Death to Bill Gates...

Started by Harvey Birdman, October 10, 2007, 10:47:02 AM

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efflux

Linux completely seperates each user into a user space. All their apps etc. Nothing at all crosses over. Absolutely everything can have all kinds of levels of permissions. Loads of people can be logged in a the same time and you wouldn't even know. It's more efficient at this. Microsoft server is better than the standard desktop editions at multiuser but that's because they want you to buy that and not a home edition of Windows for a server. I can't say I know a whole load about this but some people have told me that security between user accounts in Windows is very poor. You can get at other peoples files. Unix was made from the bottom up as full multiuser system whereas Windows started as single user. NT (XP) has proper multiuser capabilities but MS restrict it in the home desktop Windows versions. Linux is Linux. You make it how you want whatever task you want, not what the developer restricts you to so they can make more cash. Unix was totally built for multiuser from the bottom up.

Oshyan

Hmm, well I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this then. I'm not sure there's a single thing you said below that I agreed with. ;) I still see little or no connection between government regulation and *operating system quality*. MS didn't take the investigations as a blanket call to arms to improve their product - they very reasonably focused on the areas that the investigations were concerned with. Why overhaul your product unnecessarily if you're not being scrutinited for the majority of its functioning? There was no "Microsoft's operating system isn't easy to use" point in the legal proceedings, so what you're saying makes little or no sense IMO.

As for government regulation improving IT, I think in some cases it has helped (the formerly mandated opening of private phone networks to 3rd party providers for example), but most often it is the lighter hand that will have the best effect. The more government stays out of areas it clearly doesn't understand the better IMO. Companies working on significant innovation certainly don't need any burdensome government regulation mandating standards compliance or "easy access" or "fairness". Innovation is stifled by bureaucracy, plain and simple. Even when it's not government the influence of bureaucracy is still quite negative - just look at the progress rate of OpenGL vs. DirectX. :P

- Oshyan

Quote from: calico on October 11, 2007, 01:39:19 PM
Yes, I think the fact Microsoft had to be accountable to a number of States and the Federal government put them under the spotlight and clearly stated to them that they couldn't continue to crap on the consumer.  XP and 2003 came out of this, for sure, but the litigation against them had started during the time 2000 came out...and Active Directory.  I'm not a big fan of AD, liking instead Novell's brand, but that's another discussion.

Anyway, government regulation will be the only way IT gets straightened out <ducking the stones> and anyone in the IT industry knows it's a hodge-podge of stuff that does work some of the time or simply is piece of dung.  We wouldn't put up with the failure rate in automobiles in the same fashion we endure it from the IT world.  As a matter of fact, I believe the IT world has been largely responsible for the throw away society we have along with the lack of concern for quality work. 

Planetside is an exception to this.  Of course.   8)

Oshyan

Quote from: efflux on October 11, 2007, 02:00:13 PM
Linux completely seperates each user into a user space. All their apps etc. Nothing at all crosses over. Absolutely everything can have all kinds of levels of permissions. Loads of people can be logged in a the same time and you wouldn't even know. It's more efficient at this. Microsoft server is better than the standard desktop editions at multiuser but that's because they want you to buy that and not a home edition of Windows for a server. I can't say I know a whole load about this but some people have told me that security between user accounts in Windows is very poor. You can get at other peoples files. Unix was made from the bottom up as full multiuser system whereas Windows started as single user. NT (XP) has proper multiuser capabilities but MS restrict it in the home desktop Windows versions. Linux is Linux. You make it how you want whatever task you want, not what the developer restricts you to so they can make more cash. Unix was totally built for multiuser from the bottom up.

Yes, that's true, this is something Linux is definitely better at. And yet all I can think is "why does the average person give a crap"? ;) 99.9% of people really don't care. They only care if it helps prevent virus infections and improves security, and although that is somewhat the case, it is also true that people would often be prevented from doing things that they might want to do in an ideal security scenario, so like Windows it may be more secure, but also more annoying, and you're back to the same problem. The *only* advantage then is that another user account could be used to log-in and be unaffected, and if the administrator password were known that could theoretically be used to repair any messed up account. Yet if the user knows the admin password they're likely just to use that to avoid the hassle of limited rights, so that defeats the whole purpose. The end result then is this is only effective in a truly managed environment with an IT person or staff available and that's why Windows Server has this functionality and, despite it being included in Linux free, the vast majority of people have no ability to make use of those features (or likely interest in doing so), so it's rather a moot point unless you're already a geek. I would never argue against Linux for the technophile, but for the average desktop user I don't think it offers any significant advantages, and has a lot of disadvantages too.

Windows is a huge series of compromises, but they're all ones that generally work and are made to cater to the general public. Linux is less compromising, but less attractive to the average consumer as a result.

- Oshyan

efflux

What Ubuntu have done is force you to be a superuser when you install. Other Linux systems are not like this. OSX is similar. It means that these systems are secure from square one. You can not do any admin without the password. The home Windows just defaults at install to single like environment user with no security. If you want to set up a root account in OSX or Ubuntu you can but why do this? You have a password to termporarily do admin if you're a superuser.

efflux

A root account in a Unix system still has no access to the other users space, only admin of the system. I'm not sure this can be set up in Windows, at least somebody told me it can't.

Oshyan

I think you're missing the point here though - when you give a user the control they want over the system, it is virtually impossible to avoid giving them the ability to break the system. If they screw up their own account they're not going to know how to use the admin account to fix it. I don't see an easy solution to this problem and don't see it as solved on OS X or Linux either. Sure maybe it's better, but I'm not so sure it comes down to the particular configuration you're talking about. It seems just like a better implementation of what Windows already has, and better defaults. Again I'm not arguing Windows is great at this, just that *in practice* the actual difference between Windows and Linux in terms of security *for the average user* is not going to be great, assuming said average user can even use the Linux box in the same way.

- Oshyan

Harvey Birdman

Man, I'm starting to feel like a drive-by troller, the way this thread has taken off. Catching up on it is kind of like peeking into the bar to see how the brawl I started is progressing.

;D   ;D

Oshyan

Quote from: Harvey Birdman on October 11, 2007, 02:25:22 PM
Man, I'm starting to feel like a drive-by troller, the way this thread has taken off. Catching up on it is kind of like peeking into the bar to see how the brawl I started is progressing.

;D   ;D

lol! Just a friendly debate. ;D

- Oshyan

efflux

The thread topic was bound to start off a big thread. It always does :D

The thing is though under Linux it is impossible for a user to break the actual system as long as their privileges are correct, only their user space can get messed up. It's not so seperated in Windows. Also, the admin can not fix anything in that users account unless the user allows it by supplying the password it or it has been originally set up with those privileges. I'm not sure this flexibility with privileges is in Windows.

As far as I know Microsoft can not fix this situation in Windows without destroying backwards compatibility with software but they should have started from scratch and just totally overhauled Windows with Vista. If people have to upgrade their software I don't see that as a major issue.

I'm no expert in any of this anyway but these things secure the system from getting viruses etc as well.

rcallicotte

I don't expect many in IT to agree with government regulation, but I'm not talking about heavy handed regulation.  Just the same as goes for (supposedly) the FDA and food / drugs.  In other words, if it isn't working right, there's a problem and the company needs to make it work correctly.  The idea that bugs will always exist in software started with M$.  That's BS.  It's possible to have an IT structure that doesn't include wild code.  Modular hardware wherein each piece is coded to handle certain aspects of logic with a clear cut definition of how these pieces fit together would end the need to have umpteen programmers killing keyboards with illogical code (and I'm not talking about Planetside, since I have so far loved the way you guys produce what you've produced).

As far as M$ doing what they did in XP and 2003 without the government call to arms, I don't think we can prove it.  It's obvious that M$ won't admit to a wrong until someone with some authority, governmental or technical, shows to the world they are plain and simple asses.



Quote from: Oshyan on October 11, 2007, 02:01:37 PM
Hmm, well I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this then. I'm not sure there's a single thing you said below that I agreed with. ;) I still see little or no connection between government regulation and *operating system quality*. MS didn't take the investigations as a blanket call to arms to improve their product - they very reasonably focused on the areas that the investigations were concerned with. Why overhaul your product unnecessarily if you're not being scrutinited for the majority of its functioning? There was no "Microsoft's operating system isn't easy to use" point in the legal proceedings, so what you're saying makes little or no sense IMO.

As for government regulation improving IT, I think in some cases it has helped (the formerly mandated opening of private phone networks to 3rd party providers for example), but most often it is the lighter hand that will have the best effect. The more government stays out of areas it clearly doesn't understand the better IMO. Companies working on significant innovation certainly don't need any burdensome government regulation mandating standards compliance or "easy access" or "fairness". Innovation is stifled by bureaucracy, plain and simple. Even when it's not government the influence of bureaucracy is still quite negative - just look at the progress rate of OpenGL vs. DirectX. :P

- Oshyan

Quote from: calico on October 11, 2007, 01:39:19 PM
Yes, I think the fact Microsoft had to be accountable to a number of States and the Federal government put them under the spotlight and clearly stated to them that they couldn't continue to crap on the consumer.  XP and 2003 came out of this, for sure, but the litigation against them had started during the time 2000 came out...and Active Directory.  I'm not a big fan of AD, liking instead Novell's brand, but that's another discussion.

Anyway, government regulation will be the only way IT gets straightened out <ducking the stones> and anyone in the IT industry knows it's a hodge-podge of stuff that does work some of the time or simply is piece of dung.  We wouldn't put up with the failure rate in automobiles in the same fashion we endure it from the IT world.  As a matter of fact, I believe the IT world has been largely responsible for the throw away society we have along with the lack of concern for quality work. 

Planetside is an exception to this.  Of course.   8)
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

efflux

I'm going to set up some accounts in XP to actually check all this out. I know how it works in Linux but have never really used it in XP. I only know what some people have told me as far as this multiuser thing is concerned.

Dark Fire

This is the first time I've checked back since I posted. I'm simply speechless at the number of long posts...

Clearly some people feel strongly about something, but I really can't be bothered to read every post so I suppose I'll never know what everyone is talking about...

I'd just like to point out that I've never had to change any settings in any version of Windows to stop automatic reboots, so if you suffer from a random automatic reboot it's probably your own fault.

Oshyan

I'd like to see a bigger test of the true validity of this security model *on the desktop and with the average user*, but I agree in principle it's better. I also agree I was very disappointed Vista wasn't a total overhaul, especially with how long it took. They had a real opportunity to force 64 bit (every shipping CPU is now 64 bit and the other Vista requirements are already so high it doesn't matter), to use some kind of legacy or even Virtual Machine system to handle old software in a secure sandbox (I believe MS even has a company in its fold that could handle this), to go for a database-driven underlying file system to handle metadata, searching, virtual file organization, and file relocation handling. Essentially they could have done what Apple did with OS X, except better. ;D

- Oshyan

efflux

You'd have to have been posting to make it worth reading these posts Dark Fire, otherwise it's not worth it.

All I can say is that if Microsoft thought through their OS UI as well as Planetside thought through how to make a landscape app UI then we'd have a better Windows.

Oshyan

Quote from: calico on October 11, 2007, 02:48:59 PM
The idea that bugs will always exist in software started with M$.
That is patently false and completely rediculous. Do you really believe that? ;) Bugs *will* always exist, except in the absolute simplest of code. There simply is no way to completely test every possible scenario, circumstance, hardware and software configuration, etc. and even if there were there isn't enough time in the day for even the largest group of coders to address all the problems found, at least not without going bankrupt. The only software development project I know of that even comes close to "zero bugs" is at NASA where they work on software for the shuttle and other space missions, and even there they still get bugs.

Quote from: calico on October 11, 2007, 02:48:59 PM
As far as M$ doing what they did in XP and 2003 without the government call to arms, I don't think we can prove it.  It's obvious that M$ won't admit to a wrong until someone with some authority, governmental or technical, shows to the world they are plain and simple asses.
And again I disagree and I think history would prove me correct. MS consistently improved, in some cases in very significant ways, from Windows 3.1 to Win95 and then 95 to 98 (less of a jump obviously) and then particulary from 98/ME to 2000 and then XP, all significant jumps, major improvements, all getting easier and more pleasant to work with and more feature-rich. ME is the big minus on their record, but otherwise things steadily improved, and ME was really just a latch ditch attempt to have a new OS out for sale that wasn't 2k that they wanted to sell to the Pro market - it was a bad decision, plain and simple. But given that history I really don't see how you can justify saying that improvements in XP were a result of litigation, in whole or even in part. If anything I would say that litigation simply distracted the development of XP from its real potential with having to faff around with what apps you can include and whatnot. Apple doesn't have to worry about that crap.

- Oshyan