Brainstorms,
Your father-in-law is a example of PEBCAC, not Windows.
Case in point: My wife's father (75 yrs young) got his first computer last year too, a Dell Studio which we ordered and customized for him. (We no longer build Laptops.) This also came with Vista Home Premium installed. The first thing we did was turn of UAC. He intended to use it for email, his dog racing pictures, and surfing the internet only. Since then he's diversified quite a bit (they always do) to some games, music, and even software downloads. One of his grandchildren introduced him to Limewire (IMHO the biggest virus magnet on the planet). But because he has Malwarebytes Pro (active protection) and AVG 9.0 Security Suite Beta (active protection) on his system - rather than the crappy Defender and Dell's McAfee Security Center that came with it, he hasn't had a virus or any spyware yet. Heck, he doesn't even have any tracking cookies on his system thanks to CounterSpy 3.1 (active protection disabled). All 3 of these programs cost less for 2 year licenses than a single year of McAfee, and they actually work. He's been instructed to never allow a program that trips the active protection on these apps to run. Its too bad that your father-in-law didn't have someone looking after him in the same manner. But if he had, he wouldn't have gotten malware, and you wouldn't have tried making this into a Windows problem rather than acknowledging it was actually a problem with his protection and understanding of how to use it.
Half of our customers have the same lack of knowledge about computers that my father-in-law does, so this is nothing new to us. We're quite proud of our track record in that regard (3 yrs+ since a customer brought an infected system back for repairs). Its only a matter of time before someone does, but the same thing could be said for Linux on over 3000 systems. Again, it boils down to how well the system is set up in the first place, and how well the user is informed on how to use it.
Have to say that with the right programs in place I find it quite hard to get malware anymore. I have to take serious steps, including disabling services and rebooting, even to run a software crack let alone get an infected system. (I run cracks only for testing purposes, then eliminate them.) So IMO anyone who thinks its easy to get malware today is running the wrong protection programs or doesn't know how to use them. You can't even log onto a maliscious website with good malware protection installed.
The only thing more secure about Linux is the fact that hackers don't target Linux as often. That's why there is malware protection software for Linux. The number of reported malware infections on Linux is proportional to the amount of Linux users vs Windows and Mac. They're just as susceptible to malware as any other system. Writing malware to target the root takes more time, but is no more difficult. To me that's false security. A quick google search brings up plenty of Linux viruses. A person only needs to pay attention to the news to see how often governments subltly insinuate that China is behind hacking "attempts" of their systems (last time I checked most governments were using Linux/Unix servers including USA and Australia). If they didn't have techs responsible for constantly monitoring and fighting off these attacks they would be much more than "attempts". Some would argue (and rightly so) that using Linux implies "something to hide", which is seen by some hackers as a challenge, making them less secure than the average Windows machine. The same case has been made with encryption. It all really depends upon your perspective.
Many times I've installed XP and even W2K after Vista and Windows 7. Never had a problem with doing so. But then I understand how to make a partition active, edit a boot.ini, and use boot loaders. There's simple how to's all over google on this subject, which is how I learned. It helps to have the right tools. No doubt that its easier though to set up W2K or XP on the 1st partition as then everything is automatic.
You find Linux easy because you've used it for years. Your opinions about Windows don't seem to reflect someone with the experience that you claim to have with it. EG: Why its easy for you to search for a how to for Linux yet hard to find how to's for installing XP after Vista is unrealistic.
I find Windows easy because I know it well, and Linux more difficult because I'm less experienced with it and have less time to devote to it. This has been our business for 15 years, not a hobby. We built 1000+ systems last year alone (all Windows, all custom, all to what customers ask for - along with our advice), not bad considering the economy. I can't count and don't keep track of all the repairs we've done. My skills on Linux are anything but toned, as I usually only play with it once a year or so. When I get frustrated with its limitations or run into a wall with a problem, it collects dust until the next version rather than fight through it. I don't have the same luxury with Windows because my business depends upon being able to solve Windows problems.
I haven't had to search for a Windows update or driver since Vista came out. Even with XP it hasn't been necessary for years, if one knows where to access free programs to do it for you. Windows and Secunia's online software do that for me, which is identical to how Ubuntu and their software does it. The difference is that if MS included these free resources with their OS the EU would sue them, where the EU can't be bothered with the smaller user bases of Linux and Mac... yet. But have no fear, as the EU is a bunch of greedy self serving idiots who will eventually get around to sueing Mac and Linux as their customer bases grow. Again, not a Windows thing, but rather what an OS can and can't get away with.
I'm glad that you find Linux easy. As I said, I gave Ubuntu 6 hours to convince me that it was more user friendly and ready for prime time. For me there were some easy things, and many things that weren't so easy. It was far from problem free.
Out of curiosity, last night I invited my 19 yo son to run a setup of Ubuntu 9.04 and give his opinions:
I've already mentioned the completely different vocabulary that Linux uses, which is also why I found the online how to's hard to interpret and use. My son struggled with these terminologies much more than I did. He also found that Linux takes too much for granted (which I missed because I already had found out the hard way).
EG: As an average Windows user, he was stuck looking at the Ubuntu desktop wondering how to install a program. A quick "help" click easily found how to's for installing programs. Every one that we saw started with install and run the program, and provided a script to copy/paste. He had no idea what they were talking about as he saw no place to paste the script, and that's where he got stuck immediately. After more reading, he found the reference to a terminal window and had to do a separate search for that to find out where to type that script. DOH! Now he was able to follow the other 5 steps to install a program. His comment: "This is *#&$ stupid!"
They may exist, but we didn't find a simple step by step instruction in this regard which started with the basics. So once again, Ubuntu failed the "easy" test. Now you call that easy because its 2nd nature to you. Its hard to find even in the provided help guide. To anyone new to Linux, that's pretty complicated and should have been included with a basic "getting started" guide (similar to what all Windows versions run at first startup. You know, the one that we all just exit instead of watch anymore because we already know it).
But that's the entire point I was trying to make. For people that have used Windows for years and are new to Linux, its not that easy to learn Linux nor is it trouble free. No experienced Linux guru can argue differently with any credibility because they don't meet the criteria for a "new user". For every person you find that says it wasn't that hard to learn, I can find 3 that say it was hard to learn and not worth it when they were done.
As far as separate HDD for your OS, that's personal preference to some extent. There's also several good reasons for running the OS on the edge of a large multi-HDD with RAID 0 partition:
Its much faster. Not only does RAID 0 improve speed, but the nature of spinning disks dictates that the outer edge is spinning faster than the inner edge. Your 80GB read/write times would be considerably slower than mine, which is important for me since I use large files often and backup regularly.
Also, the more HDDs a person has - the more likely they are to run into hardware failures and motherboard problems. I try to keep the HDDs on my system to a minumum.
E-SATA easily provides more HDDs if needed with hot swappability and the fact that they only run when needed, instead of every time the computer is started which cuts into their life span.
Also, my XP Pro partition is 120GB with 95GB used, with only programs installed to that partition, and data on a separate partition. An 80GB HDD is worthless to me. I won't have to worry about upgrading to a bigger HDD when 90% of my partition is used up (creating problems of its own with defragging and program errors).
But that's what I meant about people who only do basic things finding Linux acceptable. Obviously I'm doing a lot more with my computer than you are.
Since everything is backed up (OS's backed up via images that automatically run every 2 weeks to E-SATA drives) its quite simple for me to reload everything if I run into failed hardware. 20 mins of unattended user time per OS and I'm back in business. That's what makes it easy for me to dump everything to have a play with Linux too. The new drive can sit in my Welland SunBright E-SATA cradle until I get around to manually installing it inside my computer case.
To each their own. 🙂
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