first experience with a GNU/Linux distribution was Red Hat and I gave up after a few months because it was such a chore trying to install software. But, as others on this thread have said, the Debian tools, policies, and archive are what really makes free software stand out.
Best, Richard
On 22-Dec-10 10:18:29, Richard Lewis wrote:
At Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:55:46 +0000, Simon Royal wrote:
So what make you lot a Linux?
Flexibility and features. GNU is good because it comes with tools! Windows has been acceptable as a desktop operating system since the XP release, but it's immensely frustrating to use because it has almost no tools. Linux-based systems are slightly more liable to misbehaviour in hardware related things such as suspending, but the trade-off is that anything you can imagine that you want to do will be possible somehow (except computing when a computation will halt, but that's also impossible in Windows).
Indeed (as Richard undoubtedly knows) impossible in general on any possible operating system running on a Turing machine. See (for example):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem
There are additional (and non-logical) reasons why computing how long a program will run on a Windows machine is impossible. These are based on the fact that in an environment where the operating system will cease to function at some random moment, this moment cannot be computed in advance. You just have to wait for it to happen, and then you find out (though you may be able to pre-compute features of the distribution of this random time). However, you can be sure that it will happen sooner or later (and indeed usually sooner, so just waiting for it to happen is in fact a quite efficient method of determining it).
Ted.
Price. When I first started using GNU systems I was a poor student and very much appreciated having access to useful software without having to spend money. Access to free but industrial grade software is also invaluable for learning. For example, anyone can learn to set up and configure Apache just as it would be in a production context on their own computer at no personal expense. But in order even to learn how to use IIS, you need to buy it. What if you do so and it turns out to be rubbish?
I like Debian specifically because of the package manager and package management. My first experience with a GNU/Linux distribution was Red Hat and I gave up after a few months because it was such a chore trying to install software. But, as others on this thread have said, the Debian tools, policies, and archive are what really makes free software stand out.
Best, Richard
--
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On 20/12/10 20:55, Simon Royal wrote:
So in short, what make me a Linux user. Well, an ex-Mac user with a disgust for Microsoft and a fan of being different and a nerd at heart.
So what make you lot a Linux? Why do you decide to walk on the other side of M?
Back in 1984 I was a snr programmer and sys admin for Burroughs (now UNiSYS). I was responsible for maintaining the hardware and software on a dozen or so XE550 (a re-badged Convergent Technologies) unix boxes. Each with a couple of dozen software engineers multitasking on each box developing new software.
I found unix to be so much simpler to maintain after the small systems MCP I had been supporting for the previous 5 years.
Once I left (was made redundant) UNiSYS I made a living writing large systems database software - very boring but it paid the mortgage.
When Microsoft started to emerge in the mid to late 1980s I, of course, had to learn how to use it. I found the continual shifting sand of the various DOS, and later windows, operating systems a chore to use. Each new software release meant a nightmare of re-writes and patches just to stand still.
So hardly any surprise at all that at home I readily embraced linux. Once again, as in the 19080s, I am able to just do what *I* want to do without the hassle of having to fight to o/s to do it "my way". No longer any need to spend my (non existent) pension on expensive bloat-ware that kinda does something like what I was wanting to do. A multitude of simple, easy to stitch together, programs do almost everything I want. One off tasks are simple to "bash" together and then throw away once used. Even the very rare times that there is no "off the shelf" program to do what I want I find it simple to throw something together as and when needed, without the need to spend many hours of guessing "how to" as pretty much all file, data and I/O formats are open source.
I'm a linux user, because I'm bone idle and linux lets me stay lazy.
-
Adam Bower -
Chris G -
James Bensley -
James Freer -
Jonathan McDowell -
Mark Rogers -
mick -
nev young -
Richard Lewis -
Simon Elliott -
Simon Royal -
Steve Engledow -
ted.harding＠wlandres.net -
Wayne Stallwood