Your computer, you should have total control over it.

[zincfinger]

Some questions for Linux users who are reasonably familiar with XP (or vice-versa):

Do you think that Linux is still clearly superior to Windows for home use (w/ broadband), in terms of security, ease of installing and managing software, logic of organization, and any other factors that you can think of?

Is there enough software available for Linux that there are no worries in this department, unless you have some highly-specific use that is only met by Windows-based software?

Which version of Linux is best for home desktop use?

 

[sandgk]

Interesting Perspective from a Computer Professional

I am equally comfortable / unafraid of the 3 platforms referred to in this thread, so this isn't an axe to grind post. Just found the following interesting.

Shown here

Someone you would not expect to select a Mac has done so ..

for control and security reasons .. in a corporate setting.

Interesting discussion in the blog. He's running the whole thing as an experiment and inviting comments.

 

[BrutusMaximus]

Macs are MUCH more secure, no doubt about it. And alot more stable. I will never argue that. My problem with them is the lack of apps and such, that are either only windows based, or they are made for mac, but dont work the same/correctly. Course my own personal problem with them is that I do alot of gaming and such, and for gaming, a mac is about as useful as tits on a bull.

Edit: also macs are MUCH more expensive. One of the jackasses I work with spent $3800 on his laptop. It has broken twice, had to send it back and get it fixed. Only had it a year.

I just bought an Acer Aspire Laptop - for $499 :tongue2:

 

[sandgk]

Is this a Possible Future

As we seem to have a Mac attack these days I found this very interesting:

Apple WILL do x86 (through 2006-2007)

New Macs: Intel Inside John Spooner - eWEEK <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

Mon Jun 6,10:11 AM ET

Apple got the world's attention on Monday, saying it will move to Intel processors.

Apple Computer Inc. will begin moving its systems to Intel Corp. processors by June 2006 and will finish the transition by June 2007, Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, said in a keynote address at the company's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco.
Jobs underscored his point by demonstrating a Power Mac running Apple applications on a 3.6GHz Intel Pentium 4 and showing a port of Wolfram Research Inc.'s Mathematica before an audience of developers and other Apple followers during the keynote.
Porting Mac OS X to Intel will be easy, but there will be other challenges. Click here to read Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' column.
The move will be made possible by work that's been ongoing at Apple for some time. Apple's Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life, having been compiled for both for Intel and the PowerPC, Apple's current processor of choice, Jobs said in the keynote. The company will support the PowerPC—right now it uses IBM's PowerPC 970FX chip—for some time to come.
Apple will use dynamic translation software called Rosetta, named after the famous Rosetta stone, to allow applications designed for PowerPC chips to run on Apple's Intel systems.
To underscore the point, Jobs showed Adobe Systems Inc.'s PhotoShop running and opened Microsoft Word and Excel files on an Apple-Intel system. The chief executives from Adobe and Intel joined Jobs on stage to express their rapport.
"After 30 years, Apple and Intel are together at last," Otellini said. Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen jokingly asked what took so long.
Although it's a sea change for Apple, the move to Intel processors will grant the company the options it feels it needs to move forward, ultimately allowing Apple to focus its hardware efforts on designing sleek products and, at the same time, expanding sales.
Jobs' explanation for the move? Apple, which has been maintaining a feature—complete version of OS X for Intel chips—a project code-named Marklar—in secret for some time, could not build the machines it wanted with IBM PowerPC chips inside, given their power consumption. Intel won out, he said, on watts.

What's most intriguing is the ease with which this may happen. Porting the system is essentially a done deal. Porting the apps is (relatively speaking) with Rosetta a steal.

Add to this that Apple's ROM (which was always a bete-noire, fixed code, in the old 680x0 days) is now a flash programmable EEPROM (i.e. like any other good modern BIOS chip) and the following becomes possible with a little tweaking from those fiendish oriental MB foundries --

A dual boot motherboard. Switchable BIOS / Apple ROM precedence.

A triple Boot system...

Your option of running Apple OSX / Penguin of the Month or Longhorn

All of which have their ups and downs.

And as x86 is at the core if you are migrating from WinXP and want to run those Office or other legacy apps from the Windows installation -- do so with something robust like CrossOver Office. For the technically astute do it with WINE.

No more bitching about the hardware -- it all comes cheap.

Much more freedom for the home builder to make exactly the iron that they want to use -- in whatever manner they so wish.

 

[Dryden]

Some questions for Linux users who are reasonably familiar with XP (or vice-versa):

I don't follow this thread every day, so I missed this post. I'll take a crack at it now.

Do you think that Linux is still clearly superior to Windows for home use (w/ broadband), in terms of security, ease of installing and managing software, logic of organization, and any other factors that you can think of?

That's tough to answer, because every user expects different things and because every user brings with them prior knowledge of what they've used before and are resistant to change. Having taught Linux workshops for a number of years, it appears to me that the person who has the most difficulty grasping Linux concepts is the person who knows just enough about Windows 9x/2K/XP to be dangerous. An individual who has dedicated 10 years to learning the Microsoft GUI will struggle mightily learning Linux. Likewise for the person who knows only Mac OS 'Classic' 9.0 and earlier. The people I've found who are generally best suited to switching to Linux are those who approach Linux with an open mind, accept that they'll have to learn new things, and have some exposure with a command console, whether in Windows 9x or from being an old DOS/Win 3.1 hack.

Essentially, you cannot change if you don't want to. People who attended my Linux workshops because they want to learn Linux pick up most core concepts in under 10 hours. People who attend my Linux workshops because their boss sent them there will never, ever 'get it'. They don't want to, and they've made up their mind that it will be difficult because there isn't an icon on the desktop that reads, 'Click here you stupid fuck!'

All that said, I honestly believe Linux is superior to Windows for home use in 90% of applications. First off, if you want to learn, you must dive in and swim. You cannot dual boot, you cannot keep an old PC around to learn on. If you keep a Windows OS handy as a crutch, you'll never be able to ween yourself off of it. The only way to learn Linux for home use is to put yourself in a situation where you have to figure out how to fix the problem. I 'dabbled' with Linux at home for over 5 years and didn't really get anywhere. I 'forced' myself to learn Linux in Dec 2000 and pretty much had it doing anything I wanted within 6 months.

As to your specific questions, it is without question more secure, and maintain the OS and software is really quite simple with modern package management applications. For example, with Red Hat-like editions of Linux I simply click an icon in the status bar to launch a program named up2date, which provides me a list of all packages currently available that contain upgrades, new features, or security fixes -- it's essentially the same as running Microsoft's Windows Update.

The only area where I think Linux is lacking is in ease of maintenance with audio/video drivers and architectures. It took Microsoft over 10 years to make Windows an honest to goodness "plug and play" OS with the release of Windows XP + Direct X 8. Everything prior had it's issues, but each edition was at least showing a step in the right direction over the previous. Linux, however, is too splintered in A/V development to have clear platform to build on, and this becomes the users' responsibility to figure out. Some games want sound driver 'A', but other games expect sound driver 'B', which both may not be the same the currently loaded sound driver 'C' when the GUI is running. In particular, multiplexing/mixing multiple sounds to one sound card is an utter mess. Video drivers are close, but not as easy to use/configure as in Windows yet.

In short, if you were going to sit grandma in front of the computer to surf the Web, send email, and play solitaire, Linux would be preferable to Windows since you won't have to worry about grandma running email attachments, click 'bad' pop ups, getting hacked, managing firewall/anti-virus software, etc ... etc ... However, if you were expecting the PC to also play any game off the shelf from Best Buy, you will need to be either more advanced at Linux or would probably want to chooses Windows there.

For me, I keep an old PIII/600Mhz desktop with Windows XP around for a few choice things that I'm not satisfied with under Linux yet:
1. Organizing my MP3s amongst my two iPods. All my MP3s are stored in Linux, and ripped/encoded in Linux, but there is no denying that Apple's iTunes software is clearly the easiest way to burn a CD and drag-and-drop stuff over to an iPod.
2. Legacy games such as Empire's "Pro Pinball" series that have never been ported to Linux.
3. Office, just in case I ever find an old .doc or .xls file off of some obscure back-up that has formulas that don't import correctly into OpenOffice.org. This has never happened yet, but with my having so many business and financial docs from Windows, I want that just in case.

Any game worth a damn has been ported to Linux. I play Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2003 + 2004, and older Quake copies regularly with my son-in-law. As long as the drivers are good (e.g. you stick with common name brands like Sound Blaster, nVidia, and/or ATi, you should have no problems with day-to-day use for games).

Organization is sensible, if you bother to understand why Linux (and therefore Unix) were written the way they were. IMO, the best home version would be the latest: Fedora Core 3. If not FC3, I'd back up about two years and go with Red Hat 9, the last version of RH proper before they moved to the Fedora project. A bootable Knoppix CD would also be a good way to get your feet wet.

Is there enough software available for Linux that there are no worries in this department, unless you have some highly-specific use that is only met by Windows-based software?

As I mentioned, the only program not comparable that I have to go to Windows for is iTunes, which is strictly an 'ease-of-use' issue to me. There are iTunes alternatives for Linux, I just don't find their interfaces attractive. There is no other program I need Windows for, and I do a lot of video editing, CD mastering/duplication, graphics work, and document flow management/conversions.

Which version of Linux is best for home desktop use?

Purely personal preference, no one version is 'better' than another, just different. Again, I like Fedora Core 3's organization and installation package, but many would swear by SuSe, Mandrake, Knoppix ... the list goes on and on and on.

 

[LoKyBuckeye]

I have a questions for the computer gurus....

Windows Media Player and Real Player. I am running XP and everytime I go to play a file it locks up the computer. I tried deleting them and then reinstalling them and it still does that same thing. Now I can play clips with Quicktime and Vegas Video (editing software) without any probelms. Tonight I went back to add/remove programs and don't even see them listed anymore. It's been doing this for months but I have finally giving up on fixing it. I was thinking about reformatting my computer any but I'm not sure if I can do that anytime soon.

I tried yelling and swearing at the screen and that didn't work. I made one last attempt when I decided to give it the finger but to my suprise that didn't work either.

Any ideas?

 

[CCI]

try options in Media Player and click file types and click em all

investigate all of the options tab.

 

[CleveBucks]

I had a real nasty problem with WMP when I ugraded from 8 to 10 (part of the program thought I was at 9, part thought I was at 10). The solution was to sort through the dll's and figure out which one needed to be replaced by a legitimate copy.

Do you get any error messages? When exactly does it freeze? Can you open either program by itself, without playing anything, successfully?

I assume you have administrative rights on your user account. Otherwise it's likely a permissions problem.

Since uninstall isn't an option, I would try removing the Realplayer files manually. Try deleting Program Files\Real and Program Files\Common Files\Real. Then try a reinstall, but install it to a different directory than the default Program Files\Real (something like Program Files\Real Player)

I have a questions for the computer gurus....

Windows Media Player and Real Player. I am running XP and everytime I go to play a file it locks up the computer. I tried deleting them and then reinstalling them and it still does that same thing. Now I can play clips with Quicktime and Vegas Video (editing software) without any probelms. Tonight I went back to add/remove programs and don't even see them listed anymore. It's been doing this for months but I have finally giving up on fixing it. I was thinking about reformatting my computer any but I'm not sure if I can do that anytime soon.

I tried yelling and swearing at the screen and that didn't work. I made one last attempt when I decided to give it the finger but to my suprise that didn't work either.

Any ideas?

 

[BrutusMaximus]

First thing you wanna do is remove realplayer and never install it, ever again :)

Media player is moody sometimes, but does it only lock up when you play avi's? mpegs? etc?

You may want to go to microsoft's website and search the knowledge base, see if there are any ideas listed. That is something I would have to be sitting at the computer to be able to fix, about 10,000 possibilities.

 

[NJ-Buckeye]

any suggestions on a 'best value' OCR software?

 

[LoKyBuckeye]

I had a real nasty problem with WMP when I ugraded from 8 to 10 (part of the program thought I was at 9, part thought I was at 10). The solution was to sort through the dll's and figure out which one needed to be replaced by a legitimate copy.

Do you get any error messages? When exactly does it freeze? Can you open either program by itself, without playing anything, successfully?

I assume you have administrative rights on your user account. Otherwise it's likely a permissions problem.

Since uninstall isn't an option, I would try removing the Realplayer files manually. Try deleting Program Files\Real and Program Files\Common Files\Real. Then try a reinstall, but install it to a different directory than the default Program Files\Real (something like Program Files\Real Player)

I do not get an error message. I can open Media Player by itself with no problems... it's just when I go to play a file (audio or video). It will "connecting" and then freeze the whole computer. I can not even do Ctrl/Alt/Del to close Media Player. I do have admin right so that's not a problem.

It looks like I was able to delete Real Player but I don't want to reinstall it.

BMax... I'll check out MS website to see if I can come up with anything.

Thanks guys.

 

[sandgk]

Rootkits - and not the Sony BMG Type

Be aware that the standard (and even many enhanced) anti-virus / trojan / malware tools will NOT find an insidious threat to your computers security. Moreover, this threat, based on a technique called rootkits is likely to grow in severity.

NOTE - This is not the Sony BMG rootkit to which I refer.

Basically a rootkit can install processes and backdoors that are completely stealthed. The installed software can and will permit the rootkit author permissions to do virtually anything they wish using your computer, record virtually all your on-line or desktop activity.

Guidance on what to do can be found here.

CAUTION - rootkit detection and removal requires a fairly high level of skill and competence.

Some free tools to better define and remove rootkit traces, which will go all the way down into the registry, are found here. Examine the links from category number 7 on that page.

Symptoms of rootkit installation can include the pop-up of Internet Explorer ad windows - even when browsing in Firefox. There are other reasons why such a thing may happen, however, that is one symptom that I know for sure correlates with the presence of a rootkit.

 

[CleveBucks]

There are rootkits that have no known detection method, most notably Hacker Defender. That's why, if you suspect you're infected with something, it's best to format and start over. Why take the chance of somebody intercepting your passwords, banking/credit card info, etc.?

 

[sandgk]

There are rootkits that have no known detection method, most notably Hacker Defender. That's why, if you suspect you're infected with something, it's best to format and start over. Why take the chance of somebody intercepting your passwords, banking/credit card info, etc.?

IceSword finds Hacker Defenders footprints - just thought you'd like to know.

As for the re-format route. That is the only safe means to overcome the issue if you fear that someone has the ability to decrypt the password / CC info and the same stored on HD.

EDIT - Added Thought -- One thing for sure, if the rootkits become a favored tool of malware / virus writers then the virus remover community (AVERT / McAfee, Symatec et al) will have to get in place adequate preventive AND removal tools. As it stands now they can neither detect, nor safely remove the many rootkit variants that are presently known. And, this situation is just the first shot across our bows. Suggesting re-format as the solution will not sit well with most ordinary consumers, they simply are not set up to do the job correctly - at least not without signifcant exposure to data loss.

 

[CleveBucks]

I'm pretty sure there are paid versions of Hacker Defender and Morphine that aren't detectable.