choises

and yet, the Ubuntu laptops on Dells site are shocking. I want it on their _FULL_Range_ - they complain that people aren't buying the ubuntu ones, well Mr. Dell. if you made it a little more obvious, we might!

from the Dell home page > (shop) Home & Home Office - nothing. Small Business - in the OS section you can see FreeDOS and Linux. and the range is frankly, quite poor.

There are no desktops atall. despite Dell offering Ubuntu, we as a business still end up buying OS free laptops to put Ubuntu on them, and this takes some arguing to get. because the Laptops we buy in are not an option on the Ubuntu support.

Give me the full range choice.

Give me desktops

and don't complain people aren't buying them until you do so!

</rant>

Let's be honest, it's true, but there is a reason

Linux is more secure than Windows. Don't try and give me any of that "targeting the masses" bullshit. I hear that from MS users all the time, and it's nonsense. The numbers are simply disproportionate, and consider also that Linux has the largest portion of the server market, where security and reliability are most important.

However, this is not entirely Microsoft's fault. There is one overriding reason for this that Microsoft simply can't emulate to the same degree: peer review.

No-one is enough of an imbecile to think that people working on Linux can't introduce security holes into the software. I'm a programmer using Linux and Windows every day - I'd have to be thick as two short planks to think that Linux was invulnerable. The difference is, as I've said before on a similar discussion involving Firefox, that when vulnerabilities are found in Linux they are (generally) patched and rolled out very quickly, which helps reduce the threat to the end-user.

Quite often the issue is caught by a fellow programmer and patched before anyone with malicious intent is even aware of it. How many times has El Reg posted a story about a new Linux vulnerability, only to mention halfway down the page that a patch is not only already available, but you've probably already received it? ("Linux vulnerability" in the search box returns 265 results, most of them nothing to do with Linux.) And how many times has that scenario occurred in the world of Windows and Patch Tuesday?

And I genuinely believe that, when it comes to security, the quality of some of the code and setup in your average Linux distro is simply superior to that of Windows. The UIs might still be a little clunky and glitchy in places, but when it comes to networking and security? That's what Linux does, and does bloody well.

So good on Dell for making the assertion and standing behind the OSS alternative. It's nice to see a commercial entity backing it as competition in the marketplace.