Re: [ossig] Linux too much like Windows :)

[Seah Hong Yee <hongyee@polyscientific.com.my>]

From a regular user point of view. Like of Lycoris and Mandrake or red 
hat certainly is rather user friendly. However, It is my opinion, the 
user friendliness of things has taken away quite of few things 
specifically related to security and issues and system admin point of 
view.  This I believe is the same problem.

For example, for years mandrake been shipping with a few choices of 
security option and  has a secure kernel available to you if you want 
to use it. Few people actually uses it and those of uses it complain it 
is rather difficult to use.  The same thing is going on with all redhat 
and others. With all these ease of use concept going on. Few realize 
that there's more can be done under the hood and the default option is 
the most secure of all.

Sometimes a gui is less of a blessing than it seems. For a seasoned 
user, you can probably fire up an xterm and start typing in your 
favourite editor. Just a few examples. Mandrake 9.0 ship with 
shorewall, and the firewall gui admnistration tools they provided is 
rudimentary at best. The same thing can be said about the gtk fronted 
version of nmap and various front end administrative tools related to 
linux.  There's just too little you can do with it.

I am not trying to sound like an old dude who been using cli for too 
long to appreciate gui. What I really want to say is, at this stage of 
linux development, it is best for someone to know a little about the 
basics of linux functionality. At least for those who manages a network.

Besides,  even windows out of the box has quite a bit of a problem. 
Anyone knows that you can properly lock down and secure and secure your 
windows 2000. What is takes away is however, some ease of 
administration.  Too many sys admin just use the easiest configurations 
and don't want to deal with all the problems associated with security 
and ease of use trade off. As linux become easier to use, this may 
become a problem. I just hope linux vendor do not take the ease of use 
extreme to that level. If that happens,  we will start hearing things 
like "linux is less secure than windows".




On Monday, December 30, 2002, at 10:13 AM, Hoh, Sunny wrote:

> I have tried in version 9.0 mandrake have still kept to the standard
> linux interface. I have yet to see any adopt Bluecurve.
>
> It's just that mandrake has clean up and smplifyed alot of the
> configuration stuff like samba and printer setup. So for a windows user
> moving to linux do get shell shock.
>
> Cos the point here is that we all want more and more people to use 
> linux
>
> If you look at the walmart site they are selling white bos bundling 
> with
> lycrois, as you mention it is very much windows like. BUT it is still a
> version of caldera undernearth !!
>
>
>
>
>
> > I personally haven't tried Mandrake 9, but if Mandrake keeps on
> > "copying" RedHat, they'd also like to follow on with BlueCurve and it
> > will become more "Windows" like. RedHat is still Linux like, take no
> > mistake in my mentioning that the GUI by default looked Windows-ish.
> >
> > Lycoris on the other hand, now that is very Windows like. Its scarily
> > similar, even with a registry, etc... At least most of RedHat is
> > still rooted with the other Linux'es, with some minor changes here
> > and there.
> >
> > Window managers are always there, and the choice with OSS stuff means
> > that users always have a choice and are never locked into one thing.
> > Thats what the great fight is about now - choice. Go an argue that
> > Windows (2000/XP) is not as stable as your run-off-the-mill Linux
> > install, and I would think it was a lie. Its the choice of apps
> > available on Linux, the variety, the free-ness (end-users don't care,
> > they buy rm5 copies anyways). But this is another argument
> > altogether, not related to the topic.
> >
> > > 	Linux is about choice, I am sure Redhat et al try to imitate windows
> > > and OS X to ease the switching experience. But quite frankly, as a
> > > seasoned user, you don't really have to use it if you don't want to.
> > Yup. The switchdesk application will help you change Window managers.
> > --
> > Colin Charles, byte@aeon.com.my
> > http://www.bytebot.net/
> >
> >
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