davehayes.org

so we have some idiot over at associated content that calls themselves tsu dho nimh who has so graciously decided to bless us with their own idiotic “is linooks ready for teh desktops!?!1” article. as if we don’t see enough of this pointless and moronic discussion on the forums every day, this little gem managed to make it all the way to slashdot. now, i’m not sure what kind of a cranial vacuum managed to spawn this piece of garbage, but just for entertainment’s sake, let’s have a look.

right off the bat, we can tell this is going to be nothing but a boat load of asinine n00b drivel. the author provides us with a list of “non-negotiable requirements” are all the evidence we need. just look at them:

1. It must have a GUI interface for installing and configuring the system.
2. Existing hardware must remain usable and the new operating system must make it “just work” without my having to edit text-based configuration files.
3. Existing software must remain usable unless the new operating system has equivalent features to the ones I use, and I can switch without losing data or doing much work.
4. Because I need to use software that has no Linux substitute, the Linux distribution must make it easy to create a dual-boot system. It has to recognize and preserve the existing operating system and its data during installation, and give me access to the data on the Windows drives after installation.

before we go any further, i want to address this list in two ways. first, without reading the rest of this stupid article, i can tell you that ubuntu linux meets and exceeds all of these ridiculous requirements.

1. the ubuntu desktop install cd boots directly to a live cd desktop and the complete install is done from there. you can surf the web, chat over your favorite im network, play games, whatever you want to do all while the installer is going. when it finishes, simply reboot into your newly installed desktop. there is nothing text-mode or command line to be done.
2. most hardware is going to be detected and work out of the box automagically. if not, you’ll know as soon as you boot the livecd, before you make any changes to your hard drive. you might want (or need) to install a proprietary driver, which is accomplished quite easily using the very friendly add/remove applications front end for synaptic.
3. ubuntu will resize windows partitions without data loss and provides a mechanism to migrate much of your data from your windows user account to your new ubuntu installation.
4. ubuntu will also automagically create entries in grub to allow you to boot either windows or linux and will automagically mount all your windows drives so you can access them from ubuntu.

the best part about this, aside from the fact that ubuntu linux blows this ridiculous requirements out of the water, the operating system this moron is currently using (windows 2000) doesn’t even come close to meeting them.

1. the first half of the windows 2000 installation (as well as xp) is in text mode. this includes the initial partitioning and whatnot.
2. windows 2000 does will not make your hardware “just work.” hopefully you have your driver disk for you sata controller handy as well as a floppy drive to put it in or you may not be able to install it at all. after that, you’re most likely going to have to either locate discs or downloads containing drivers for your video card, motherboard chipset, sound card, network card, printer, etc to get any of those things to work properly.
3. windows 2000 does not provide any automated data migration facilities at all. not even from other versions of windows, let alone other operating systems. if you’re installing on a computer already containing an OS, you’re going to have to do some very careful partitioning to not lose any data and it’s going to be a fair amount of work getting everything transferred over.
4. windows 2000 does not provide any mechanism at all to boot any other operating system besides itself. it also cannot access the partitions and drives of any other operating system without 3rd party software, so it certainly is not going to work out of the box.

so, right off the bat we can see that this person is already doing the age old double standard thing and trying their best to run the complete opposite direction from objectivity. anyway, to dive into the article, let’s take a look at what the n00b thinks are problems.

Problem 1: The NVIDIA graphics card needs non-Linux drivers to get full benefit of the card’s features. The Ubuntu help on their website explained how to install what they call “restricted drivers”. Their solution was clear, easy to understand, and best of all, it worked. This is definitely an improvement.

savor this, it’s pretty much the only objectivity you’re going to come across.

Problem 2: Even after installing the correct drivers and rebooting, my 1280×1024 monitor could only be set to 1024×768 pixels. The answer is in the Ubuntu “community documents” area, and it works. It involved opening a terminal and using the command line (I cheat, I cut and paste instead of typing), but it also worked.

oh horror of horrors, you had to use the command line. perhaps we have scarred your poor little brain by forcing you to learn something? the thing here is, out of the box with ubuntu, your 2d works fully on an nvidia card. you don’t get the crazy slow screen redraws like you do on windows when you’re not using the driver. secondly, you can either obtain your driver from nvidia and download and install it (like you would have to do with windows) or you can use ubuntu’s mechanism to do it, which is very well documented.

not to mention you’re still making the glaring mistake of approaching everything like a windows nerd. from now on i’m going to start griping about how i can’t find my xorg.conf to change my monitor settings on windows, since obviously all my linux knowledge applies to any operating system i’m going to try to use.

Problem 3: Although CDs played immediately, to play DVDs I had to locate and install some files that bypass content protection coding. The website I acquired them from, www.getautomatix.com , warned me that I might be installing something illegal, but I said, “Yarrr, matey”, and clicked the install button. Automatix installed itself, then I selected what I needed. More files were downloaded and installed … really automagically! After that DVDs worked. I have no clue what it did, and that’s the way I like it.

dvds don’t play out of the box on windows 2000 either, captain. and news flash, unless you paid for dvd playing software for windows 2000, you’re just as much of a pirate when you watch them there, too. and i’m glad you like being ignorant because you’re doing a damn fine job of it.

Problem 4: The Linux Flash players did not work with YouTube, and Adobe’s Flash video player was extremely difficult to install. I have a 64-bit microprocessor, and installed 64-bit Ubuntu. Although 64-bit Linux has been available for more than five years, Adobe hasn’t bothered to develop 64-bit version of Flash for Linux yet. My live-in geek tracked the problem down for me, and Adobe is reportedly working on 64-bit software.

here you’re already breaking your testing method. if you just read and clicked you would’ve downloaded the i386 version and not the 64 bit version and you wouldn’t even have this problem. if you had done what you said you were going to do, all you would’ve had to do was install the flash player package in the add/remove programs thing.

and suddenly, it’s linux’s fault adobe doesn’t make a 64 bit flash? hell, they don’t even make a 64 bit version of windows 2000. even better, adobe doesn’t make a 64 bit version flash for any operating system, not even xp or vista! just the fact that you can even run anything in 64 bit mode puts you 110% ahead of windows 2000.

Problem 5: Google’s Picasa does not work. Every time I launch Picasa it locks up my computer and sends the CPU utilization to 100%. The problem is Google, not Ubuntu. Instead of writing real Linux software, all Google did was take their Windows version and wrap it in WINE (fake Windows) to make it work in Linux. I expected Google to do better than that.

no, again, the problem is that you installed the 64 bit version of ubuntu, which is not supported by picasa. you wouldn’t have this problem if you had done what every other sane and reasonable person does and stuck with the i386 version. and in the end you say that the outline feature of word is the showstopper that keeps you from using linux?

you are not ready for the desktop. in fact, you’re an idiot. i’m begging you, please stick with windows. the linux community does not need blockheads like yourself running around spewing idiocy all over the place and getting in the way of development by complaining about things that we have no control over. for the love of all things holy, stick with windows and stay out of our hair. and keep your asinine opinions to yourself from now on, too.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 1:53 pm and is filed under humor, tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.