- Site menu:
- Latest Discussions
- Latest Newswire
- Archives
- Submit Story
- Story HOWTO
- Syndicate
- E-mail Alerts
Windows has 'fewer flaws' than Linux
|
|
|
Comments (27)
Absolutely, Microsoft rocks!!!
wow dino, that's the best scathe you've ever written. I am persuaded- I'm running out right now to get Vista and install it on all my PCs. Dumb old Linux anyway, what was I thinking.
>what was I thinking.
Sorry, TC, having problems....
Recently browsed copy of LJ, including ads. Didn't know women .... thought...or were people.
Will get back to you when brain cells unfreeze.
Sorry, TC, having problems....
Recently browsed copy of LJ, including ads. Didn't know women .... thought...or were people.
Will get back to you when brain cells unfreeze.
That made me laugh...
Quoting:Will get back to you when brain cells unfreeze...
Screw El-Gore, that's the best reason to stop global warming I heard as of yet.
A "study" in idiocy, maybe, but this has nothing to do with actual facts. If a standard RHEL or SLED installation comes with OpenOffice, video/audio/graphics editing programs, PDF viewers, scanner / photo management software, CD burning software, download managers, and Windows comes with almost none of that, then of course RHEL and SLED vulnerabilities are going to be greater. But it's obviously not fair to compare a zero-day patch in Vista to a few patches in, say, Kooka.
We should have a fully functional parody distro called Pasta and make many not so subtle stabs at Microsoft within it. You know, Genuine Advantage pokes, and things like 'for your convenience we have put a back door on your system so we can snoop' etc.
>We should have a fully functional parody distro called Pasta
Too late to the game, pal. Somebody's already done us one better. Not only have they done a complete Windows parody, they've snookered a bunch of people into actually using the thing.
It's called Vista.
Too late to the game, pal. Somebody's already done us one better. Not only have they done a complete Windows parody, they've snookered a bunch of people into actually using the thing.
It's called Vista.
Heh. Any numbers on how many suckers they have already?
>Heh. Any numbers on how many suckers they have already?
Don't know, but it's like deranged psychopathic killers: one is too many.
Don't know, but it's like deranged psychopathic killers: one is too many.
I have been thinking about this since I read the article and through the comments and have come to the conclusion that the title should be "Windows has 'fewer fixed flaws' than Linux. Since they didn't take into account the unfixed vulnerabilities, and even more important unfixed exploited vulnerabilities.
If nothing else it was good for a chuckle.
If nothing else it was good for a chuckle.
PC Magazine Editor Throws in the Towel on Vista :
Quoting:Take my media center PC, for example. It's supposed to serve up photos, videos, and music. Instead, it often simply drops off the network for absolutely no reason. Chip Van Winkle might be able to see it, but Compuccino can't.http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2171472,00.asp
Another complaint: With XP, wireless network connectivity out of sleep mode was virtually instantaneous. Now it can take up to 30 seconds to reconnect, even when my systems do wake up. That's in a trusted network, a trusted zone, and a trusted system. And why does it take so long for the dialog box to pop up after I right-click on the network tray icon? Vista has replaced XP's quick reaction time with molasses. I'm always wondering if something's wrong.
I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won't bore you with the details. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux.
> If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux.
The marketing terms here are "might" and "unthinkable". I believe the technical term for that is "damning with faint praise".
The marketing terms here are "might" and "unthinkable". I believe the technical term for that is "damning with faint praise".
Quoting: "damning with faint praise".
Yeah, as if to say "Even Linux is better than this crap." Hardly a ringing endorsement...but progress is progress.
How about addressing some root flaws?
Jeez, fewer security flaws - how about addressing some of the basic flaws in Windows. For the last 10 months, I have developed under Windows (XP, to be precise) for the first time in my life. That's right, I made it to 2007 without ever seriously using Windows.
Windows has some really basic flaws that have contributed to its crappy security record, and indeed to its crappy software:
1. XP doesn't seem to really be happy with multiple users. This leads to goofiness like "Remote Desktop Protocol", I believe. Feh. 2. Drive letters, or more accurately, user-visible disk volume mount points. This leads to crap like "My Computer" - a hack to overcome some earlier sloppiness. 3. Carriage-return/linefeed line-ending tokens. Again, a hack to overcome sloppy coding (no TTY driver, I guess) which just leads to endless ramifications when communicating. 4. Lack of a window manager as a separate process, leading to locked-up windows, and windows that can't move around, etc. 5. Crappy process model that doesn't include a way to get the OS kernel to kill a process. This "every process has an event queue" thing really causes a lot of problems down the road. 6. Lack of fork/exec in favor of multiple versions of "spawn" or "SYS$CREATE" or "NtCreateProcess" or whatever. Since processes don't have a parent/child relationship, this creates problems of non-responding processes, etc etc etc. 7. Opening a file locks it by default. This is exactly opposite the approach that Unix took way back when, and it CLEARLY causes more problems than it's worth, as it seems that this locking is what causes the need for multiple reboot to upgrade anything.
Oh, wait, if you changed any of these it would no longer be Windows. Sorry to waste your time.
Windows has some really basic flaws that have contributed to its crappy security record, and indeed to its crappy software:
1. XP doesn't seem to really be happy with multiple users. This leads to goofiness like "Remote Desktop Protocol", I believe. Feh. 2. Drive letters, or more accurately, user-visible disk volume mount points. This leads to crap like "My Computer" - a hack to overcome some earlier sloppiness. 3. Carriage-return/linefeed line-ending tokens. Again, a hack to overcome sloppy coding (no TTY driver, I guess) which just leads to endless ramifications when communicating. 4. Lack of a window manager as a separate process, leading to locked-up windows, and windows that can't move around, etc. 5. Crappy process model that doesn't include a way to get the OS kernel to kill a process. This "every process has an event queue" thing really causes a lot of problems down the road. 6. Lack of fork/exec in favor of multiple versions of "spawn" or "SYS$CREATE" or "NtCreateProcess" or whatever. Since processes don't have a parent/child relationship, this creates problems of non-responding processes, etc etc etc. 7. Opening a file locks it by default. This is exactly opposite the approach that Unix took way back when, and it CLEARLY causes more problems than it's worth, as it seems that this locking is what causes the need for multiple reboot to upgrade anything.
Oh, wait, if you changed any of these it would no longer be Windows. Sorry to waste your time.
Yep that's Windows, the platform I'm forced to develop on.
Add to that list.
Crappy memory management, which causes a 2 Gig of RAM 3.2GHz machine to have the performance of a p3 350 by the end of the day, actually sooner if you happen to have a lot of applications open at the same time.
Add to that list.
Crappy memory management, which causes a 2 Gig of RAM 3.2GHz machine to have the performance of a p3 350 by the end of the day, actually sooner if you happen to have a lot of applications open at the same time.
Please, go on, like this thread! What about a lack of a trusted software repository, which is why they install such loads of crapware? Or not having editable config files?
> What about a lack of a trusted software repository...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads and http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ :)
> Or not having editable config files?
The registry is editable. That's what regedit is for. :) Or are you going to complain about vipw and vigr too?
Yes, I know those are poor replacements for the real thing, but they do fit the definitions. You'll have to do better than that.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads and http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ :)
> Or not having editable config files?
The registry is editable. That's what regedit is for. :) Or are you going to complain about vipw and vigr too?
Yes, I know those are poor replacements for the real thing, but they do fit the definitions. You'll have to do better than that.
jdixon, except how much can you trust IE to know if it's visiting a genuine or spoofed URL? Hahaha, not at all!
Calling Regedit a poor tool is such a masterpiece of understatement. :)
Calling Regedit a poor tool is such a masterpiece of understatement. :)
Jeez, I completely forgot to complain bitterly about the 70s-style paging algorithm. The first edition of "Inside Windows NT" seemed to describe something akin to Mach 2.5's paging with the admixture of per-process page frames. Thanks for reminding me.
And the registry does suck pretty badly.
I mean, I read most of Peter Szor's anti-virus book a few years ago, and I could barely believe the baroqueness of the operating system he described. After having used it for a while, I now believe. I have no mouth and I must scream.
And the registry does suck pretty badly.
I mean, I read most of Peter Szor's anti-virus book a few years ago, and I could barely believe the baroqueness of the operating system he described. After having used it for a while, I now believe. I have no mouth and I must scream.
>I have no mouth and I must scream.
Is that like having an itch when your arms are in a cast?
Or having to work with more than 1 or 2 things on a Windows box?
Is that like having an itch when your arms are in a cast?
Or having to work with more than 1 or 2 things on a Windows box?
> ...except how much can you trust IE to know if it's visiting a genuine or spoofed URL?
TC, Firefox seems to work fine with Microsoft's download site. They'll even graciously allow you to run the genuine Windows verification tool using it. :)
I'll admit that they don't support firefox on their update site (there are ways around that, windizupdate for example, but they're kludges), so you're pretty much stuck with IE there.
> Calling Regedit a poor tool is such a masterpiece of understatement. :)
I'll grant that.
However, my point still stands that complaints about Windows flaws need to be genuine ones. Use easily refuted claims will not get us anywhere.
TC, Firefox seems to work fine with Microsoft's download site. They'll even graciously allow you to run the genuine Windows verification tool using it. :)
I'll admit that they don't support firefox on their update site (there are ways around that, windizupdate for example, but they're kludges), so you're pretty much stuck with IE there.
> Calling Regedit a poor tool is such a masterpiece of understatement. :)
I'll grant that.
However, my point still stands that complaints about Windows flaws need to be genuine ones. Use easily refuted claims will not get us anywhere.
Points to phsolide for an awesome literary reference :)
Windows vs Linux Study, funded by MS
Oh please!
Soon there will be another study funded by MS or its partners which compares Windows XP/Vista to SLED/RHEL/other in benchmark performance. Naturally, the company running the benchmark tests will make sure to tweak its report so that Windows comes out just ahead of Linux every time!
It really gets tiring to hear that scratched CD play the same rift over-and-over again.
:eyes roll:
And of course they didn't bother to mention the severity of the flaws being patched.
There's a big difference between a flaw that leaves your comp open to root access and a flaw that might make your browser crash.
And I think we can be pretty sure which type most of the windows patches addressed...
And I think we can be pretty sure which type most of the windows patches addressed...
Yup, the ones you wouldnt notice even if you knew they were there. The BIG holes are saved up to be patched in the SPs.
Quoting:Naturally, the company running the benchmark tests will make sure to tweak its report so that Windows comes out just ahead of Linux every time!
Well, that's demanded by Vista (or was it MS Office?) EULA: In case of benchmarks, Microsoft may optimize it's products, and has to approve the benchmark before being publicized (or something along that lines). Really, not kidding here!
Post a comment
A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.
Your message:Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help
Sign up and post (it is free) or Log in and post
>Applications not installed by default, such as Microsoft Office, were not counted.
Of course not. Gosh, if you choose to put software on your machine, you should be saddled with the risk. If Red Hat puts out a fully usable system instead of a naked little platform, that's really their stupid choice, isn't it?
>Jones's enterprise figures painted a similar picture, showing fewer than 40 fixes for Windows Server 2003, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Server had more than 100 vulnerabilities patched and Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise server had roughly 70.
Man!! Can't believe those Linux guys are so busy fixing problems. The key is to fix only those things you can't get away with ignoring, or to sneak 3 fixes in on one patch.
>The report also does not mention vulnerabilities that were or are currently being actively exploited, an area where Microsoft continues to be far more prone than its competitors.
Which is yet another reason not to fix any more problems than you absolutely have to.
Microsoft proves once again, that they are smarter than those Linux vendors.
Take that, penguin people.