![]() ![]() Does Lindows knows anything about the desktop? When Microsoft is hiding its C: and A:, Lindows copies it. Windows XP doesn’t force you to be the adminstrator. That just gives it one more thing to have in common with Windows XP. How can you put out and market a Linux distro for absolute beginners and give them absolutely nothing to go by? It’s beyond belief. And I cannot understand these incredible gaps and gaffs. You do get a manual from Microtel that is a geek manual about the motherboard – an ordinay user wouldn’t get past the first paragraph, seriously. ![]() It comes with absolutely no documentation, not even a little 20 page manual – nothing. And that is the biggest problem with Lindows right now (unless they’ve changed this). All it would take is a one page explanation of why there is the root account and regular user accounts. However, having used a distro like Lycoris a lot and trying to see it as a novice would, I don’t think the novice would have a real problem with not running in root. Obviously, Lindows is doing that to try and make it easier to use for the novice. To Joe User, the stuff people here do with Linux is in a whole other universe. However, people have to realize that, to an orinary user, to be able to get all the software you want (well, almost all you want) for $99 every two years really is a great deal, even if it is actually free software. It is not my favorite among those distros – Lycoris is the best, right now, I think. Anyway, Lindows is shakey because of its original claims, its controversial Click ‘n Run Warehouse, running in root, etc. ![]() (The Microtel, by the way, has laready been through hell and is holding up well). I bought a Microtel PC from Wal-Mart with Lindows on it and I’ve been using it to run it and some of the other Joe User distros like Lycoris, ELX, etc., to see what there is to see in these. Yes, Lindows has backed off on its claims of running Windows software under wine. This would be the time to target current XP users. However, at a later time, could release an update that uses the XP/OSX/Unix model of logging in as a ‘User’ with certain priv’s., etc. Users that have already spent the money for the XP upgrade or a new computer running XP, are probably NOT going to be interested in converting, at this point in time. I believe that wants to make it easier for Windows users to move to. So, your statement, “The ‘running as root’ thing is *the* key mistake made by Lindows”, is just your opinion, valid as it may be. I always back-up my data ( that which can’t be duplicated ) and run maintenance on my system every couple of months. In all the time I’ve used computers ( the last 21 years ), I’ve NEVER gotten a computer virus or lost files ( except through my own stupidity ). Until I upgraded to XP on my PC and bought an iMac G4 with OSX, ALL of my systems ran as “root”, using Previous versions of Windows and BeOS. However, running as root is not always needed. Anything that makes it more likely that I get more damn email worms in my mail deserves to be boycotted. I would go so far to say that it’s a reason to boycott Lindows. To do this just for a very very very minor usability advantage is extremely stupid and irresponsible. It’s this philosophy that has led to the destructive worms of the Windows world. A single malicious shell script (or binary, if you claim to read and understand carefully every script you run) can fuck up your entire system. Running as root all the time eliminates all these advantages. Furthermore, since the applications I run don’t have write access to the operating system itself, it’s very hard for them to hook into the startup for stuff like keylogging, spyware etc. The rest will still be there untouched - no need to reinstall the system or restore a backup. Now should I by accident execute malicious code (and you don’t have to be stupid to do that) or should the programs I run contain a security leak, I will at worst lose a few files. I move all other files into a directory I only have read access to. I have configured my system in such a way, for example, that in my day to day work, I only have write access to the files and documents I currently work with. The difference is, however, in the amount of damage a virus or worm can do. Linux in itself is *no* safer from viruses and trojan horses than Windows is. The “running as root” thing is *the* key mistake made by Lindows, and what makes it even worse is that it promotes the attitude that “running as root is OK if you’re on a single user machine”. ![]()
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