PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Virus/Malware Protection

The only truly "safe" computer is the one that has been dismantled and had it's individual components each hidden in a separate dark closet with no possibility of power ever being connected... And even then it's only about 50%...

OTOH, the biggest problem with linux is the lack of standardisation. It will never be mainstream the way windoze is until it can be used in the same way. I.E. off the shelf software just works. If you need to be a geek to use it, it won't reach ubiquity. Windoze is like any white good, take it home, plug it in, it works. Maybe not very well, but it works. For linux to truly make it, it needs to be a white good.

Sorry Lawrie, I can't let you get away with that!
If you have read any of my post in the past, you will know that I live in a retirement village and one of my voluntary jobs there is looking after the computers of our elderly residents.
I now have seven of those residents running Linux on their computers simply because they were having so many problems with Windows - viruses (virii?), unwanted programs installing themselves, too may applications launching at start-up and hogging memory, etc, etc.
Sure, I installed Linux on their machines for them, but they never would have been able to install Windows themselves either, so that hardly counts as needing a geek to help them out.
Some of the oldies (and I'm talking a minimum age of 75 here) are running the latest Ubuntu and others are running the latest PcLinuxOS. One actually dual-boots WindowsXP and Ubuntu!
None of them are having any problems and indeed, I have to ring them from time to time just to make sure, because the minute any one of our 100 or so members runs into problems, it's straight on the phone to me. Not one of my Linux users has rung me back since I installed their systems and I'm talking up to 12 months ago.
So, if you buy a pre-configured computer with Linux on it and take it home and plug it in, it will just work. And you CAN buy a couple of pre-configured machines. There are a couple of netbooks available and any computer you buy from Pioneer can be pre-configured with your choice of Linux.

Hi tonymoloney,

I'm with you I have a son and some friends (about as un-geekish as possible) who are powerful virus magnets as far as the net and email is concerned. Every second week I would be trying to solve problems on someone's computer because it had contracted something that virus scanners did not pickup. These people have now been running Ubuntu for nearly two years and I have had no incident what-so-ever. Ubuntu has been incredibly sturdy and event-free for them.

Regards,
Noel

G'day Tony and Noel,
Tony, first I reckon age has nothing to do with it. So what if they're 75 plus? Anyhow, they have you to look after things... As for the linux netbooks etc. they are effectively single purpose boxes - the internet. Yes, they can be persuaded to do other things too, but go to the local computer store and buy a product that will install with no, or almost no, user input. Won't happen. This applies to all linux distro's at the moment. Aside from a very few productivity apps like Open Office (which usually comes bundled anyhow) you can't even really simply download stuff and expect it to work without tweaking.

Noel, my guess is your son and his cronies do nothing but surf the net - linux netbooks to this well, but.. see comments to Tony above.

I maintain that until you can download or purchase any kind of consumer application (including hardware like sound cards etc.) you want, especially games, and just plug in the CD/DVD or run the installer and not need to even think about the possibility of tweaking anything then linux will not be a true consumer product. It will not be a "white good" like a fridge or microwave in the way windoze is.

Mind you, I'm no great fan of windows, especially vista/Win7... I do want to see linux take over as the consumer desktop of choice, but it is still a very long way from that.

I don't want to turn this into a slanging match, but you should know that Linux programs aren't purchased at the local computer store. Instead, you select any one or more of several thousand free programs in the repositories ( by simply clicking on add/remove programs) and they install without any help from you.
If you can't find drivers for new hardware, that's the problem of the manufacturers, not the OS. You know, when the latest versions of Windows are released, lots of people have had problems getting their hardware to work due to missing drivers.
And when was the last time you were able to install a Windows program on a Mac?
I still use Windows from time to time so that I can keep on top of the problems my club members have, but I consider the only reason Windows is the dominant OS is because of the wonderful sales job that Microsoft have done on the general community. They have actually convinced other sales people that it is illegal to sell a computer without an operating system installed on it (and of course that OS just happens to be some version of Windows).
Supposedly now, you can't even buy Windows XP (though we can prove that that's not true), but you can still download any version of the Linux OSes that you might be interested in playing with.

No slanging match but this is exactly my point:

Quote:

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but you should know that Linux programs aren't purchased at the local computer store.

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Won't be mainstream till you can.

Lawrie I also have to disagree. I went to the local WiFi spot. I took the Ubuntu 9.1 CD and did an install. I rebooted and by the time the desktop was visible my network card had already picked up the WiFi signal. I clicked on connect and I was on. This is a Belkin PCMCIA card. Try that with Windose. I clicked on the update manager and it did all of the updates. Turned off and went home. Plugged in the USB dialup modem, configured the dialer and done.

Yes I'm back to Linux. The first install was a Wubi install. Inside Windows. This time I did an actual side by side in stall on a separate partition. I made a lot of mistakes and broke a lot of rules on the first install.
1. Do a baseline rootkit scan to compare in the future
2. Do not install programs not in the repositories. Exception-Firefox & Thunderbird from Ubuntuzilla
3. Do not enable the ROOT password

G'day Silvertones,
yup - exactly what I'd expect. Linux is an excellent choice if all you do is surf the net. That's probably its greatest strength, but I stand by my claim that until it becomes a "white good" in that all the major games and application software houses produce off the shelf applications that install with minimal user input and zero user understanding of what their computer contains then it cannot compete with windoze as a truly mainstream consumer product. And there isn't enough standardisation for that.

Please understand guys, I'm coming from a perspective of supporting systems for people who are complete computing ignoramuses. Case in point, Silvertones, you at least know what a wi-fi hotspot is. A good proportion of the general public would have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, but these same people can go to the local computer games outlet, buy a CD or DVD with a game on it, insert it in their windoze box, follow the prompts when it autoruns and install and then play their game - no messing around, everything gets found for them and it just works (well most of the time).

You cannot do this with linux - hopefully that includes a "yet"... I had high hopes for Red Hat many years ago, and then more recently Suse after Novell acquired it, but still they do not have enough penetration at the desktop to be considered "standard linux" and until there is a standard linux it will not be a consumer product. Windows wins by default because the competition is disorganised by comparison.

Then you look at things like doctors surgeries or accountancy practices, or maybe pharmacies, or legal firms, your local motor mechanic & etc.. There are no mainstream vertical market products in these industries that run on a linux desktop. They all run on windoze platforms. Where wordprocessing and spreadsheets are required, then they expect MS Office, and directly interface with its API's. In many cases they now also expect databases to run on MSSQL - either the full version or in many cases MSDE (now called SQL Server Express).

I would love to see this change.

Actually, we'll all know that linux is mainstream when PG Music makes BIAB and RB for native linux (NO "wine"ing now ) in the same way as they are supporting Windows and the Mac.

Hold it, I got "called" 'cos I said linux can't be mainstream until it becomes a white good. Just doing internet is not good enough to achieve that. Besides, I use windoze myself ('cos I pretty much have to in my end of the industry) and have never had any virus or malware problems. The right protection products, sensible surfing and sufficient cynicism to not click on everything that says I should...

Linux is not yet what it needs to be. I fear it will never be. Certainly without proper standardisation it cannot be.

sorry Lawrie you are right about it not being mainstream. Itis limited in the software you can find in the repos. Linux is on my Internet box and Windows on my everything else box. They sit side by side and are networked together thanks to you.
Oh and BTW Ubuntu just did a kernel update and now my modem doesn't work totally. It connects to the IP ,issues addresses etc but no data will flow.

Oren,
OK I'll try to be a little more fair.
I uninstalled the Wubi install that at this point had been upgraded to v 19. I uninstalled and did a side by side install. I did all of the updates, as recomended on the official Ubuntu site, and I was now at v20. I did everything as before to install my USR USB dialup modem. It would connect but not download pages. I found the answer in an older article so I 'm not sure if it was the update or not. It did not have to do this previously.
Found the answer deep in the bowels of documentation. My question now is " did version 20 mess this up for everyone with dialup"? I had to:

Code:

gksudo gedit /etc/ppp/options

Add this line and save:

replacedefaultroute

Who knows. I'm back to Linux with a clean install the right way and loving it.

A heads up for those Linux users who also use Wine to run Window's programs.

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/133329/

Well, I 'spose it just show how good wine is at hosting windoze programs... . . . . .

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What in above post is automated? I see after using google that name is all over the place. Is it to spread the link on the bottom?