Top ten misconceptions about Linux

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I had a computer before I have this one, and in its last days with me, I installed Ubuntu in it.

It was really much more easy than I had think, and the apllications that came with the OS were fantastic. But...

I have childrens, and I couldn't install a parental filter for internet (in windows I use K9). I found somethig that it supposed to do it, but in three monts wich I had it, I coudln't do it work. There is an aplication that I don't remember the name where you can find lots of stuffs to install at your computter, that is great, but if you find it in some other place in the internet you must to learn the "how to" in order to have it working in your computer.

When this new computter arrived at home, the childrens, with some joy said: "this screen again!"

I understand that lynux is something that you get for free, but, it is not better than windows, people must to understand that is someting diferent to learn, and yes, some aplications do not run at lynux.

Nobody ever phrases that linux statement correctly.

You may go to the microsoft support site for free help. Or you may go to one of many third party sites for free help.

But both of those sites are in direct competition with the paid services offered by IT specialists.

The Microsoft site provides better service than third party because they have insider knowledge. However, do to the nature of closed source, there are subjects which you will not receive help.. ever. As well, because the techs who will help you are highly paid professionals, it behoves them to not provide unlimited free help, thus damaging their incomes. They didnt pay for school so that you could leech.

Third party windows help sites are much more likely to feature enthusiast mentoring, but they are also much more likely to be lacking in inside information.

Help is limited. In both these cases.

However in the case of Linux(most distros anyway), Its open source, and enthusiasts are capable of matching the expertise of the paid technicians. There is no hidden or forbidden knowledge. There is no incentive to hold back.

So claims like these are valid.



Yes. To a bigger degree than portability between MS windows versions. The base system is always the same. If a particular library is not available, it too may be compiled and installed. This includes running KDE applications from Ubuntu on Fedora Gnome.

I have heard people saying that linux don't get viruses and malware as Windows does, therefore more secure, but when it comes to viruses, that seems to be another misconception, isn't it?

Given the grown popularity of Ubuntu wouldn't viruses creators focus on it as well?

Haha, wow...

Malware is written for financial gain. Economists have worked out the game theory and they say that Mac OS X will be safe until it reaches 16% market share, because before then producing malware for the Mac is not economically viable. Presumably a similar situation applies to Linux. Currently there are no viruses in the wild for either Mac OS X or Linux. There are two Mac trojans that I know of, and both are obtained from pirated software.

But UNIX-based operating systems (Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X) are also intrinsically more secure systems than Windows. So Windows has a double whammy against it: it is poorly engineered as compared to OS X, Linux, and BSD, and its large market share also makes it a more appealing target for a malicious cracker's efforts.

With the friendly help of fellow WrongPlaneteers, I was able to get Ubuntu up and running when I was almost completely computer illiterate. Heck, I didn't even know how to work a text editor when I started out. And Ubuntu has only gotten more user-friendly since then.

I've got about 24 years experience with Microsoft stuff, and about 4 months with Linux. I could actually follow the article, so I felt better about that...

From what I've found out so far, the problems with linux from a security standpoint are more about straight hacking into the system, than writing viruses. Linux is a bit more locked-down than Windows as far as access, because most permissions settings in Linux are more central to the files and directories than Windows (I love that there's a 666 permissions setting... Yeah, you can set file permissions, folder permisions, in Windows, but how many average Joes and Janes know that?

Most linux is fairly portable, that's the point of the 'open source' mentality. Some things may be a touch proprietary, I don't know exactly what....yet..

...and if the l33ts of the world didn't make typing mistakes, how could anyone be pwned?...

I can't let this pass...

The "backspace" key is there to send the ASCII control code 0x08 to whatever is at the other end of the device.

On reception of an ASCII control code 0x08, a terminal would be expected to (if possible) move the carriage/cursor position one space to the left - and nothing more.

Incorporating usage of this key, and the control character it sends, into the way editors functioned was a long time coming. Indeed, it is one of the many keys that just did not exist on earlier keyboards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backspace

who knows...I've played with vi some (I think it stands for 'vile interface'), it's sorta like a shell game, with "oh no, last character that was a command, now it's a letter... You can do stuff with it, but I don't think anyone's going to use it for the Great American Novel... (I'm using Vim, which is 'sorta' vi...it's supposed to be more friendly than vi...
qw...

Looks like EMACS gave way to other editors. The simple fact that new distros come with another editor other than VI by default shows that the VI quirks and endless CTRL commands was less useful to the newer user.

The statement in question is ALWAYS misstated that way on purpose and I would not have brought it up, or even replied, if it was not part of the post.

And, there is no guarantee that said "expert" will solve the problem or provide the needed information in a timely fashion without risks to current operations. And, how many programmers jump on an open source project to use that to secure a better paying job? The programming world is what it is, open or not.

I've held off on jumping on the LINUX bandwagon because I've already spent too much time behind a computer as it is. Physically, it is not that great for you.

I would agree that this is the case. It needn't be so though, as I explained. A little honesty never hurt.

I never could understand why anyone was a fan of the short-lived EMACS.

I don't think I can name a distribution that does not have vi(m). Some GUIs have a simple-minded graphical editor for the odd trivial edits to text files, should you wish to do such. They are no substitutes for vi(m), except in the case of gvim, which is vim with a gnome front-end.

EMACS is still around and fairly popular, from what I understand. My needs have never yet exceeded the capabilities of nano.

I can just use the package manager like a good little n00b and get all the dependencies I could ever possibly want.

I think Oggleleus was referring to software he develops. I also use the provided package managers to handle all my dependencies, but if you write something and want it to work on the different desktops, I'd think you would have to watch the dependencies.