Unconfined's Profile

Member since December 29, 2008

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    Unconfined

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  1. Comment - Windows XP pauses again in its shuffle out the door

    (Dec 29, 2008 - 11:15 AM)

    Q: "What about too many applications, games for Windows?"

    A: There are over 10,000 free software applications available on the GNU/Linux platform; and many games have GNU/Linux versions. Recently, Valve announced a port of the Steam client to GNU/Linux, Epic Games write Linux versions of their games, ID Software release for Linux and Windows to the same time and even open source their game engines. Also, many proprietary applications like Nero Burning ROM, Adobe Acrobat etc. now fully support Linux. Finally, Wine and LUKS (Linux Unified Kernel Project) provide a compatibility layer for running applications and games designed for Windows on GNU/Linux, OS X and other UNIX-like systems - allowing the "other" apps not yet ported to often run just as they did on Windows.

    Q: "Too sad Linux doesn't have even 1% market share so why would any hacker be interested in attacking Linux?"

    A: In the server market Windows does not dominate. Most web servers for example use GNU/Linux, FreeBSD or a proprietary UNIX variant. As Apache HTTPd for example is more popular than IIS and is multiplatform, I could see more "hackers" interested in that than the Windows-orientated technology. However, unlike in the Windows realm where "fame" is gathered through attacking users maliciously or releasing zero-day exploits, in the GNU/Linux world "fame" is gathered by releasing patches and advisories, helping users and being a good community player.

    ---

    "Windows can be configured to make it more secure but if you know how to use it. "

    Indeed, many people overrate the malware issues with Windows. Also as you mention, x86_64 Windows is generally unaffected by the legacy viruses that affect x86 due to WoW64 not completely providing a suitable environment and the lack of 16-bit support (as many viruses were designed to affect both NT and 9x back in the day).

  2. Comment - Windows XP pauses again in its shuffle out the door

    (Dec 29, 2008 - 10:50 AM)

    x64 Stable? I had Server 2003 x86_64 and XP x86_64, both were less stable than their x86 (IA-32) versions due to driver immaturity. Vista is no different in how it handles things.

    It has a pityful system for 32-bit compatibility (WoW64) which in my experience causes instability on 32-bit applications; which constitute the majority (there are some small bugs in how it manipulates/redirects things). Also, Windows on 64-bit no longer supports 16-bit software, which makes many 32-bit applications fail to install as many still use 16-bit installers.

    I am not saying x86_64 is a bad architecture, it's been supported on most open source systems in a rock-solid way for quite a while with full backwards compatibility and both Apple and Sun have moved to support 64-bit on the x86_64 architecture quite gracefully.

    By the way.. Shadow Copy was around before Vista. It's not a "new feature", it's just one they have chosen to promote all of a sudden.

    -- Unconfined

  3. Comment - Windows XP pauses again in its shuffle out the door

    (Dec 29, 2008 - 10:30 AM)

    @ Hollywood:

    Suckers? People who don't know how to use their PC are suckers. Since the era of Windows 2000 it is possible to lock down any and all apps via NTFS filesystem permissions and registry permissions.

    XP came with a reasonable set of default permissions for Limited Users (despite allowing users to create files in the root of C:\ which IMO is a bad idea). However, Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) came with the ability to lock everything down rather well.

    Even IF you don't have a locked down account it is still possible to restrict specific software in a generic way, it's as simple as Right Click -> Run As.. -> Choosing to restrict the application (the checkbox which is oh so obvious..)

    XP (NT 5.1) was laughable when it first came out, I agree. Windows 2000 is still more stable and better under load than XP, and Windows Server 2003 (NT 5.2) has and always will provide a better desktop than XP due to an improved version of IIS (needed for Virtualisation products) and other core improvements.

    However, Vista (NT 6.0) is too bloated. XP was slightly bloated (who needs that System Restore garbage and cartoony GUI?) but Vista takes this too far. The average consumer has started to realise this.

    As far as buggyness goes, Vista is just as buggy as XP was when that was the "new OS".

    I think i've said enough here really.

    -- Unconfined

    P.S. I'm a GNU/Linux user.. not a sucker ;-)

    [EDIT: Paragraphs in the wrong order O_O]