ASUS Eeee PC 1000HD Win7 Install

[BillW50]

In

As one person commented - that was because of an irresponsible server
admin - nothing to do with the security of Linux itself.

It shouldn't matter! In the Windows world we wouldn't trust one single
admin to protect us. Say 10 minutes from now, Microsoft releases a new
update that contains malware. Now you and I both know 11 minutes from
now these newsgroups would be jumping and screaming about the new
infected update.

That doesn't happen in the Linux world. As 99.999% of Linux users are
asleep at the wheel.

 

[BillW50]

In

I cannot see how the MANNER in which a computer is used has any
bearing whatsoever on the lack of security (i.e. vulnerabilities from
either hackers or malicious software) caused by not applying critical
updates, unless that machine is totally isolated from the internet
and never has any files copied to it from removable media...

I've never seen any good come from a security update yet. As I *really*
believed the bozos who said you need them or your computer will be
plagued by malware. But thanks to Asus for selling netbooks that doesn't
have enough room on their SSDs for updates and thanks to Microsoft for
being greedy and selling them OEM XP licenses for machines that can't be
updated... I learned that not getting security updates isn't a big deal.
In fact, life is actually far better. Now I don't have to fix machines
that weren't broken in the first place before the updates. ;-)

 

[mechanic]

Nope, I connect the antenna to the TV (or actually, the cable).
As Char said, you connect the output to the input.

No, it the TV's sitting there with a snow screen the first quesiton
is "what's it connected to?".

And these days many connections are two-way rather than simply
output -> input.

 

[mechanic]

Because if the systems I use never change and never go online or
get email and it runs fine then why upgrade or update anything?
That is asking for trouble. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

How are you interacting with Usenet? Clearly something is connected
to the Internet.

 

[BillW50]

In

Additionally, Linux doesn't run its users by default with admin
(root, in Linux-speak) privileges. That one thing makes Linux more
secure as almost all malware needs write access to System areas or
direct hard drive write access to the boot sector, the Master Boot
Record, etc. to work which Linux users don't have. How many Windows
users do you know who never create a user account at all, but just
run as the Administrator all the time? That's an infection waiting
to happen. And it does, all the time. Security starts with secure
design philosophy.

Actually rootkits are a newcomer in the Windows world, but have been
common for *nix for two decades now. And it is easy to infect a *nix
machine regardless of what level the *nix user is using. As many *nix
buffer overflows vulnerabilities for example grants the malware full
root access anyway. So what level a *nix user only has access to is
really pretty meaningless to *nix malware anyway.

 

[BillW50]

In

If by "used in the same manner" you mean connected to the Internet,
then yes. If you have a Windows computer that's connected to the
Internet, then yes, you would be well advised to keep its OS fully
patched and up to date. That doesn't make you safe by itself, but it
makes you a lot safer than the alternative, occasional anecdotes to
the contrary notwithstanding.

When I update religiously, I didn't get infected by malware. When I
don't update, I *still* don't get infected by malware. So why should we
still get them again? I mean besides the part that some updates can
screw up a perfectly stable Windows system.

 

[mechanic]

It was an Asus EeePC 4G (with a 4GB SSD) and Windows XP SP2
installed. And something like 400MB free on the SSD. And if you
try to update, XP runs out of disk space and Windows will crash.

EeePCs weren't designed to work with XP, that was a later idea for
those who couldn't understand the default supplied Linux Xandros
(since very obsolete). Those who trimmed XP down before installing
it managed pretty well. EeeUser forums for details.

 

[BillW50]

In

I have never shopped on Ebay. I was mostly referring to the multitude
of other sites that off W2K for sale. There was even one that said it
was Torrent. I am not familiar with that but I think it might be a
pirate location. I also saw some that offered SP updates but it all
got a bit confusing to me. If I need SP3 then I won't know until I get
it and then can I still download it?

Oh I would stay away from torrents. The vast majority of them are known
for piracy and malware infections.

Windows 2000 SP3? You mean Windows 2000 SP4 which is needed to work
being installed from an USB device? If so, I believe Microsoft still has
it. And there is an unofficial SP5 floating around that includes SP4 and
all of the other updates that aren't in SP4.

What Windows 2000 you start with doesn't matter. As you can slipstream
SP4 to it anyway and create a new Windows 2000 disc with SP4 applied
that works just fine.

 

[BillW50]

In

EeePCs weren't designed to work with XP, that was a later idea for
those who couldn't understand the default supplied Linux Xandros
(since very obsolete). Those who trimmed XP down before installing
it managed pretty well. EeeUser forums for details.

Well I know a great deal about the early EeePCs and I believe you are
mistaken. While it is true the first EeePCs *only* came with Xandros
(yes I have lots of them). But even the first ones had XP drivers on the
Xandros disc. So Asus knew from the start that EeePC users would be
interested in running XP on them.

The only one that I am not sure about is the 2G models. That one I know
came with a smaller version of Xandros since the other one won't fit on
2G. Nor do I know if that one came with XP drivers. You can't install XP
stock on one, well maybe XP SP0 might fit, but XP SP2 stock won't.

Later you could buy an EeePC 4G with either Xandros or XP. And I have
both. And the XP SP2 version is the full blown XP SP2. There is nothing
unusual about it except the CD isn't your normal XP OEM install disc,
but rather uses a Ghost v11 image instead. Which is probably a smart
thing, since a normal XP install would create a lot of temp files that
may fill up the drive before XP was completely installed.

Eeeuser forums? Have you been there lately? They haven't been up since
it seems like a year now.

 

[Ken Blake]

It's known as the Sanity Claws.

"You can't fool me. There ain't no sanity clause." Chico Marx, playing
the character Fiorello in "A Night at the Opera"

 

[Wolf K]

As one person commented - that was because of an irresponsible server
admin - nothing to do with the security of Linux itself.

Oh, quite true. But so what. However much it matters at the enterprise
level, where "sensitive data" must be protected from unauthorised
access, it doesn't make that much of a difference to the ordinary user.
Or even, as the story demonstrates, the unordinary one. IMO, Linux fans'
focus on its (undoubtedly high) inherent security can distract from what
is far more important: the user.

The cited story merely points up the obvious: Users are always the most
crucial element of any security scheme. The reason the *nix OSs were
written to be difficult to hack at the admin level was precisely for
that reason: stupidity, inexperience, complacency, laziness, naivete,
helpfulness, etc, and so on and so forth, are the reasons the vast
majority of infections happen. The "inherent security" of Linux is a an
attempt to defend against these all-too-human traits.

Linux can no more be 100% secure than any other OS. It must give its
users permissions, else it's unusable. As I've said in another post: If
you understand the user's permissions, you can write malware to exploit
those permissions. If you understand people's psychology, it's almost
too easy to write malware such that the user will allow it to do what
you want. If Linux ever gets significant market share among ordinary
users, attacks on it will increase, and many will be successful because
they will exploit human traits rather than OS weaknesses.

Not to mention that most of the successful malware these days is
phishing email. My wife just got one supposedly from a known source
asking her to wire money, as he was stranded in Manchester, England,
without passport, cash, or baggage. No amount of inherent security on an
OS can guard against that.

Have a good day,
Wolf K.

 

[BillW50]

Then why specifically mention W2K in your sig?

Sigs officially can be only 4 lines long. And sigs couldn't hold all of
my machines I have. So my sig only reflects the machine I am currently
composing the message on. Like this one uses Linux.

Still head in sand. Real time AV is only PART of your defences.
You also should have a fully patched and up to date OS - which you
cannot possibly do with W2K....

Why must you have a fully patched OS? When Microsoft has allowed a
security hole to exist up to 7 years. So all of the updating in the
world wouldn't save you until the 8th year. Heck if Microsoft doesn't
take security updates seriously, why should anybody else?

Since I stopped security updates on half of my computers over 3 years
ago. The only ones that has problems are the updated ones. Heck even a
trojan sneaked through one of my updated machines on the 7th. Stll none
on my not updated machines. Although it didn't get a chance to do
anything as my AV nailed it right away. So I honestly don't know what
good security updates are when they don't really protect you anyway.

 

[BillW50]

In

Version 3.3 apparently can:
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.3/#More_Options_for_Changing_Case
- and of course it's entirely free!

I couldn't find this post on my Ubuntu machine running Thunderbird... I
wonder why that is? Anyway they finally added it after years about
bitching about it. Kind of late though, don't you think? As I needed
this years ago. So I ended up using stuff that actually worked.

 

[BillW50]

In

AFAIK Libre Office has had this ever since it's inception.....but it's
not called that.

I seriously doubt that, but ok. ;-)

What exactly do you mean by that?

Virtually every WYSIWYG text editor/word processor is very dumb when it
comes to plain text, ASCII, or whatever you want to call it when it
comes to formatting. Say for example:

I wanted to indent a paragraph in this post. Lots of reasons
why I would. Like quoting a webpage, Microsoft, etc. Even
quoting somebody here. Sure I could do this manually. If I did
it a lot, this would be crazy doing it all manually. As why not
let the text editor or word processor do it automatically for you?

This is what Word's "Text with Layout" does for you. As it keeps the
formatting that was used in the word processor. Why something so simple
is missing today is a mystery. I used WordStar for DOS for decades to do
this. And WordStar still works under Windows to do this today.

I was trying to get Word97 to do the same. And it had taken me 2 years
to figure out how to do the very same thing under Word. But I didn't
know about "Text with Layout" was until two years (until '99) later
either.

 

[Gordon]

I seriously doubt that,

You can seriously doubt all you like but if you do then you are plain
wrong. Notice I said LIBRE Office and not Open Office...

 

[Gordon]

Virtually every WYSIWYG text editor/word processor is very dumb when it
comes to plain text, ASCII, or whatever you want to call it when it
comes to formatting. Say for example:

I wanted to indent a paragraph in this post. Lots of reasons
why I would. Like quoting a webpage, Microsoft, etc. Even
quoting somebody here. Sure I could do this manually. If I did
it a lot, this would be crazy doing it all manually. As why not
let the text editor or word processor do it automatically for you?

OK tell me how do you set Word to "automatically" indent a paragraph?
Surely you have to TELL Word you want a particular paragraph indented?
Word isn't a mind reader...

 

[BillW50]

In

You can seriously doubt all you like but if you do then you are plain
wrong. Notice I said LIBRE Office and not Open Office...

Yes I know. But LIBRE is based on OpenOffice source code, is it not? And
OpenOffice has two change case (all upper or lower case) right where you
would expect them. As it is found like two clicks away under the menu
bar. The sentence case was buried many layers deep somewhere else. How
dumb!

And LIBRE has only been around for a little over a year. And I needed
this since '93. And you honestly expect me to wait 18 years until LIBRE
comes around? Sorry, I didn't wait and used something else that actually
works all of that time. ;-)

 

[Gordon]

In

Yes I know. But LIBRE is based on OpenOffice source code, is it not? And
OpenOffice has two change case (all upper or lower case) right where you
would expect them. As it is found like two clicks away under the menu
bar. The sentence case was buried many layers deep somewhere else. How
dumb!

And LIBRE has only been around for a little over a year. And I needed
this since '93. And you honestly expect me to wait 18 years until LIBRE
comes around? Sorry, I didn't wait and used something else that actually
works all of that time. ;-)

Format>Change Case, which is where it's always been in LO AFAIK...
And includes Sentence Case, Upper Case, Lower Case, Capitalize ever Word
and tOGGLE Case....

 

[BillW50]

In

OK tell me how do you set Word to "automatically" indent a paragraph?
Surely you have to TELL Word you want a particular paragraph indented?
Word isn't a mind reader...

It works just like any other WYSIWYG editor/word processor. As you can
just highlight what you want indented and hit the indent button. Or move
those nifty things on the ruler. You also don't have to highlight a
whole paragraph if you place the cursor at the beginning and do the
same.

 

[BillW50]

In

Format>Change Case, which is where it's always been in LO AFAIK...
And includes Sentence Case, Upper Case, Lower Case, Capitalize ever
Word and tOGGLE Case....

That isn't where it has been under OpenOffice. And it didn't have some
of them for years. And does LIBRE also have "Text with Layout" or
equivalent like Word has?