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Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate

Price: 250$

Buggy. Inevitably will be clogged down with viruses and spyware because of lax security. Just recently became 64-bit. Whenever a program crashes, it takes down the system. Usually it crashes before it boots. Extra programs will cost you; for instance, you'll need about 100 just to get Office.

http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/details.aspx?view=info&itemid=3268636


Linux

Price: Free

Was 64-bit in 1980. Invulnerable to viruses and spyware. Greatest security out of any consumer operating system, except perhaps OSX. Programs may crash, but they can be easily closed out of, and won't take down the system. With Wine, it can now even run Windows programs out of the box. Comes with all the applications you'll need to do all of your work out of the box for free.

http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

(Ubuntu linux is supported by a south African billionaire who will be kind enough to ship you a CD with Ubuntu on it free of charge).



Which is better?

91.5% of Americans choose the first.
 
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If you do get Linux and start using it make sure you get Clam AV or AVAST to protect you from the viruses written for Linux.

You will find if it gets more popular that there will be far more of them, and more choices for virus scans as well. That there are so few is a sign that it is unpopular not that it is "invulnerable".
 
U R a cunt. Stop the nitpickery. You can't get a virus under linux unless you specifically give the virus permission to delete everything in your hard drive. Not so with XP. XP has a braindead security design.
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/


Opinion To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it, writes SecurityFocus columnist Scott Granneman.

We've all heard it many times when a new Microsoft virus comes out. In fact, I've heard it a couple of times this week already. Someone on a mailing list or discussion forum complains about the latest in a long line of Microsoft email viruses or worms and recommends others consider Mac OS X or Linux as a somewhat safer computing platform. In response, another person named, oh, let's call him "Bill," says, basically, "How ridiculous! The only reason Microsoft software is the target of so many viruses is because it is so widely used! Why, if Linux or Mac OS X was as popular as Windows, there would be just as many viruses written for those platforms!"

Of course, it's not just "regular folks" on mailing lists who share this opinion. Businesspeople have expressed similar attitudes ... including ones who work for anti-virus companies. Jack Clarke, European product manager at McAfee, said, "So we will be seeing more Linux viruses as the OS becomes more common and popular."

Mr. Clarke is wrong.

Sure, there are Linux viruses. But let's compare the numbers. According to Dr. Nic Peeling and Dr Julian Satchell's Analysis of the Impact of Open Source Software (note: the link is to a 135 kb PDF file):

"There are about 60,000 viruses known for Windows, 40 or so for the Macintosh, about 5 for commercial Unix versions, and perhaps 40 for Linux. Most of the Windows viruses are not important, but many hundreds have caused widespread damage. Two or three of the Macintosh viruses were widespread enough to be of importance. None of the Unix or Linux viruses became widespread - most were confined to the laboratory."
 
I've been using various LInux distros for a few years. I started off with Fedora Core 3 and worked up each time it was upgraded. Fedora Core is an excellent distro.

I tried Slackware, I realised I'm too stupid to use it.

I tried Gentoo but it did a computer iq check on me and pronounced me too stupid to use it.

I'm now using Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon and I'm as happy as a sandboy. Everything is free, as in free beer. Everything works. Yes, I've had to learn a few things and yes I've had a swearing fest at it a few times, but I would never go back to Windows on my number one machine (I do have XP Pro on my second machine which I use because Skype and Gizmo Project do work better on XP).

I have ClamAV. Yes, it's true, you have protection through permissions restrictions on every single file in Ubuntu (and other Linux distros) and that's why Ubuntu cautions you to create a user account for yourself and not to log in as root but if you need to emulate root then you can use the sudo command to do so.
 
Damocles said:
WM, my point was, as Linux grows more widespread so will the viruses have more impact.
Click to expand...

Of course they will. But they'll never be as bad as they were on Windows. Even Vista now still ain't that safe.

Ah, I said invulnerable didn't I? Well, I didn't mean that in a literal sense. I meant that if any of you get Linux, within the next decade your not going to catch on of the 15 or so viruses floating around for the operating system unless you try very, very hard.
 
Watermark said:
Of course they will. But they'll never be as bad as they were on Windows. Even Vista now still ain't that safe.

Ah, I said invulnerable didn't I? Well, I didn't mean that in a literal sense. I meant that if any of you get Linux, within the next decade your not going to catch on of the 15 or so viruses floating around for the operating system unless you try very, very hard.
Click to expand...
Unless you are very successful convincing people, then more viruses will be there and they will be more effective.

People don't make viruses for the 1% share, they make it for the 90%.
 
Diuretic said:
I've been using various LInux distros for a few years. I started off with Fedora Core 3 and worked up each time it was upgraded. Fedora Core is an excellent distro.

I tried Slackware, I realised I'm too stupid to use it.

I tried Gentoo but it did a computer iq check on me and pronounced me too stupid to use it.

I'm now using Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon and I'm as happy as a sandboy. Everything is free, as in free beer. Everything works. Yes, I've had to learn a few things and yes I've had a swearing fest at it a few times, but I would never go back to Windows on my number one machine (I do have XP Pro on my second machine which I use because Skype and Gizmo Project do work better on XP).

I have ClamAV. Yes, it's true, you have protection through permissions restrictions on every single file in Ubuntu (and other Linux distros) and that's why Ubuntu cautions you to create a user account for yourself and not to log in as root but if you need to emulate root then you can use the sudo command to do so.
Click to expand...

I'm using Fedora 8 on this Laptop, and Xubuntu on my older system (Xubuntu is just Ubuntu which has been reengineered with much lower system requirements). Usually I don't even have to switch over to Windows to game - WoW works fine on my other computer with Wine, faster than Windows actually (go figure). It took me literally five hours to get my wireless card working, and it's going to take me that long again to figure out why I can't ever seem to install stuff from source code successfully...
 
Damocles said:
Unless you are very successful convincing people, then more viruses will be there and they will be more effective.

People don't make viruses for the 1% share, they make it for the 90%.
Click to expand...

You're doing it again. You're acting like there's an equivalency. There's not. Linux is made up of a bunch of techies who could easily write viruses, yet none of them ever spread. Linux is safer at it's weakest than Windows will ever be.
 
People don't write viruses for the 90%, they write viruses for whatever they're using at the time. And Linux is much more widespread amongst people with enough know how to write a virus.
 
Watermark said:
You're doing it again. You're acting like there's an equivalency. There's not. Linux is made up of a bunch of techies who could easily write viruses, yet none of them ever spread. Linux is safer at it's weakest than Windows will ever be.
Click to expand...
What you are doing is underestimating the creativity of the hacker. While the attacks would have to be different, they are possible and if it were widespread enough to wreak havoc the hackers would definitely get busy proving their prowess.
 
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