Hi CHARLES! :-)

 CA> Apparently there are security issues at stake as well according
 CA> to what I find for "automount"? 
No idea, I don't use automounting.

 CA> Just a newbie here but doesn't *nix require that you address
 CA> the proper device (dev) in this scenario?
Yes, you need to pass the right name to open(), but you don't need
different open() functions for different devices. If you open /dev/dsp,
your output will go the soundcard when you use write(), if you open
/dev/lp0, your output will go to the first printer port. Under other
operating system, you often have to use very different sound_open() and
printer_open() functions which get different parameters that you all need
to learn. Huge burden on the programmer - and humans being what they are
(myself not excluded), people tend to confuse stuff when there are two
different ways for doing what is essentially the same thing (preparing to
send some data to some device).

 CA> Depends on the level of involvement. Users who only want to
 CA> browse the Internet and send/receive email don't need to tweak
 CA> the OS nor understand a great deal to become successful. 
Granted, but that needs proper measures taken by the OS. The default
configs of Internet explorer and Outlook are unsafe and an invitation to
virus/worm writers. If they were secure, no problem.

 CA> I wouldn't remove 'cp', I would just hide it from casual users
 CA> and replace it with a more intelligent version. ;-) 
Could be done. I'm hoping all the GUI file manager stuff that newbies
nowadays probably use does have safeguards in place. I have cp aliased on
my system to "cp -i" so that it asks before overwriting anything.
;)

 CA> If that 'user' is an employee it could be an expensive lesson.
 CA> I still think work needs to be done to prevent some of this
 CA> from happening at a desktop terminal. 
In that scenario, you would probably have an experienced admin in place and
then you can indeed force a different rm (and others) binary upon users so
that they can't wreak too much havoc. Of course you would have backups and
if it's really critical data, you wouldn't give the user the opportunity to
run any program he or she likes.

 CA> I've not had access to a full Linux install as yet but using
 CA> mini-installs I find it necessary to be logged in as 'root' to
 CA> install software that I have downloaded.
On full distributions, there are GUI tools for doing that.

 CA> If this is typical
 CA> then all home users of Linux face this same dilemma that 'ready
 CA> or not' they must be 'root' at times to get the system where
 CA> they want it to be with all packages they require. 
Yes, but installation is usually not that risky. Package managers do
prevent overwriting of important system files or installation of packages
that conflict with already installed packages.

 CA> What I've been reading lately tells me that even burning image
 CA> copies to CDs is not foolproof indefinitely. I don't see as
 CA> much effort being put into securing copies beyond a few years
 CA> and that worries me. Data can be useful for more than a few
 CA> years and my source code is valuable (to me) as a reference if
 CA> nothing else. 
I personally use an MO drive where the discs are supposed to last (even
guaranteed) for 10 years or more. I also have copies on hard disk, of
course. So the MO backups are useful when a hard disk fails me, and the
hard disk copies in case my backup gets lost and I need to recreate it.
It's very unlikely for both of them to fail at the same time and I have
three sets of full (weekly) backups anyway. At most I can loose a week
worth of work.

[...]
 CA> I waited about 2 months before trying (and succeeding)
 CA> the third time. I was so angry I couldn't focus on the program
 CA> anymore. 
I sometimes did similar things when I lost some program important to me in
a hard disk crash or just by not thinking before repartitioning a disk. It
gets really annoying once you have to rewrite stuff a third time... and it
never is 100% the same as before.

 CA> I have printouts of software I wrote on an APPLE that are past
 CA> yellow moving to brown and are becoming brittle. If you live
 CA> long enough you eventually lose everything it seems. :-\ 
I have a few printouts from my DOS days, but none of the first stuff I did
on my C64. :(

 CA> I have no problem with access at low levels. I just don't think
 CA> it is for everyone and Linux needs to be 'everyone friendly' to
 CA> become a viable desktop OS. 
I think stuff like a Mandrake, SuSE, Red Hat, or whatever, default install
is quite safe to use without much risk of accidentally breaking the system.
Can't say for certain since I'm not a typical desktop user. ;)

Ciao
Pascal

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