Hackers operate GNU servers for five months

[Whaleboy]

Debian Unstable just means it uses the same technologies as most other modern distros

With less testing and fixing than what goes into a normal "stable" release by red hat or mandy.

Debian Stable still runs stuff like KDE 2.x, IIRC

Indeed, so run a mixture. Run stable as you basic system, updated with testing as needed, and run testing/unstable stuff on top of that. Its not ideal with security, but its better.

Debian Unstable is very stable, and very secure as far as Linux distros go. Which isn't saying much

Wow!!! Your dislike is bordering on the obsessive!

Certainly more secure and stable than Mandrake is

But mandrake is purty!!!

[Asher]

Originally posted by elijah
With less testing and fixing than what goes into a normal "stable" release by red hat or mandy.

Err. No.
I'm not going to get into this with you right now, but Debian Unstable is on par with RH/Mandy, only with a very competent package management system.

Wow!!! Your dislike is bordering on the obsessive!

The more I use Linux, the more I hate it. There's so many inconsistencies, so many silly things, so many things that take 100 hoops to jump through which are easily done in Windows. I don't see any benefit to Linux aside from cost, and you get what you pay for.

[Whaleboy]

The more I use Linux, the more I hate it. There's so many inconsistencies, so many silly things, so many things that take 100 hoops to jump through which are easily done in Windows. I don't see any benefit to Linux aside from cost, and you get what you pay for

rtfm. Perhaps join a lug, ask for help as there probably is a more direct method that you dont know of, at least thats what I found when I was actually making an effort *cough* to learn it. At this stage, Linux does not just work out of the box.

Stability... security? Exactly how many independent (not funded directly or indirectly by MS) tests have shown linux to be superior on those fronts?

I'm not going to get into this with you right now, but Debian Unstable is on par with RH/Mandy

Testing is for sure, but not unstable.

[Whaleboy]

If you hate it so much, why run it?

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Hackers operate GNU servers for five months

Originally posted by Asher
With the *nix trolls out in force about the MSBlast thing, I thought I'd give them a harsh reality check.

Eh, what's the point here?

The Blaster worm knocked off tens of thousands of Windows boxes. The Iloveyou virus (among others) infected tens of thousands of Windows boxes.

MS websites were cracked and owned. Once a cracker downloaded a copy of Windows XP and floated it around IIRC.

[DinoDoc]

*nix has just as many security holes as MS. MS is just the company comp geeks love to hate hence it gets more attacks.

[mrmitchell]

I thought the whole point with open source systems was that, if there was a bug, you could be assured hundreds of geeks had a patch out in about 5 minutes?

This would make most worries about bugs on those systems irrelevant, yes?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
*nix has just as many security holes as MS. MS is just the company comp geeks love to hate hence it gets more attacks.

They also hate it because they want to be different.

[Asher]

Originally posted by elijah
If you hate it so much, why run it?

Need to run a *nix for school homework. Believe me, I'd ditch it if I could.

I haven't booted into that crapfest all summer though.

[Ted Striker]

[TCO]

BLAST WORM!

[Whaleboy]

If you successfully install gentoo, tell me how to, I been trying for days!

You seem to be generalising about linux users. When windows is the better tool, as is the case currently (for me), I use it. I hardly think the zealot-like stereotypes are either valid or useful.

[MichaeltheGreat]

No, but if we didn't have stereotypes and a few people that conform to them, then neither side could have nearly as much fun trolling the other.

[Ari Rahikkala]

To split some hairs, it wasn't servers, it was a server. Open-source software has always been quite vulnerable to the servers that the software is distributed from being attacked... *****X and OpenBSD come to mind pretty quickly, and I know there are more cases like this. I guess it's due to the lack of resources of most of the members of the community. I mean, this system was cracked by a local user. For all I know, Paul Visscher (gnu.org's chief webmaster) could have an evil half-sister who convinced him to take a week's trip - she would feed the cat. And then use the exploit to be able to pose as Paul and tell his mother that he really did steal that yellow alligator toy when he was five. Exploits like this don't really tell much about how secure the software itself is... they tell about how essential these nice things called signed SHA1 checksums are and how every self-respecting software developer should use them and how every user should check them lest the fate of destruction befalls both! Ahem. It is regrettable that the security of such an important server as this one got breached, and not as much work was done for security as possible... one can only hope that this will get people to grep their logs with more vigour. Or get someone to donate some money to the FSF so that they can hire someone to take care of their security, since the foundation's members are more concerned with just happily hacking away at their software than obsessively watching top and grepping logs...

elijah, I'm a Gentoo user, and have been one for a good while. If you have trouble installing it, the most painless thing to do right now would be to just stop trying. Gentoo is quite complicated and not terribly mature (Portage still sucks if not for any other reason but lacking proper handling of reverse dependencies), and you will need to use undocumented features and understand Portage internals to make any real use of the distro. The installation is, unlike the other parts, quite easy and well documented. But in the case you do still happen to want to use it... the forums are your friend. Especially the forum search. Remember, no question is worth answering more than once.

Oh, and see my signature .

[Whaleboy]

Thanks Ari!!

MtG: I'll spare the comments about people being so dumb they need a mouse to write a document