(OT) vista is already outdated...

[hummingbird]

I have been calling for this for a while now. People are tired of
sitting around waiting for today's supposedly fast PCs to boot. Booting
from ROM would be fast, and no install/reinstall would ever be
necessary. And yes, it would slow down the onslaught of viruses and
trojans. Hard drives would eventually be replaced by usb drives, and
would become a thing of the past.

The problem here is that MS will package a bunch of garbage software
and trials and demos in with their OS and it might be impossible to get
rid of it. It might fly with the average consumer but it wouldn't fly
with power users. If that is their intention, then it will work. If
they think that power users would accept this, they are only fooling
themselves.

I guess that dumbed down users far outnumber power users, so that's
where the money is and where the decisions will be heading.

 

[meow2222]

An OS running on a hard drive can be equally unwritable, provided it's
properly designed and configured. Linux and the BSD's have the ability
(via the "immutable" bit) to make individual files or all of the files in
a directory unchangeable even by root. With a few additional machinations
you can make the files unalterable without rebooting the system off a
CD and changing the immutable bits from there. That in turn requires
having physical access to the machine.

Whether the kernel is on a HD or a PROM, you still have the problem of
users being able to configure hardware for their service provider, add
drivers for new peripherals and hardware, install and update the
applications they need, and so on. To be successful in the market you have
to allow users to customized their machines to do whatever they want them
to do. As soon as you allow this level of access, you have unskilled
people messing with system configuration and installing & configuring
potential malware. This is already the point of attack for most of the
malware that plagues us today. Further securing the kernel isn't going to
solve the major part of the problem.

What's badly needed is to make it easier for unskilled people to install,
upgrade, and configure applications and hardware without opening up
vulnerabilities. I'm not familiar enough with OS-X to comment on it,
but IMO Windows and Linux are both massive failures in this department.


By the way, here's a site you may find interesting:

http://www.linuxbios.org

LinuxBIOS is a Free Software project aimed at replacing the normal BIOS
with a little bit of hardware initialization and a compressed Linux
kernel that can be booted from a cold start. The project was started as
part of clustering research work in the Cluster Reseach Lab at the
Advanced Computing Laboratory at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The
primary motivation behind the project was the desire to have the
operating system gain control of a cluster node from power on. Other
beneficial consequences of using LinuxBIOS include needing only two
working motors to boot (cpu fan and power supply), fast boot times
(current fastest is 3 seconds), and freedom from proprietary (buggy)
BIOS code, to name a few. These secondary benefits are numerous and have
helped gain support from many vendors in both the high performance
computing as well as embedded computing markets.

Such fast windows boots are easy to do using todays systems. Laptops
can save RAM to disc, then just reload it on powerup. Its done in no
time. It would not take much to get win to do this by default at
startup. That brings in additional issues which are simple enough to
solve. It isnt done because ms doesnt give a fig about the user
experience.


NT

 

[meow2222]

I agree that there would likely be a significant market for a
dumbed-down, more inherently secure home PC.

I wonder. Buyers are funny. Similarish machines are already available,
and so far have been an unmitigated flop. The prime contenders are:

1. webtv, cant even give them away
2. netless word processor machines, now considered obsolete
3. used win PCs that come at low cost already setup, again people dont
want them.
4. New PCs with linux preinstalled.

None are exactly what you describe, but the fact that none get
significant respect in the market place says something.

There's simply no getting around the user education issue. I
suspect that many users would appreciate a combination
of a inherently more secure machine coupled with info
on how to avoid taking hits built right into the OS and apps
that are supplied with the PC.

You'd think so, but the ready set up linux boxes attract few buyers.


NT

 

[arachnid]

You'd think so, but the ready set up linux boxes attract few buyers.

Most Linux boxes are available only via the Internet, and many of those
are either server boxes or targeted at corporate users. The desktop
systems you do find are usually priced so high that one can get a similar
machine *with* Windows for less at Best Buy.

I doubt we'll be seeing Linux machines in Best Buy anytime soon, and not
just because of Microsoft's anticompetitive OEM agreements. DRM issues
make it illegal to play DVD's on Linux and consumers don't want machines
that can't play DVD's out of the box. Of course you can download software
to decode DVD's and install it yourself, but under the DMCA that's illegal
in the US. Sooner or later the MPAA is going to sue someone over this. The
civil and criminal penalties too huge for manufacturers to take the chance.