I don't fink so!

[Topband]

I just had this pop-up whilst visiting a web site, I nearly fell of my chair with laughter, what registry? I'm running Linux :P

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[dadyassa]

:D :D Thats an Opera window :)

[CurlyWhirly]

what registry? I'm running Linux :P

So Linux has no registry then? :blink:

[trackrat]

Linux has configuration files specific to software installed and are created or updated as necessary as opposed to a centrally shared, system-wide registry

So if an update has adverse effects it only damages the software that was updated and is easy to track down, whereas as a corrupted registry can be caused by a badly written driver and can affect any program that shares that part of the registry.

If I have got any of this wrong please correct.

[CurlyWhirly]

Linux has configuration files specific to software installed and are created or updated as necessary as opposed to a centrally shared, system-wide registry

So if an update has adverse effects it only damages the software that was updated and is easy to track down, whereas as a corrupted registry can be caused by a badly written driver and can affect any program that shares that part of the registry.

Thanks for the above explanation Trackrat.

The Linux way sounds better than having a 'shared' registry like Windows does in the event of something going wrong and yet having said this, I hardly ever have any registry problems (touchwood).

[Topband]

trackrat is correct, that's why you should always run Linux as a user and if a virus attacks Linux its only that particular application the virus attacks which can be removed and the application re-installed. Nothing can change the Linux core or Kernel unless given permission by the administrator.

dadyassa,

Yep, Opera :)

[CurlyWhirly]

trackrat is correct, that's why you should always run Linux as a user and if a virus attacks Linux its only that particular application the virus attacks which can be removed and the application re-installed. Nothing can change the Linux core or Kernel unless given permission by the administrator.

Linux sounds a very secure operating system and I am led to believe that Microsoft's forthcoming Vista will work on a similar principle in order to increase security.

[Topband]

Linux sounds a very secure operating system and I am led to believe that Microsoft's forthcoming Vista will work on a similar principle in order to increase security.

Yes Linux is. It will be interesting to see if Vista will achieve the equivalent level of security, at the moment I don't see how that's possible whilst the Windows system by design keeps writing to the files in the core operating system, the registry is a good example, there are other files as well.

Don't get me wrong, although Linux is very secure, it is still capable of picking up a virus. Each user has their own 'Profile' and in the profile there are system type files which contain all the information pertaining to that particular user and the programs they use, similar to the registry but of course each user has their own set of profile files which are not shared with the other users. These files can be modified either by the program they relate to, or the user, or by a malicious program.

At the moment its very easy to either remove the offending program, file, or if necessary the whole user account and set it up again, I've already had to do that on my sons' account because he'd messed his account up somehow. None of the other user accounts nor the Kernel were harmed.