alexander Posted October 22, 2005 Report Share Posted October 22, 2005 yeah, i finally found the article i was looking for for that, anyhow, to all the skeptical Windows folk who think that if other OSes are just as volnurable as Windows, here is a decent explanation on why exactly it is that you are wrong! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erasmus00 Posted October 22, 2005 Report Share Posted October 22, 2005 yeah, i finally found the article i was looking for for that, anyhow, to all the skeptical Windows folk who think that if other OSes are just as volnurable as Windows, here is a decent explanation on why exactly it is that you are wrong! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/ Its not that Linux is just as vulnerable, its that as Linux spreads it will become more vulnerable. The thing that makes microsoft most vulnerable, its homogeneity, is slowly shrinking as windows users switch away from word and internet explorer to other word processors, web browsers, and email programs. Meanwhile, as Linux becomes more popular, more "easy to use" versions are coming out for the casual computer user, which will make social engineering for virus distribution easier. Will viruses in Linux ever be as large a problem as they are for windows right now? Probably not. Will more viruses show up for Linux as its popularity grows? Almost certainly. -Will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockytriton Posted October 22, 2005 Report Share Posted October 22, 2005 They complain that windows allows users to do certain things (like open a file from an email) and that is bad, so what, they dumb down the feature because of idiots and now I have to save the file first and then run it? Another thing they talk about is how linux runs on different platforms so the "executable" won't execute on all platforms. This is just plain bs because a shell script with "rm -rf ~" would run on any platform. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C1ay Posted October 22, 2005 Report Share Posted October 22, 2005 Its not that Linux is just as vulnerable, its that as Linux spreads it will become more vulnerable. Not really true. Linux installs as a multiuser system out of the box, creating a root account and a user account that the user uses for normal computer use. Root access is required to attack the OS but the common Linux user must SU to root with the root password to alter his/her own system. A virus would need to gain root access on every system to spread the way windows virii do and that would require everyone to use the same root password. As Linux spreads it will become a more favored target by the virus writers but it won't necessarily become anymore vulnerable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockytriton Posted October 23, 2005 Report Share Posted October 23, 2005 I remember a few years back you could gain root access just by a bad printf statement in a version of BSD, a friend of mine used it to hack his ISP and got banned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southtown Posted October 23, 2005 Report Share Posted October 23, 2005 yeah, i finally found the article i was looking for for that, anyhow, to all the skeptical Windows folk who think that if other OSes are just as volnurable as Windows, here is a decent explanation on why exactly it is that you are wrong! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/I don't know any M$ groupies. People who stick with Winblows just aren't capable of using something more complex, or they don't want to give up certain programs. We are just born into it and given no alternatives, so to speak, alot like living in a third-world dictatorship. I have to make sure Qwest DSL works with Linux (and gather the tedious details) before I'll switch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockytriton Posted October 24, 2005 Report Share Posted October 24, 2005 People who stick with Winblows just aren't capable of using something more complex, or they don't want to give up certain programs. or they must use it at work, or they have the desire to keep up with knowledge of the desktop OS that 90% of the world uses, or they have no desire to run a server OS as a desktop OS, or 15,000 other valid reasons. Not everyone who uses windows is just stupid despite what all the linux kids think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted October 24, 2005 Report Share Posted October 24, 2005 People who stick with Winblows just aren't capable of using something more complex, or they don't want to give up certain programs. We are just born into it and given no alternatives, so to speak, alot like living in a third-world dictatorship. Sorry southy but this is BS (yeah I said it... :) ). I use Windows because I own a PC and use a lot of *expensive* music software which will not run on Linux. I have Linux installed but have neither the time nor the patience to configure it to run my software, and none of my sequencers run in Linux anyway so I wouldn't get very far. Most of my software does however work fine on Mac OSX, so I have a PowerBook as well, since I am allowed to have two installations of most of my stuff. Comparing this to third-world dictatorship is, uhm, perhaps a tad over board? Anyway my wife also prefers windows not because Linux is difficult but because she simply feels at home with it. So does that make her a M$ Groupie? Do you think she even cares??? Keep singing the Open Source songs :) but sometimes it is as if I am hearing lots of Americans singing "Buy Japanese Cars Because American Cars Use More Gas". Why do people bother so much about OS but ignore stuff like...where is the PC manufactured? How much does this process pollute? etc etc. Now that's more relevant stuff IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted October 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2005 Another thing they talk about is how linux runs on different platforms so the "executable" won't execute on all platforms. This is just plain bs because a shell script with "rm -rf ~" would run on any platformhey, they are correct about the binary, actually a binary compiled on the same laptop as mine by another person wont run on my system, so pbttt... As to "rm -rf ~" first of all if you execute it as user, you delete their home folder, yeah info is lost, but your computer still works, backup and in a few minutes you are back up, and in order to harm a linux system, "rm -rf /" but that will only work as root, and unless you are stupid enought to run programs as root, that can not be done, without a rootkit, that you cant run as user because of permissions. and if you do run programs as root, it is your own damn fault that your computer broke. patience to configure it to run my software, and none of my sequencers run in Linux anyway so I wouldn't get very far.so are you saying its your fault ? :) are those hardware sequencers T? what kind? And this is for everyone, Linux is easier to learn and use then Windows is, unlike windows, Linux makes sense so it is easier to pick up, there no obfuscating registry and nothing of that nature, and there are plentu of GUIs designed to be sensible and easy to use for users, unlike explorer, so... that should stop some arguments... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockytriton Posted October 24, 2005 Report Share Posted October 24, 2005 hey, they are correct about the binary, actually a binary compiled on the same laptop as mine by another person wont run on my system, so pbttt... As to "rm -rf ~" first of all if you execute it as user, you delete their home folder, yeah info is lost, but your computer still works, backup and in a few minutes you are back up, and in order to harm a linux system, "rm -rf /" but that will only work as root, and unless you are stupid enought to run programs as root, that can not be done, without a rootkit, that you cant run as user because of permissions. and if you do run programs as root, it is your own damn fault that your computer broke. Yes of course on the binary side, but on the other stuff........ So you say that if a linux user runs as root then they are stupid enough to deserves what happens and it's not the OS's fault? Ok, I agree with that, but why not the same on the windows side? In Windows 2000, Xp, etc, you can create a user that does not have administrator privs, and you can make sure they only have access to their home folder for writing, so why not blame the user and OS if a user runs a program as administrator? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted October 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2005 In Windows 2000, Xp, etc, you can create a user that does not have administrator privs, and you can make sure they only have access to their home folder for writing, so why not blame the user and OS if a user runs a program as administrator?you can, but there is a major difference between a regular user in windows vs linux, in windows you can still run executables and have access to certain system files and procedures in order to be able to be usable, which gives enough privilages to do all kinds of crazy stuff as a windows user, as a user in linux that, by the way, can temporarily become root to execute anything as root, but never actually have to log in as root, unlike windows, you can not do anything that is not permitted for him/her by the admin, you can not download and execute a binary file as a user in windows, you can download it, if you are lucky, but you just dont have the privilages to execute anything until an admin changes them for that speciffic file, and admins are very weary of changing file permissions. major difference, a lot more work needs to be done to screw up, and it has to be done by the user its just not done automagically by the OS itself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockytriton Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 if a file is in your own home directory, you have the rights to change the permission with chmod, you don't need root to change the permissions on a file that you are the owner of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 so are you saying its your fault ? :) are those hardware sequencers T? what kind? No, I'm saying that Linux isn't capable of running my (software) sequencers. I use Ableton Live - http://www.ableton.com/ - and FL Studio - http://www.flstudio.com/ . If Linux was able to run this *natively*, ie without me having to configure a lot of "non-emulators" etc then I might very well consider a switch. But Linux would have to get native support for VST plugins as well, and not the current (albeit well done) attempts. It's cool to see that some devs are able to make things work in Linux, but that doesn't mean that me, my neighbor and his can of tuna fish would be able to do the same. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockytriton Posted October 25, 2005 Report Share Posted October 25, 2005 I've played around with wine back in the day (ok, back around '98), but I'll admit that I haven't really looked into anything more recent, I remember back then that it was pretty horrible and the only thing that I got to work well was notepad, which was worthless. I tried to installed VMWare on mandriva, but it was a nightmare, missing libs, install the libs and just get crashes and all that, what a pain in the neck. I used VMWare with lots of success on linux around '98, we setup a linux server and hosted many different versions of windows with different configurations for testing our software, it worked out much better than having all of these different physical machines. I wish it was still that easy, but I guess new kernels cause new problems with old software. I keep telling myself, linux is much better than windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southtown Posted October 27, 2005 Report Share Posted October 27, 2005 K fine. If people like M$, then that's their thang. I was just trying to express the fact that user-friendly-ism is a self-perpetuating phenomenon. If M$'ers learned Linux, then they would eventually be proficient in computing (all forms), where as M$ just keeps users in the dark regarding any controls built into the OS, and programs of course follow suit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexander Posted October 27, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 27, 2005 If Linux was able to run this *natively*, ie without me having to configure a lot of "non-emulators" etc then I might very well consider a switch. But Linux would have to get native support for VST plugins as well, and not the current (albeit well done) attempts. It's cool to see that some devs are able to make things work in Linux, but that doesn't mean that me, my neighbor and his can of tuna fish would be able to do the same. no they do not because the those sequencers are all closed-source proprietary projects. But as i have been saying to you, there is a gazillion of sequencers, mixers well, just about anything available for linux, and as i have posted many times already, but will do again, here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ - do anything you can possibly imagine with waves and morehttp://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ - huge tool, really cool, all kinds of midi support and a nice tool for mixing and sequencing stuffhttp://www-stud.fht-esslingen.de/~alex/tX/ - your altimate mixer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffy Posted October 27, 2005 Report Share Posted October 27, 2005 Seriously, outside of Redmond, I really don't know many people who *like* M$. It really comes under the "necessary evil" category. It has risen to the level of the pitch that kept IBM going through the 80s when they were really floundering: "Nobody ever lost their job by buying IBM." Infoworld or eWeek had a quote from a CIO in the last week or so (I can't find it now), where the guy said: I can't really afford to take a chance on open source software on the desktop. If it breaks and there's no way to fix it by yesterday, my head will roll for having "taken the chance on unproven technology." No thank you... Microsoft sux, but my business depends on it: my customers use it and I can't tell them they're idiots to do so (although I had to get rid of a programmer/support person who *did*).... Cheers,Buffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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