On Thursday 06 December 2001 08:10, you wrote:
> > Question how many copies of wu-ftp are still in use. Question the
> > reference to Grannie ... and whether I would be getting hit 1,400
> > times a day if she could apply a MSFT service pack.
>
> Could Grannie (not the savvy Grannie, mind you) apply a patch from
> RedHat? Or from any other distro? I know Debian, so I'll reference
> it here: security updates can be made automatic by Debian's apt-get
> utility. I don't think they are automatic by default, though.
>
Russ ... the reference to Grannie came from the MSFT rep. I certainly
don't think there are very many Grannies running any version of FTP
... on any platfom. The MS rep. introduced an absurdity ... the
issue of unskilled users being unable to patch a system they can not
install to begin with ... and I questioned it. His purpose was to
ridicule Linux as being too complex to use and my purpose is to
return the ridicule.
I have yet to install a software patch. One of these days I should
probably try it, eh?
I don't know if the mass user mediocrity problem that afflicts MSFT
would also afflict Linux in the same way. At best, there can only be
conjecture on the topic. That whole question gets over into the
philosophical contemplations as to how easy Linux -should- be to
operate. Frankly, I think it should not be made much easier to use
... if that were even possible ... than it is today. I am (currently)
familiar with only Mandrake. Mandrake is probably easier to install
and use on a desktop machine than Windows ... but I'd just as soon
that didn't become common knowledge. I would rather newbies didn't
migrate to Linux until they were ready for a technical challenge ...
that of keeping a system secured from commonly known threats.
Bill
--
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1545352 1459984 85368 0 318792 804404
Swap: 401584 12 401572
Total: 1946936 1459996 486940
Linux a.genesis.com 2.4.14 #3 Fri Nov 9 23:14:31 EST 2001 K7 750MHz
12:08amup 5 days, 22:14, 5 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.07
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