Are you running Linux as your desktop?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Howard Gibson <hgibson-MwcKTmeKVNQ at public.gmane.org>

|    The guy is partially right.  Telnet _is_ a security hole, and you 
|    should not install it.  There is no need for it on a consumer's 
|    computer, and it should be offered on a designated user-friendly 
|    Linux distro.

I don't think any mainstream distro of this millenium installs or
suggests installing a telnet server.  I doubt the author asked to
install a telnet server, so he is most likely wrong about having the
telnet port open.

|    A major problem with Windows Vista is that lack of IE6 support.  So 
|    many companies out there have written online applications that 
|    require it.

The article wasn't about Vista.


The article was approximately true, just like most journalism.  Thus
quite misleading.  I was surprised that most of the reader comments
were reasonable -- not at all like to Globe and Mail online comments.


There are good reasons to use XP.  The ones that come to mind involve
reducing effort:

- the machine came with XP.  That eliminates any installation effort,
  even if a Linux install is easier than an XP install

- the vendor "owes" you Windows support (I've not had much luck at
  this).

- everyone has a circle of friends that can help them with Windows
  problems

- workplaces generally use XP so if you are taking work home, XP is
  likely to be the easiest platform for work brought home

- as the majority platform, there are a lot of other benefits from the
  network effect

Linux fans (like me) don't always add up the time we spend to do
things the better way.

(Example from today: RHEL 5 / CentOS 5 introduced a kernel bug a year
and a half ago that causes one of my boxes to fail to lower the CPU
speed when idle.  I'm the only one reporting the bug.  The kernel.org
kernels don't have this bug -- it's from a backport the RHEL of half a
change.  It isn't going to get fixed (note: RH was willing to fix it
but I suggested that the chances of breaking something outweighed the
inconvenience to me (I'm not even a customer)). So whenever there is a
CentOS kernel update, I have to build a fixed kernel and install it.
Today was such a day.)
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