

Linux vs. Linux Users - rflrob
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=20339

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nkuttler
Google Cache
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antocv
You didnt meet upon Linux users, I doubt that highly, it seems the comments
you got were from people who had a wish to use Linux or perhaps tried it out
as a LiveCD/Wubi installation and felt they were on top of the world. Some
kind of teenager fanboys.

Of all the quite many Linux users I know none would be interested in your,
quite funny, article. Its just no on the radar to be interested in such
articles if youve been using Linux for more than two-three months.

The problem is this fanboism and making choice of OS some kind of life-style
choice and then we have flamewars like in Month Pythons Life of Brian when
"Peoples Liberation party and "party for Peoples Liberation" fight.

~~~
doktrin
That's a whole lot of _" No True Scottsman"_. Just because _you_ don't know
individuals like this personally doesn't mean they're not part of the
community.

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keithpeter
Quote from cached version of OA

 _" Windows 8 is a mess and while Windows 7 is pretty spiffy, it’s also a
hundred dollars. Given the shape of the economy right now, lots of people
would probably be willing to endure a bit of a learning curve to save that
kind of money."_

The _economic_ advantages of Linux/BSD based operating systems include the
ability to use older hardware for longer and free/libre application software
that may be adequate depending on use cases as well as the operating system
itself. I would estimate significant savings over the years even though I have
donated several times the cost of an OEM Windows 7 DVD to Ubuntu and other
projects.

Of course, 'lots of people' _will_ be using non-Windows systems as they move
to [tablets|chrome-book like laptops|Android based desktops when available]
over the next few years. Based on a colleague fluidly demonstrating her
Samsung Galaxy Tab the other day, they won't need much hand-holding!

Negative comments on blogs? Perhaps not a surprise [1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect)

~~~
norswap
> The economic advantages of Linux/BSD based operating systems include the
> ability to use older hardware for longer

Totally untrue in my experience, unless you want to use something as minimal
as gentoo/archlinux, and that's not for everyone (and even then, low-level
stuff like sub-optimal drivers might byte you).

Windows XP is still the champ here, and I believe in many cases 7 does as
least as good a job as most popular distros (Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/...).

~~~
laumars
If you compare XP to the latest Ubuntu, then yeah you'd have a point. But
you're also comparing a decade old OS against one of the latest compositing
desktop environments sat on top of one of the most bloated Linux distros;
which is hardly a fair comparison.

Plus as time moves on, fewer and fewer software will support XP. Where as
distros like Puppy will support all the latest browsers, have the latest
security fixes _and still_ have a lower hardware footprint (disk space, RAM,
CPU, etc).

~~~
norswap
I'm not comparing XP to Ubuntu. A few years ago I experimented with a Pentium
3. XP beat "mid-level" Linux distributions handily. Mid-level distributions
would be something like [http://www.zenwalk.org/](http://www.zenwalk.org/),
typically using user friendly but lightweight software (like XFCE). Note how
they advertise for speed on the front page.

I also owned a first-generation netbook, and there XP was better than Puppy,
Slax, etc...

~~~
laumars
_> "I'm not comparing XP to Ubuntu. A few years ago I experimented with a
Pentium 3. XP beat "mid-level" Linux distributions handily. Mid-level
distributions would be something like
[http://www.zenwalk.org/](http://www.zenwalk.org/), typically using user
friendly but lightweight software (like XFCE). Note how they advertise for
speed on the front page."_

The problem here is you're just quoting anecdotal evidence - which is pretty
much worthless. There's nothing to say what the specs of the systems were,
what your usage was, nor any post-install optimisations (eg since you're
familiar with Windows I'd wager that you weren't running a vanilla install of
XP - instead disabling themes and such like to streamline the OS. But you were
probably still running a vanilla build of stripping XP down to it's minimal
components while running a vanilla versions of those other Linux distros).

To further prove how useless anecdotal evidence is, I wiped my wife's old
laptop and installed Xubuntu and saw some marked speed improvements - despite
Xubuntu having desktop compositing and such like enabled (which wasn't enabled
in Windows). I've also replaced two offices full of Windows CE thin clients
with Linux - same hardware, but instead of WinCE (which is as minimal as
Windows gets), it's running ArchLinux with LXDE.

So we can all quote the "upgrades" that we've done, but without offering any
real details such stories are worthless (and the results would be mostly down
to whichever OS your most familiar with anyway - as you'll know how to tweak
it's performance). Which is why the majority of my point was about the age of
XP (and the issues that gives in terms of security and support) vs running the
latest version of Linux. At lest with that, we can evidence our arguments.

 _> "typically using user friendly but lightweight software (like XFCE)"_

XFCE isn't actually _that_ lightweight. I mean, it's often used as a
lightweight alternative to KDE, GNOME and such like, but they're pretty beefy
/ bloated desktop environments. If you wanted something lightweight then you
would have been better off with LXDE, E17 or any of the numerous window
managers. But this goes back to my point about it being easier to for you to
run a low footprint version of Windows because you're more familiar with that
- and thus how worthless anecdotal evidence is because of that bias.

 _> "I also owned a first-generation netbook, and there XP was better than
Puppy, Slax, etc..."_

Well that's definitely not true because the 1st generation netbooks were ASUS
EeePCs and they were all Linux (Xandros to be precise). XP wouldn't even run
on the netbooks originally. Microsoft had to push through changes to XP's code
and licences after the netbook market started to take off out of worry that
Linux might grab a chunk of Windows's market. And I remember this vividly
because not only does my wife have a 1st generation EeePC, but I remember the
Linux fanboys proclaiming that netbooks marked the "year of the Linux desktop"
(which sadly never happened due to Microsoft subsidising Windows so massively
that Linux netbooks actually worked out more expensive in comparison).

~~~
norswap
Well, it is anecdotal, never claimed otherwise. I did not do particular
optimizations on XP however. I was just much more responsive out of the box.

I also agree XFCE isn't really lightweight - but it's included in a helluva
lot of things that describe themselves as lightweight and target older
machines.

Maybe we can say the netbook was second generation then. It was an Acer Aspire
One. I think you could choose between a weird crippled Linux or a Windows
install. Or maybe it was dual-boot? I installed a fresh copy to get rid of the
crapware anyway.

~~~
laumars
_> "I also agree XFCE isn't really lightweight - but it's included in a
helluva lot of things that describe themselves as lightweight and target older
machines."_

It's a matter of context. XFCE is usually shipped as a lightweight yet highly
configurable alternative to the feature-rich desktop environments (DE) such as
KDE and GNOME. Which it is. But that's only relative to the resources that
it's peers consume. However in the last 5 or 6 years LXDE has come on the
scene - which is even even more stripped down than XFCE was and as LXDE has a
strong focus on modularization, it's even easier to run a low-footprint LXDE
desktop. But as it's a relatively recent DE, it's not been a distro default-
choice until recently.

There's also E17 (enlightenment) which has been around for donkey's years yet
oddly seems to draw very little attention despite it's impressive performance.
Not sure why that is, but if I had to guess - it might be because it's
aesthetics is a little more individual so switching between different toolkits
in E17 can be a touch more jarring and harder to unify.

However if you want really low footprint, then you need to run purely window
manager instead of a full desktop environment. But they're less intuitive,
less pretty and just generally another class of UI.

So there's a reason why XFCE is (or was) the low footprint DE of choice.

 _> "Maybe we can say the netbook was second generation then. It was an Acer
Aspire One. I think you could choose between a weird crippled Linux or a
Windows install. Or maybe it was dual-boot? I installed a fresh copy to get
rid of the crapware anyway._"

You might have a 1st generation Acer netbook then. But Acer weren't the first
to market with netbooks. I think they were a full year behind ASUS's EeePCs
(and even further behind similar devices aimed at different markets - such as
the OLPC).

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d23
What does he expect? He clearly thinks Windows is a better operating system,
and it shows.

Okay, I'm kidding. I've tried some comedy stuff as a hobby and quickly
realized that no matter how obvious to you think the jokes are -- hell, you
probably think you're making it _too blindingly obvious_ \-- someone won't get
it. They simply aren't your target audience. Maybe if you filled them with
memes or rage comics it would communicate "hey there doofus, this is a joke!"
But you'd lose the very people you're trying to target.

The people that appreciate a slight turn of phrase or subtle, dry wit don't
much cross over with the those who find least common denominator humor funny.
Oh well.

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MacsHeadroom
I seem to remember something about trolls trolling trolls.

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lmm
You get these kind of cranks for anything. Unless he's compared with a control
article where he's equally dumb about a different subject I wouldn't read
anything into it.

~~~
laumars
He did compare it to a "control article". A few in fact. And his article in
question wasn't "dumb" \- it was just satire which a bunch of kids
misinterpreted as being "dumb".

In fact your post is somewhat ironic because the article was about exactly
that kind of negative knee-jerk reaction where commenters are quick to jump on
the offensive without stopping to think about what they just read.

~~~
lmm
>He did compare it to a "control article". A few in fact.

Were any of those he compared to ones where he was deliberately being dumb and
wrong about something?

>And his article in question wasn't "dumb" \- it was just satire which a bunch
of kids misinterpreted as being "dumb".

Shrug. Poe's law. Or, as 4chan puts it, "ironic shitposting is still
shitposting".

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hpaavola
Seems to be down. Mirror?

~~~
laumars
It's essentially just a rant at OS fanboys who post knee-jerk reactions
without stopping to think about the context of the post they're irritated by.

I feel for the author, I really do. He posted some rather obvious satire about
Windows vs Linux and then faced the wrath of the brain-dead as numerous
zealots took to site -and e-mail- to send profanities. But what the author
misses is that this tribal behavior happens with all OSs and has been the case
for many years. Sadly this is nothing new nor unique to his incident.

While it's easier said than done, sometimes it's better to just ignore the
hate and silently moderate the worst comments (or better yet, close the
comments on that article and let the haters have their flamewars somewhere
else)

