Inspiring Essays

[nslay]

Aside of the UNIX-Haters handbook.  You might find these essays on Linux inspiring.  It points out everything that is wrong with the Linux community.  Much of what is written in these essays are among reasons I despise Linux ... although I do try to recognize Linux's good points.

These essays are very well written and they appear objective.  They are not your ordinary anti-Linux FUD ... Linux zealots should pay close attention to these essays.  These essays don't necessarily bash Linux or Linux distributions ... they bash the community.

1) Is Windows "Dumbed Down"?
2) Linux is a teenage boy's operating system
3) Are the "Open Source" advocates mentally healthy
4) Open Source hurts the poor nations
5) Linux depends on the disgust of Microsoft

I've only had time to read the first essay, but it really nails the point.  Although, I don't agree with his view on open source applications ... many open source applications are written for fun, or to serve a purpose on a platform that is unsupported by alternatives.

[Joe]

I'm reading through article #1 right now. Read this again:

The Linux community believes in anarchy; they want everybody to be free to do as they please. By comparison, IBM and Sun have leadership, and they decide what will said about their products.

Anybody can self-appoint himself as “Linux Spokeman” and say anything they please about Linux. There is no true leader to tell anybody to shut up.

The Linux community behaves like a bunch of children in need of adult supervision. The Linux community needs a leader who can decide what Linux is and what its goals are. Is Linux a replacement to Windows? If not, stop fooling the public into thinking it is! If it is a Windows replacement, do not claim it can replace Windows until it actually can!

Now, as if the idiot who wrote this were actually debating with me, let me counter his points:

First paragraph: Yup. Anarchy. That's definately what freedom of speech is. I'm sure we would much better prefer a dictatorship where our rulers get to "decide what will said about their products". I mean, I doubt theres any reason that Hitler caused a world war, or that Castro's subjects are fleeing his country. Yeah.. dictatorship would be nice..

Second paragraph: Learn what the hell you're talking about. If you even knew where the name Linux came from, you'd know that the "Linux Spokesperson" you speak of is Linus Torvalds. You know.. the guy who made Linux?

Third paragraph: Calling us a bunch of children in need of adult supervision does not even merit a responce. As far as the whole Windows replacement thing, I know for a fact that Linux can replace Windows. You don't once state what distribution of Linux you've used. Therefore this makes me assume that you don't know what the hell you're talking about, as you refer to the kernel as if it were the entire operating system. Please put an NT kernel on your drive and try booting, so that you can run your car on it's metal. I bet you probably picked a distribution intended for well-educated software developers who know every single thing that happens in a computer, such as Slackware or Gentoo. If you used a distribution intended for people who don't know anything about computers (read: you) such as Ubuntu or Debian, you would have clearly noticed that Linux is faster than Windows, and just as easy to use.

[Newby]

The Linux community believes in anarchy; they want everybody to be free to do as they please. By comparison, IBM and Sun have leadership, and they decide what will said about their products.

First paragraph: Yup. Anarchy. That's definately what freedom of speech is. I'm sure we would much better prefer a dictatorship where our rulers get to "decide what will said about their products". I mean, I doubt theres any reason that Hitler caused a world war, or that Castro's subjects are fleeing his country. Yeah.. dictatorship would be nice..

You completely avoided the point. Nice work. Simply say the claim is false without proving it.

Anybody can self-appoint himself as “Linux Spokeman” and say anything they please about Linux. There is no true leader to tell anybody to shut up.

Second paragraph: Learn what the hell you're talking about. If you even knew where the name Linux came from, you'd know that the "Linux Spokesperson" you speak of is Linus Torvalds. You know.. the guy who made Linux?

Really? I hear Linux spokesman, I think Novell or Red Hat or one of the hundreds of vendors of Linux out there who try to sell you their distribution of Linux. Not Linus. In fact, I haven't heard his name used when I hear GNU and/or Linux in a while. Who maintains the 2.4 kernel series? Oh yeah. Not Linus!

The Linux community behaves like a bunch of children in need of adult supervision. The Linux community needs a leader who can decide what Linux is and what its goals are. Is Linux a replacement to Windows? If not, stop fooling the public into thinking it is! If it is a Windows replacement, do not claim it can replace Windows until it actually can!

Third paragraph: Calling us a bunch of children in need of adult supervision does not even merit a responce. As far as the whole Windows replacement thing, I know for a fact that Linux can replace Windows. You don't once state what distribution of Linux you've used. Therefore this makes me assume that you don't know what the hell you're talking about, as you refer to the kernel as if it were the entire operating system. Please put an NT kernel on your drive and try booting, so that you can run your car on it's metal. I bet you probably picked a distribution intended for well-educated software developers who know every single thing that happens in a computer, such as Slackware or Gentoo. If you used a distribution intended for people who don't know anything about computers (read: you) such as Ubuntu or Debian, you would have clearly noticed that Linux is faster than Windows, and just as easy to use.

You use us as in you use Linux. As far as I know, you don't. . Either way, Linux can't replace Windows. Know why? Replace would imply one hundred percent replace. You can't run 95% of the games on the market in Linux. You can't walk into a store and pick up a copy of Quicken for Linux. You can't have automatic updates; you have to manually update your kernel each time a new kernel is released, and on the 2.6 series, that's really quite often. I patched my kernel twice in one day at one point!

There's also no good alternative to Microsoft Exchange, something corporate people dig. The only open-source alternative just lost all their full time developers because well, the developers were from Novell. Rather, Microvell now.

It wouldn't matter what distribution of Linux he used. That isn't Linux, dummy. He's attacking the community. The community brags and boasts that "Linux" can replace Windows, when in fact, not one distribution poses a threat to usurping Microsoft on the desktop.

joe: statistics. I'd like to see some hard proof that linux > windows. Otherwise, what you spit is blather.

Young children with no computer skills can turn on a Macintosh and perform useful tasks without much training. Windows is almost as easy to use. However, Linux is so stupid that the users must learn about operating systems and then help Linux function.

Words have never been spoken so true.

The Linux community is so convinced of the superiority of Linux that it did not occur to anybody to stand up and yell,

    “Wait a minute! We cannot put Linux in retail stores yet! It’s not ready the public! Are you guys crazy? People will get mad at us!”


The Linux community makes insulting remarks about the flaws in Windows and the bad behavior of Microsoft, but they release a version of Linux that is virtually worthless to most people and businesses. The Linux community is behaving worse than the people they ridicule.

That's true, too.

Another common conversation:

    Eric: “Why doesn't Linux support my monitor?”

    Joe: “The Linux community doesn't make drivers. The graphics card company hasn't bothered to make drivers! Complain to them!”

    Eric: “Why are you releasing Linux for sale when the drivers are not ready? At least put a big warning on the front of the box!”

    Joe: “Learn about computers before you buy! Are you a helpless baby?”

I hate to say it joe, but I think the article is bashing the people in the community like you.

[leet_muffin]

First paragraph: Yup. Anarchy. That's definately what freedom of speech is. I'm sure we would much better prefer a dictatorship where our rulers get to "decide what will said about their products". I mean, I doubt theres any reason that Hitler caused a world war, or that Castro's subjects are fleeing his country. Yeah.. dictatorship would be nice..

a.) You fail to recognize what anarchy is.

b.) You fail to realize there are other types of governments that support freedom of speech and not anarchy.

c.) Freedom of speech?

[Super_X]

I read the "Linux is for teen boys" article, and I can understand his points but I don't really agree.

One of the main points I remember (I read it earlier today, sue me.) was "Take it apart, figure out how it works." He said that's a childish behavior, I don't agree. If no one figures out howthings work, they can't figure out how to make it better, or how to make it smoother. Also, if no one knows how things work, they can't fix them. There'd be a monoply on computer repairs, and a shepard leading the blind into a trap is very possible when this happens.

[Sidoh]

2) Linux is a teenage boy's operating system

Sexism, I say!

I did glance over this article.  It seemed that he assumed certain things and built entire arguments ontop of them.

[Newby]

2) Linux is a teenage boy's operating system

Sexism, I say!

Nah, a teenage girl's operating system is OS X. It's pretty and ridiculously expensive to keep up to date. At $100 an update? Come on! That's worse than Windows!

[nslay]

I read the "Linux is for teen boys" article, and I can understand his points but I don't really agree.

One of the main points I remember (I read it earlier today, sue me.) was "Take it apart, figure out how it works." He said that's a childish behavior, I don't agree. If no one figures out howthings work, they can't figure out how to make it better, or how to make it smoother. Also, if no one knows how things work, they can't fix them. There'd be a monoply on computer repairs, and a shepard leading the blind into a trap is very possible when this happens.

Yeah, I definitely don't agree with some of his points.  For example, in the first essay he notes that open source programmers make software to avoid buying commercial software ... but many open source projects exist for fun or to provide functionality that has no alternatives, commericial or not.

[Sidoh]

First paragraph: Yup. Anarchy. That's definately what freedom of speech is. I'm sure we would much better prefer a dictatorship where our rulers get to "decide what will said about their products". I mean, I doubt theres any reason that Hitler caused a world war, or that Castro's subjects are fleeing his country. Yeah.. dictatorship would be nice..

a.) You fail to recognize what anarchy is.

b.) You fail to realize there are other types of governments that support freedom of speech and not anarchy.

c.) Freedom of speech?

Can any government support its nonexistence?

[Joe]

2) Linux is a teenage boy's operating system

Sexism, I say!

I did glance over this article.  It seemed that he assumed certain things and built entire arguments ontop of them.

That's not sexism. I don't know a single girl who uses Linux, or for that matter, other than Kaleeko and topaz (the latter who's gender I sometimes question) that even know what Linux is. Well, except Mariah (the one girl in my Comp Prog class), and the teacher. So, four.

[Sidoh]

That's not sexism. I don't know a single girl who uses Linux, or for that matter, other than Kaleeko and topaz (the latter who's gender I sometimes question) that even know what Linux is. Well, except Mariah (the one girl in my Comp Prog class), and the teacher. So, four.

Get out of your dinky little town, come to a university and walk into the computer science department.

[leet_muffin]

First paragraph: Yup. Anarchy. That's definately what freedom of speech is. I'm sure we would much better prefer a dictatorship where our rulers get to "decide what will said about their products". I mean, I doubt theres any reason that Hitler caused a world war, or that Castro's subjects are fleeing his country. Yeah.. dictatorship would be nice..

a.) You fail to recognize what anarchy is.

b.) You fail to realize there are other types of governments that support freedom of speech and not anarchy.

c.) Freedom of speech?

Can any government support its nonexistence?

In a sense where it is actually applied to real life situations, most anarchies have a government that is extremely libertarian in nature.

[Super_X]

First paragraph: Yup. Anarchy. That's definately what freedom of speech is. I'm sure we would much better prefer a dictatorship where our rulers get to "decide what will said about their products". I mean, I doubt theres any reason that Hitler caused a world war, or that Castro's subjects are fleeing his country. Yeah.. dictatorship would be nice..

a.) You fail to recognize what anarchy is.

b.) You fail to realize there are other types of governments that support freedom of speech and not anarchy.

c.) Freedom of speech?

Can any government support its nonexistence?

In a sense where it is actually applied to real life situations, most anarchies have a government that is extremely libertarian in nature.

I don't want to be mean, but you say "most" like they actually exist. At the moment, there are no countrys with an "anarchy" goverment structure (or, dis-structure?).

[Joe]

That's not sexism. I don't know a single girl who uses Linux, or for that matter, other than Kaleeko and topaz (the latter who's gender I sometimes question) that even know what Linux is. Well, except Mariah (the one girl in my Comp Prog class), and the teacher. So, four.

Get out of your dinky little town, come to a university and walk into the computer science department.

You do not know how badly I want all three of those right now. -.-

[leet_muffin]

I don't want to be mean, but you say "most" like they actually exist. At the moment, there are no countrys with an "anarchy" goverment structure (or, dis-structure?).

This is true. I was referring to the anarchies of the past.

Yes, there was a government, yes it was established, no it's not anarchy by definition, but then again, nothing is.

I assume, when people speak of anarchy, they refer to it's actual being, and not it's definition.

[Ender]

It points out everything that is wrong with the Linux community.  Much of what is written in these essays are among reasons I despise Linux ... although I do try to recognize Linux's good points.

You mean you despise the community, not linux itself, right? Because all of those essays only criticize the community, not linux itself. Despising linux because you dislike the community is like despising Windows because you dislike Microsoft or Bill Gates. Although I do find disliking the community to be a valid reason for disliking linux (same for Microsoft / Bill Gates and Windows), I just wanted to point this out.

[nslay]

It points out everything that is wrong with the Linux community.  Much of what is written in these essays are among reasons I despise Linux ... although I do try to recognize Linux's good points.

You mean you despise the community, not linux itself, right? Because all of those essays only criticize the community, not linux itself. Despising linux because you dislike the community is like despising Windows because you dislike Microsoft or Bill Gates. Although I do find disliking the community to be a valid reason for disliking linux (same for Microsoft / Bill Gates and Windows), I just wanted to point this out.

I warn those who read this post ... it can be offensive, but these are my opinions and you do not have to share them.
Yes I despise its community, but I also despise Linux. 
Here are a few reasons:
- I have never seen a system where 3 new kernel versions can be released in a single day
- tools like 'modprobe' ... there is no reason drivers shouldn't be smart enough to load their own dependencies
- the growing non-portable monster /proc and /sys ... boy its ugly to see

Code: [Select]

FILE *file = fopen( "/proc/lame", "r" );
fread( garbage, 1, sizeof(garbage), file );
/* Now we need to parse system data as ASCII instead of defining some interface to return data CORRECTLY */
/sys is even worse!
- documentation is awful, it is extremely lacking, especially in essentials like ifreqs!
- udev ... you call that an improvement over devfs?  There is NO reason you should need to use mknod anymore.  Last I remember in Linux device drivers class, I had to mknod my device nodes specifying a major and minor number.  Why the hell is udev a daemon if it provides kernel services?
- ALSA ... its very nice to program ALSA drivers ... on the other hand, ALSA is a pain to use and its not portable!  There is a standard called OSS but Linux developers often seem to forget standards and other Unix flavors.
- GPL ... The GPLague...it is a different flavor of evil...instead of closing the source, it forces everyone to open it.  Its starting to bite Linux users in the ass as ZFS is going to be a userland driver (its CDDL) and Intel currently provides a userland driver for IPW3945 ... they do this for license incompatibilities and to avoid GPL.
- wheel?  What's that?
- A nitpick thing here...ever wonder why Linux kernels are compressed?  Because the retards who wrote Linux decided to do a two stage boot forgetting that the second stage could only load limited amount of data into ram.
- Linux isn't Windows and it shouldn't try to be Windows ... its nice to see Ubuntu/Fedora Core/Mandriva/other Windowsy distro users so ignorant of the system they run, that when it breaks they have no idea how to fix it.  They often don't even know what X is ... They shouldn't have even been able to boot it to start with!

What is Linux?  it is a Unix clone Linus wrote to play with Unix on his PC...not to start some hippyish open source software revolution or compete with Microsoft.  He didn't write it thinking about enterprise quality and it really shows, and this is mentioned quite frequently in the LDD book.
Compare that to BSD or Mach ... these were research operating systems that were written with care by Berkeley, AT&T, and MIT.  Many modern OS features were born on BSD, including TCP/IP and VM.  Mach currently sits in OS X and is a Unix microkernel.  These are high quality systems.

What I will say though, Linux has a lot of neat features and hardware support ... you have perhaps millions of users contributing to Linux.  By comparison, you have perhaps thousands of users contributing to FreeBSD and fewer to Net and OpenBSD.  In the end it seems, the uglier system Linux will survive and become the future...how unfortunate.

Here is my favorite quote:

     During our short lived stint of attempting to run SDF under 'linux' on
     IBM compatibles the system was compromised a number of times, but the
     individuals who did it were much more secretive and malicious.  For
     each case users were forced to change their passwords and patched
     software was installed (though this of course introduced other bugs
     that could be found later on)

     After dumping linux and x86 in favour of return to real computers, we
     have not had any major security issues.  We are however, just as vigilant
     to be sure that your account here on SDF is safe and that any security
     issues are resolved quickly before public announcements (cert, et cetera)

http://sdf.lonestar.org/index.cgi?faq?MISC?03

This is by SDF, a Public Access Unix system that has existed since 1987.  It currently runs NetBSD of which I have observed no compromises (go figure, since, say, CERT entries on BSD systems are so rare).