[Sussex] What path does one take

[Vic]

> So I take the opinion that Linux is only really more stable and less
> viruses because less software is typically installed on it

No - I fundamentally disagree with this.

It's been Microsoft's position for the longest time that the greater
numbers of infestations of MS products compared to Linux is down to the
installed base, and many commentators have swallowed this line. Yet it
doesn't hold water.

Consider the web-server market. According to Netcraft, Apache has some
70-odd % of all web servers. Now that's not exactly equal to 70% Linux,
but it's good enough for rock 'n' roll. IIS has somewhere around 20%.
Linux has *much* greater penetration in this market.

So this means that Linux/Apache is the one that gets broken into, rather
than Windows/IIS, does it? I've yet to see a stat that supports that...

The main reason IMHO why there is no real virus problem with Linux is that
there is proper privilege separation. It is enforced (and if you listen to
the SELinux guys, it's likely to be enforced more strongly in the future).
Now modern versions of Windows *could* do something very similar (although
there are fundamental flaws in the scoping of its registry, AIUI) - but
almost every user runs without that separation, because if they used it,
things would be as "difficult" or "complex" in the Windows world as they
are in the Linux world (I use quote marks because I don't believe
privilege to be either difficult or complex - but it does require a little
thought from time to time).

All the above might change if Linspire and its view of life become
prevalent... :-(

> and people have false confidence in it.

I don't think there's many people have "false" confidence in it. Linux
just *is* that good.

Vic.