Linux vs. Windows

[Boaz Bezborodko]

>
> Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:44:09 -0400
> From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra at baylink.com>
> Subject: Re: Filepro-list Digest, Vol 42, Issue 43
> To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Message-ID: <20070726194409.GQ16008 at cgi.jachomes.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 12:46:09PM -0700, Bill Campbell wrote:
>   
>>> > >Ok, so the machine isn't "broken", it's just running things you didn't
>>> > >want because it's administrator is sloppy and a) didn't run a
>>> > >password-strength tester on password changes, b) didn't run a password
>>> > >cracker to look for Joe's, b) didn't firewall the machine so that
>>> > >unwanted traffic couldn't get in and out.
>>> > >
>>> > >The point here, of course, is that administrators *can*
>>> > >deterministically do those things on *nix.
>>>       
>> > 
>> > That depends on the user base.  I've never seen an ISP that has been able
>> > to enforce good passwords and keep their customers.  My nightly maintenance
>> > routines check for crackable passwords, and I would say that at least 75%
>> > of the user's passwords at any ISP are going to be guessable.
>>     
>
> Sure.  But Boaz isn't talking about that environment; he's talking
> about office applications server.
>
>   
>> > We rarely have seen problems like this on our business client's machines as
>> > we can be a lot more draconian with them.  We only allow user access via
>> > secure shell, and then only allow password authentication in a few rare
>> > cases where an outside web developer can't figure out how to generate
>> > public/private keys on their Windows box.  Where we do allow password
>> > authentication, ssh access is tightly restricted with tcp_wrappers and
>> > /etc/hosts.allow.
>> > 
>> > No matter how fool-proof an admin tries to make the system, they keep
>> > finding better fools.
>>     
>
> No doubt.
>
>   
>>>> > >> Autoyast installs of SuSE Linux Enterprise 10 take about the same.
>>>>         
>>> > >
>>> > >This was an older slower box.   :-) 
>>>       
>> > 
>> > This was an AMD Athlon 1400+ 1GB RAM and with a pretty generic IDE drive.
>> > Installation was over a 10/100 NIC from a file server running SLES9 on an
>> > AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ 2GB RAM, and a 74GB WD SATA drive.
>>     
>
> Hmmm.  Perhaps it went faster than I thought; I wasn't watching it
> then.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra at baylink.com Designer The Things I Think 
> RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24 St 
> Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
Actually I was talking about a standard installation by the user.  Not 
an installation by experienced admins for users to use.

When you install Windows on a machine, most of the time it just works.  
If you need drivers then, most of the time, the drivers install properly 
and just work.  Yes, most of this is because more effort is put into the 
writing of these drivers.   But that is still the issue most people have 
to deal with.

So an average user (or small business user) who decides they're going to 
get Linux is mostly in for a lot of pain.  They are not going to accept 
that as a replacement for Windows.  Likely they'll just try and get XP 
running on their new machine.

Until this changes the only place I see it changing is on the 
institutional level or with tech savvy companies that already have the 
computer resource/personnel to devote to getting good Linux setups.

Boaz