I was not really astonished to read this article about people who throw out their computers rather than keep cleaning spyware, virii and worms off their systems. Wow, come to think of it… how much time did I spend doing that in the last year?
Zero.
I feel honest pity and sadness for people so afflicted. I use a far better alternative which protects my data, my family, and my sanity.
You sir, I do believe, are an elitist, but then this is a well-established verity.
:-p
Here’s a serious question for you: do you believe Fedora is a better solution security-wise, because:
A) It has inherently better security features.
B) “Security through obscurity”, that is, not enough people are users to make it an attractive target.
C) Nothing less than overwhelming hubris.
I had a great reply for you prepared, but my browser had a fight with a mistake I made in PHP and lost. (Before you send a snarky reply, it was *not* a Linux specific problem!) 😉 I’ll try and resurrect it later when I have time. Rest assured the answer ends up being (D) all of the above, more or less.
P.S. Did you notice this reply comes before your previous comment? Didn’t know I could time travel, did you?
I’m a fairly new (6 weeks) Ubuntu user. It’s great. I usually only need to boot into Windows about once every 2 weeks. Usually to do something on a linguistics program which doesn’t exist for Linux.
I’m no geek (just a geek in the making), so there’s a pretty steep learning curve in it for me. When we’re back in the States I’m going to try to get into a Linux class. But the forums are great, so even I can tinker a little bit.
P.S. I tried Fedora a year ago (Fedora Core 2) but it was too hard for me. Maybe now that I’ve gotten used to Linux a bit more, I could handle it. Any recommendations for a review site, comparing the different Linux distros?
The newest version, Fedora Core 4, is really great, and has fixed a couple problems prevalent in the previous versions. For example, there is a HUGE (and growing) new repository of software called Fedora Extras. You can now use it “out of the box” in FC4.
I can’t really recommend a review site, only because most of them that I’ve seen are run by people who fancy themselves Linux experts but really aren’t. You usually end up with a recommendation based on the personal preferences of the review author, rather than on a good objective test matrix. So it comes down to what you like.
The bottom line is that Linux is Linux, so differences between distros generally come down to a few, mostly superficial, factors:
1. How many other people use it, and how easy is it to get help in the official forums for the distro? (For FC, I’d say quite a few; the same is true of Ubuntu.)
2. How often is it updated, and how does that match up with your desire to try new versions? (For FC, it’s every 6 months, although the FC5 release cycle is jacked up to 9 months to give us time to do some infrastructure upgrades without cutting into the time spent on the code — or vice versa.)
3. Is the installer easy to run?
If the answers for any specific distro fall into your “comfort zone,” I’d say you won’t regret using it. I used Red Hat Linux for years before Fedora Core took over its spot in the Linux universe, and I’ve been happy with every new release. I’m using FC4 now at home and work, and finding it really great. Eleya uses it too, and thanks me regularly for the fact that she doesn’t have to worry about wasting her time on malware cleaning; instead, she can just get her tasks done.
Whatever you use, have fun!