Adam K. said:
That's probably it - you're really good at maintaining your OS(es). I'm considered the computer expert at work and in my family environment - including more distant rellies - so I am usually the one they come to if they have any dramas. I haven't been exposed to any dramas so far in Linux (since no one is *running* Linux in my acquaintance except me) but the bleats and groans are deafening with regards to Windows.
"I just had to come up with another AUD$70 for antivirus program"
"My computer is only 3 years old, and it's already a dog! running so slowly..."
"Can't believe the price of Microsoft Office - can I use yours?"
"I've got this spyware or virus on my system - must've been the kids who installed it..."

and on and on. So, they bring the box to me, and I clear off the .tmp files left behind by rogue programs like MSN Live Messenger, empty their browser cache, scan the disk(s), defrag their file systems, and then after I do a HijackThis to find out the identity of the spyware/malware intruder, Google for a solution, reading 4 or 5 solutions before settling on a combination that eventually gets rid of it. This involves opening a DOS Window, booting to safe mode, all the admin stuff... and return them a clean system with a list of recommendations
For a copy of Office, I install OpenOffice.org.
For Spyware/Antivirus software I recommend AVG.
Show them how to keep their drive tuned up.
And then, invariably, get their box back a few months later troubled with the same sort of issues.

All of this would not happen with Linux. Windows is easy to use, but also easy to corrupt. Ubuntu is a bit tricky to set up - no-where *near* as easy as Windows - but once you got everything going, and you're doing the same thing, every day, as most people do, you never have to worry about the system slowing down, or antivirus software upgrades, or deleting tmp files, or running scandisk - it runs itself after so many boots, a setting I did not create - or having to buy expensive software like Office or Photoshop to do the things on it you want to: it comes with office management / cd-dvd burner / graphics manipulation / heaps of games software preinstalled.

Gerritt said:

Demonstrably false. Security through obscurity simply doesn't work - just ask MS with their closed source code.

Ever heard of AES? All of the code for that went through tons of peer review. The best crypto code is open source because a large number of skilled people have looked it over and beat it up to find the flaws.

There's no guarantee that open source ensures plenty of people will vet the code, but you can definitely state that closed source code will not be looked at by the community.

Open source also allows you to go through the code yourself if you have particular needs or concerns. It also allows code to be fixed rapidly in case a problem is discovered. You can even fix it yourself, which is not possible for most closed code.

Ever heard of SELinux and the NSA? The NSA is obviously rather security-conscious, and they use Linux, plus they added to it and released the code as open source.

Robyn Hahn said:

Security was actually tacked on with UNIX, and that pretty much includes Linux too. (The Linux kernel actually was designed to learn more about the 386 CPU, and I doubt Linus was thinking about security.

Security was easier to add to UNIX, partly because the concepts of multi-user and least privileges were built in very early - long before most UNIX machines were exposed to untrusted personnel.

Some design choices in UNIX and thus Linux are better for security than the choices MS made in DOS and then WinDOS and NT.



People can make mistakes, or the repositories can be hacked. Never say never.

Apple's iPods got hit by a Windows virus, and neither Apple nor their iPods run Windows. Turns out the machines used to format the memory in iPods ran Windows. (Like most companies, Apple jobs out stuff when it makes sense to do so.)

What I think we can safely say is that Linux and Mac OS X don't have any problems with viruses or spyware at the moment, nor have they had such problems. Windows has thousands of viruses, spyware, and other malware - now, in the past, and in the future for at least some versions, including XP.

I hope that Vista will correct this situation, but we'll just have to see what happens.

Brendan Gonsalves said:

Which Red Hat? Red Hat Enterprise Linux? One of the RHEL alternatives like CentOS? Fedora?

RHEL is certainly in use in industry. We use it here for Oracle RAC. It's used in lots of places. (Red Hat's Linux OSes have a large marketshare.)

If you want to get experience with RHEL, I would advise you use CentOS. It's quite stable and reliable, and it's far more affordable than RHEL.

If you're actually running servers in production for a business, it will be your call or your bosses call as to whether you want a fully supported OS like RHEL or if you want to do your own support with a free version like CentOS.

If you just like the way RH does things and want to run a RH OS with the latest software in it, then Fedora might be your choice. (Or perhaps you want to contribute to the development of Fedora for any number of reasons.) Just remember that it may very well break in spectacular ways because it's a testbed and not a production OS.

For just running Linux on your desktop or workstation, I would recommend Ubuntu, then perhaps OpenSUSE, then Gentoo and Debian, and a Red Hat-based OS would be at the bottom of the list. But I just don't like the way they set things up, so take it with a gain of salt.

Brendan Gonsalves said:
fedora core is based off red hat and it was my first linux and is still my main one. i ahve tried alot of diferent distro's (debian, suze, ubuntu and its variations, DSL, knoppix, slax, slackware, and others) i keep coming back to fedora becuase it was the first distro i learned my way around and i like the yum package manager alot more than apt even if it slow and whatnot. personnaly i think linux is just about what you get used to. most distros have few differences and its up to the user to justt choose one and use it. now a days they all have a package manageemnt system, fancy eye candy, and they all come with all the apps the average user needs.

one topic i ahvent seen much of is the desktop interface. linux offers many different desktop enviroments that cover a large variety of tastes. also most are compatible with the poplar AIGLX eye candy(makes your windows wobbly transparent etc, its actually alot nicer than vista and can run on relatively old hardware. i had it on a pentium II with a geforce 2)

with regards to windows stability... i have used vista at work and i t ruuns like crap on our little test machine with onboard graphics, which makes me feel bad for those oem manufacturers. as for Xp at home i used to get blue screens all the time due to various hardware issues and the like. also if i enable windows update a system process starts taking all of my resources and when i close it i lose sound =\. but all in all xp and linux can be made very similar and the average user would probably prefer linux once introduced due to its low cost(free), stability, security, flexibilty, and speed

zkillz said:

I had been meaning to try that, so I just enabled it on Ubuntu. (It's just a checkbox or two away with Ubuntu 7.04.)

It's fun to play with, but I doubt I'll keep it enabled all the time. (This machine is a plain vanilla older HP business desktop with onboard Intel 810 graphics.)

i cant figure out how to increase the screen resolution. help

and how do you enable that cool vista like gui?

To change resolution to a custom resolution in Ubuntu, go to console/terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/x11/xorg.conf

This will open the Xorg configuration file in the word like program called Gedit. Scroll down to the screen section and you'll see a bunch of resolutions listed.

Add "1680x1050" (in the same formatting as the other resolutions listed) or whatever resolution you need. You'll have to add it to the 8 bit section, the 16 bit, the 24, etc. Now go to the preferences and change your resolution under screen resolution.



The fancy Vista-knockoff visual fancy stuff is called Beryl. You should try installing it by using this guide:
For Nvidia graphics cards:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty#How_to_install_Beryl_.28Nvidia.29
For ATI graphics cards:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty#How_to_install_Beryl_.28ATI.29

I use Beryl under Ubuntu, there is also a program called Compiz but I have yet to try that.

You can get cool themes here:
http://www.gnome-look.org/

In the end your desktop can look something like mine:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/waterdrop006/screenshot.jpg

FingerMeElmo87 said:

In 7.04, it's just a matter of System -> Preferences - Desktop Effects

That gives you wobbly windows and workspaces on a cube.

Beryl is evidently going away and the developer community will be working on Compiz.

There's info at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CompositeManager as well as what Adam already provided.

Well Beryl gives you the Windows+Tab thing like Windows Vista and the toolbar preview just like Windows Vista. And also lets you have see-through windows like Vista. Enabling Wobbly windows just looks like crap in my opinion. Beryl is so much better than the stuff already in Ubuntu built in. Doesn't seem to slow the system down much either. Not quite as cool looking as Vista, but hey it can look nearly as good. And you can add GDesklets which is like Gadgets in Vista.

wow. all that to change resolution? that is completely ridiculous. that part of that is suppose to be user friendly?

thanks adam

i opened up the app but i cant find the "screen" section

Stuart Krivis said:

Stuart,
The NSA Linux implementation is a "locked down" version of Linux, and not a general distribution, though readily available one, the reason that it is not in common use on the desktop is that it locks down most of the GNU OPENNESS.

The vetting of code as per AES is necessary, but the GNU license requires that the specific code in implementation be also open is what I was refering to.
SHA, SHA-1, SHA-2 and there replacements expected by 2010 are open as STANDARDS, not insofar as implementations!

99%+ of network connectivity is, through RFCs, open, it is the implementation on any host/platform that needs to be proprietory to provide for security. Ask Checkpoint or Cisco/PIX for there source code. If they give it to you, then I AM Wrong.

Gerritt

Yes if you don't see the resolution you want in the Screen Resolutions under Preferences you have to start editing that text file called xorg.conf.


Did you scroll down to the bottom of that file? You should see a bunch of stuff, then monitor, the finally Screen Section near the bottom of xorg.conf.

You typed in "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" right? And it asks you for root (password)?

i did it but it didnt list the new setting in "screen resolution". i save it but it hasnt added it to the settings. anything im doing wrong? i havent installed the os either, is that a problem?


is this right?

FingerMeElmo87 said:

Do that for all the depth modes, including 24, 16, 8, whatever else there is. Yeah looks right if you do it for all the different depth modes. Oh wait I usally put the "1680x1050" in front of the "1024x768" so its in order of size. Not sure if that matters. But try that and add 1680x1050 for all depth modes like I said.

I don't know why that would upset people. Package managers like Ubuntu's Synaptic (apt frontend) and Fedora's Pirut (yum/rpm frontend) make installing and updating software packages oh so easy. Much easier than Windows, since it lets you update third-party software (such as Firefox) as well.

And if you can't find a package, you can always download the source code and compile it yourself.

I myself started with Red Hat (version 4.0 I think), so now I use Fedora.

thanks for your help adam. i dont think is going to work until i install it. when i try to save the settings, it doesnt save so i think i'll jut partition a small chuck of my HDD and install it. thanks for the help

FingerMeElmo87 said:

I didn't have to do this because I didn't need a custom resolution. The GUI app provided for switching resolution is quite user-friendly.

The vaunted user-friendliness of Windows also falls down when you have to make changes to the registry - which isn't a rare thing.

At least if I screw up the config for X, it's all text files that I can still edit via the console. If you toast the GUI in Windows, _you're_ screwed.

You guys, if you're unwilling to edit a config file to use while using Linux, you're better off using Windows. Not meaning to sound like an ass, but's totally true.

Most everybody at HWA loves to tweak the s**t out of their computer to get the most out of 'em. To do that effectively in Linux you need to learn how to use a command line. Instead of gedit fire up vi(m) or emacs.

I think I may download a 64-bit DVD of the latest Ubuntu just as a backup bootable OS. Always nice to have around.