Don, that was just an excuse, sure there have been a varying amount of exploits that utilized buffer overflows, but those get fixed rather quickly. The linux kernel is an evolving animal, with changes and fixes coming out almost daily. I monitor several security mailing lists, that cover linux, windows and mac. I haven't seen a kernel exploit in years come across the list, and you won't find any real geek shying away from the best tool for its job, which is linux a lot of the time.
I'm not aware of any good BSD live cd's, but I haven't looked for one either. There are 3 main flavors of the BSD derived opensource, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. FreeBSD is the bigger of them and has the most development and install base. However, it is not really suited for a desktop machine. While it has the functionality, only the more proficient UNIX users can make it work the way they want. I ran it as my desktop at work for about 3 years. This mailing list is hosted on a FreeBSD server, but it doesn't use xwindows for the server. For a UNIX desktop, I prefer Ubuntu, and since I like KDE over Gnome (just a personal preference), I use Kubuntu. While its not BSD, but true Linux, it is probably the easiest desktop Linux to get going, it has a large install base, lots of development going on and they religiously release major updates every 6 months. They are currently on release 8.04 (year and month released, April 2008) and you'll likely see 8.10 hit in October. The install cd for ubuntu is a live cd, but it has limited functionality, if you want a fully featured live cd, try out http://knoppix.net/ Astute readers will notice that knoppix is based on Debian, and so is Ubuntu. Knoppix is one of those tools that many geeks carry around for troubleshooting windows computers :) You can also setup Knoppix as your desktop, and carry around a usb stick with your knoppix cd with your personal preferences and settings. That way you can use almost anyones computer, and have your desktop come with you. I've never done this, but its one of its selling points. I've used knoppix on half a dozen different computers and it has always detected everything that I needed, mainly video (so that you didn't get stuck with 640x480 resolution) and the network card so that internet access was available. Hit me with any questions from all of this rambling :) Charles On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Don Cooper <[email protected]> wrote: > Charles - > Is the 'buffer overflow' vulnerability still an issue or is that ancient > history? I never quite understood how it could be exploited - I cannot > imagine how such an attack could make it past a firewall or even a router > anyhow... > It was one of my former IT bosses big excuse for not using implementing > Linux anywhere. > > And can you guide me to an up-to-date ISO image for a "live BSD Unix"? [The > BSD logo is the little demon (my guess - a visual acronym for 'daemon')?] > The only repositories I could find were at least two years old. > I think it would be cool to eventually make a PC work "just like a Mac". > (It brings to mind an image of the stuffy PC guy in the Mac commercial being > moved around like a puppet by the Mac guy). > -WaV > > On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 11:18 PM, Charles Goldsmith <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> As Quitna stated, her new computer came with Vista, and most computer >> manufacturers aren't developing XP drivers anymore. So with some >> computers (especially laptops), you can't even downgrade to XP. >> >> Work gave me a laptop with Vista, I haven't had any problems with it, >> just having to learn where things are. Wireless support (for my job) >> is a pain, I've been fighting the security for its wireless all week. >> >> I have a mac here at home, I love it. I also have an XP box too, but >> I use my mac more. I love not having to worry about spyware, rootkits >> and anti-virus for the mac. It's possible that we'll get that stuff >> in the future, but I doubt it. Mac OSX is based on BSD UNIX, and >> using the UNIX file security, it should be pretty virus proof. >> >> Charles >> >> On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 11:10 PM, Don Cooper <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Hmmm - maybe you should try Apple OS X.. >> > -WaV >> > >> > On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 4:58 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> >> Vista was loaded on a computer I bought ( the old clunker died) and I >> >> was >> >> not sure I would like it but I would not go back to XP now. >> >> Quinta >> > > >
