A thought. Yes, another one. 14

snips

Longfellow

Umm... sorry, but Linux is not difficult to configure, as a rule, though some distros may make it more so than others.

Take, say, 'Drake or Suse; the times I've used them, configuration has been pretty straightforward. 'Drake, at least, even includes a handy-dandy little firewall configurator which understands, among other things, handling connection sharing; there's many such tools, but I find the 'Drake one by far the easiest to use for a basic setup and there's little equivalence in Windows.

Oh, you can set up connection sharing in Windows, even fairly simply, but only if you accept their predefined settings, notably the forcing of 192.168.0.1 (or is it 1.1?) as the adapter's address.

Now, sorry, but I've more than once been in a situation where there's already a 192.168.0.1 buttigned, to another machine, and I want my machine to do sharing, but obviously not on 192.168.0.1. With Linux, it doesn't give a rat's rear what IP addresses are used, that's your problem - as it should be. Why would the sharing in Windows be so crippled?

Here's another example. Drop two NICs into a Windows box. buttign static IPs. Remove one NIC, then buttign what used to be its IP address to the other NIC. EG:

eth0 - 192.168.0.1 eth1 - 192.168.0.2 power down, remove eth0 power up, eth1 is now eth0, so buttign: eth0 - 192.168.0.1

Result? "The IP address is reserved by another adapter; to use it, you'll have to reboot."

Excuse? Reserved by an adapter that isn't even installed? Gimme a freakin' break! Something as trivial as buttigning an IP address to an adapter - a simple process in Linux - becomes a pointless PITA, and in some cases not even possible, in Windows.

Of course, installation - the most fundamental form of configuring - is *far* easier with most Linux distros than with Windows.

The notion that Linux is difficult to configure only applies in two cases: where you've chosen a particularly difficult to set up distro; such exist, for a variety of reasons, or where you've got hardware which isn't automagically supported - which simply turns it into the equivalent of Windows; download the driver, if one exists, then install it.

That's true with Linux, as well; if you pick the hardware to be compatible with your OS, you shouldn't run into problems. With Windows, by contrast, you may well have to replace that very same hardware simply because you upgraded your OS - not because of a "shift" such as pre-386 clbutt machines to 386 flat-mode support, but simply because drivers aren't available for the "new OS".

By contrast, there's no real concept of a "new OS" with Linux; there's enhancements, updates, improvements, new versions, etc, etc, etc, but the fundamental workings don't seem to change enough to warrant the disposal of existing drivers, as happened for many devices in the 9x to 2K-XP migration path.

The same's true in Windows. Something goes wrong, or a new piece of hardware is purchased which doesn't seem to work, or an old piece isn't working quite right, etc, etc, etc, call the geeks. Windows happens to add virus, spyware, hijack and other such removal and recovery to the mix, on top of the issues both systems share, making Windows, on the whole, more difficult.

In some ways, sure. However, again, take something like, say, 'Drake. Most ISPs I'm familiar with use DHCP - and 'Drake (like many another) merrily defaults to this unless told otherwise. It's actually more likely to detect most of your devices than Windows is, making it simpler there. The installation process offers a fairly intuitive way to select what software is to be installed - and installs the apps along with the OS, removing a long and drawn out process of per-app installation from the user experience.

Once both are running, though, things get interesting. What about security? XP has a firewall - is it enabled? Let's buttume it is. What about spyware, antivirus and the like? Nope, not installed. Better go find them, download them, install them and configure them - and that's just to use the system with a modicum of safety.

By contrast, the norm, as far as I can see, seems to be to asking what - if any - services you want to run, then autoconfiguring the firewall for you, and simply not needing the AV and other tools at all. That is, if you're running Linux, of course.

Reasonable? When? The only time such an buttumption was reasonable was back in the days of the *really* early micros that had no concept of networking or multiuser access.

By contrast, take, say, Win9x. It'll merrily allow you to set up multiple "users". Complete with pbuttwords. Why? Who knows, as it has *absolutely* no effect on preventing prying eyes.

And of course, networking - even internet support - was available before Win95 was even released, or have we all forgotten the popularity of Trumpet Winsock? How about WFWG?

Before Win95 ever shipped, it wbutt obviously not merely preferrable, but, frankly, absolutely necessary to be able to protect the system while still allowing communications from it - it simply took about 8 years for the message to sink in for MS.