08.11
So Thomas B failed, Lunduke failed (and has apparently taken his ball and gone home), so I am throwing this wide open to all you Linux fans out there. Here it is:
Find me three examples of constructive criticism of Linux on a public, semi mainstream Linux forum that…
- Isn’t a flamewar
- That the answers are not all largely YouDontNeedThat ™ and
- The developers of the software actually read.
Linux sucks. All your showcase apps such – Gimp, Cinerella, OpenOffice, etc suck, Your WM’s are bad copies of the commerical offerings, your API’s and interfaces are so slow and convoluted it’s quicker to run Firefox under Wine that it is natively and apart from everything crashing a bit less and hibernate/sleep allegedly working on some peoples computers nothing has changed in over a decade.
Linux has < 1% of the marketshare and is dropping. In fact it’s marketshare is within the statistical margin of error – the reason companies don’t rush to support you is because it’s simply not economical – not some large conspiracy. Why is this – it’s certainly not because of the popularly claimed reason ‘poor marketing’, as its pretty much impossible to go anywhere on the net without meeting evangelical freetards. Yet people, despite knowing about it – and even trying it! – are failing to use it in droves.
It simply isn’t good enough, and has too many problems. I, as a professional software developer, don’t use it. And the big problem, the #1 reason Linux sucks is this:
You don’t want to know why I don’t use it.
I could spend hours going into the specific reasons that it doesn’t fill my needs, problems I have, even giving examples and ideas on how to improve things, better approaches etc. But it would be pointless – I’d just be called a MS shill.
My first real foray into Linux was when I was running an Internet Cafe, and had heard so much about how fantastic it was, years ahead, stable, etc – you all know the talking points. This was around 2006 iirc. So I set up a test box to see how it fared. Not very well was the answer – not only did I hate it, my customers did too. So since I’d heard so much about community contributions I wrote up a long article on what I felt the limiting factors for both me and my customers were. I was willing to even learn C at that point and help contribute.
And rather than do what a professional software development team would do and take these suggestions on board – which included classics such as ‘What about a bootsplash, verbose mode is scaring the customers’, I had idiot newbies such as the aforementioned Thomas B ‘debunking’ me. I was called an idiot for wanting double clickable .deb files (don’t you know apt-get install is easier?).
Linux zealots are on an ideological crusade, and the few that aren’t idiots spend little to no effort reining in the freetards – and it is impossible to argue with idiots, as they drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. Since they are promoting the concept of free software they don’t really care if it’s better or not – quality is judged by the release license, not the code. As a result criticism of Linux is seen as criticism of the Ideology – and attacked. It’d be like advocating grilled steaks on a vegan forum, which is fine – I am vegetarian myself – but they seem to think that everyone else should care about their bizarre concept of ‘software ethics’ as much as them, when most people don’t care – they just want the tastiest food, and the best OS.
So the situation is this:
You’ve got distro’s that release the software, and due to package management, are the intermediary between the users and the developers. Since the distro’s largely just package up and send on other peoples work they generally don’t even have any form of feedback method outside bugzilla. Add to this the fact that the community is actively hostile to anyone who happens to disagree with them and you have a real recipe for stagnation.
The reason Linux sucks is because the developers are shielded from any criticism by the fan(boys|base) and by the time that they do hear from someone they regularly have become so pissed off and disappointed with the whole experience that they just declare ‘it sucks’ and are rarely constructive. Personally I am in that state half the time.
The other problem with the community is that they are largely all of the same opinion (Linux rocks, Micro$oft sucks, viva la Stallman!) not because they are right, but because everyone that disagrees with them has left. It’s a monoculture which simply isn’t healthy as nobody is willing to accept having their ideas challenged.
After all how on earth can you ever expect to improve anything if you kick out all the people who think it can be improved?
If I am wrong, then surely the above challenge should be a piece of cake, five minutes, just pop over to any large distro’s forum. So go ahead, what are you waiting for, prove me wrong!
Addendum:
I was just having a look through Wikipedia and found this really interesting article on Groupthink. Especially this bit:
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).
- Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
- Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
- Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
- Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
- Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
- Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
- Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
- Mindguards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking[5]
- Incomplete survey of alternatives
- Incomplete survey of objectives
- Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
- Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
- Poor information search
- Selection bias in collecting information
- Failure to work out contingency plans.
Sounds like the Linux community to a tee, doesn’t it?
Ignore Thomas B, he’s gotten far too much attention.
Please continue posting. I almost had a fit when I read “2006 iirc” … whenever I see a word that remotely resembles “lirc” my heart skips a few beats.
I answer the challenge with LHB.
1. Constructive criticism – it’s abundant, and doesn’t tend to degrade into a flamewar until the freetard brigade shows up .
2. the only BlahBlahBlah(TM) answers are used in parody.
3. It doesn’t relate specifically to any software, but it LHB’s heyday, Miguel de Icaza (Mono, Gnome, Moonlight) used to be a regular reader (and has linked to articles periodically on his own blog), the lunatics over at BoycottNovell had a field day with it, but it didn’t stop him. Jeremy Allison was also a periodic reader, he’s written and published an article about it – and there was ESR who pulled a “me too” artcle, but really, who cares about ESR? Even in FOSS circles, he’s little more than comic relief (I do hope you see this, Eric!).
Does LHB qualify? Do I get a cookie?
^^ I think there should be extra “points” due to the delicious irony of a hater blog getting more “high profile” attention than the average evangelist/linux medium.
Severe security flaw in Linux kernel; in all 2.4 and 2.6 kernels since 2001
http://blog.cr0.org/2009/08/linux-null-pointer-dereference-due-to.html
Root Vulnerability in PulseAudio!
All kinds of Linux insecurity today!
http://blog.cr0.org/2009/07/old-school-local-root-vulnerability-in.html
Anon – yes. It is hilarious that LHB is pretty much the only source of criticism of Linux.
You win a cookie. It will be installed in your browser cache next time you visit the site!
Okay, I admitted the problems with Linux on my blog, now Kerberos, I am asking you to make a topic about the downsides of Windows. It doesn’t have to be big, just make it small like mine.
AND the hater blog hasn’t had any new articles for 2 months AND STILL has more attention.
Answer me this (if you know how)
Can you integrate filesystem plugins for ext3/ext4/reiserfs in the install media so that win7 can format as, install into, boot off, read and write to partitions in any of those filesystems?
1) Can you preload ANY GIVEN APPLICATION in the windows 7 install disc WITHOUT RESORTING TO COMPLICATED MANEUVERS INVOLVING MAKING THE APP A CAB FILE?
2) Can you preload several replacement shells (Desktop environments) in the windows 7 install disc WITHOUT COMPLEX TRICKERY?
3) Can you remove in the install disc and install files every instance of the windows name and logo and replace them with any text string/logo graphic you want?
4) Can you change the name of the “Windows” folder right in the install media?
5) Can you change the background/foreground colors in the bootloader?
6) Can you change the background color and the animation graphic in the bootsplash?
7) Can you make the bootsplash work also as shutdown, hibernate and resume splash screens?
9) Can you integrate archiving plugins for windows explorer so that it’s internal archiver extracts/compresses to rar, 7z, ace, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2 (all popular formats)?
10) Can you make the windows explorer automatically default to icon view/biggest icon size for all folders/volumes/archives AUTOMATICALLY AND REMEMBER THOSE SETTINGS?
11) Can you integrate a full loaded plugin-based compiz-like compositor with multiple virtual desktops, the desktop cube/sphere/cylinder, wobbly windows, animations, etc?
12) Can you add a separate “LiveCD” environment (a la Sabayon 4.0) to the install media so that at boot time you get three options. Install triggers the normal installer, Recovery opens the “LiveCD” and Hardware diagnostics opens a special hardware diagnostic tool?
If you can add all of that easily answer me at blueblack_guy@lavabit.com, then I might consider windows 7 but if it’s not legally possible then I’m keeping my opensuse 11.2m7 which is the closest I get to fullfiling that list.
Why are most of those things to do with the installer and the boot-up process??
Is it because you have to re-install and reboot so often??
Also – can YOU do all that, without a packager to do it for you?
8 – Why would we _want_ Ext3, Ext4 or ReiserFS?
9 – Not exactly – an archiving program’s installer would install shell extensions for us.
10 – What’s the latest version of Windows you’ve used??
11- While you’re spinning your cube, we’re getting work done. With the best of class applications. BTW, DWM pisses all over Compiz technically, and was there first. “WinHEC 2003 Vista Wobbly Windows”
1-3) Because I don’t like to waste time reinstalling the same apps and redoing the same settings if I need to reload the OS.
4) I live at a college dorm building and most of the students there are freetards, obviously I would need to hide all references to windows or I would likelly get pummeled to death by the dorm’s “fauna”.
5-7) I’m on a craptop that gets moved around quite often, so yes I find myself hibernating/rebooting often.
8 ) I use ReiserFS because I copy files from and to other people’s pendrives too often and the lack of proper journaling and corruption prevention in ntfs would make it unreliable for my particular usage.
9) Why install an extra archiver if the explorer includes one. Ins’t is easier to just add the ability of handling more formats to the built-in archiver?
10) 7rc, and yes, newly made folder, CD/DVD’s burned in other PC’s, and archives always open in detailed view (which I don’t like) despite the explorer being set to use icon view in all folders.
11) So, since your ideal ALL-PRODUCTIVE, ALL-PROFESSIONAL OS must look like win3.1, students like me who like the bling would need to be forced to use a less capable compositing engine just because it isn’t “professional”. I bet that is was this, NO IT’S UNPROFESSIONAL whinning that made MS drop the wobbly windows visual effect from DWM. And BTW in compiz you can disable any plugin you consider “unprofessional”.
12) Adding the LiveCD mode if you wonder is to allow the install disc to double as a fully featured rescue disc, in that way you wouldn’t need to have a bunch of extra discs to fix the OS if it breaks.
Also if I can add apps/shells how do I do that (point me to a beginners tutorial, I haven’t modded a windows disc in my life, I have used windows though).
1-3) Making new install media is just unnecessary pissing about, and it’s the slow way of doing it! Use Ghost or similar. You can get Ghost reasonably cheaply for personal use. Install Windows _once_, get install, drivers and appsjust how you like it, take image. Keep data separate, and image/backup separately. Re-take image after major changes, keep at least one old version. Keep images on separate drive, preferably external. Most imaging solutions come with utilities to mount images as filesystems, so recovery of single files is easy if necessary. Screw the install up? Simply boot from recovery media and re-apply latest image. And that’s only necessary if the first-line tools (Safe Mode, VGA Mode, CHKDSK, etc.) and the recovery tools on the Windows disk don’t work. Much, much faster and less painful than a re-install. And unless you’re really unlucky, you really don’t need to completely re-install Windows all that often. The main thing that would screw up Windows installs beyond repair is a bad hard disk.
5-7) LogonStudio from StarDock for logon/startup/shutdown screens. Changing bootloader colours is just being finicky (:p) and MS took the fullscreen bootsplash out of Vista for a reason. Don’t load a bootsplash = quicker bootup.
9) The FSF chorus will start the usual refrains of “Anti-trust”, “Copying” and “Bloat”. And then the EU will get complaints from third-parties (and probably the FSF) and levy yet another outrageous fine. The built-in archiver and ZIP is enough for most people. If you want more, they’re easily available from third parties. Install the ones you want, then re-take a system image.
11) Who said an ideal desktop looks like Win3.1? Not me, matey. Nothing wrong with an OS looking nice. It’s just that far too much is made of the cube, multiple desktops and the Compiz effects from the Linux camp. How many times a day do you use the cube to switch tasks? That’s what it boils down to – it’s an overblown task-switcher. ALT-TAB and the taskbar can do much the same job with the minimum of fuss on ONE desktop. If we’re short of screen, us Windows types can just plug in a second monitor.
It’s funny how things have reversed; Linux was the stable one, Windows was the bling. Now it’s the other way around, except the stability has been lost from Linux, and the bling really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Compiz is a very impressive technical achievement, I do have to give it that – running a 3D-accelerated compositing system on top of X is no mean feat. However, the much-vaunted stability has completely gone for a burton, it suffers from tearing and choppy video, and most of the effects are impressive for ten minutes then the novelty wears off. How many of the effects are _useful_ to you? Honestly?
On the other hand, DWM is understated in use of 3D and visual effects, but it’s fairly solid. I personally have never managed to make it crash, or seen it crash on other people’s computers. I won’t deny it does, but it’s not that common compared to Compiz; Google “DWM crash” and “Compiz crash” to compare – 33,500 vs 200,000 results. And when DWM does go down, do all your apps die? Screen flickers, video driver is restarted, back up and running. What happens when Compiz goes and takes X with it? Even IF you can get it to recover?
As for being “less capable”, just because you don’t see DWM doing all the bling of Compiz doesn’t mean it CAN’T do all that. DWM is very much capable of wobbly windows, rotatable windows, rotatable overlays, 3D effects, etc. and can do it with excellent video performance and no tearing.
MS just haven’t put the fancy effects in; probably due to tester feedback. It’s more likely they were not included because of “distracting” rather than “unprofessional”. It probably would have been easy for MS to add any number of effects if they wanted to though; DWM is reputed to be very easy to program for. There’s a good Expose clone for Vista/7 called Switcher – the first version was (according to the developer) coded in C# in _Notepad_.
If you really want more visual bling than MS give you by default, TopDesk, DeskSpace and ObjectDesktop/WindowBlinds from StarDock are probably your best bets.
12) In the vast majority of cases, you need ONE disk to fix Windows – the Windows disk itself. Boot from CD/DVD, repair Windows. If there’s no DVD/CD drive, make a suitable USB key bootable with DiskPart (no more difficult than doing it in Linux), and copy the install disk to it on another machine, then boot from USB. There’s also BartPE. It’s third party, but it’s a LiveCD of Windows XP that can be used as a recovery tool.
11) You got the cube/alt-tab wrong there. The cube is a virtual desktop switcher (switches between virtual desktops), alt-tab is a task switcher (switches between applications within the active virtual desktop). Also just because you got ten spare monitors doesn’t mean everyone haves, heck some people run on laptops and doesn’t have desktop computers at all.
About DWM, I didn’t say that it can’t do bling. I said that “ALL WORK NO FUN” office grunts like you are the reason why MS doesn’t include bling in DWM. As you said in your post, all the “user feedback” (which comes mostly from office grunts) was against visual effects. Also as you can propably notice I’m a student which wants a blingy desktop and doesn’t like that “ALL WORK NO FUN” mindset of the office grunts.
12) You don’t really get the reason of a built-in LiveCD mode. It allows the user total freedom to explore the web, research in forums and run 3rd-party utilities all from the windows install media without having to carry additional media or reboot/switch media to fix stuff.
In the end. I think I’m gonna go back to Linux. The army of dull office grunts that populates the windows platform is just too annoying with their attitude.
“all the “user feedback” (which comes mostly from office grunts)”
Do you have ANYTHING to back that up? Anything at all?
“About DWM, I didn’t say that it can’t do bling.”
You said, and I quoted you, it was “less capable” and I corrected you. I note you haven’t disputed that Compiz is unstable and kills your apps if it crashes.
I’ve tried Linux and Compiz – I know what the fucking cube is, and multiple desktops are a computing paradigm of which I am aware. Instead of switching between single tasks, you switch between _sets_ of tasks. It’s still a task/application-switcher, however you slice it. Changing desktop changes from one task (or application, or set of applications, or even nothing, in which case why switch?) to another. And that’s it.
My position is that it’s largely pointless – even if you’re using multiple desktops, why all that fucking about when a simple wipe or slide effect would be quicker. Apple’s Spaces does it well – applications are assigned to Spaces, and clicking the app in the dock automatically and quickly switches to the correct Space. No holding a key or mouse button and waggling the mouse to hunt for the app on a freely moving cube with a distracting background. However, even Mac users prefer multiple monitors instead, in my experience. Spreading an MDI app over two virtual desktops is a pain in the arse, even if the app lets you do it.
A blinged out desktop is completely and utterly pointless to most users – there’s usually an application or two in the way of the desktop and they’re too busy getting work done to fuck about spinning a cube or going “oooo!” at burning windows. We’re back where we started – you might be able to spin a cube with four or more desktops on it and blingy 3D windows, but the average user is too busy with Word, Powerpoint, Excel, 3D Studio MAX, Photoshop, After Effects, AVID, AutoCAD, Sage, InDesign, Illustrator or playing games that aren’t Tux Racer or Quake 3 mods.
“I’m a student which wants a blingy desktop and doesn’t like that “ALL WORK NO FUN” mindset of the office grunts.”
Wait till you get a real job. Compiz and Linux will lose their sparkle when you lose real work for the fifth, tenth, and hundredth times when it falls on its arse again. That’s IF your future employer uses Linux, and lets you use Compiz.
“You don’t really get the reason of a built-in LiveCD mode.”
If I wanted to browse the web, I’ll just boot my normal OS (Or bring it out of sleep. Or resume it from hibernation. How’s S3 suspend doing in Linux these days?). Why fuck about with a LiveCD when I can have a fully working OS? If my OS is broken, I’ll boot from my Windows disk, fix it, (or re-apply an image if it gets that far) then boot to a working OS.
The only _real_ reason for a Linux LiveCD is to check hardware compatibility.
“The army of dull office grunts that populates the windows platform is just too annoying with their attitude.”
OUR attitude? What about the attitudes of the Linux camp? The juvenile name-calling, the elitist tossers, the holier-than-thou preaching? Being told it’s all about freedom and choice and then being derided and insulted because we use our freedom to choose something else? I personally just LOVE being called an idiot, a shill, a Wintroll, or a Wintard by kids whose parents probably hadn’t even met when I started using computers.
It would have been interesting if this JM troll had explained his reasons for wanting to switch from Linux to Windows in the first place, as he seems to have been pretty happy with it. Of course, the point of his post seems to have been to bring attention to what he feels are (and to him and the way he uses his computer, might actually be) the advantages of Linux.
By the way, if JM is, in reality, too spineless and sensitive to tolerate the attacks of the Linux users in his dorm, or if his sense of self is so weak that he would suffer acute depression and grief were he to lose their approbation, or if he simply has too great anxiety from the idea of being discovered using Windows, then really, it would be better for him in all regards to simply continue to use Linux.
Which of course is what was going to happen all along. Only someone who enjoys pointless busywork would prefer making install disks and liveCDs and changing folder names and splashscreens, to simply making an installation and ghosting it.
Nearly all of the “features” he listed in his first post are of trivial importance – except to someone whose idea of what a computer should do is also essentially trivial. (A few are actually useful but most are features for fools.) Again, if we ask the question “Why would someone who needs that foolishness, and who has an OS that will let him do that foolishness – while he, presumably, dribbles spittle on his keyboard as his gapes in openmouthed awe at the power of Linux and his skill in exploiting it – even be considering switching to another OS?”
(Incidentally, not only is JM overly dependent on the approval of his Linux dorm-mates, but if he thinks that Windows users are predominantly “office grunts” then he is also very susceptible to Apple advertising campaigns. So this kid has got some rather unfortunate psychological and intellectual deficiencies.)
Hey, kid! Have fun playing with the bootsplash graphics and bootloader colours. You have obviously taken the trouble to list all the ways in which, for you, Linux excels Windows. I am wondering, however, how many people you expect are going to be moved to even try out a Linux liveCD (not to even mention “migrate to Linux” because of the dubious “advantages” you have enumerated.) However, many adult computer-users (i.e. “grown-ups) might well consider both your “advantages”, and consider you yourself, to be a good reason to not bother with Linux in the first place.