Poll: What is your primary operating system

Post by rbarooah » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 9:35 AM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #342

thatjoshguy wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, what is making you move towards Linux? The huge appeal of OS X to me is, as someone said on here recently, it's basically *BSD with a fancy window manager and 1-to-1 hardware/software integration.

The way OS X is being locked down. In 10.8, signing is optional and even if you tell your system not to allow unsigned, you can bypass it on a case by case basis. In the next OS X, we'll probably move a bit farther in that direction, and at one per year, the OS X of 2016 will probably refuse to run unsigned applications at all, for excellent reasons involving security and malware, etc. I'm sure there will be a way to…

Post by dpacmittal » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 9:59 AM UTC

fingerprinter wrote: post #165

My main machine is Ubuntu host and I run virtualized Ubuntu dev instances. Frankly, nothing can beat it. Unity in 12.04 has been a god-send to me using Linux and I don't think I'll be going to anything else for quite some time. Seriously, if you haven't tried Ubuntu 12.04, you owe it to yourself. BTW. I used Slackware for years but had to use OSX at a job for like 4 years. When I left that job I went and bought a Mac…

Post by rbarooah » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 10:13 AM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #444

rbarooah wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a one sided narrative which ignores the possibility that code signing provides meaningful anti-malware benefits. What would you have them do instead?

I did mention those benefits in passing: "for excellent reasons involving security and malware". I don't disagree that this can provide those benefits; I just don't feel that they're worth the cost to me, personally. Also, I don't have any notion of how they could provide what I and other technically savvy people want and what the main base of computer users need at the same time.

Post by apgwoz » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 10:36 AM UTC

gjm11 wrote: post #440

apgwoz wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when did it become not OK to side with the FSF? This, (i.e. the "Hacker" News crowd) has really set a new low bar.

Saying "I use GNU/Linux": OK. Saying "I don't use Linux and am going to distort your poll results because you didn't use the terminology I prefer": not OK. And, honestly, if getting a few downvotes for some random thing is "setting a new low bar" then something's wrong with your calibration.

Post by Natsu » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 10:57 AM UTC

rbarooah wrote: post #445

randallsquared wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did mention those benefits in passing: "for excellent reasons involving security and malware". I don't disagree that this can provide those benefits; I just don't feel that they're worth the cost to me, personally. Also, I don't have any notion of how they could provide what I and other technically savvy people want and what the main base of computer users need at the same time.

The only thing you seem to be saying you want is to be free from the fear of unintended negative consequences of code signing. It's tautological that nobody can both provide something and freedom from the fear of the unintended consequences of that same thing simultaneously. On the other hand, since the only way to judge the trustworthiness of code is to know its provenance, I don't see how we can avoid some kind of…