Nuanced Déjà Vu in Microsoft's Desktop Monopoly

When I was in late high school, which was in the early days of this blog, I had recently switched to Linux and was essentially an evangelist, singing its praises and loudly cursing the misdeeds of Microsoft with respect to the desktop market; many of my blog posts at that time were in that vein. In the nearly 8 years since then, I, my blog, Linux, Microsoft, and the consumer device market have all evolved and matured: I've become less evangelistic and more realistic about many things (or so I'd like to think), my blog has correspondingly shifted focus in various ways, Linux distributions have become less of a "wild west" than they were 8 years ago and have gained more support for popular things like proprietary video drivers and game platforms like Steam, Microsoft has been more open about supporting free and open-source software initiatives, and the consumer device market has shifted much more toward mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets which are very different from the desktops, laptops, and netbooks of 8 years ago (the latter of which doesn't really exist anymore as it once did). That said, I recently read a post on Slashdot (original article by Brian Fagioli of Betanews) about how Microsoft is locking the configuration settings for changing the default browser (Microsoft Edge) and search engine (Bing) choices in Windows 10 S, which is its version of Microsoft Windows 10 designed for lower-end hardware used in schools. For the sake of old times, I thought it might be nice to post about it, but hopefully with a bit more nuance than what I was capable of 8 years ago (and with the benefit of having seen the last 8 years of intervening technological development). Follow the jump to see more.

Review: Chakra 2015.11 "Fermi"

Main Screen + Kickoff Menu

Not only has it been a while since I've done a Linux distribution review on this blog, but it has been an especially long time (over 2.5 years, in fact) since I've looked at Chakra. I figured that now that KDE 5 (technically incorrect terminology, I know, but please bear with me, as I'm using this for the sake of brevity) is being used in Chakra, it may be time to see how a distribution I've rather liked in the past has evolved. In case you don't remember, Chakra was originally based on Arch Linux, but a few years ago, it branched off into its own independent distribution with its own repositories, though certain tools (like the package manager Pacman) are based on things found in Arch Linux. It focuses exclusively on KDE, and it uses a semi-rolling release model in which core system packages are updated less frequently in order to maintain stability, while front-end applications seen by users most often are updated more frequently to provide a competitive desktop experience.

I tried this on a live USB using the "dd" command; as in my review from over 2.5 years ago, neither UnetBootin nor MultiSystem work anymore for reliably creating Chakra live USB media. This wasn't a terribly difficult thing to do, but in any case, the Chakra wiki contains a little more information for people who might need a little more help with these steps (especially if they are new users from Microsoft Windows who are trying a Linux distribution for the first time). Additionally, note that Chakra can only be used on 64-bit computers. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 March 20

There were a few posts that garnered a handful of comments, so I'll try to repost most of those.

Review: Chakra 2011.02 "Cyrus"

Reader Znurre said, "Interesting and honest review as always. Good job :)"
Commenter hugo lobo had this clarification: "Thanks for the review. Also, one thing that surprised me was that Konqueror didn't have the WebKit rendering engine option even though it is at version 4.6; all it had was KHTML. Maybe I was supposed to get it from the repositories and I missed it. Exactly. You would have to install the 'kwebkitpart' package and than enable it on konqueror."
Reader DarkDuck said, "KOffice has been renamed to Calligra Suite ages ago..."

Why I Think All Browsers (Mozilla Firefox Included) Will Survive

Commenter be_slayed posited, "Bott's article seemed rather uninformed and irrelevant to me. What do version numbers really matter? IE of course will survive because Microsoft backs it."
An anonymous reader said, "I stopped reading Ed Bott when I realized he was such a shill for M$. I agree with you that all 3 will survive and I hope Opera does as well. I switch from one to another depending. I find that Chrome has some problems with You Tube hanging, FF 3.6 is not as fast as Chrome or Opera and Opera has a few operational problems that I don't like. I find it hard to copy from Opera screens to an email when I want to send something to a friend - no idea why but it just not work as well then. If I could get that to work and also if I were able to pay a few bills with anything but FF I might choose Opera as my main browser."
These sentiments were shared by another anonymous commenter: "I have serious doubts about Ed Bott since reading his article, I am beginning to wonder about his true motives and credibility as a journalist. That said firefox is in no danger in the foreseeable future it is hugely popular and has unmatched extensibility. I use 26 addons regularly they are a vital part of my browsing experience and increase both my productivity and enjoyment on the web. Couldn't agree more re your comments on browsers generally they all bring something to the table and have matured into great tools."
Reader linuxblog asked, "What is about other browsers? Safari? Opera? And then, as soon as Firefox and Chrom(ium) are FOSS, there are (and will be) forks and re-brandings, like Iceweasel, Seamonkey &Co." One clarification that I forgot to mention is that Mozilla Firefox and Chromium are already FOSS and already have forks.
Yet another anonymous commenter had this small counterargument: "RE: Tabs on top versus tabs on bottom If you have the tabs on top directly at the top of the screen it will be easier to access than if you have them closer because if they're at the screen edge you can overshoot your mouse as much as you want and they'll still go farther. On the other hand, if tabs-on-top doesn't put the tabs right to the screen edge, tabs-on-bottom will be closer." The only other problem with this is that even if the titlebar is removed and the tabs really are on the top of the screen, there is typically a 1 or 2 pixel gap between the top edge of the tab and the top of the screen, so that "infinite" distance for the tab height is actually not really there, so that advantage is gone too.

Linux Mint Xfce: Now Based on Debian

Reader Barnaby said, "So much for Debian is not any longer relevant."

Ubuntu: Even the Computer-Averse Can Use It

Commenter joeoshawa had this little story: "I have an ex-wife i still get along with who never bothered with computers till a few years back. Her computer knowledge consisted of literaly 'the mouse thing moves the pointer and i know what the keyboard is for' She had no idea what windows was and no idea of what an operating system is nor how to use one. I decided to teach her to use ubuntu for various reasons and she has never looked back. When she tries to use her mothers pc which runs xp she gets fed up and says 'Its so hard to use and you have no programs mine i just click and it works i hate this thing,' I do love ubuntu....."
Reader Innocent Bystander had another story: "Here is my "$friend": a person who, after two years, cannot still figure out when to single click , when to double click. The right-click is total mystery. This person doesn't understand why you can't just hit the power button to turn off the computer instead of selecting Shutdown in the menu. As a result, she never turn off, b/c she is not sure she remember the shutdown process. For this kind of user, a Windows machine will last less than 1 month. I installed her Ubuntu, but she still managed to delete the top panel. I guess she tried to do something and clicked on every mouse click possible. At the next upgrade, I will install her Linux Mint." Honestly, I don't know how much Linux Mint will really help.
Commenter Megatotoro said, "I'm not an Ubuntu user but I couldn't possibly agree more. Being a former Windows user all the way back from 3.11 to XP, I must say that once you really know Linux, you realize it is indeed friendlier than Windows. Of course, people think otherwise because they are used to their old ways, which sometimes are not the easiest."
An anonymous reader said, "I like the latest ubuntu. I like the feeling that it recognised my printer straight away and printed a test page without any fuss at all ...This above all gave me incredible confidence in it. Of course it will be better than windows, if it isn't already it will evolve to be superior in time...."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. My spring break is over, so I'm back in college, meaning I'm going to be quite busy again. That said, I hope to have a couple reviews out relatively soon, but I can't promise anything in particular for this week. Once again, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

More Microsoft Windows Trouble

Today, when I had a break between classes, I went to the library to print out some homework as those computers were the closest to where I was at that time. All those machines (save one) have Microsoft Windows XP, and they reminded me why I dislike using Microsoft Windows so much.
When I turned one of the computers on, before seeing the login screen, I saw a whole bunch of windows for update scripts, which is fine. Then, after logging in, it took a really long time to reach the desktop.
I then clicked on Mozilla Firefox, and that took a ridiculously long time to load; part of that is the fault of Mozilla Firefox, but part of that is due to Microsoft Windows XP just being slow in general as well as not preloading its libraries to let it start faster (which is why in the past on Microsoft Windows machines Microsoft Internet Explorer would beat Mozilla Firefox in load times). Then, out of nowhere, I saw a dialog box flash just long enough for me to see that the system was being restarted; sure enough, 2 seconds later, the system shut down. I had no choice in the matter; in fact, I had no time to react in any way before the system started shutting down.
Frustrated, I moved to a different (also Microsoft Windows XP) computer, which, thankfully, exhibited no such problems. But, despite that, there was a new problem: it didn't have Mozilla Firefox, which I have installed on my user account! So yes, I was forced to use the slow, "what the heck are web standards?" Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer. That's not supposed to happen; I shouldn't be forced to use one browser on some computers and another on others when I've installed one presumably to use on all.
Well, that was my rant on Microsoft Windows after having thankfully not touched it for a while.

Featured Comments: Week of 2010 October 31

There were a few posts this past week that got comments, so I'll go through most of them.

Seriously? Vegan Chicken Wings?

Reader T_Beermonster had this, among other things, to say: "I suspect that a large part of the pseudo-meat boom is down to the fact that for most non-vegetarians cooking for the lone vegetarian (aka awkward person) is an annoyance and an afterthought. I know that most of my family when cooking for my wife will just fall into the lazy practice of cooking the same thing but with faux-meat. Obviously it tastes revolting but that doesn't matter because:
a) the cook isn't going to be eating it.
b) if they cared what the food tasted like the awkward one would be eating meat like everyone else."

How-To: Remaster Debian 6 "Squeeze"

An anonymous commenter (who later posted a few more times to clarify some points) said, "Hi, thanks for the post.
I've bookmarked it for my reference once I have time to try remastersys.
Please inform what files or folder did you copied to /etc/skel.
Btw, do you mind to share the theme of this blog, I really like it :)"

Why Safe Browsing Habits Don't Guarantee Anything

Reader T_Beermonster had this to say among other things: "A computer doesn't even need to be networked to get infected. I'm currently restoring my nieces ex-laptop (dead dvd drive, broken hinges, slow as treacle running uphill) for one of her younger siblings (as yet undecided). It has had the modem removed and the network interface disabled (I say disabled, I suspect broken would be a more correct description) it has not been online anytime in the last 3 years. Naturally while I had it I thought I'd better run some antivirus software on and download all the service packs and hotfixes (achieved via my own linux box and a USB stick). Naturally the laptop was riddled with malware.
Now that malware got on the computer via USB, Floppy or CD (before the drive broke). Some fairly simple precautions may have helped (disabling autorun being the most obvious) and I'm putting them in place, but I'm pretty sure that when I next see that laptop it will have more for me to remove."

Thanks to everyone who commented this week, and again, if you enjoy the material, please do continue commenting and subscribing! Also, Fresh OS is now out on the project's SourceForge page (and the wiki is more complete than before), so please do check it out, download it, and tell me what you think (and if you really like it, show your friends as well)!

Why Safe Browsing Habits Don't Guarantee Anything

I see on sites like MakeTechEasier, Dedoimedo, and others that promote Linux articles that say that Linux shouldn't necessarily be promoted for any inherent security advantage over Microsoft Windows because browsing safely can prevent any problems from appearing. This also means that there's no need for antivirus software on Microsoft Windows because safe browsing habits alone will prevent viruses and other malware from appearing. I have two issues with this.
For one, on Linux, while it's common sense to exercise safe browsing habits anyway (i.e. not going to sites that scream "I WILL INFECT YOUR SOFTWARE"), it's not necessary to do so, because malware written for Microsoft Windows won't work on Linux, and in any case, the malware won't have administrative privileges to run (unless the user expressly allows such privileges, which can happen especially if it isn't immediately clear that the malware is malware (so the user thinks it's a harmless program)). Of course, there is a new bug out there that can automatically obtain superuser privileges in many Linux distributions, but that's a different story entirely.
The other problem I have with this is that it happened to me yesterday. I was in the library yesterday on a networked Microsoft Windows XP computer checking my email and reading the news when I suddenly saw a program called "ThinkPoint" hijack my desktop session, telling me that my computer has viruses that I need to remove (but to remove them, I supposedly need to pay a monthly fee). Obviously, "ThinkPoint" itself is a piece of malware. These news sites work perfectly fine on Linux and have worked well on Microsoft Windows (until now). I had to call our school's tech support, and (shockingly) they were very helpful, pleasant, and quick to respond to my issue. In fact, I am typing this post from the same computer now. I want to thank IS&T for being so great about this, but I also want to say that practicing safe browsing doesn't guarantee full safety from malware — antimalware software is still necessary on Microsoft Windows. So please, Dedoimedo (and other sites): even if you've never had an issue and you've always practiced safe browsing, that may not work out for everyone else, so stop acting like it will.