Maybe, but not everything has to be installed in a windows system to be vulnerable. Take IE for example, you can technically uninstall it, but you'll still need to patch your OS for the flaws it has.

I wonder how that will go for the people sitting on the end of typical low end plans in Australia. 4GB of data, uploads counted. I'm not so sure I want to help stream Flash Ad's. At least when I torrent an Ubuntu cd, I am choosing to upload it for others.

Guess that's why Flash is denied.

Someone is wrong on the internet!

And that's the kicker right there. Some people have trouble setting their VCR, let alone anything more complicated. I know I've prattled on about LinHES, but the defaults at least in that distro are quite sane. It comes up automatically with Mythtv-setup and all you have to do is follow the menus through (keyboard is easier, but I've done it with the remote) from top to bottom.

LinHES is pretty much Arch Linux (previously debian, but I like the way they are doing things far better now) underneath and has quite a thriving community (It's been going since sometime in 2004). They have their own repos and a reasonable amount of packages apart from the standard myth ones. You can in theory add the arch repos to get extra stuff, but it isn't recommended and you can cause some issues if you replace the wrong thing. To note Unisen is available from the repos.

What I find with the Larger distros is that it's feels like just "Ubuntu" with the Myth packages added on top, where as LinHES in particular feels like they have really worked hard to make it "Just Work". I like to hack things and bend them to my will, LinHES allows me to do that as it has a full featured distro underneath. Personally I use SNMP/Centreon/Nagios combo for monitoring.

Did you try a purpose built distro? My experience has been quite the opposite, the only things I ever had to hack was the xorg config, which thank goodness is now not required. My distro of choice is LinHES

Well on the Support front, Google seem to have a few options which include 24/7 support with a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Whether that translates into reality who knows, anecdotally I've had no issues in 4 years and I recall only reading a couple of issues in the news over that time. They also have (albeit I'm unsure of the level of doco) many APIs, which handle all the scaling one would need. We've considered replacing our in house exchange environment with it, so my colleague has written scripts that can create accounts, sync passwords/details etc, our only show stopper isn't technical, it's that we don't think the business would be ready for this kind of change.

Sounds like the Same situation we are in over here in Australia. Kevin Rudd, promising much, delivering very little.

I wouldn't tolerate Opt-out, nor opt-in, it's only a policy change away from being Mandatory. What the Government should be doing is starting a "Family Friendly" ISP program. Special logos, resources for parents etc. Unfortunately politics isn't about common sense, it's all about being seen to be doing something.

Dealers are like that hear in Aus. I prefer to take vehicles to a smaller shop with a good reputation. One mob tried to tell my fiancée that she needed a new horn (at $260) as it was "off tone". Now it's the loudest thing you could ever hear (quite unexpected for a car that small) and gives a single continuous tone, which is all that is required to be considered roadworthy in Australia. General servicing used to cost her nearly $500 (Fluid/Filter Change), we recently had a timing belt and water pump replaced at the VW Specialist (which in that car is an insane job) which came in at $540. Dealers that rip people off are the scum of the earth.

It's not really that far fetched, Picasa is one example and there are many other applications that come prepackaged with wine.

Maybe, but it depends whether the feature was actually advertised, or just happened to be there.

This might give some hope though

Glad I never bought one, I just don't trust Sony enough.

I lived the life of an MUD gamer, lived your first scenario till I was 19. I'm now a functioning member of society, who goes to bed at 10pm, gets up at 6am, walks the dog, goes to work etc. Honestly though, it's up to the parents and I did give mine hell as a teenager! But this is South Korea, since when was freedom guaranteed?

No, the political system in Australia is a disgrace, but is leaps and bounds ahead of that in the US. There are motivated citizens trying to make change happen, but it's not going to happen overnight eg. Getup.org creators of such gems as censordyne