[lug] my latest guilty pleasure -- Linuxhaters Blog

[Nate Duehr]

On Jul 26, 2008, at 9:04 PM, Collins Richey wrote:

> I don't have a need to read Linuxhaters. Linux meets the desktop needs
> of growing numbers of users and businesses worldwide, most especially
> outside the US. Shure, it's not perfect, but it's improving rapidly.

No, it's really not.  Can you describe a way the Linux desktop of  
today works better than say, Enlightenment 0.whatever did in the mid  
1990's?

> There will always be those users who can't do without super-complex
> Excel macro crap, but OO is getting closer to being able to render
> these with every release. And, of course, there is Photoshop.

Huh?  There's a commercial closed source product in your peanut butter  
there...

> Nevertheless, I'll stick with Linux for most uses.

I will too, for some things where it makes sense.   But I won't  
apologize for Linux anymore.  Gettin' old.

> 1. It's free and fun.

Free is often my personal goal, yes.  Fun -- depends on what you call  
fun.  The death march of continued upgrades that don't really add any  
more usability or anything more interesting than jiggly windows to the  
desktop, really aren't that much "fun" anymore.

> 2. I never have to worry about the insecure design of WIndows.

Yeah, because Linux is doing so much better in that regard.  Do you  
actually read the vulnerability reports?  Let's see... how many  
Firefox bugs are cross-platform, just in the browser of choice for  
most people, alone?  Let alone distros doing GREAT things like the  
recent SSH debacle in Debian.

You're fooling yourself if you think it doesn't take as much work to  
protect a Linux box as it does a Windows box.  Both require constant  
care and feeding.   And Mac is a pretty big target now too, and  
requires regular updates for the same silly crap the Windows and Linux  
developers did.  The mistakes are all the same.

> 3. M$ is a robber baron type of company whose mission is to destroy
> anyone that can successfully compete.

Yeah, but in the process they made things that generally work for what  
their users want.  Linux can say the same, but many of the things  
Linux users want (jiggly windows?) are pretty stupid... at least for  
the majority of computer users.  They have work to do and things to  
get done and don't care that KDE and GNOME don't get along, or that a  
distro won't allow binary drivers or whatever... they just don't care,  
and never will.

Then when you look at it you realize... hey, most users run on  
platforms that are non-free, but open-source software can help them  
THERE.  Why write for an OS they don't use?  (Just a wild thought  
there... I don't write much code anyway, and never anything useful or  
big.)


> I, too, have to deal with M$ at work. I just hope that we never have
> to deal with Vista crap.


(Shudder...)  I tried to find my way around on a Vista box recently.   
It sucked.  Not because it didn't work, but because everything got  
moved.  Linux does this every time a new version of the multitude of  
desktops comes out, and it's annoying there too... but somehow I take  
it better from Linux because that's kinda "expected", even if it's  
stupid.  MS moving things around bothered me a whole lot more.  When  
you're just trying to get something done, someone moving everything  
around on your desktop is just a hindrance....

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com