Recent Security vulnerability in Skype

Derek Broughton wrote:
> John wrote:
> 
> 
>>Derek Broughton wrote:
>>
>>Umm. I'm not convinced. On the weekend I had my laptop, was far from my
>>my install CDs, no internet. What if I borrowed a whatsit from my mate?
> 
> 
> What if?  That's the OS X route.  I don't want all that bloat on my system
> just because I _might_ put something on the system at a later date.  The
> average user never adds hardware beyond a printer.  The average Linux user
> no doubt adds a great deal more, but they're still unlikely to change
> things like video drivers and modems.

I expect wireless cards, USB cameras and disks, MP3 players and the 
like, CD/DVD burners are fairly common upgrades. Camera and MP3 players 
(and bluetooth thingies) number amongst the whatsit's most-likely 
borrowed from a mate.

> 
> 
>>>>If, OTOH, you want a system that "just works," then when you come to
>>>>upgrade to a new system or just add bits, you really dom't want to waste
>>>>time and money hunting up drivers or mucking round copying disk drives.
>>>
>>>
>>>I don't want to waste my disk space on all the tons of software I'll
>>>never
>>>use.  I could buy a Mac if I wanted to do that...
>>
>>Save more by making your filesystem manually, using less than 5% spare
>>space.
> 
> 
> I don't think that's applicable to ReiserFS, anyway, but I save a lot better
> than that by not installing every single thing Ubuntu provides by default.

The smallest drive my local PC vendor includes by default in his 
cheapest desktop is 80 Gb. It's not worth my time to try to save 100 Mb 
or so excluding packages to save space.

While you and I have ths skills and knowledge to make a fair job of 
choosing software, new Linux users don't, and its for those the software 
needs to be in place.

As for reiserfs, I didn't think it was the default, and I'm not sure I 
want it on _my_ system.