Are you running Linux as your desktop?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 04:36:37PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> | 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).

Yeah lots of hardware doesn't have drivers for anything newer than XP,
even though the hardware was sold in the last couple of years.

> - 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.)

I would say you were wrong.  The chances half a change backported breaks
something is rather high.  It broke your machine after all.  They should
very much have fixed it.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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