28.Lock Globe Esm W900

Recently, an article crossed my path that made me smile. There’s not much in tech these days that does that, so I took a moment to savor this rare sensation.

The piece by Jack Wallen on ZDNet pitched Linux as a refuge from the desktop OS security pitfalls of its competitors. I’ve held this viewpoint for a while. What impressed me about the article, though, is that the author bothered to make the sell to an audience of mostly non-Linux-using consumer tech readers. 

As pro-Linux desktop arguments go, the author’s was easily comprehensible to neophytes. Beautiful. But if there was any shortcoming worth noting, it is that in places, it was a bit too light on detail for an article that, in the best case, is guiding users toward the serious undertaking of wiping their machine’s factory OS to install a new one that is handed out for free on the internet.

I’m hoping a follow-up piece is in the works for those whose excitement generated by the initial article needs a bit of direction. But unless and until the sequel debuts, I wanted to start a dialog by offering a few points.