Robert Pogson

AutoCad is considered a “must-have” application for some end-users of PCs and some give that as an example why GNU/Linux does not take larger share. In truth AutoCad is used on a rather small number of PCs in total. Not everyone is a designer/draughtsperson.

For many years AutoCad was not available on MacOS either, in spite of MacOS having a resurgence in business. That is changing as AutoDesk announced that AutoCad is coming back to MacOSS. As the same hardware runs GNU/Linux and MacOS is a UNIX-like OS it is quite possible that a release for GNU/Linux will appear sooner rather than later. That should shut up some of the trolls who insist availability of one app is the cause for GNU/Linux to have a small share on store shelves.

Globally GNU/Linux has a larger share of PCs than MacOS because Macs rarely appear in large parts of the globe. The USA/Europe regions account for only about half the world’s PCs and AutoCad, while useful, is not essential to everyone. At $4000 it is not affordable either.

Preston Gralla has a good blog entry on an insecurity report from IBM:
“It reports that Linux had more vulnerabilities than any other operating system. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the most vulnerable operating system, because Microsoft had the most serious vulnerabilities. Here’s what the report has to say about operating systems:

So if you’re a Mac or Linux user, don’t think you’re invulnerable — like Windows users, you’re not secure.”

He’s right of course. GNU/Linux is very insecure. I am very insecure walking around without a bullet-proof vest. I should be riding around in a tank but no one is shooting at me. Openness does have its disadvantages. One’s insecurities are laid bare for all to see. On the other hand they can be found and fixed sooner. With that other OS we often only find out about the vulnerabilities after malware-artists are driving trucks through them. Then M$ takes a few months to fix and test the fix before releasing the fix giving the malware-artists free reign over IT. The report mentions that M$ is number one on serious vulnerabilities, you know, the ones trucks fit.

If you are guarding Fort Knox and have a lot to lose, you should be worried about the insecurity of GNU/Linux but you definitely should not be using that other OS. GNU/Linux can be secured very well with layers of security: firewall, web filtering, USB device scanning, virtualization, backupped backups, good passwords and updates. With a few layers of security GNU/Linux becomes quite solid.

If you are just browsing the web for information, you can run from a live CD with GNU/Linux and be solid. For normal use you can do a lot just by minimizing the number of software packages you install and services running. Don’t lose sleep over the insecurities in GNU/Linux. Count the thousands of attacks that other OS gets for every one sent your way instead of counting sheep.

One of the lovely things about GNU/Linux is that it boots and keeps on booting. Compare that with that other OS that eventually becomes unbootable.

A very common boot-loader for GNU/Linux systems is GRUB. Lately, version 2 has introduced a lot of features and extended the region of the hard drive used. Therein lies a problem for “dual-booting”. Some apps or malware on that other OS have been storing stuff in the early sectors and just running that other OS clobbers GRUB2.

My advice? Don’t dual-boot. If you need to run that other OS, do so in a virtual machine so that it can clobber its virtual boot-loader and not yours. VirtualBox makes this very easy and you get the added benefit that you can run both OS simultaneously without having to re-re-reboot.

I did this on one system this year. The principal obtained a new machine with “7″. He wanted to try GNU/Linux. I set up VirtualBox to autostart with GNU/Linux booting in the virtual machine. He never used “7″ at all…

We depend on IT these days for information, employment, communication, entertainment, solutions to real problems, and daily operation of our organizations. There is no better, faster, and cheaper way to do what we do than with computers and networks. It was recently brought to our attention that malware that affects our computers and networks can wreak havoc in our daily lives. Not just conveniences but matters essential to life, what most of us value highly, can be undermined by malware. There is suspicion that part of the chain of failure that allowed a fatal flight to depart was a malware-infected PC used to transmit reliability/status information to a remote computer. The plane in question was over its limit of faults and should have been grounded for a thorough examination. Instead it took off without the flaps and slats extended. The flight was short. An on-board system intended to warn of this condition did not sound and the pilots failed to make the adjustment or abort take-off. Was malware the cause? Not completely but the layers of protection built into this complex life-support system failed in several places and one of them was affected by malware.

Neither M$ nor Linux nor any distribution of GNU/Linux is rated for the kind of reliability needed for this work but that other OS was in the loop. It failed to back up multiple human failures to save lives.

We know that that other OS, produced by M$, is not designed with reliablity and performance in mind. It is too complex. It has too many built-in dependencies among unrelated tasks. It has too many vulnerabilities. No one should depend on it to save lives. Since we may not anticipate how our IT systems may disrupt mission-critical operations if they fail, we should use the most reliable software we can. For now that would be various UNIX operating systems such as AIX, FreeBSD or GNU/Linux. They are all modular so that the debugging and fixing tasks are much simpler that with that other OS. Further, because Free Software like FreeBSD and GNU/Linux are open-source, one can go in and examine the code and tinker with it to improve it. These changes are shared with other users, compounding the efforts of the whole world. A single corporation cannot match that.

My conclusion is simple. Use GNU/Linux. It is much more likely to save your life or the health of your organization when a crisis arises.