Does Richard Stallman have an alibi?
He is about the only person one hears speaking of the "open-source operating system GNU/Linux".. (Though maybe he dislikes the expression "open-source"--I forget.
A surprising twist has emerged in the tale of a New York politician who found Linux had been installed on his office computer after miscreants supposedly broke into the locked room. After his office windows were smashed by rocks, Michael Grimm, a US Republican who represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, denounced the " …
Of course he dislikes open source since it has been hijacked by lots of big corporations (Microsoft too is open source in case you might wonder) so now he prefers Free and Open Source. Do you have anything in particular against end-user digital freedoms ? In case you do, we would appreciate if you'd share it with us.
"a campaign staffer wiped the hard drives accidentally after mistakenly inserting a Linux system disc into a Windows machine"
I reckon he/she would also have had to provide some really dumb answers to some fairly obvious questions for this to happen.
Or maybe Steve-O was right after all and Linux is indeed a cancer.
<- Autorun penguin
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"corrupted and erased the hard-drive of the campaign computer server"
Except earlier in the article this "Windows machine" was in fact a server containing "confidential campaign files and polling data". Which begs the question why anyone has access to it, let alone is rebooting it and shoving a Linux disc in.
Being a server though, it will obviously have had backups enabled so no real problem? (There might be some sarcasm in there - but I don't know the actual answer or even if it was a server.)
It is absolutely impossible to erase a hard-disk just by inserting a Linux installation CD in a computer. You need to start and go through the installation procedure up to the point where you define partitions and the changes will be written on hard disk only if you confirm you really want to do it. You can't install Linux by mistake, even the most incompetent Windows user can't do that.
Indeed... First the machine has to be set to boot from CD, then rebooted. Next there are dozens of selections and menu options before partitioning... And that's hardly straight forward even if you want to install it!
I say someone was told to install it, but put it on the wrong machine and is now hurriedly covering their arse.
I see from the comments that some people think that it had to be deliberately installed because no one is that clueless to accidentally install it. Trust me, people CAN be that completely clueless!
I know of one person who accidentally reinstalled Windows 98 over the top of Windows 98. Upon asking her, eventually it transpired that she was looking for a possible password feature and despite the multiple obvious-to-techies prompts during setup she was just clicking on "Next" (or whatever the exact prompt is in Windows Setup - it's been a long time since I've done a Windows 98 installation) in a vain attempt to find the feature.
Never attribute to malice that which could be explained by stupidity.
> I have never seen a Linux install disk, Live CD or Alternate, that didn't ask at least twice
I have created just such disks. They can make life a lot easier in certain circumstances.
But it's not easy to create such things, and they'll *always* be marked "dangerous" or suchlike by the originator. And they'll invaariably only do the installation on a specified machine...
> I doubt "autorun" wiped the box
I'm quite certain it didn't.
Vic.
How about...
Someone left a live CD in the drive, and once it boots into Linux they can't eject it.
They have managed to ascertain that there is no C: so clearly the hard disk has been wiped.
This will continue until someone really Really REALLY needs a cup holder and un-bends a paperclip.
Let's see if I can piece this together (arm chair detective and all):
A part-time staffer (probably a kid that knows a little about linux) decides that "upgrading" the campaign systems is a good idea because windoze suks. S/He probably even received permission from the higher ups to do it, although most likely they completely misunderstood the request.
The person completes the install and goes home for the day. Sometime that night the 14 year old breaks the window. The regular people come to work the next day and see the windows broken. Fearing a real break in, they check the computers and all of their data is missing!!
Instant call for the police and media (probably not in that order) to come in. They make a claim that miscreants hate the democratic system and get a few headlines.
In the meantime, the part-time staffer shows up either later that day/night or the next day. Goes to check on the computers and says, "Hey! the install is done." At which point the adults in the room figure out what happened and try to come up with a way to say, "oops" without admitting they were actually wrong.
As a final note, the part time staffer gets to keep his/her job because ultimately this whole fiasco led to a lot more publicity about the campaign than their miserable attempts have thus far done.
This seems to be the nearest that El Reg commentards have got so far to the obvious pun on "breaking Office Windows".
As for Linux installation "deleting all my files", I for one have been pretty pissed off when Ubuntu trashes /usr /etc, especially when it ends up screwing up initramfs so that that machine ends up being unbootable.
New York Daily writes:
"Grimm, a Republican who is under investigation by the FBI for alleged campaign finance violations, claims he’s the victim of a Watergate-style break-in that targeted polling data and other information on his computers.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/teenager-arrested-vandalizing-congressman-michael-grimm-office-article-1.1168006#ixzz27k4aCoXe"
...so Grimm is under investigation by the FBI over his campaign finances, and one of his staffers somehow "inadvertently" overwrites the disks on his campaign HQ computers? Well gosh.
Not wishing to put 2+2 together and get 5, but when I do wonder how anybody could accidentally reformat and install Ubuntu on not one, but SEVERAL machines. Hmm....
Some kid broke their window and an office worker obviously didn't like the Windows install, so he/she did him a favor and installed a much better operating system on his computer. It's his paranoia that caused all the turmoil. Doesn't sound like he should hold public office if he's going to jump to so many conclusions. :)
If the disk already has Windows on it the chances are there is no space for a Linux installation alongside so the default action will be to wipe the Windows partition after copious warnings and requests for acknowledgments.
That is not the only way ahead, though. The last netbook I bought, I shrunk the Windows XP partition to 10 Gigs and installed Fedora Linux in the liberated space. Haven't tried with Windows 7.
I since discovered that even for really infrequent use 10 Gigs is not really enough for Windows, although I can do a heck of a lot with Linux installed on a 4 Gig or even a 2 Gig USB key.