Ethic Delima

Abstract

Microsoft Windows is widely regarded as the epitome of insecure platforms However, the platform fraught with innumerable security problems. A Windows system is known as the top the charts in perhaps every major vulnerability and incident list. In contrast, UNIX system Many question has been asked by few people: technology experts, and non-technical users. I found that very few people had actually ever given this any serious thought. They "just knew" that Windows is "the most insecure platform." Those who were willing to think on-the-fly ascribed their beliefs to gut-feeling, perpetual digital disasters crashing down upon Windows (as experienced first-hand or as reported by the media), statistics (incidents and vulnerabilities published by respectable organizations), folklore, inherent (sometimes inexplicable) hatred of all things Microsoft, inherent affinity for UNIX.

Ms are perceived to be considerably more secure, because A Linux Distribution has thousands of dollars worth of software for no cost (or a couple of dollars if purchased on CD)

Most distributions can be downloaded as a set of cd images, which can then be burned onto CDR and used to install. If you don't have access to a CD-R drive or high speed connection, there are many online stores who are willing to sell you an installation cd for around $5 or less (depending on how many you buy).

If you're feeling stingy but patient, there are also groups who will ship you a the cds for absolutely no cost. The crash of an application is much less likely to bring down the operating system under Linux. The Linux servers are often up for hundreds of days compared with the regular reboots required with a Windows system. Linux comes with a complete development environment, including C, C++, Fortran compilers, toolkits such as Qt and scripting languages such as Perl, Awk and sed. A C compiler for Windows alone would set you back hundreds of dollars. This system is user friendly an has excellent networking facilities: allowing you to share CPUs, share modems etc; all of which are not included or available with Windows 95. Linux is an ideal environment to run servers such as a web server (e.g. Apache), or an FTP server. One of the major litmus tests of the quality and utility of a modern operating system is how well it networks. Since Linux was developed by a team of programmers over the Internet, its networking features were given high priority. Linux is capable of acting as client and/or server to any of the popular operating systems in use today, and is quite capable of being used to run Internet Service Providers. Linux supports most of the major protocols, and quite a few of the minor ones. Support for Internet, Novell, Windows, and Apple talk networking have been part of the Linux kernel for some time now. With support for Simple Network Management Protocol and other services (such as Domain Name Service), Linux is also well suited to serving large networks. Finally, all these networking options will run quite acceptably on minimal hardware configurations. However, Commercial software is available for Linux if your needs aren't satisfied by the free software. An excellent window system called X is freely available for the linux platform. It provides much of the [underlying] Windows functionality, but is much more flexible. The source code for Linux is freely available for download, modification and redistribution.

The fact that the source code for Windows and other systems is a closely guarded secret keeps people from learning from it, tinkering with it, and (perhaps) improving it. It means that problems which are technically easy to fix (like the infamous teardrop Pentium bug) cannot be fixed by any user with the technical expertise, but everyone must wait until Microsoft publishes a patch. The availability of source code is a particularly useful thing for programmers and computer science students, which form a significant percentage of Linux users. An important aspect of open software is the ability to write kernel extensions and drivers as needed. If there is new hardware out they would just write the driver. Another huge advantage of an open system is a large number of software authors and beta testers. This makes the software testing and refinement process faster and better. Because there is not a lot of commercial software for Linux (though that is an increasing market), most software written for Linux is written because the authors want to do it. Since there are no corporate deadlines, there need be no compromise of quality. Many programmers relish the idea of showing off some artistry, since others will actually see and appreciate their code. This means many good things for the user. It means higher-quality software, which means less prone to crash, more efficient, what have you. Often, if you have a question, it is often possible to ask the author of the software him/herself via E-Mail or Usenet Newsgroups. It makes it easier for people to get involved in the development process, which means that even if someone is not a programmer, he or she can have a profound impact on a piece of software by suggesting how to improve it to the development team. Commercial systems require their customers to depend on their companies for technical support. If there is a problem, users must often wait on hold (while paying for a toll call). While decentralized, it is often easier to get help with problems in Linux. Microsoft does not make it a priority to maintain backward-compatibility with older systems when it releases new operating systems. Cost becomes an issue again: until quite recently a new system would cost close to $2000; many people do not have the money to upgrade every two or three years. So that 486 becomes a very expensive paperweight unless there is a platform which can run on it acceptably. Linux is such a platform. Linux has superb support for older hardware. In fact, it is often easier to find hardware support for 486-era hardware than the latest gizmos to hit the market. This is because the driver authors need time to write and test the drivers, and some vendors are not exactly forthcoming with the information required to write a driver. What this means for the user is that they can protect their investment in hardware. When old hardware is rendered obsolete by the latest version of Windows or MacOS...were found to be fair, it can most likely still run enough of Linux to be perfectly useful. There is no reason for Linux users try to make hardware obsolete and every reason for them to provide support for older hardware.

Cost of UNIX/Linux

Linux has a Lack of consistency; there is a lot of duplication among the various packages in a Linux distribution. Some of the Mail Transfer Agents available (and this is not an exhaustive