Looks like Google's giving its peeps the choice of Mac or Linux, but no more Windoze OS ... Guess they finally figured out it's too great a security risk, too ...

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http://creativebits.org/topic/google_employees_mac_or_linux_no_more_windows

Google to employees: 'Mac or Linux, but no more Windows'

Ivan | Tue, 2010-06-01 03:40 Off topic

Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees.

The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally.

“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.
“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.

New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. “Linux is open source and we feel good about it,” said one employee. “Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.”

In early January, some new hires were still being allowed to install Windows on their laptops, but it was not an option for their desktop computers. Google would not comment on its current policy.

Windows is known for being more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and more susceptible to computer viruses than other operating systems. The greater number of attacks on Windows has much to do with its prevalence, which has made it a bigger target for attackers.

Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from “quite senior levels”, one employee said. “Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,” said another employee.

In addition to being a semi-formal policy, employees themselves have grown more concerned about security since the China attacks. “Particularly since the China scare, a lot of people here are using Macs for security,” said one employee.

I truly believe that windows may see a huge shrinkage of market share on the horizon. The upcoming release of ChromeOS and the emergence of lean, light tablets are another step in that direction.

Edit: A very gradual reduction in market share...many offices and home desktops will be using windows for a long time to come.

3 cheers for capitalism!

While I like Windows I hate monopoly and business bullies. And Micro$oft is a monopoly. Mac is great but too expensive, I would rather steer people to get a linux operating system which has thousands of versions and they are all free of charge and so are all the software you can download.

Unfortunately Apple is slowly becoming the new Microsoft, and Linux is a great OS for people who want to learn about Linux but is not good for mainstream use.

*goes to investigate Linux*

Only problem I see with this switch is that hackers will eventually shift their focus and the Apple OS(?) and maybe Linux will be eventually suffering the same amount of hacker problems. Invention is the child of necessity and all that, and hackers will still want into your computer. That said, I'm looking forward to simple and streamlined OS systems.

I doubt it. The biggest virus/trojan horse makers are the those who profit from forcing the people to buy antivirus software. Not to mention, Linux is much more secure, since you are almost always on a user level with no administrative priviledges. The User Account Control recently "invented" in Vista (and Windows 7)(~ stolen idea from Linux/OSX) tried to simulate this sort of a behavior of the unix-based systems of having everyone to be a "user" or "guest" even the owner and only to grant administrative priviledges for a few commands during installation of a software or making any changes to the OS.
But you are right. The simplest and most streamlined OS will win regardless. But we have to say, that so far the competition field for the OS-es has been very poor in the past 30 years and it would only improve, once the Microsoft domination weakens.

That I can agree with.

Set up a Linux box on the Internet as an open relay and see how quickly it gets owned.

I need to use Windows to run things like AutoCAD, so I use a Linux computer on the Internet that has the capability to boot a 'live' distribution that loads off a CD and runs in RAM and a KVM switch hooked to the Windows box.

Personally, I look forward to the day when the system software can load off a really fast Flash chip that can be write-protected against unauthorized changes into system RAM and run from there. Of course, users can still do stupid things like download and install malware with their pirated MP3s, but at least bots would prolly be far less prevalent because the malware would disappear from RAM once the machine was rebooted.

-Kerry O.

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

I've only tried one USB thumb drive boot setup and it was dog slow. Maybe once USB 3.0 hardware becomes more available and cheaper?

But what I was really hinting at was a computing appliance which was more like an embedded system-- where programming the system software required a physical connection to the hardware.

I just think it's pretty ironic that with the speed of today's chips, systems run slower than ever because of things like virus protection and features that almost invite hackers to steal your CPU cycles.

-Kerry O.

And what I think is, that the current speed of the CPUS and memory and the rest aren't even used efficiently by none of the OS-es out there today. Same with other software..

It's pretty much like having a Ferrari with everything to go at 200mph but you stuck with a 90 year old grandma driving it to Walmart at 25mph and if you rather have a Lamborghini, you are still stuck with a 90 year old grandma for a driver and there is no one else can drive the car.

And what I mean by efficiency of an operating system?

For example..MS-DOS was actually using all the computing power without being slow and pretty much able to put all the processing power towards whatever was running through and back then the softwares were actually outmatched the computing power so much, that I had to set up my "boot" to make sure that all the memory is available and it won't get bugged down. That doesn't mean that the Operating system was inefficient, it means, that the hardware was having a hard time keeping up with the software.

Now we got 4 and 6 and whatever amount of Gigs of memory and Quad core CPUS and the software makers got lazy. What I mean is ..instead of trying to push to make something revolutionary with all the power available, they use all the extra memory and computing cycles for making their program bloated and full of errors, memory leaks and waste of resources, because the system could handle it anyway, there is plenty of RAM to have the leak to go and plenty of hard drive space to litter it with unoptimized and poorly packed codes but I'm not seeing any serious step up from what we had like let's say 7-8 years ago, beside flashy graphics and better sound. What I mean is, imagine that you got a car from the 30s and from today. What's the difference? Of course many things, but it still rolls on 4 rubber wheels and you steer it with a steering wheel and it needs gasoline.
Now, what's the difference between a car and an airplane?

You know what I mean?

Not exactly. MS-DOS could only run in real mode and all Intel processors since the '286 had provisions to go into protected mode. And protected mode was all about multi-tasking. Sure, one could have always bought a version of Unix for a few kilobucks and ran proprietary software hooked to a room full of terminals, but that usually took a $10,000 box with Intel's then-latest-and-greatest. Or, you could have done what a lot of people did and buy an IBM mini, like a System 36.

Either way, it was always a trade-off between cost and benefit. Some solutions scaled well, others didn't.

Premptive multi-tasking changed the face of computing. And arguably, that of civilization.

And while today's software may well be somewhat inefficient, it is cheap in comparison to what was available. Part of what keeps it cheap is the ability to write software in high level languages. And that will never be as efficient as coding in assembly language, but who would have the time?

Besides, it would be solving the wrong problem. The 'right' problem is to go after low-hanging fruit like malware on public networks. Or things like banning portscanning by people who have no legitimate purpose for doing so.

Even the most efficient Ferrari has a hard time running in rush hour traffic on tires flattened by vandals.


-Kerry O.

I believe what you are saying is: most modern operating systems are absurdly resource intensive, interfering with the amount of resources available for your applications. And I agree, emphatically.

However, you are wrong to say 'none' of the modern OSes are efficient. The linux kernel is thoroughly modern. I think they were the first to support USB 3.0. Historically, the file systems available for linux were far in advance of those available for OS X and windows (this may have changed in recent years, but linux filesystems still rock).

The kernel is so efficient, it runs on old smartphones. In theory, I could use the same lean, efficient kernel in both an old smartphone and on a desktop (compiled for different instruction sets, of course).

So far I've talked about the kernel - and you are right, there are linux-based OSes full of bloat. But if efficiency and speed are what you are after, you should try some of the leaner, more efficient linux-based OSes.

Hell, if you were happy with DOS, maybe you want to abandon the GUI altogether - there are distros that will use xwindows only as needed. You do everything on the command line, switching to graphics mode only if you launch an application that requires it.

Its simply wrong to say that no modern OSes are efficient. The non-GUI or lean-gui (XFCE, ice, LXDE) linux distros are superbly efficient.