OT: New Virus?

[Xrati]

Don't you find it funny that someone would waste their time writing a new virus for Win2000? AND Microsoft has a patch fix within a few hours? Do they think that we're all crazy and think that they're saving us all with the policy of waiting for someone to exploit a flaw in their programs and conveniently have a fix ready!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

This is what happens when you have ONE company (a monopoly) being the only one with an operating system. I live for the day someone comes up with a replacement to Microsoft Crap!!! /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif

Just Venting!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif Sorry, but I do feel better now!

[El_Phil]

Well they found the bug last week and issued a fix for it. So roll on a week and somebody's written a virus for it, but, no-one has applied the fix. So it spreads.

Given that Win2K is used by ~50% of corporate desktops that's a hell of alot of computers for a virus to infect.

[Arkcon]

The real funny thing is that it the infection caused a real problem at CNN and the NY Times. Some pundits (wags, bloggers, whatever) are claiming that the notoriety this worm has gotten is entirely due to specific attention it was given by these new sources. When all they needed was decent practices to defend themselves.

[EDIT} I spel beter after my mourning coffe

[Thermodyne]

MS was told of the hole and had it pached before the worm was writen. The wormers [sic] prolly used the tech info about the patch to write the worms.

Any Network that is using good update managment was not hit by this one. Any network that was hit, needs to hand out some pink slips and hire some better network people.

[Thermodyne]

El_Phil said:
Well they found the bug last week and issued a fix for it. So roll on a week and somebody's written a virus for it, but, no-one has applied the fix. So it spreads.

Given that Win2K is used by ~50% of corporate desktops that's a hell of alot of computers for a virus to infect.



The worm will work against 2K and pre SP2 XP systems. It will also hit XP sp2 systems that have had the COM updates removed.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

They can't fix everything. Windows is huge - How do you expect them to know about all the holes?

[Starhawk]

Don't you find it suspicious rather then funny that microsoft suddenly has a fix for some of these "new viruses" within a week or less of it's "catastrophic" entry into the Public media and forum?

I wonder sometimes if Microsoft creates these viruses to test out their own security systems and to charge you more when you have to by new Anti-Virus software.

(Yeah I'm a paranoid bastard but its only because they're out to get me)

[Fyron]

The fix was available _BEFORE_ any viruses were written. The worm was was written several days _AFTER_ the security fix was released.

[Xrati]

I still think it is suspicious! I think the new logo for Microsoft should be:

"MICROSOFT, the virus friendly operating system." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

I'm really feeling much better about this now!

[Atrocities]

I tell you what, if you hate Microsoft so much, why don't you, being the visionary that you are, go out with three of your best friends of like mindedness and start your own company. Steal technology from other companies, aquire ideas from companies that you end up working for, and bid on producing software for which you do not own, yet, and then go out and buy the idea from a real programer for a token fee that boils down to less than 1% of the over all profits you get for licensing it to IBM. Then with the capitol you have, begin buying up, or stealing, new technology and methods while claiming to own everything else from Bionary to Basic. In the end, after you have personally become the richest man in the history of the world, get laid for the first time, at 40, build a billion dollar house on your own person island, having bought out everyone else, and go to events around the world asking if anyone can break a million dollar bill. (The one with your face on it.)

[Thermodyne]

You forgot the first step....have a $1000000.00 trust fund to fall back on. Second step would be a mother on the board of the largest computer company at the time.

[Richard]

Actually this worm hit a lot of large corporate sites, but they will never let you know due to the PR hit. Working where I do I know my workplace was hit, and since we deal with a lot of other large corporations, I know that they were hit. Luckily we stopped in the user lan before it got into real production.

[Atrocities]

In the last year I have been issued at least six replacement visa cards, visa check cards, and one master card because of worms and hacking successes at banks and bank reciept processing centers. They tell you about it weeks after it happens. Only once was my checking and saving account plunder, and that was back in Nov 2002 and that is still under investigation.

[Thermodyne]

Richard said:
Actually this worm hit a lot of large corporate sites, but they will never let you know due to the PR hit. Working where I do I know my workplace was hit, and since we deal with a lot of other large corporations, I know that they were hit. Luckily we stopped in the user lan before it got into real production.



I guess the question would be: Why were you hit?

WSUS is free, and it manages patches quite well.

[Richard]

Thermodyne said:

Richard said:
Actually this worm hit a lot of large corporate sites, but they will never let you know due to the PR hit. Working where I do I know my workplace was hit, and since we deal with a lot of other large corporations, I know that they were hit. Luckily we stopped in the user lan before it got into real production.



I guess the question would be: Why were you hit?

WSUS is free, and it manages patches quite well.



Ask the security guys, I work on the application side not in the general IT side.

But to be honest it's more complex in a big IT shop because there are a ton of applications that have to be carefully tested before patches can be applied. The IT folks have Altiris to push down patches, so that isn't a problem, but you can't patch a machine that is running a lot of complex applications that can vary from in house to 3rd party without certification. This can take awhile, and when they have immediately patched in the past it's actually done more harm then just pushing the patches down immediately.

I am sure there are ways to speed the process up, but not that much.

The real solution is to stop putting mission critical applications on wintel, which is something we are slowly moving towards http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Thermodyne]

You answered my question. Altiris is not worth what it costs if it was bought at 50% off. Our parent agency runs it and they were hit. We passed on it and were not touched. And we manage a 100+ more systems with a 1/3 of the staff they have. The best thing we have done is to put an update test team in place. We test patches and usually push them out in <24 hours. The test team has a person from the network staff, one of the programmers, and the DBA. We are usually done in a few hours. We also have eliminated a lot of the off brand systems and apps that were in place to basically allow people use what they personally preferred. All of the db’s are on SQL now, and the systems are all x86 with 2k, 03 or XP with the exception of one mainframe that still runs UNIX. [The dinosaur that refuses to die. And keeps two programmers plus a computer operator employed doing basically nothing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif ] We expected to save some man hours, but we were pleasantly surprised at how much money we saved last physical year. Even though MS runs us about $35 a seat, we were spending $1000s just to keep a few people happy. And we used to spend 10s of thousands on Citrix so that we could keep older systems in service, along with more $1000s to maintain service contracts on same older hardware. And never had any money left in the budget for new hardware. Now we replace it as it goes out of warrantee and spend 0 on service contracts and 0 on Citrix. We actually had money left over to purchase spares at the end of last year. Third party support apps and service contracts are vampires that suck the life out of networks. But it’s hard to convince people that they can do it better and more cost effectively in house.

[The Frenchmen]

Xrati said:
This is what happens when you have ONE company (a monopoly) being the only one with an operating system. I live for the day someone comes up with a replacement to Microsoft Crap!!! /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif

Just Venting!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif Sorry, but I do feel better now!



Well, there is linux and MacOS is gunna be x86 soon. They already have a beta running on intel cpu's.

[Xrati]

I haven't had any experience with Linux. I suppose I should start looking into it. It has a bad rep with being able to run Windows programs. Maybe someone more familiar with it can explain that? As far as MacOS, I guess it's back to Apple. The last one I had was an Apple IIGS. It was one of the best computers I've ever had. Apple shot themselves in the foot when they stopped the II line! Oh Well, so few choices left... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

[Jack Simth]

Xrati said:
I haven't had any experience with Linux. I suppose I should start looking into it. It has a bad rep with being able to run Windows programs. Maybe someone more familiar with it can explain that? As far as MacOS, I guess it's back to Apple. The last one I had was an Apple IIGS. It was one of the best computers I've ever had. Apple shot themselves in the foot when they stopped the II line! Oh Well, so few choices left... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif



Linux has difficulties running Windows programs because Windows programs are made with the (necessary) assumption that Windows will be present. Any program much beyond a simple "hello world" (and even most of those.....) make calls to Operating System routines (mostly for dealing with shared recources - memory, disk calls, the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers... all the hardware, really). Windows Operating System routines are different from Linux Operating System routines. In order to run a Windows program (which assumes the presence of Windows Operating System routines to call) on Linux, you must first convince Linux to pretend to have all of the Windows Operating System routines that the program uses.

Enter Wine (http://www.winehq.com/) (Sourceforge project for Wine (http://sourceforge.net/projects/wine)). Wine is an attempt to do just that - convince Linux to fake the Windos OS routines, not by emulating them, but by either replicating them entirely (and independantly) or making wrappers for Linux OS routines that do the same stuff.

Wine is still in Alpha, unfortunately.

[Thermodyne]

Xrati said:
I haven't had any experience with Linux. I suppose I should start looking into it. It has a bad rep with being able to run Windows programs. Maybe someone more familiar with it can explain that? As far as MacOS, I guess it's back to Apple. The last one I had was an Apple IIGS. It was one of the best computers I've ever had. Apple shot themselves in the foot when they stopped the II line! Oh Well, so few choices left... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif



Apple was hit this week also. All OS's can be attacked, it just that windows is a bigger target. Windows runs on 90%+ of the worlds PC's.

[dogscoff]

Atrocities ranted:
tell you what, if you hate Microsoft so much, why don't you, being the visionary that you are, go out ...



Atrocities, that was one of the best tirades I've heard in a long time. *applause*.
Thankyou for making me laugh today.


Xrati said:
I haven't had any experience with Linux. I suppose I should start looking into it....



Yeah, me too. I'd like to learn about Linux, and I figure the best way to do so would be to install it. I have an old win98 laptop at home currently doing nothing at all (it's a Toshiba 470 CDT, I think). I've done a little research online and have found both drivers and success stories for installing Linux on this model, so it seems like a good choice.

Trouble is, I wouldn't really know what to use a Linux box for. My computing needs are fairly basic and pretty well fulfilled by my winXP Sony Vaio, so I'm kind of uninspired when it comes to actually getting on with it. Also, I have no idea which of the baffling array of Linux distros I should go for.

Can anyone help relieve my apathy?

[Xrati]

Thanks Jack, that was pretty informative. As I thought, Linux needs to be configured to operate along side of windows. It also sounds as though Wine will be a while before it can help.
All OS's are open to virus's. I would imagine that Linux, if it gets popular, will become a target in the future too!

[Suicide Junkie]

Making yourself a little webserver is a good use for a linux box, if you're on broadband.

It will be a nice "infinite"-space server that you can run anything you like on, 24/7.

[Fyron]

dogscoff said:
Also, I have no idea which of the baffling array of Linux distros I should go for.

Debian (http://www.debian.org) is the way to go. It has the best package management setup, making it really easy to install software.

Suicide Junkie said:
It will be a nice "infinite"-space server that you can run anything you like on, 24/7.

Only problem is that you won't get nearly as much bandwidth as a web server in a data center.

Xrati said:
It also sounds as though Wine will be a while before it can help.

Wine does a good job now. It doesn't due to well with very intensive 3d apps, such as some games, but it does work for most things (including SE4). A lot of people keep a Windows partition around for such problem games.

Technically, a lot of quite functional Linux software is still in alpha or beta. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[parabolize]

Debian is nice if you want to build your OS package by package. Ubuntu (http://ubuntulinux.org/) uses the same debian package management but will install a much better basic OS for you then debian. Ubuntu Starter Guide (http://ubuntuguide.org/) is a good place to start.

Wine will probably never leave alpha. By the time we get most win98se apps working longhorn will be out and nobody will build software supporting win98se. But SE4 works great in wine and thats all that matters. Wine Application DB (http://appdb.winehq.org/) is a good place to find out if a program will work or not. You can also do a search with Google Linux (http://www.google.com/linux).

[Fyron]

A default install of Ubuntu is really bad for an old PC like he was talking about playing with. Same for Debian. Debian lets you do a custom installation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Fine for a newer PC, just not old ones.

[Xrati]

How do these OS's function with the different motherboards and chipsets out there? Is it going to take days to get up and running once you install one of them? I wish I had a better understanding of Linux because I don't want to lose functionality of my computer for any great length of time while installing and configuring! /threads/images/Graemlins/icon45.gif

[Thermodyne]

For a free first nix install, redhat is an easy install. After you have a feal for it then go to Debian. You can also dual boot nix and windows on the same system with ease.

For a web server I would recomend FreeBSD over a nix workstation build.

[Fyron]

Xrati said:
How do these OS's function with the different motherboards and chipsets out there?

99% of the time it will auto-detect everything and work right away. Might need to find the name of the chipset for your ethernet controller first, but it will give you a big list to choose from.

Xrati said:Is it going to take days to get up and running once you install one of them?

No, not really. Getting SE4 and other games running well might take some time, but other functionality will be ready as soon as the install is complete. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Thermodyne said:
For a free first nix install, redhat is an easy install.

I wouldn't recommend Red Hat. It is a very annoying distro, and it's RPM system is pretty aggravating in general. A real hassle of a distro, in my experience. Debian's Aptitude is just beautiful.

[parabolize]

For a free first nix install, redhat is an easy install. After you have a feal for it then go to Debian. You can also dual boot nix and windows on the same system with ease.

Many Debian based distros have easy installers (Ubuntu, Mepis, knoppix...). Redhat Package Management (RPM) has frightened a great many people back to windows.

For a web server I would recomend FreeBSD over a nix workstation build.

FreeBSD is unix based...

[parabolize]

Imperator Fyron said:
A default install of Ubuntu is really bad for an old PC like he was talking about playing with. Same for Debian. Debian lets you do a custom installation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Fine for a newer PC, just not old ones.

You can do a custom install with Ubuntu as well but unless you want to learn a lot from the get-go I would do the default install and install/use xfce4 desktop environment with older hardware.

[Thermodyne]

parabolize said:
[b]For a web server I would recomend FreeBSD over a nix workstation build.

FreeBSD is unix based...



Sure, but it is a true full server build.

[Fyron]

parabolize said:
You can do a custom install with Ubuntu as well but unless you want to learn a lot from the get-go I would do the default install and install/use xfce4 desktop environment with older hardware.

I didn't see any options for a package-level setup feature when I was installing Ubuntu. But yeah, you do have to learn/know a lot to make much use of the individual package selection level.

[parabolize]

Thermodyne said:

parabolize said:
For a web server I would recomend FreeBSD over a nix workstation build.

FreeBSD is unix based...



Sure, but it is a true full server build.



Not sure what your talking about. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[parabolize]

Imperator Fyron said:
parabolize said:
You can do a custom install with Ubuntu as well but unless you want to learn a lot from the get-go I would do the default install and install/use xfce4 desktop environment with older hardware.

I didn't see any options for a package-level setup feature when I was installing Ubuntu. But yeah, you do have to learn/know a lot to make much use of the individual package selection level.


When it asks you to hit enter type server first then hit enter (it only installs the base meta package that way).

[Fyron]

Well, Debian sent me straight to Aptitude, which I like much more than apt-get. I suppose you could install Aptitude on Ubuntu and do that though... Not sure what you'd gain over just doing it in Debian, for an older PC that you don't want all the fancy bells and whistles on. At least we can agree that both are better than Redhat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Parabolize said:
Redhat Package Management (RPM) has frightened a great many people back to windows.

Indeed it has.

[Thermodyne]

parabolize said:

Imperator Fyron said:
parabolize said:
You can do a custom install with Ubuntu as well but unless you want to learn a lot from the get-go I would do the default install and install/use xfce4 desktop environment with older hardware.

I didn't see any options for a package-level setup feature when I was installing Ubuntu. But yeah, you do have to learn/know a lot to make much use of the individual package selection level.


When it asks you to hit enter type server first then hit enter (it only installs the base meta package that way).

It's not a desk top OS. It was built to run in the data center. It's more secure, and more reliable under heavy loads/long up times. But not as user friendly. FreeBSD is to desktop Nix as Windows Server 03 is to XP.

[parabolize]

ubuntu has dpkg apt-get and aptitude.

[parabolize]

Thermodyne said:

parabolize said:

Imperator Fyron said:
parabolize said:
You can do a custom install with Ubuntu as well but unless you want to learn a lot from the get-go I would do the default install and install/use xfce4 desktop environment with older hardware.

I didn't see any options for a package-level setup feature when I was installing Ubuntu. But yeah, you do have to learn/know a lot to make much use of the individual package selection level.


When it asks you to hit enter type server first then hit enter (it only installs the base meta package that way).

It's not a desk top OS. It was built to run in the data center. It's more secure, and more reliable under heavy loads/long up times. But not as user friendly. FreeBSD is to desktop Nix as Windows Server 03 is to XP.


FreeBSD can be a desktop OS (I am running it on one of my computers). FreeBSD has only one down fall as a desktop OS it runs even less games then Linux (though there is linux emulation).

[Thermodyne]

To put this in perspective, windows get attacked more often because it is targeted more often. If you are a criminal trying to exploit systems, are you going after 2% or 3% of the systems out there? Or are you going to expend your time and effort on something that will attack 90% of the systems out there?

If you are truly good at administering Windows, you have a very small chance of being exploited. If you can load it run dcpromo and join a system, that does not make you truly good. Most users can barely load it, so they get hit.

I have six clients that run Redhat, and keeping them patched is more of a problem than the all of the windows system I work on. And for those of you who don’t already know, Redhat is not free to the business community, but is one of the few Nix distros that is insurable. FreeBSD is free and insurable, so is usually what a Nix network runs on.

Everyone has holes in their software. BIND has holes, Cisco has holes, Nix has holes. They just don’t make the news for the general public. One of the big problems right now is holes in apps. Windows apps can be patched at the same time as the OS. Third party apps usually need to be patched on a per-system basis, which eats up man hours. MS systems can also have driver updates installed along with patches, this make windows more or less three times as easy to manage as the others. One WSUS server to manage and with it you roll out service packs, hot fixes, security patches, application updates and patches, and driver updates. And you only have one system going to the web to get same, not 10’s or 100’s of systems eating up bandwidth. On the client side you control everything from ADDS with GP, this is where no one else can touch MS. But the vast majority of windows networks don’t even use GP, they just don’t know how. And they are the ones who get exploited! I should mention that many of the F5’s who make the news after being exploited are still running NT. NT is not a safe OS in today’s climate. It has nowhere near the security features needed to be called secure today. But the bean counters always hit IT first, because it does not generate black ink on the ledger. So NT has never been replaced.

[Thermodyne]

parabolize said:

Thermodyne said:

parabolize said:

Imperator Fyron said:
parabolize said:
You can do a custom install with Ubuntu as well but unless you want to learn a lot from the get-go I would do the default install and install/use xfce4 desktop environment with older hardware.

I didn't see any options for a package-level setup feature when I was installing Ubuntu. But yeah, you do have to learn/know a lot to make much use of the individual package selection level.


When it asks you to hit enter type server first then hit enter (it only installs the base meta package that way).

It's not a desk top OS. It was built to run in the data center. It's more secure, and more reliable under heavy loads/long up times. But not as user friendly. FreeBSD is to desktop Nix as Windows Server 03 is to XP.


FreeBSD can be a desktop OS (I am running it on one of my computers). FreeBSD has only one down fall as a desktop OS it runs even less games then Linux (though there is linux emulation).



And many peeps run Windows server on their personal systems. You can run anything you want. But when it comes to making money, it has to be something Sue and Sam user know how to use or can be trained to run without out very much trouble.

Your not going to see freeBSD on the desktop in the business world. It's just not enterprize friendly enough to have as a main line desktop system.

[Jack Simth]

parabolize said:Many Debian based distros have easy installers (Ubuntu, Mepis, knoppix...)

I can't in good conscience call knoppix an install. I'm sorry, I just can't. I burned a knoppix disc - it "installs" by booting from the CD. When I'm done working with Linux for the day, I remove the CD from the drive, and reboot. About the only changes made to my machine are the ones I specifically told it to make. Knoppix runs from the CD; it doesn't really install to your machine. Quite the useful tool for your toolbox - almost no virus can touch a CD (espcecially if it isn't in a CD burner drive....) very little can attack linux anyway, and a virus that is on your windows system is unlikely to be able to deal with a linux boot. Very useful for cleaning up a system (provided, of course, that knoppix can write to it's hard drive format)

[Fyron]

Knoppix is most certainly capable of being installed as a normal installation, not needing the live CD anymore. Same with Mepis.

[parabolize]

Thermodyne said:
To put this in perspective, windows get attacked more often because it is targeted more often. If you are a criminal trying to exploit systems, are you going after 2% or 3% of the systems out there? Or are you going to expend your time and effort on something that will attack 90% of the systems out there?

If you are truly good at administering Windows, you have a very small chance of being exploited. If you can load it run dcpromo and join a system, that does not make you truly good. Most users can barely load it, so they get hit.

I have six clients that run Redhat, and keeping them patched is more of a problem than the all of the windows system I work on. And for those of you who don’t already know, Redhat is not free to the business community, but is one of the few Nix distros that is insurable. FreeBSD is free and insurable, so is usually what a Nix network runs on.

Everyone has holes in their software. BIND has holes, Cisco has holes, Nix has holes. They just don’t make the news for the general public. One of the big problems right now is holes in apps. Windows apps can be patched at the same time as the OS. Third party apps usually need to be patched on a per-system basis, which eats up man hours. MS systems can also have driver updates installed along with patches, this make windows more or less three times as easy to manage as the others. One WSUS server to manage and with it you roll out service packs, hot fixes, security patches, application updates and patches, and driver updates. And you only have one system going to the web to get same, not 10’s or 100’s of systems eating up bandwidth. On the client side you control everything from ADDS with GP, this is where no one else can touch MS. But the vast majority of windows networks don’t even use GP, they just don’t know how. And they are the ones who get exploited! I should mention that many of the F5’s who make the news after being exploited are still running NT. NT is not a safe OS in today’s climate. It has nowhere near the security features needed to be called secure today. But the bean counters always hit IT first, because it does not generate black ink on the ledger. So NT has never been replaced.


Your having trouble running yum auto update on 6 computers? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Jack Simth]

Imperator Fyron said:
Knoppix is most certainly capable of being installed as a normal installation, not needing the live CD anymore. Same with Mepis.

Sure you can, but that's rather far from the intent of the distributions - check it's website (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html); from the main page, under "What is Knoppix":

KNOPPIX is a bootable Live system on CD or DVD, consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a productive Linux system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it (over 8GB on the DVD "Maxi" edition).


The primary thing that differentiates Knoppix from other flavors of Linux is that it is intended for a boot disk. Most other flavors of Linux (not all) are intended to be permanently installed on the main hard disk of a computer.

[parabolize]

There is nothing wrong with using KNOPPIX on a hard drive. All the main distros have a live cd or dvd. Some distros (like KNOPPIX) use the live cd as a install cd.

[Thermodyne]

parabolize said:

Thermodyne said:
To put this in perspective, windows get attacked more often because it is targeted more often. If you are a criminal trying to exploit systems, are you going after 2% or 3% of the systems out there? Or are you going to expend your time and effort on something that will attack 90% of the systems out there?

If you are truly good at administering Windows, you have a very small chance of being exploited. If you can load it run dcpromo and join a system, that does not make you truly good. Most users can barely load it, so they get hit.

I have six clients that run Redhat, and keeping them patched is more of a problem than the all of the windows system I work on. And for those of you who don’t already know, Redhat is not free to the business community, but is one of the few Nix distros that is insurable. FreeBSD is free and insurable, so is usually what a Nix network runs on.

Everyone has holes in their software. BIND has holes, Cisco has holes, Nix has holes. They just don’t make the news for the general public. One of the big problems right now is holes in apps. Windows apps can be patched at the same time as the OS. Third party apps usually need to be patched on a per-system basis, which eats up man hours. MS systems can also have driver updates installed along with patches, this make windows more or less three times as easy to manage as the others. One WSUS server to manage and with it you roll out service packs, hot fixes, security patches, application updates and patches, and driver updates. And you only have one system going to the web to get same, not 10’s or 100’s of systems eating up bandwidth. On the client side you control everything from ADDS with GP, this is where no one else can touch MS. But the vast majority of windows networks don’t even use GP, they just don’t know how. And they are the ones who get exploited! I should mention that many of the F5’s who make the news after being exploited are still running NT. NT is not a safe OS in today’s climate. It has nowhere near the security features needed to be called secure today. But the bean counters always hit IT first, because it does not generate black ink on the ledger. So NT has never been replaced.


Your having trouble running yum auto update on 6 computers? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif


LOL....Try 100 some...We won't take a client with less than 10 systems, no money in it. Only reason we have any nix clients is that we hope to move them to SBS and XP within a year. Usually we have given them a bid for SBS and XP with replacement of any systems more than three years old and a new server. This often forces them to push it into the next year. If they don't switch, we don't re-bid the contract. I do have one nix shop that is owned by a windows client that I would hate to loose. They run nix and apple, and it is sometimes a real PITA. I also have one accounting firm that is still on DOS, every time I need to replace a system it has become a scavenger hunt. The owner has been going to retire and close up next year, for three years now! I also have a string of auto parts stores that just moved to 98 last year. There is only one vender still writing POS software for that industry and they just moved their app to 98. They don't expect to move up to XP until 2008. They only sell it preinstalled on the hardware and the networking is based on null modems. I can't wait for that contract to run out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I have a day job, and my partner and the four techs don't really do much with nix. I have had many a weekend or evning ruined by nix http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Most of the Nix shops went with it to save money, and then found that they couldn't afford to support it. Or that they couldn't get boxed nix apps that will do what they need to do. They seldom have any licenses and seldom know that they needed any. Most of them got hung up on a low bid that convinced them that they could keep older systems in service by loading nix on them. That usually moves them from an unreliable windows 98 environment into an unreliable nix environment. Old system don't care what's running on them, they die just the same. Lots of sleazy contractors pushing bootleg Nix to small shops these days.

[parabolize]

If your looking for boxed programs do not use linux. Its that simple. Its called GNU/Linux for a reason.

[Fyron]

Jack Simth said:Sure you can, but that's rather far from the intent of the distributions - check it's website (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html); from the main page, under "What is Knoppix":

I am well aware of what Knoppix is. Nothing wrong with installing it. It is a fully functional distribution. Para's post summed it up well...

[Xrati]

I guess in reading all the posts there is no "Linux for Dummies" and you will just have to know more about your computer then "Plug n Play". It sounds as though the Knoppix boot version might be a good place to start because if you were to have problems at least you could re-boot and come here for some help (AND by the way, thanks for all the help! You guys have been great). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
Is Knoppix purchased as a boot disk or do you need to make the disk? I would like to get into this but all the different views expressed here tell me it's more of a personel choice as to which prog to use. I would like something to START on and work up into over time and gain experience with? AND don't tell me to "Use the force young Jedi" cause it might send me off to the dark side!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Fyron]

Modern distributions of Linux are rather plug'n'play, actually. You do not have to do any sort of custom installation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif You can probably order a Knoppix CD, but unless you are on dial up, it is easier to just download and burn it.

[Xrati]

I am on a dial up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif Budgetary constraints force this evil upon me!!! Is there site that I can order a Knoppix CD? Yes I can do a search, but I figure you would know where some of the best prices might be out there and with the dial up it would save me time, so I can spend more time here! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Fyron]

They have links to vendors on the official web site.

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

[Xrati]

OK, I ordered my Knoppix DVD and will be ready to learn the ways of Linux. It did mention that the DVD will boot into German and have to be cheat coded to US? I hope this is documented so I don't have to order a German CD to learn how to use Linux. With any luck, maybe Microsoft is on it's way out or will have to get their act together!!!
Is there a Linux thread on this board other than the one I have seemed to create here? I know I've seen discussions about this somewhere else.

[parabolize]

Just Linux (http://justlinux.com/) is a good forum but before you post you should read this (http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before).

[Xrati]

Just Linux, nice site! Thanks for the lead parabolize. I hope that I don't have any questions about Linux once I get the materials and DVD. But that FAQ site is good for protocol in asking questions. Right now I just eagerly await my disk!