And anything from Microsoft is a disaster waiting to happen


I've been a user and fan of various flavors of Unix workalike operating systems since 1994, when I first started using Linux. That's the last time I had a virus or any sort of problem caused by anybody other than myself on one of my computers ... 1994.

A Unix based operating system such as Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD is completely different than any Microsoft Windows operating system. Unix was designed from day one to be a multi-user operating system, installed on high-powered corporate or academic computing systems, with strict privilege separation between users. The security model required by this original intent permeates the entire operating system, and makes it the best candidate for life on the hostile internet. Windows, by comparison, was originally a single-user system intended for relatively low-powered home machines. Bill Gates didn't even realize the Internet was important until about 1999, and as a result, his product has never really been suitable for life on the 'net. An unprotected Windows XP machine connected to the Internet will literally be hacked within *seconds*. In my opinion, I haven't got time to waste trying to keep an unsuited machine up and running, I use what works ... Linux, Apple (which uses Unix as the core of OS X), or one of the BSDs, depending on the application.

These web pages are served from an OpenBSD box, because that is absolutely the most rock-solid OS you can get from a security standpoint. I use Ubuntu Linux on my personal laptop, because it has such a broad range of applications available, and these days it's trivially easy to keep a system like that updated. My wife's computer is an Apple iMac, which is going on 6 years old and is still completely useable. As it turns out, Apple doesn't obsolete their hardware and software systems nearly as fast as the PC industry does.