The "let's bash Windows" thread

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Originally Posted by Raistlin

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Anyway, yeah, Windows if full of vulnerabilities. They have been exposed because it runs on 90% of machines in the world (or something like that). Thus, if someone is gonna make a virus, they probably want to target it at 90% of the world instead of 10%. Perhaps is Linux or OS 10 was on 90% of machines we'd see more vulnerabilities.

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Not necessarily, from what little I know. If you have 10 people using Windows XP, the same Windows XP virus will probably work on all of them. If you have 10 people using Linux, will the same virus work on all of them? I don't know exactly how it works, but I do know that Linux is not as standardized as Windows.

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Yeah, that's true. But businesses are pretty much always the targets, and I can't ever see there being more than a few types of Linux that are used by the vast majority of businesses even if Linux were what the chose to use. So it'd just be another challenge for those who make viruses - I'd be confident that flaws would be found to target whatever business a hacker wants to target.

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Also, Daniel: I think the main reason big businesses use Microsoft is because Microsoft has the economic power to force it to. If businesses want to use X software made by Y company which is paid off by Microsoft to design software so that it's only useable on Windows, then the businesses need to use Windows.

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They more often than not designed it themselves (or employed consultants) to design the software in the mid-90's so that it worked with Windows 95. The stuff I have could probably work on 3.11, too, but I'm not sure. Either way, businesses being reluctant to rewrite their software is still one of the massive reasons that they are unwilling to change (along with the tech support and the fact that if they didn't pay for something then they wouldn't have any kind of place to fall back on). There's also the fact that any Joe Average can train to be a customer engineer, but you try finding enough techies on low wages that are willing to actively support a 10,000+ employee company with Linux. It'll never happen.

Economic power is great and all, but the fact remains that there is more to it than that. There is the greater tech support, the more solid/stable contract (Linux is free and therefore has no contract, as far as I know), the greater number of engineers qualified to operate on it, the greater number of users who are familiar with it, the greater number of company-specific programs designed around it, etc. The cost of moving away from Microsoft, with regards to training users, designing/rewriting software, lack of familiarity, so many other things... it's just not worth it at the moment. Not because Microsoft has money, but because large businesses simply aren't able to get it done. It would be like asking Americans to learn the metric system. Just because it makes sense doesn't mean everyone understands it.

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

It is true that they are shadey and there is political underdogging, I'll give you that. But I stand by what I said as I work in the business of providing support to other large businesses and what I stated is pretty well known around here.

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I will not dispute what you say, I was mearly pointing out that they did no get to the top cleanly. Why do they support 90% of desktops with more ease than other common place OS? Because they enforce their monopoly which was hardly earned, outside of suffering from right place at the right time syndrome.

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I'm not talking about Adobe Acrobat or even random stuff you can download from the internet. I'm talking about company-specific software. That is, software that is built and designed for a company. For example, you wouldn't really know what SAX/CCSRV01 or SANDB601 is because these are programs that are designed for use within Computacenter.

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I deal with this all the time. Companies do not like the way that microsoft changes standards and phases out legecy so quickly. I am a software engineer, whom does a bit of linux to windows and window to linux consignment. Company specific software should be portable, if the company wishes to express any flexability. common sense.

Most all coding I do will be cross platform, as when external standards are obeyed, the [my] world becomes that much easier.

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Likewise when at Royal Bank of Scotland they had their own systems and so do many other companies, particularly the large and/or wealthy ones (banks, lawyer firms, oil companies, governments). People aren't aware of the programs they use unless they work for those companies. The thing about such programs is that companies are incredibly unwilling to write new programs from scratch and many only do operate with Windows. Does Microsoft care about making an operating system that is compatible with the Royal Bank or Computacenter's systems? Yes, considering the worth of these companies in the industry. Of course they do. Royal Bank is the 7th largest bank in the world and Computacenter is a leader in European IT with massive influence on many other large and/or wealthy companies as mentioned before. Microsoft has been successful in assuring companies that they can continue to upgrade their MS Windows operating systems without having to rewrite their programs - something they would have to do if they were to move to Linux.

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Smart buisness, and fairly clean. I am sure it goes deeper, and banking on another third party company exposes puts the contractee under the third party's arm. If windows were to dissapear - screwed. Not saying that would happen, but it is an extremley superficial representation of why it is simply smarter for people to make portible code. I fault the banks for going through a one dimensional contractor if this is the case.

Comapnies NEED to maintain flexability to be able to move as their industry/company shifts.

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That is also a large impact, the tech support etc, yes. But even if Linux had an easy to implement system with a large tech support (which they would have to pay for, regardless of using Linux, I'm sure we're all aware of this), the other companies for the most part would still need to rewrite their company-specific programs and that kind of thing takes years to perfect. Trust me - I've been waiting for an upgraded version of the company-specific software they use over here for some time. The programs I regularly use - SAX & 601 - are incredibly dated. They started working on something to replace them at least two years ago. Probably longer. But then again, the scale of the program which will replace them is supposedly going to be incredible so I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

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Linux tech support would be interesting, as it would not centralise around a single corp. I realise it would not be free, and would prolly cost more up front, the cost would deminish over time. I would also say that the licensing costs (etc) would be a big save in the end.

The custom programs that these companies bought, are crap. As I said up top, portable code that obeys externally driven standards. Windows using its age and power to enforce its own trademarked standards should actually be a turn off for these companies. They are litterally being hearded. I see the same with Visa and several other antti-trust companies. It is a pathetic state of buisness affairs.

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EDIT: Having said all that, unless you use your home PC for said company specific software, I do think that if you know how to use Linux and you don't use programs and/or video games that require Windows in order to run then you should probably use Linux at home. But having said that, I'm not currently eager to install or learn how to use Linux until I have a completely seperate box. I've only ever had to reinstall Windows once - when my hard drive failed.

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Linux is still betta :cool:

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It would be like asking Americans to learn the metric system. Just because it makes sense doesn't mean everyone understands it.

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<3 I wish we would use the metric system, and I wish other people would drive on the right (read : correct - read: left) side of their vehicles. Compramise! :) This one saying makes your entire stance stand out crystal clear! I do agree with what you say, but it has no bearing on windows being a good/bad operating system. It still remains evil.

Bipper

Like I said, a lot of these companies designed their programs in '95. Linux wasn't exactly a proven performer at that point. Reluctance to change their program is the main thing holding all companies back - along with the time it takes to change. Maybe this new software that my company is coming up with to replace the old stuff I use right now will be multiplatform, but even then there are all those other things I mentioned in my post replying to Raistlin. It's not Microsoft paying these customers to buy their stuff. They just buy it because they don't want something else. If they had the time and money to invest in something else, they probably are already doing so... but right now I've just not seen Linux prove itself at the big business level. I wonder what the largest company to use Linux as it's primary OS is? Would be interesting to find out, particularly if they are an old business that actually had the guts to migrate rather than a new business that started up when Linux was a known possibility (although I'd be surprised if any business has started up in that short time and made it that big... maybe Google).

Talk about Clash of the Titans...

I have Windows XP Pro... but thats just cause I don't care to change my comp, its pretty old. Soon Im gonna run Blackbox instead of Explorer though, just because Explorer is the truly worthless system that Windows runs.

Besides, I used to have Windows ME on my comp. And nothing can ever be worse than that.

As for Browsers, I use a mix between Firefox and Avant. Avant is run off of the same system as IE, but much safer. It's basically Firefox for people who are still too used to IE.

I'd like to buy 2 new comps eventually though, one being a Mac and one being another Windows, but thouroughly modified.

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

Like I said, a lot of these companies designed their programs in '95. Linux wasn't exactly a proven performer at that point.

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UNIX was, and other standards were out as well. Windows had the song and dance, and the trap to capture the buisness world in thier scheme.

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Reluctance to change their program is the main thing holding all companies back - along with the time it takes to change. Maybe this new software that my company is coming up with to replace the old stuff I use right now will be multiplatform, but even then there are all those other things I mentioned in my post replying to Raistlin. It's not Microsoft paying these customers to buy their stuff. They just buy it because they don't want something else. If they had the time and money to invest in something else, they probably are already doing so... but right now I've just not seen Linux prove itself at the big business level. I wonder what the largest company to use Linux as it's primary OS is?

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Actually a lot(or a handful in the grand scheme of things) of companies have migrated a long while ago. Fingerhut, Godaddy, I think amazon. I think many of the old, larger buisness use mainframes such as AS/400 (etc) Linux's superior architecture makes this single OS a valid canidate for replacing many, many mainframe styles.

Funny thing is, some of these companies started to migrate to OS/2 a number of years back. Everything was swell, untill microsoft started to stomp and kick. They stepped back, and anted up with thier dirty Joe Peche baseball bat and started swinging away, all with the grand old endorcement of our(us) government. (Damn the judicial branch) Microsoft's weapon against OS/2 was starving it for software by threatening developers with denial of information essential to get around Windows bugs and "features". This was extremely effective, eliminating all major software developers, but will have little effect on Linux. There just aren't any major Windows software developers left, and most Linux developers simply aren't interested in Windows.


Bipper

I got a CD for Linux Ubuntu right here. I'm just not sure if I wanna switch this for Windows since Windows can handle games and Linux can't without certain shells and emulators. I'd GLADY switch over to Linux if it saves my computer from hari-kari and can let me play games like PSO and Guild Wars without alot of effort.

I've always used Windows and I've never had a problem with it. I use XP now. Only thing I don't like is that I can't make it pretty how I'd like to - like changing the taskbar and other minute stuff that only I would care about. :(

I use Firefox though because I always get errors on Internet Explorer. Firefox doesn't show some types of layouts though, which is irritating because then I have to open up Internet Explorer just to view the site properly. :grinpink:

What Windows is Linux?

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Originally Posted by Jess

I've always used Windows and I've never had a problem with it. I used XP now. Only thing I don't like is that I can't make it pretty how I'd like to - like changing the taskbar and other minute stuff that only I would care about. :(

I use Firefox though because I always get errors on Internet Explorer. Firefox doesn't show some types of layouts though, which is irritating because then I have to open up Internet Explorer just to view the site properly. :grinpink:

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THis is because people suck at webpages. Firefox follows w3c standards which is the most respected web standards. This basically sets up rules to follow when designing HTML/XHTML/DHTML/XML(etc) pages. Microsoft, being the asshat that it is, refuses to follow said standards, until late. They have gotten a bit better, but they clumsily follow the standard, not really caring or putting forth a lot of effort.

This is actually very synominous with how big dumb treats the rest of the IT market.

bipper

Oh, here I was thinking we'd be smashing glass. :(Oh well.

Nothing pleases me more than debates of operating system superiority.

My next computer's going to be a Mac. I swear. The same way I swore before I bought my last two computers. :mad:

As for Firefox, the larger incentive behind people downloading it seems to be more of a "F u Bill Gaets :mad2: " statement than anything else. In spite of all the Windows suckitude, I'll stick with Internet Explorer.

Lol, IE sucks. Its in secure, and a heap. Firefox has gone down hill, but its got a few miles of slow rolling to do before it passes up IE. Besides, have faith in OpenSource - we always pull through.

Bipper

To Bob:

My college I am attending as well as the IT teacher there has been using Linux servers since the 80's. Though the college also uses Novell on top of it.

now why linux is better:

With open source you have the power to do as you wish. You have a problem with it? Well you don't have to wait for microsoft to decide that it is a problem. You simply pull out the source, recompile it how you need and *viola* instantly fixed. A centralized tech support would be interesting to see, afterall each and every system would be different in how it was built; so centralized tech may have issues.

The real reason why virus/hacks would have a tough time targeting linux is, at least if everyone follows my teacher's advice, everyone would compile thier own kernel to work just for thier company. That means each company would have it's own unique operating system with different vulnerbilities. Plus even though vulnerbilities would still be exposed you can fix them alot faster with linux. You just recompile in such a way that it is immune to the vulnerbility. Or write a program to block the vulnerbility if you would rather do it that way.