The extremely vocal desktop Linux tinority

Hey thanks Colonel, I think your pins fixed the crick I've had in my neck for a week..

;-)

> Yep it's my project to maintain it,

You have my sympathy. Make sure to document the security holes in writing with all the appropriate folks. That way they can't blame you when they have a major incident.

Yaaaaaawn.

Scott, I was sure those pins were lower. A lot lower.

Acubunture?

VoodooBuntu.

/giggle...

Ubuntu 10.10 will be known as Awesome Ass.

As in, politician, or supermodel?

Awesome Ass that would have to be Politician Awesome Arse would have to be supermodel

Darn. Missed it.

Quoting:So, if I read this thread right, tracyanne and devnet are saying that any religious person (a vast majority of the human populous, last I checked) are closed minded idiots lacking the ability to reason.

Is that what you are saying? Is this really the place to be saying it?

Actually, I wasn't implying anything by quoting the quote I did. I was showing that both sides of the fence are extreme zealots. Either you have ultimate acceptance without proof or you have ultimate rejection without proof.

In both instances, everyone loses. Both sides can be close minded :(

> Both sides can be close minded

Yeah? Prove it!

Hehehehe :-)

Quoting:Yeah? Prove it!

:P

I don't have to prove it because the other side is wrong and there is nothing that they can do or say to change my mind.

;)

I have been exchanging emails with a lawyer who is a self proclaimed LINUX ZEALOT. He offered to give my daughter a Linux computer and FREE tech support.

Now, you want to bad mouth zealots? Don't!

You'd trust your daughter with a....[gulp] lawyer? j/k!

cybergal, Sad to say but my daughter IS a lawyer. But hey, she does intend to run her practice with nothing but FOSS.

One out of two ain't bad!

HeY, U LaMe WiNdOzE UzErZ StFu, Cuz I'm TiReD oF U!

Oh, wait, no Windoze users in here? Anybody out there? Ok, that's it. I'm outta here.

All of the people I've converted to Linux love Linux [snip]

Well, the small group of people I've introduced to GNU/Linux love it too. They are people though, who wholeheartedly embraced it warts and all.

I've also had folks who were just looking for Windows sans the virusses and sans the pricetag. Needless to say, introducing them to the penguin was a complete disaster.

That last group is also the most condemning about GNU/Linux after they fled back to their Windows.

If you keep hearing NO year after year, it is hard to keep believing YES. So it probably isn't as bad as my deepest, darkest fears.

The guy is confused. He thinks that because he can't use Linux it won't become "mainstream".

In spite of what he thinks, the world can support more than one OS. The nature of variety is that some prefer one version, others prefer the other version.

He also said that he started out with Linux because it doesn't cost anything. Stop reading the article there. "I want Windows without paying for it." Linux is not free Windows. Windows is a bad imitation of an OS. If you want to do things in a backward fashion, you'll have to use Windows. Case closed.

Frankly, I don't care if he doesn't like Linux. Linux works pretty darn good for me.

Why is this article even posted here? No more anti-Linux. No more Linux bashing. Lets talk about Linux and what is does/where its going!

> Why is this article even posted here?

Because we, or at least I, don't want LXer to become an echo chamber. It's almost always a good idea to examine what your opposition is saying. In a case like this, they'll be wrong 90% of the time, but that other 10% or so of the time they'll be pointing out problems you should be trying to fix. A good example would be the Mindcraft test from years ago.

It is all chaff thrown up to distract us. Lets not provide Troll kibbles to the FUD mongers.

How did Windows 3.1 succeed?

It had no multimedia capabilities (Apple IIgs and Amiga users will tell you how advanced their systems were in the same time period)

Win 3.1 had laughable graphics capabilities.

Games didn't use Win 3.1, but ran right on top of DOS bypassing the useless Windows code. Windows 3.1 was non-intuitive, you had to be able to edit .bat and .ini files to make the system usable.

Windows 3.1 was superior to Windows 2.8, but was inferior to most of its competition.

Yet it became the market leader.

Windows 3.1 was adequate and cheaper.

Linux is more than adequate, and cheaper.

Linux use will grow.

LOL, troll kibbles. Reminds me of comedy shows where kitty crunchies are kept in fancy bowls, and guests think they are people treats. Always good for a nice lowbrow laugh :)

Quoting:what do you do when your Windows computer system breaks and you're a complete tech luddite?

You destroy the damn machine because it takes away jobs from honest, hard-working people doing all the math, you know, the computers?...

No humor here, however, in a NYT piece a supposed consultant threw away his machine and bought a replacement when it becomes so mucked up (beyond repair)* as S.O.P. [I am assuming this was still XP, because Vista was relatively new.]

I am awe struck by how obvious incompetents have such an excess of funds they can be so mindlessly extravagant. It is a wonder too that this could be written with a straight face and not be laughed out of town. The Wisdom of Idiots, I presume.

* This is not the article I remember, but it seems to have the same or similar content: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/technology/17spy.html?hp&e...

@Txt, nothing about that surprises me. I must getting more cynical in my old age.

So I'm logged in remotely to this computer (it runs WinXP) we use in the office for processing media files, when suddenly I'm logged out with a message that states, "another user has taken over this session", and I'm booted out. You see Windows is a single user OS, and only one person can be logged in at a time, don't you just love it.

@tracyanne: I don't think that's the reason. IIRC it's an artificial, arbitrary limit placed by MS. You need to buy a stack of CALs to do it with multiple users.

Everyone's mileage varies, I guess. I thought Ubuntu ran like a three-legged dog on my laptop, so I tried another distro and it works great. Yes, after years of Gentoo, I went over to the dark side of OpenSuse.

What pisses me off about these extremely negative reviews is that the author almost always says they tried some version of Linux a few years prior, in this case 2006. Windows users don't seem to understand that Linux is a moving target, and that it gets better and better every year. They're so used to seeing the same old lame operating system for years on end, and then seeing huge dramatic changes every 5 years or so. Linux just isn't like that.

Firefox WAS slow on Linux...two years ago. But that's not the case now. OpenOffice is even better at rendering MSOffice documents than it was two years ago, and its startup time has decreased dramatically. Wireless networking is infinitely easier than it was two years ago, unless you own a Broadcom card like I do.

So he can't use Chrome or iTunes or whatever. He should have taken that into account before he switched, not after.

Quoting: What pisses me off about these extremely negative reviews is that the author almost always says they tried some version of Linux a few years prior, in this case 2006.

You see this over and over again. "Oh, I am a user of Linux, but..." then later on in the article turns out they used Red Hat 7 or something like that. I find myself sucked in to trying to explain how incredibly quickly Linux evolves and improves. I guess the issue is that if we didn't get on and point out stuff like this, the FUD and/or ignorance would carry on unchallenged.

BTW, I just installed Mandriva 2008.1 to dual boot a load of Acer laptops for work and I am pretty sure they had Broadcom wifi that I got working with minimum effort. I'll double check next time I have my hands on them, but if you're still struggling with wifi, you might want to try Mandriva.

@Sander:

Quoting:@tracyanne: I don't think that's the reason. IIRC it's an artificial, arbitrary limit placed by MS. You need to buy a stack of CALs to do it with multiple users.

Huh?

Windows is a multi-tasking, single-user OS. It runs some services for multiple users (file serving, print serving, login domain management) but only one user can be logged in, launching programs this way and that. Or can more than one user be running Firefox, on that system? (Virtualized systems don't count; I'm talking about a stock installation of Windows.)

Windows' preferred execution model is distributed, and with good reason. Too much load on a Windows system causes instability. Unix and Linux have no preference; programs can be run locally or centrally, on CLI or in a GUI.

Then again, think of all the hard-earned cash companies have to throw down the rat-hole, in order to have Windows in their offices. One Windows system on each desktop, plus a bigger Windows system for file and print serving, plus one Windows system for email, plus one even more monstrous Windows system for SQL Server... and then the endless upgrade cycle...

It's times like this I really want to violate LXer's TOS or engage in minor acts of physical violence.

Quoting:Or can more than one user be running Firefox, on that system? (Virtualized systems don't count; I'm talking about a stock installation of Windows.)

Yes they can, through Windows Terminal Server and/or Citrix. Even a stock Windows Server without Terminal Server allows two (I think it's two) additional logins via RDP.

Quoting:Windows is a multi-tasking, single-user OS.

You must be stuck in a world where Windows 95/98 is the latest and greatest. Windows 2K and later are based on Windows NT, which does, really does have a multi-user, multi-tasking kernel. As much as I dislike Windows I have to admit at least that. I did a lot stuff in Remote Desktop two jobs before (arounf 2001), so I have a first-hand experience with that :)

Oh my. You mean Windows finally got something that Unix has had since, oh, 1973?

@jezuch:

The kernel may have been multi-user, but for a long time there was no super-structure to allow multiple logins. So, while individual processes may have had different user ID's, there weren't actual users associated with them. I guess you could say it was more "multi-privilege" instead.

Yes, I'm splitting hairs. So shoot me.

I'll shut up now.

Even XP can do multiple logons, so long as you do a reg hack and a couple other things. Doesn't run real well, and of course it's a gigantic license violation.....

Quoting:Or can more than one user be running Firefox, on that system?

Yes. We use stock XP and Server 2003 with multiple people logging in over RDP. It doesn't work terribly well, but it does work.