>> Yeah, they do tend to prioritise easy of use higher than security, which
>> isn't particularly to my liking. But hey...
>
> Ease of use and security often need to be balanced.  More secure = harder
> to use.  Less secure = easier to use.

Yeah, I'm aware of that. The other issue is backwards compatibility. If 
you make the system more secure, old software tends to stop working. 
(E.g., to this day Nero only works if you're an Administrator. No 
reason, it's just poorly written.)

>>> UAC is a pain in the ass for advanced users.  It's a necessary
>>> component for the average user.
>>
>> What's UAC? Is that new in Windows 7 or something? (I've only used
>> Vista.)
>
> User Access Controls, introduced in Vista IIRC.

Oh, OK. Maybe I just haven't run across that one yet then. I don't use 
my Vista machine all that much.

>>> No.  Many UNIX programs have GUIs now.
>>
>> ...until you want to configure something that the GUI doesn't have an
>> option for. Or you run some script which auto-configured your Apache,
>> and now the shiny Apache front-end can't understand the config file any
>> more and gets all confused. Or you do anything slightly advanced.
>
> Just like with Windows and the registry.  You can configure any settings
> that you want, as long as the UI has them.  The minute it doesn't, out
> comes regedit.
>
> Sorry, that's a straw man, and you know it.

>> See, the configuration files are still the primary interface for
>> configuring most stuff.
>
> Hmm, and GUI frotn-ends for Windows configuration aren't anything more
> than ways of modifying the registry (or in now the rare case, an INI file
> somewhere)?  Sorry, again, you've constructed a straw man.

It's a mentality difference, not a technological one.

Under Unix, the primary way to control most software is through 
configuration files. These days Linux has added pretty front-ends to 
some of these systems, but they tend to be designed only for the people 
who aren't smart enough to use the "real" interface - i.e., edit the 
text fails manually.

Under Windows, the GUI is the "real" interface. The configuration data 
is stored in the registry, but you're not supposed to edit it directly. 
You're supposed to go to the GUI first. Therefore, much more effort it 
put into making the GUI cover everything. (And far less effort is put 
into making the registry data human-readable, or even documented.)

It's just about where the developers focus their attention. Under Unix, 
the configuration file is the definite interface. Under Windows, the GUI 
is. (Or possibly the COM interface. But I don't know much about that one...)

>> Windows programs tend to be designed around the GUI first and foremost.
>
> Well, Microsoft programs tend to be.  Windows programs as a whole - some
> are, some aren't.  I've seen some pretty crappy designs for Windows UIs
> in my time.  Blackberry Desktop comes to mind immediately.

Oh yeah, but /all/ platforms have crappy software. Heck, when I tried 
KLogic, its simulations sometimes GAVE THE WRONG ANSWER. And frequently, 
just tweaking a few lines would crash the problem. So much for OSS 
always being of high quality... In truth, crap software exists 
everywhere. The interesting question is where the /good/ software is.

>>> Why do I want to configure something from the CLI?  My server is
>>> headless, and dedicating memory to the GUI sucks resources.
>>
>> Right. That isn't something that is going to worry the average home user
>> who's just trying to surf the 'net.
>
> You know, the average home user surfing the net doesn't have to do diddly
> with a Linux box either.

Sure. But that isn't the point. The point is that how powerful the CLI 
interface is only matters to power users. Which isn't who Windows is 
primarily aimed at.

>> The CLI /is/ superior for certain tasks. That's why it exists, after
>> all. I won't dispute that. (Although CMD.EXE is a fairly week
>> implementation of the concept.)
>
> But for many Windows users, it's what they're most familiar with.

Granted.

>> Firing up RegEdit and going to the appropriate key is roughly as easy as
>> opening up a text editor on your program's configuration file.
>
> Firing up regedit isn't "programming".  Navigating through the hives to
> find the right key is a freaking nightmare.  Even when you know the key
> you want to navigate to.

No more nightmarish than navigating to a particular file. You just click 
on a tree view. Just like a file browser.

> Give me a text editor and a config file *any day*.  Most of those config
> files have documentation in the comments.  Show me a full description for
> what any given registry key does *within regedit*, and then I *might*
> believe that it's "as easy as editing a config file on Linux".

Like I said, it's not the primary interface. You're supposed to use it 
only as a last resort. I'll admit I'd like it a lot more if there was 
more documentation for the registry.

>>> I have yet to see a text file change on a Linux system that can hork
>>> the system up as badly as Microsoft wants you to believe Windows can be
>>> messed up with a single registry change.
>>
>> Looking at the registry is effectively like looking at every
>> configuration file on your entire Linux box. Sure, /most/ settings that
>> you could change won't do any harm. However, since the harmless ones are
>> right next to the utterly critical ones, one wrong step can totally
>> floor the system.
>
> You're simply wrong about this.  Been using Linux since the 90s, pretty
> much daily, and *never* have brought a Linux system down *instantly* by
> changing a config file.  N.E.V.E.R.

You've misparsed what I wrote. I meant that getting the Windows registry 
wrong can down Windows instantly. I very much doubt you could do 
anything similar to Linux.

>> (Another thing about the registry:
>> changes can take effect immediately. How many Linux programs "watch"
>> their configuration file(s)?)
>
> Several do.  If I change the configuration file for vsftpd, for example,
> or sshd, the change comes into play the next time a user connects to it.
> xinetd is a wonderful thing.

Interesting. I'm pretty sure I had to send SIG_HUP (or whatever it is) 
to sshd to get it to notice that I just turned off password 
authentication...

[Let's not even get into the fact that the registry is transactional, 
while text files aren't. Or that it supports storing binary blobs 
relatively efficiently...]

>> Ubuntu seems to contantly want me to reboot when I install updates too.
>> I think the problem is more that Windows requires updating more often.
>
> Only if there's a kernel update.  Ubuntu may prompt more frequently
> because it's more convenient and what users coming from Windows are used
> to.

That's just ironic. Doing something defective because that's how Windows 
does it. Ha!

> I've spent a fair amount of time recently installing Windows Server
> 2008R2 and SQL Server 2008R2 for some work I've been doing.  The install
> is smoother than Server 2000 and 2003, I'll grant.  But still, it's in
> the stone ages compared to Linux in terms of reboots.

AFAIK, you boot the CD, do the text-mode bit, reboot into GUI mode, 
reboot one final time, and you're done. That's, like, 2 reboots. Hardly 
excessive...

>> That's just it. Windows is one product, with one set of management
>> tools. The original Unix, as best as I can tell, has almost no
>> management features at all. You're supposed to roll your own. So every
>> major distro builder has built their own independent system of
>> management tools.
>
> The *original* Unix was built in the 60's, and much of what was true for
> that is simply not true today.  That would be like me saying Windows was
> totally insecure because it was with Windows 1.0.  Such a statement would
> be complete bullshit; so is making statements about Linux based on Unix
> developed in the 60's.

It's also true that people write software that targets "Unix". It 
expects standard Unix tools like make, patch, cc and so forth, and it 
builds from source. The original Unix flavour provides all these tools, 
but it doesn't provide much in the way of pre-build, widely standardised 
management features. (Partly, as I presume you're hinting, because when 
Unix was new, PCs didn't exist yet. If you have one computer, what do 
you need remote management for?)

>> If you wanted to compare how easy this is, you can't really compare
>> "Windows" to "Linux". You'd have to compare "Windows" to "Debian",
>> "Ubuntu", "OpenSUSE", "Fedora", ...
>
> In reality, that is certainly true.  Because we're talking about a
> complete system, and "Linux" isn't.  A distribution is.
>
> But then a distribution includes things that Microsoft doesn't include -
> office suites, several gigabytes of other applications, and so on.

That I will grant you. Originally Windows was literally just an OS with 
a text editor. If you wanted to get /anything/ done, you had to pay 
money to install more software. (That's slowly changing of course. Now 
you have a web browser and a movie player and even video editing built 
in, and everybody screaming "monopoly!"...)

>> Windows gives you one standard set of management tools, out of the box.
>> If those tools don't quite cover what you want, you have a slightly
>> harder problem then you would with Unix, but it's hardly intractable.
>
> And Unix/Linux management is hardly intractable either.  But to listen to
> you, it's freakin' impossible - because if you don't know it, it MUST be
> impossible, right?

That isn't what I'm trying to say.

You said "Windows stores everything in the registry, which means you 
can't do any management stuff on it like you can with Linux". I'm 
demonstrating that, no, that's not the case at all. You might not be 
able to grep a text file and run sed over it to effect a configuration 
change, but you also don't /need/ to with Windows. There are other ways 
to reach the same goal - many of them easier than Unix shell scripting...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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