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.

Stuff in Between Monopoly and Competition

It has been a while since I've ranted about an economics article, but there was one by Peter Thiel (cofounder of PayPal and Palantir) in the Wall Street Journal that caught my eye, so it is the subject of this post. In it, he argues that monopolies are not always the bad entities that people make them out to be. In particular, he argues that Google's dominance in the search market has allowed it to expand to other markets such as advertising, robotics, and phones, and in all of those it is far from a dominant market player. He also argues that firms in perfectly competitive markets are too caught up with staying afloat to be able to innovate in any meaningful way, so real innovation can only come from firms with dominant market positions (such that they have money to gamble on such an innovation). Follow the jump to see my reaction to this.

Review: Zorin OS 7 Core

It has been almost exactly a year since I reviewed Zorin OS 6 Core, which was based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin". The new version is based on Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail", so I'm reviewing that now.

Main Screen + Zorin OS Menu

What is Zorin OS? It is based on Ubuntu, uses a heavily customized GNOME 3 environment with Compiz as the WM and AWN as a panel. It also aims to look as close to Microsoft Windows as possible; at the moment, the target is specifically Microsoft Windows 8. There haven't been a huge number of changes from version 6 to version 7 of Zorin OS, aside from some theme and branding updates along with the usual package updates.

I tried this as a live USB made with UnetBootin; the Zorin OS website warns that the live system may be less stable than the installed system, so I'll see how that plays out. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Comparison Test: Pear OS 3.0 "Panther" vs. Zorin OS 5.2 Core

Pear OS: Main Screen

There's been a new distribution making small waves lately called Pear OS. It aims to replicate the experience of Apple's Mac OS X, and upon first appearances, it seems to do so pretty well. I'm comparing it to Zorin OS, which similarly tries to replicate the experience of Microsoft Windows, to see which one does its job better.

Pear OS takes no shame in aping absolutely every part of Apple's Mac OS X. Its slogan is "Think Totally Different", which is an obvious rip off of Apple's slogan, "Think Different". Its logo is a pear into which someone has taken a small bite. It shows box art that clearly apes that of Apple's Mac OS X. Even the version name is "Panther", which is actually a past release of Apple's Mac OS X ( The list goes on, but it's clear what the developers are aiming at.
By contrast, Zorin OS is quite a bit more subtle about its goals. It explicitly states that it aims to bring Linux to Microsoft Windows users, but its website is a bit more generic in that it simply states the advantages and features of Zorin OS without directly referencing Microsoft Windows too many times.

Zorin OS: Main Screen + GnoMenu
(Microsoft Windows 7 look)

I tested both using a multiboot live USB made with MultiSystem. Please bear in mind that as both distributions are based on Ubuntu, and as I have found time and again that my laptop's hardware works just fine on Ubuntu and so do applications like Skype and Google Talk, this comparison is going to seem pretty shallow. I'm basically just going to discuss appearances, deeper aspects of the interface, and included applications, without doing my usual other testing. Follow the jump to see what each is like.

Revisited: openSUSE 11.4 GNOME

If you guessed again that there isn't much else to write about, you'd be right! That's why I'm looking at openSUSE 11.4 GNOME today.

Slab Menu + GNOME Application Browser

A few months ago, I took a look at openSUSE 11.4 KDE. Before that, I had compared openSUSE 11.3 KDE to other distributions that primarily used KDE. I found that version 11.4 was a dramatic improvement over version 11.3, to the point where I heartily recommended it to anyone who wanted to try it. It was fairly fast, stable, looked great, and had or could easily get all the applications I wanted. But to call openSUSE a primarily KDE distribution is slightly misleading, because while openSUSE does indeed try to promote KDE a little more, it puts just as much effort into making the GNOME edition a unique experience as well. Plus, the developers that created openSUSE also created Mono, which is basically the C# programming language for Linux, and helped develop the applications written in it that are now popularly used in many GNOME distributions, such as the Evolution mail client (UPDATE: Evolution is not written in Mono, though it was developed by the same group/a group close to that one that developed openSUSE — thanks to an anonymous reader for the correction), Tomboy note-taking application, F-Spot photo manager, and GNOME-Do launcher. So I figured it's time to see what openSUSE GNOME is really like.

I tried the 32-bit edition (and, for further clarification, all distributions I test are tested in 32-bit guise unless specifically stated otherwise) using a live USB made with MultiSystem. Because I didn't try the installation process with the KDE edition, this time I tried it in VirtualBox with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS inside a Pinguy OS 11.04 Mini live USB host. Follow the jump to see if the GNOME edition is as good as the KDE edition.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 June 12

There were a few posts that got a whole bunch of comments, so I'll only be able to repost a few from each.

Microsoft Windows Update Annoyances Strike Again

An anonymous reader said, "I have Windows update disabled totally along with UAC and Windows Firewall. I consider it Microsoft's version of idiot-proofing"
Another anonymous commenter, in response to a comment asking about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of my decision, countered, "While closing the laptop lid does - usually - result in a sleep, the OS *should* be able to disable this feature when it is performing a critical task." And this has been my point all along.
Yet another anonymous reader added, "What's annoying is a lack of the system asking 'hey do you want me to download 5GB of updates now when you're about to shutdown the laptop trying to make it to your next meeting'? Or force the message that windows likes to use "we're giving you your updates whether you want them or not. Don't shut down until windows updates are complete or bad things will happen"? My Ubuntu systems will prompt a reminder that there are new updates so that I can choose to do it later when I have time to let it work away at the magic."
Still another anonymous commenter said, "I usually put my Windows laptop on the night before I actually might want it so the annoying updates can be done. Yes I find it mad coming from being a long time Linux user and it's the biggest pain whilst trying to work in the day job too the usually fortnightly push of updates grinding the machine close to a halt as they happen silently."

Poll: Should I Switch away from Linux Mint?

Reader Aks said, "I tested Linux Mint "Katya" Gnome version and it seems to work well. Since you have long been working with Linux Mint, you can switch to the new release. Switching to a new distro might require some time to learn new interface/tools. For me myself, I've been a long user of Fedora and Fedora is treating me quite well."
An anonymous commenter added, "Don't switch. After trying a lot of distro's there is no need to leave Linux Mint behind imho. The reason? Other distro's have issues as well because there is no silver bullet. Linux Mint comes closest to perfection, so file bug reports there and ask questions on their forums."
Reader Microlinux had this long suggestion: "I'm an IT consultant working 100% with GNU/Linux since 2001. I install Linux-based networks (servers and clients) for town halls, schools, public libraries and the likes. I also do some Linux training, and I'm quite proficient on most major - and some minor - distributions. I recently came back to Slackware, which was my first Linux distro back in 2001. There are a few reasons for that. 1) Slackware doesn't reinvent the wheel every six months like every other distro currently does. Take a peek at the init system of Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu and the likes. It's an unhealthy mix of SystemV, Upstart and systemd. Now compare that to Slackware's boot scripts: clean and well organized since 1993. 2) Healthy release cycle: Slackware releases roughly one new version in a year, which suits professional users well. Plus, versions back to 8.0 (that's ten years old!) are still supported for bug fixes. 3) Slackware *never* chokes on exotic hardware, because I can always configure it by hand. Now, install Fedora 15 or openSUSE 11.4 on machines with slightly older NVidia cards - which happens all the time in my day to day work - and appreciate the mess. 4) If I need a package not included in the distribution, there's SlackBuilds.org, but more often than not, I just quickly write a compilation script myself. Never seen an application that doesn't build on Slackware. Conclusion: if you're not a lamer for RTFM and got some basic UNIX skills, Slackware is my favourite choice, and the distribution I'd recommend to everyone. Plus, it's a lot of fun."
Another anonymous commenter said, "I am using LinuxMint Debian edition (xfce) and aptosid (also xfce). LMDE installed fine. Don't know what that one poster meant by installer being broken. Aptosid installed fine also. I use it because I like to be on the bleeding edge. With linuxmint, doing a dist-upgrade gets you the latest and greatest without having to do a complete new install. I have never had a problem doing a dist-upgrade. But to each his own. If you have the itch to switch, you have a lot of options."

FOLLOW-UP: Poll: Should I Switch away from Linux Mint?

Reader JJMacey said, "Sticking with what works is the point here. I am sticking with UBUNTU 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). I have given the last 2 UBUNTU newer versions a pass. I know Clem from the very early days of Linux Mint. If I want to change my OS Linux Mint will be the one I'll run. That is if I get that itch for something new."
Commenter larrythefreesoftwareguy supported this: "Sticking with what works is always a good policy."
An anonymous reader said, "The new Unity Desktop is totally unacceptable, and Ubuntu 11.04 running the Gnome classic Desktop is quite a disappointment compared to Ubuntu 10.10 so I'm seriously looking for another distribution as it appears Ubuntu is becoming less reliable with each upgrade. The main attraction to Ubuntu has always been the Gnome Desktop and Synaptic package manager, but the continuing unsolved bugs, and now frequent crashes of applications is giving me cause to look at other distributions."
Commenter Soak had this to say: "My desktop - which functions as a server throughout the house - has been running 10.04 very smoothly since installation and, for the purposes I'm using it, it will continue to do so until 'end of life' (and maybe after). On my laptop I'm running Mint for about a year now. Recently switched to Katya, but downgraded compiz to 0.86 caus'e upstream compiz was a DISASTER. Everyone experiencing troubles with upstream compiz (like disappearing window boarders, compiz crashes, etc) should downgrade. I've tried quite a few distro's before and after Ubuntu, but the only one that I REALLY liked was Mint. Like some say, it really is 'Ubuntu done right'.To be honest, I rarely ever use Linux for work, because the places I work at continue to install M$ (at least on their desktops). At home I rarely ever touch Windows though. To make a long story short. I have no doubt you made the right choice. I'm making the same one..."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. I don't have anything in particular planned for this week, but I'm sure that I'll be able to write something. Remember, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing to, commenting on, and sharing this posts!

Microsoft Windows Update Annoyances Strike Again

Although Linux Mint is my primary OS, I still have Microsoft Windows 7 around because I play a couple games from time to time. However, because I don't do that so frequently, whenever I do boot Microsoft Windows 7, I get bombarded with updates, and unfortunately, Microsoft Windows sometimes goes ahead downloading and installing those updates without letting me choose first.

For example, yesterday, after I finished using it, I shut down Microsoft Windows. As usual, it needed to install more updates, so it decided to do so between clicking "Shut Down" and actually shutting down. I figured it shouldn't take that long, so I closed my laptop lid and went to eat dinner. This wouldn't be news, except that when I came back, I found that it had gone to sleep in the middle (i.e. it hadn't actually finished installing updates). That was one annoying thing. Anyway, I woke it up, and it finished installing updates and then properly shut down with no apparent errors.

Today, when I booted back into Microsoft Windows, I got a message saying that Microsoft Windows didn't shut down properly the last time. WHAT? It's telling me that it's my fault that it took so long to install updates that the laptop went to sleep before it could finish, and that what looked to be a fine shutdown process was actually faulty in some magical way, and I'm supposed to blindly believe all that?

Sure, I could use this opportunity to promote how Linux has a much more sensible way of staying updated, but really, any other OS has a better update mechanism than Microsoft Windows. It's really frustrating. Hopefully the Google Chrome OS netbooks (and to a lesser extent the Ubuntu netbooks made by ASUS) will help promote OSs other than Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X in the public eye, so people realize they don't have to put up with stuff like this or seek needlessly expensive alternatives. (OK, so I did just promote Linux over Apple's Mac OS X, et cetera. So I'm a bad person.)

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

Mozilla Firefox 4, as customized by me

Mozilla Firefox 4 is out, and I'm using it now. It's now fast enough and stable enough that it has rekindled some of the old excitement I felt when I first started using Mozilla Firefox and when I started using a new version of the browser. At the same time that I started using it, I saw this article (Ed Bott, ZDNet) which posits why Microsoft Internet Explorer will survive and Mozilla Firefox won't, and I felt like I should respond to it.

Before that, there are two things I should disclose. The first is that I initially considered titling this post "Review: Mozilla Firefox 4" but I decided against it because it's more my opinion of the current status of the browser and my excitement about the new release. The second is that I am probably quite biased in favor of Mozilla Firefox, considering that I have been using it since version 0.8. Please keep these in mind when reading the rest of this post.

Basically, he posits that Mozilla has done wrong by letting Firefox sit without a major release for two years, while in two years Google Chrome has gone from version 1 to version 10. Furthermore, Microsoft has been ramping up its Internet Explorer release schedule and coming closer to how often Google releases Chrome and will make bigger strides in market share thanks to integration with Microsoft Windows Phone 7. And finally, both Microsoft and Google have a whole host of web applications coming with Internet Explorer and Chrome, respectively, while Mozilla has nothing of the sort for Firefox, so Firefox is the loser here. Follow the jump to read my take.

Not All is Fair in Linux

There are a couple experiences I had yesterday computer-wise that I'd like to share.
The first has to do with printing. Yesterday, I needed to print out a paper I had written for my history class; I don't have my own printer in my dormitory room, so I usually print on-campus. I went to one of the quick-workstations with Ubuntu-based MIT Athena computers, and I tried printing my document there. Of course OpenOffice.org recognized the document just fine, as it was an ODT file made in OpenOffice.org on my computer. However, I wasn't able to print, because my account didn't have the printer in that room as a recognized device. I didn't have very much time at all to fiddle with the printer settings, so I headed to a Microsoft Windows-based Athena cluster of computers in the library. Unfortunately, Microsoft Windows XP didn't have the Droid Sans font enabled, and of course I couldn't download it as I don't have administrative rights, so the document got printed in Times New Roman. That's not a big deal, although I would have preferred that it be printed in the font I originally used.
These are not meant to be knocks against either OS; I'm just a little surprised with some of the administrative decisions made here with regard to the network. I thought that to help keep the applications and interfaces uniform, the same fonts would be present in Microsoft Windows as in Ubuntu and the same printers would be enabled by default for all accounts in Ubuntu as in Microsoft Windows.
Last night, however, I experienced some slightly more serious trouble with my Linux Mint installation on my computer. After the boot process, I got the error message of "Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode". I tried reconfiguring X.Org and restarting, but to no avail; the error message came up again. I then entered in low-graphics mode just once, but of course, this meant using the generic graphics driver and having no desktop effects at all. Using the proprietary NVidia drivers didn't help either, so I disabled those as well. I looked in the forums for solutions, and I found one: I logged out, logged into failsafe GNOME, removed the Compiz Fusion extra plugins, logged out again, and logged back in again. Now, [essentially] everything works again.
I read in some forum posts that the issue could be a bad update, but I looked at the Linux Mint Update Manager's update log and found no updates for Compiz in the last few days. It seems like the Compiz issue was just a random breakage; this is the first time I'm seeing something like that happen on Linux Mint, and I had hoped that it was the last, but today when logging in, all my windows' titlebars went missing, so I needed to use the Compiz Fusion icon to reload Compiz. I hope I don't have to do this again.
I feel like this is a symptom of a problem many people online have talked about with regard to Linux distributions becoming more newbie-friendly; as they start to appeal more to migrants from Microsoft Windows, a lot of the same problems start appearing. It doesn't matter that things like package managers require a password to start; hopefully the user knows the password, so once that password is typed, there is nothing to stop the user from totally messing up the system, even unintentionally. Knowing that it wasn't a bad update (though it might have been a bad update of a dependency), I have no idea what I could have done to cause this problem. Unlike in Microsoft Windows, I expect that in Linux problems do not spontaneously appear; they should have some traceable cause.
Well, all I can do is hope that these problems don't recur, and that they'll be fixed in future versions of Linux Mint.

Revisited: KDE 4.6

Main Screen

I recently tried reviewing KDE 4.6, and it didn't turn out so well due to the combination of my installing KDE 4.6 in a live session and my using Linux Mint to try it out. (Also, I have said this before in previous articles, but again, my primary distribution is Linux Mint with GNOME, so that bias will show in this article somehow or another. Please do keep that in mind when reading this.) One frequent suggestion was to use Arch to test it next time. Although installing Arch may not be so bad, getting it configured to work right post-installation, while ultimately very rewarding, is time-consuming and pretty difficult, and I don't think I have either the time or skill to do that. Then I had an epiphany (no pun intended): use ArchBang. It comes as a live CD and, after installation, it has a nice Openbox setup with things like sound and network settings configured properly out-of-the-box. It also comes with a whole bunch of GTK+ applications, so it's ideal to see how well KDE plays with another DE/WM side-by-side.

I tried doing all this in VirtualBox on a Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME live USB, because MultiSystem, the multiboot live USB creation tool, seems to have messed up VirtualBox on my installed Linux Mint 9 "Isadora" GNOME system. I allocated 1024 MB of RAM to the guest OS, used a 10 GB virtual hard drive located on my physical hard drive for installing ArchBang, and went on my way. The installation procedure was fairly straightforward; it was a text-based ncurses-esque interface. After installing, I restarted the virtual machine and then ran the following commands in sequence in order to update the system: "su", "pacman -Syu", "exit", log out, log back in, "su", "pacman -Syu" for good measure, "pacman -S kde", and finally "exit". I also edited the ~/.xinitrc file to start KDE instead of Openbox by default. I then logged out and logged back in. Follow the jump to see what KDE 4.6 is really like.

HP + Linux = Ending the Microsoft Addiction?

HP has been best known for its peripheral computer devices, especially printers and scanners, though it is also well-known for its desktop computers, and, to a lesser extent, laptops and netbooks. Its printers and other peripherals are held in high regard for fully working with Linux distributions out-of-the-box, but it has never officially supported Linux among its product portfolio. Sure, it has sold business-/enterprise- and server-grade computers with SUSE (SLED, not openSUSE), but those are tucked away in dark corners of its website; even Dell, with its on-again, off-again, relationship with Ubuntu, does sort of advertise its Ubuntu-based machines. Well, that's all about to change at HP.
Today, HP first announced a couple WebOS-based phones and a new WebOS based tablet to compete with Apple's iPad. WebOS is HP's mobile operating system based on Linux; as far as I know, other than using the Linux kernel and base GNU tools, WebOS is not related to Android, and the two will probably compete in the mobile marketplace. But the most exciting part came later: HP announced that not only would WebOS come in phones and tablets, but it would also make its way into its printers and PCs. That's right: HP is introducing its own Linux-based competitor to Microsoft Windows. Sweet! This could, after all, be the oft-proclaimed year of the Linux desktop.
Of course, with this new announcement comes new responsibilities; now HP has absolutely no excuse for their peripherals not fully supporting Linux, considering many of them will run Linux under the hood. Then again, as I said earlier, HP has been pretty good to Linux so far in terms of peripheral support.
But there's another aspect to HP's WebOS announcement. If you noticed, WebOS is supposed to be a mobile platform; yet, it's being ported to conventional desktops as well. This is similar to how Ubuntu's Unity interface, originally designed for netbooks and similarly small screens, will become the default interface for desktops as well, and how future versions of Google Chrome OS will likely be very much like Android scaled up for netbooks. In addition, it looks like GNOME 3 was also designed with small form factors in mind, what with the Activities feature and the panel only being able to show the active task, and this has been scaled up for traditional desktops. I think there's a new trend here of creating new interfaces designed for mobile devices and then scaling them up for desktop use, and I think for that reason it's true that the future of end-user computing is in mobile devices. A while back I wrote a post about how Microsoft's push for Windows 7 on netbooks was misguided and that it should scale up the Windows Phone 7 interface instead to make better use of hardware resources, similar to how Apple scaled up the iPhone's iOS for use in the iPad instead of trying to cram in Mac OS X. Well, now that we're seeing mobile OSs being scaled up to full desktops and not just netbooks, I don't think Microsoft is just misguided anymore — I think they're dead wrong, and I think it's already costing them.
The only concern I have though is that WebOS on desktops and laptops may be relegated as a lightweight "instant-on"-style OS secondary to Microsoft Windows, similar to what Asus did for a while on its laptops and netbooks. Then again, HP seems to be pretty darn serious about WebOS for desktops, and not just because consumers want something fast; they recognize that consumers also want the same polish found in modern mobile OSs, so I don't think WebOS will be playing second fiddle to Microsoft Windows on future HP desktops/laptops.

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.

Familiarity Breeds Fondness, not Contempt

The thought about the content of this post occurred to me yesterday when surfing the web as normal. (Interestingly enough, I forgot about it until this afternoon.) It started with Mozilla Firefox crashing. I feel like although with computer-related things I'm a bit more flexible and willing to change (compared to average users) when better software alternatives come around, with some things I just stick too much to what I know, often to my own detriment. Follow the jump to find out exactly what I mean.

Featured Comments: Week of 2010 November 21

I want to apologize for not having posted this yesterday as usual. I was traveling back to college (more on that in an upcoming post) and didn't have computer access all day.
There were quite a few comments on posts this week, so I won't repost all of them.

Adafruit Bears Fruit for Microsoft

In response to my question about why Microsoft seemed so defensive, an anonymous reader had this to say: "Because Microsoft stir hackers' defiance whenever they say they have protected their products. For Microsoft, it was just saying "I challenge you to hack my ultra-securized device", and some hackers successfully took in the challenge. the Microsoft PR guys are just brilliant, they just took advantage of the company's reputation and the situation actually did beget creativity, the sort of creativity that will eventually benefit the Redmond-based behemoth."
Another anonymous commenter counters this: "Why do you think the developer at Microsoft who claimed that it would be easy to hack really telling the truth? I think it is just a post-construction when they realized that it was impossible to stop. And then everything is back to normal again, MS is and will remain evil :-)"
Another anonymous reader thinks it's because of sheer ignorance on Microsoft's part: "The data format was not "ultrasecurized" at all. They didn't know what was going on they just heard "kinect hacking" and gave a generic response which applied to a physical type hacking, with soldering and all. This was not a physical hack but a reverse engineering of the data format."

Ubuntu to Become a Rolling Release Distribution

In response to the update about the news being not-quite-true, reader T_Beermonster wrote, "I think that's a shame that they back-pedalled. Since I went rolling release with aptosid I don't think I'd be willing to go back to a step-change release model. I can see why it may be easier to sell support contracts for a step-release model but I don't think it actually offers any benefit to a desktop user."

Linux Mint: Good for Low-Requirement and Paranoid Users

Reader Arjun Krishna had this to say about it: "Windows is one of the worst OSes I have ever had. Linux Mint 10 "Julia" is definitely one of the most stable and user-friendly Operating systems in the world! Open SUSE is also a good alternative to Linux Mint, in case the system is older, and has less RAM. In any case, any Unix based OS would be much better to work with than a Windows based OS."
Also, commenter herbalfroot wrote, " Everyone for whom I have installed *buntu and mint have nothing but praise for the desktop they now have. These include non-technical users. I roll my eyes to the sky whenever I hear 'Linux is too difficult for the average user'."

Thanks to everyone who commented this week. Unfortunately, for the next two and a half weeks, I'll be quite busy, so don't expect to see a whole lot of new posts. In any case, as always, if you like what I write, please subscribe!

Adafruit Bears Fruit for Microsoft

Several days ago, open-source hardware company Adafruit offered a "bounty" of $3000 for the first person to hack Microsoft's Kinect (formerly Project Natal) device. For those of you who don't know, Kinect was originally just an add-on hardware accessory for the Microsoft XBOX 360 allowing for motion sensing of one's full body (as opposed to using an external device, like the Wiimote in Nintendo's Wii). However, companies like Adafruit saw the additional value in a product like this, and Adafruit offered a cash prize for whoever could first release an open-source driver (not necessary for Linux per se) for the Kinect. (Someone did win and receive the cash prize already.) Since then, dozens of new and interesting uses for the Kinect have come up, including being able to manipulate pictures and videos using just your arms (sci-fi style) and being able to make a movie of you using a lightsaber in real time by having the Kinect track the motion of you swinging around a long stick. The possibilities are virtually endless.
More interesting, however, is Microsoft's response to all this. First, they angrily condemned this cash prize offer saying they don't condone such modifications; furthermore, they seemed to vaguely threaten legal action against Adafruit and/or the skilled hacker. Later, once the prize had been claimed, however, Microsoft backed down from the legal threats, probably because even they knew they wouldn't stand a chance in court. Now, after all this, a Microsoft engineer has admitted that the Kinect was designed to be easy to hack for exactly these sorts of purposes.
So my question is, why wasn't Microsoft open and up-front about this from the start? Unlike Bart Simpson and Nelson Muntz, they don't have a "bad-boy" reputation to protect. If they had been open about this from the start, people who were cowered into submission and inaction by Microsoft's threats would have otherwise tried their hands at the Kinect, leading to more competition and possibly even higher-quality drivers (and even more possibilities). It looks like Microsoft is admitting that it needs to look like a bully even if it really isn't at times; why?

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.

Microsoft's Latest Scare Tactics as of 2010 October 28

For the last few years, Microsoft has been making vague threats to sue vendors of Linux-based products for infringing on Microsoft's patents. When Microsoft is asked to elaborate on what exactly is being infringed, it suffers a convenient case of amnesia. In any case, while it has bullied a few companies (first Novell over SUSE, now companies like HTC over Android) into paying excessive royalty fees for no reason, it has never made good on its threats to sue anyone, probably because it would be clear as day just how ridiculous Microsoft's infringement claims really are.
It seems like now, as this article (Adam Hwang, Digitimes) points out, Microsoft could possibly make good on this, although it seems like it's just bullying companies into paying royalty fees as opposed to outright suing. It's charging AsusTEK and Acer royalty fees for the very vague "email, multimedia, and other" functions just to make sure they don't sell netbooks or tablets with Android or Chrome OS on them. It would be a shame if these companies submitted to Microsoft's demand, but it'll probably happen considering that the same thing happened to Novell and HTC; then again, consumers are now more aware than ever of alternatives to Microsoft Windows, so I think they may actually seek out and demand Android and Chrome OS devices anyway. Let's see how this turns out.

FOLLOW-UP: Microsoft's Ironic Shutdown Patent

This isn't a true follow-up in the sense that it isn't about the patent which I talked about earlier. It has to do with something that happened to me a few days ago when I needed to boot into Microsoft Windows 7 to relax and play some of my computer games (that don't work on WINE in Linux).
As usual, Windows needed to download and install updates and patches, and it needed to restart afterwards to make the updates effective. As usual, I chose to ignore the warnings and restart until the next nagging reminder came along. This particular warning asked me how long I wanted to postpone the restart for, so when I chose "1 hour", I assumed that an hour later, there would be a message box warning me of the impending restart procedure and asking me if I wanted to go ahead or postpone it again. Thinking nothing of this, I went ahead and started playing. An hour later, the game screen suddenly became black, and the cursor disappeared; next thing I know is the screen is showing the shutdown screen with a message about updates being downloaded and installed. That's right: Microsoft Windows shut down an hour later without asking me again just to install updates. I wasn't able to save my game, so I lost everything past the previous save point.
Really, Microsoft? Does the thing really need to be that intrusive? There's not really a whole lot more I can say about this without degenerating into a steaming, sputtering wreck (which is not something I do often); please bear with me.

Stuxnet, Microsoft, and the Media

There have been a slew of articles about a new piece of malware called Stuxnet which has infected tens of thousands of computers in Iran without the computers' users' knowledge. There's an article by Ellen Nakashima in the Washington Post about how Stuxnet could be used against the US, considering the target of the original attack was probably one of the nuclear power plants in Iran. I wondered what sort of havoc it could wreak on our country's computers. Then I clicked on page 2, and my suspicions — not about Stuxnet's fearsome capabilities, but about its modus operandi and how the mainstream media would report it — were confirmed.
Of course, reading the article again, I should have been suspicious on page 1 itself, considering that "[t]he antivirus security firm Symantec analyzed the worm this summer." Does anyone seriously expect Symantec to be a disinterested party in this? It's a question of computer security, so of course they're going to inflate numbers a little (though whether they've actually done so this time or not is another question) to scare the public into buying their products.
But the second page holds the real "goodies" of this article. Let's go through the major ones.

But "not even two days later," he said, a hacker Web site posted the code so that others could use it to exploit the vulnerabilities in Microsoft.

I should have figured as much. It only affects Microsoft software. Why must the mainstream media equate Microsoft software with all software, considering that in higher levels of the government (e.g. the Department of Defense) Linux is in widespread use for its security benefits? For goodness sake, the military uses RHEL/CentOS!

* It exploited four Microsoft "zero-day" vulnerabilities, allowing Stuxnet to spread automatically without computers users' knowledge.
* One vulnerability allowed the worm to spread via the use of a thumb drive or other removable device. That flaw and one other have since been patched.
* It is autonomous - it requires no hidden hand at the control stick to direct its moves. [...]
* Once it found its target, it was designed to inject code into the controller to change a process. What that process is, is not yet known.

All of these have to do with the fact that Microsoft Windows automatically elevates users to administrator privileges and grants executables administrative privileges as well, so of course this virus will spread without the user's knowledge, spread via removable media, spread autonomously, and inject code autonomously. With Linux, the concept of user privileges (as well as the way Linux handles executables, which is very different from Microsoft Windows) means that this sort of thing would require a lot more effort to execute. And don't counter with Apple's Mac OS X; a recent Secunia report has showed that Apple software has experienced more security vulnerabilities this year than Microsoft software.
So please, Washington Post: don't conflate Microsoft software with all software, and please do some more of the investigative reporting that made you famous in the 1970s with regard to a certain president; is that too much to ask, in this day and age?

Red Hat: The New Big Monopoly?

Given the presence of Microsoft and Apple, of course Red Hat can't be a monopoly (at least in the desktop market). However, there have been a slew of reports of Oracle rebranding RHEL as Oracle Linux a.k.a. "Unbreakable Linux". This article (Brian Proffitt, ITworld) discusses how that and Amazon Linux AMI (Amazon's Linux distribution built for its own cloud servers) are proof that companies are "stealing" Linux, as Oracle and Amazon are bundling their hardware with their own Linux distributions.
First, I think it's misleading (at best) to say these companies are "stealing" Linux. How is what they are doing any different from what Canonical, Novell, and Red Hat do to Linux? Are they also "stealing" Linux to make their own distribution? I feel like this is the point of free software — allowing anyone to build customized versions of software to fit their own needs; good for Oracle and Amazon for taking full advantage of the benefits of Linux and free software. I don't think Oracle and Amazon are going to prevent loading other Linux distributions; it's just that the bundled distribution will be Oracle Linux or Amazon Linux AMI, as opposed to Microsoft Windows or Ubuntu. Also, isn't this what was supposed to happen to Android — phone makers customizing Android to suit their phones' needs? Isn't this what is happening, at any rate? Saying these companies are "stealing" Linux to suit their needs just seems a bit silly to me.
The bigger problem I have, though, is that both Oracle Linux and Amazon Linux are based off of RHEL. I think it's great that Red Hat has become so successful and so widespread, but this incredible adoption rate worries me at the same time because it could give Red Hat a monopoly over the market similar to the one Microsoft currently has over the desktop market (and I fear similar effects stemming from this). Come on, Canonical and Novell. (I am fully aware that it's easy for me to say this from the comfort of my keyboard.) Learn from Red Hat and give Red Hat some competition. People will have more choice regarding the back-end, and everyone wins from choice and competition.