[ale] Linux the $400 Operating System

[Matthew Brown]

Oddly enough, just last week I lost a 2 GB file on a Windows box.
Completely unrecoverable.  Oh, and the backups, which hadn't
successfully caught the file for 30 days, were useless to us.  Why
didn't the client's administrator know about the lack of backup?  Well,
they thought everything was going fine since the GUI said "Successful".
Had they known more of what they are doing, they would have known that
"Successful" can mean different things, even on Windows.

The article reminds me of someone who shoots himself in the foot, then
blames the gun.

Best regards,
Matthew Brown, President
CorData, Inc.
O: (770) 795-0089
F: (404) 806-4855
E: matthew.brown at cordata.net


-----Original Message-----
From: ChangingLINKS.com [mailto:x3 at ChangingLINKS.com] 
To: ale at ale.org
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 10:35 AM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: [ale] Linux the $400 Operating System


For over a half decade, a new Unix variant offers users more speed,
stability 
and security than MicroSoft Windows. The variant's name is Linux.
Currently 
Linux has grown into an operating system that comes with thousands of
free 
programs and an install (with all it's upgrades) can use 6-8 times more
space 
than Windows 98.

Most people believe that since it's beginning's, Linux has been "free,"
at 
least insofar as being able to download and use the operating system on
a 
daily basis. However, what many users are finding, is that there are
costs 
that can be incurred after committing to the operating system.

"In the beginning, I tried to fully install Linux - and just couldn't. I
ended 
up paying a company called "Onyx" $90 to install it for me - and they
refused 
to help with data encryption or playing DVDs," a spokesman from 
ChangingLINKS.com. He went on to say, "As time went on, I shelled out
other 
varying amounts of cash to "Linux gurus" in an effort to learn how to
use the 
operating system better."

In all fairness, he did mention that he got lots of help from the Linux 
community - including encoding a video tape for playback on a CD which
would 
have cost a couple hundred dollars to create using a graphics company.
Still 
on the downside, is the countless hours spent trying to understand
various 
programs and features. "You come across some topics, like security - and
it 
seems like there is only one or two guys that can help. In windows
encrypting 
a filesystem 'on the fly' and using it daily is easy. My data is still 
unencrypted to this day," the spokesman said.

But what of the price tag that entitles this article? It is spent on
data 
loss. After calling around to various data recovery companies, the
minimum 
estimate for recovering data for Linux was $400. The price includes a 
standard diagnostic charge. In Windows, data recovery is relatively
easy. 
There are programs like "Recover" and "Winhex" that will undelete your
data 
with a few simple clicks. Don't make the same mistake with Linux though-
it 
could cost you hundreds, especially if you are using the "ext3"
filesystem.

"In my 12 years of using Windows, I have never lost a 100,000 byte file
- and 
my first Windows box was was installed (and reinstalled) on a computer
with a 
defective hard drive. For years, each time I booted the compter, some of
the 
hard drive medium would be permanently damaged and unusable. But, I
still 
never lost mor than a screenfull of data." 

The spokesman was using Worker on Linux, and accidentally deleted an
directory 
tree. Next, he spent day and night trying to learn how to undelete the
data 
from the ext3 partition, and is currently looking a Windows solutions to

recover the data. "I'm just hoping that Windows can bail me out, because
I 
have not been able to understand the results from the Linux based tools.
For 
data recovery and encryption, Windows is simply the way to go."

So before downloading your next distro or using programs that automate 
deletion of files on Linux, at least be careful. The mantra that you
will 
hear from the Linux community is "restore from your backup" but that is 
useless when you do 8 hours of work - and your back up was not sceduled
until 
12 hours have elapsed.

All in all, the real Losers (of data) are the Lusers that end up having
to 
spend $400 to get their data back. In some cases the only "freedom"
about 
Linux provides your computer is "freedom from important data."

staff writer
-- 
Wishing you Happiness, Joy and Laughter,
Drew
http://www.ChangingLINKS.com

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sent to listmaster at ale dot org.