4 ms·
What If All the World Ran Linux?
- Mithrandir 16y agoOriginal article: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/214596/what_if_all_the_world_ran_linux.html http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/214596/what_if...
- rbanffy 16y agoAnd HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2032776 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2032776
- bediger 16y agoWhat part of Linux' greater immunity to malware comes from the more logical permissions, and the more free-form naming? By that, I mean that "executable" comes from a permission, not from an "extension", and that "extensions" in Linux are really just naming conventions. I also note that every one not leveraged to the hilt into Microsoft technology acknowledges the effect of the Windows monoculture.
- rbanffy 16y agoIndeed. If Joe Clueless downloads a program and double clicks it, it won't run. If the user is so clueless as to download malware, he probably won't be able to chmod it into executableness.
- jjcm 16y agoHis entire blog post is based on the assumption that linux wouldn't have as much malware - however keep in mind that the greatest risk to a system is the user themselves. It doesn't matter how hardened the system is or how many protection schemes are built in, if you have a pop up telling the user "ENTER YOUR ROOT PASSWORD AND WIN $$$ NOW!" eventually someone is going to do it. At some point users will cry out for a system that doesn't require a password to install stuff, and someone will react to provide that product to the market. Remember that there's a lot more to computer security than computers.
- angrycoder 16y agoI don't know many dudes name Katherine.
- tzs 16y agoPersonally, I tend to use "he" if I'm going to tear apart a poorly written or researched tech article, because using "she" might call attention to the gender of the author which might be misinterpreted as an ad hominem. In fields where there isn't a large mismatch between the number of men and women, I'd check the name and use "he" or "she" depending on my guess as to which is more likely based on the name.
- rbanffy 16y ago> "ENTER YOUR ROOT PASSWORD AND WIN $$$ NOW!" eventually someone is going to do it. None of my Linux boxes has a root password.
- tedunangst 16y ago"ENTER THE PASSWORD THAT LETS YOU DO STUFF AND WIN $$$ NOW"
- rbanffy 16y agoYou do understand your plan is getting less and less likely to work, right? If it doesn't work on Macs why would it fare better on Linux?
- tedunangst 16y agoAre you saying there's no malware for Macs?
- rbanffy 16y agoWhile I understand there is some malware that runs on OSX (as there are on Linux and even on *BSD), it's nowhere near what could be considered a huge problem. I never saw one, BTW.
- arethuza 16y ago"Windows tends to be associated with a lot of unplanned downtime" I would say that Windows is more associated with the need to have a lot of planned downtime.
- rbanffy 16y agoI think both situations happen with a much higher frequency than competing platforms.
- jawee 16y agoI'm beginning to see Linux as simple a broad open platform that is very customizable to individual needs. The idea of the spanning, generally somewhat similar but incompatible enough to be a nuisance, problematic because you have to install it on your own in virtually all cases, desktop Linux is a dying breed. I say this as a sole user of desktop Linux for nearly ten years (currently typing in CrunchBang, a Debian respin). Why? The places where Linux has slowly started to spin are independent ecosystems each spun from Linux. This has slowly been becoming the case in the mobile sphere. But the mobile OSs that are winning are not the ones that are much codeshared with desktop Linux like Maemo, but those that exist in independent ecosystems like webOS and Android, not to mention the open source devices like Kindles and Tom Toms that you never think about the OS on. Even the main Linux distros for desktops and similar x86 devices are beginning to separate. Ubuntu is looking at alternatives to the X server. Chrome OS has the possibility to make inroads which is not a traditional distro in any sense. Linux as a kernel is becoming something diverse that can be respun to many different uses. Used to, the Linux landscape was fairly consistent. Mobile devices that ran the Linux kernel were using much of the same code and software as the desktop Linux distros. For example, Dillo was a web browser used on Linux ports to mobile devices and the desktop. I had mobile Linux devices in the past that ran Pidgin.
- tzs 16y agoI like how the first point is essentially that the diversity of Linux would make it hard for malware writers because of the differences between distributions, and the last point seems to assume that the diversity is NOT a problem to writing Linux software.