Sunday, November 9, 2008

Rants and Laughs 6

Well, it is time to again see what is happening in the Linux 'community' and make fun of them for it.

  • Here is a GTK theming tutorial. It looks somewhat complicated and demonstrates the beauty of GTK at the same time! What more could one want?
  • Why should you try Fluxbox? Because Linux's major attempts at a desktop environment are slow, complicated and generally suck ass. Here's a better idea: try Aqua instead.
  • Some dude configured a Linux print queue for a library that was too cheap to buy a Windows server. All he had to do was edit smb.conf (among other things). Also, apparently the queue cannot display page numbers properly, so unnecessarily gigantic printouts could still go through.
  • ComputerWorld, apparently, cannot quit Microsoft bashing. It seems to be a bit better than the last one, but it still focuses on netbooks.
  • Head marketdroid luser of the Linux Foundation thinks no 'in house from scratch' operating system will ever be created again. She cites that ridiculous study that Red Hat Linux is worth $10 Billion. Leaving aside the ridiculous notion of measuring SLOC, the most basic problem is this: if the OS is worth so much, and it is free, why does it have such a shitty marketshare? Earth to Linux Foundation, the amount of time some wanker wasted coding an app does not give it value; value only comes from a bunch of other people WANTING the app. This is how the market works! If you did not have your head jammed so far up your commie, freetard ass, you would understand that.
  • Ubuntu 8 and OSX 10.5 go head to head. OS X positively crushes Linux on 3d Acceleration. Damn, I have not seen an ass-whuppin' like that in a long time! Of course they give the standard luser excuses, such as Mesa not being optimized or the Intel driver going through some 'radical changes.' They will do anything to keep from admitting a Linux flaw.
  • The Register does a serious review of OpenOffice.org 3.0. Apparently, you should keep your Microsoft Office install.
  • Finally, another hater discusses the fallacy of choice! This is required reading for all lusers!
  • UPDATE: I forgot a really good one. Apparently, the Android G1 phones had a phantom shell. Typing anything into your phone followed by return would execute as a shell command. If you type r-e-b-o-o-t, the phone will reboot. I am speechless!

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, I love Vaughan-Nichols and his traveling circus of dumb-as-fuck fanboys who comment up the fossaganda posts and comment down the pragmatic ones..

Netbooks are a fad, and are little more than underpowered appliances.

If that's the foss foothold on the desktop, it's a tenuous and illusory grip.

For the price of a high end netbook you can buy a low end sub-notebook with a better screen, better keyboard, more storage (and optical drive), more memory, more horsepower, etc (and the price gap is closing).

I played with the original Eee for awhile, and it always struck me as being a toy. Once we wiped the useless xandros and put XP on it we had a toy that MIGHT be useful in an early years educational environment.

Save that there is bugger all for storage, no way to run any program that requires a CD to be in the drive, and the thing itself being too damn fragile for ham-fisted kiddies.

Yes, microsoft is pissing their pants over this niche market as much as they pissed their pants when Palm ruled the PDA for a few short years.

And it has little to do with Windows being BETTER and everything to do with it being more USEFUL in terms of what runs on it and people's desire to use what runs on it.

Lots of laughs this week LHR. But the undercurrent theme of it all still shows that Linux is the OS for hobbyists and tinkerers (and anti-establishment nutbars, and the rebel-without-a-clue crowd). Not for the schmuck who is hard pressed to find the power button on their box and can't live without their Family Tree Maker program.

Bodhibuilder said...

Wow, I knew luser community was delusional but I could never conceive such idiocy as one of this Steve Vaughan guy and people who comment his articles. I mean blathering about how unstable, slow and utterly useless Vista and MS Office 2007 are and how the world is excited over new Ubuntu and how linux is going to take over everything in 2 years and voting down everyone who dares to claim otherwise. This is either tongue-in-cheek or authentic schizophrenia. Laughing at lusers is starting to be unethical, we should start calling 911 instead.

Anonymous said...

I always thought guys like Vaughan-Nichols are only telling freetards what they want to hear for easy web hits and nice flamewars. I mean, it must be impossible that such completely deluded and out of touch with reality guys actually exist. That, at least, would have logic... but I'm not sure anymore.

Anonymous said...

There's no way this Vaughan-Nichols guy actually believes the shit he writes. Seriously, he's like what, 60 ? At this age he should have better things to do than to spread the same old, tired FUD in the service of an obscure operating system and the legion of whiny 20-something hippies who try to push it to the desktop.

More morons reading = more money for mr. V-N.

Anonymous said...

A little fun out there: the new Ubuntu is very impressive because something works. Read it, it's a beauty.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't worry too much. Canonical will manage to screw everything up for him in the next release, as always.

That's the nice thing with Ubuntu: hell is always just six months away.

oiaohm said...

Please stop digging up old articles. Apparently Linux Hater's Redux is too lazy to do current day research.

Because LSB does cover sections of the desktop and does plan covering more. Yes suggestions have been taken on board. As freedesktop standards are ready the get put forward to the LSB for approval making them part of the ISO standard LSB is.

GTK and QT developers are both working on changing there theming system to a CSS based theming. There are even projects afoot for a common theming system for both of them.

Netbooks might be a fad but there the first thing in a long time that have even put a scratch in MS profit line.

Be very careful when you poke fun at cups. You are not just insulting Linux. http://cups.org/ Would you mind taking that complaint up with the maker. That just happens to be Apple the makes of OS X. Yes setting it up on Apple has exactly the same defect. So are you saying OS X is out as well? And we must all using Microsoft? I really hope not. Learn to be a lot more careful this kind of foot in mouth is asking for trouble.

Pricing linux is required for suing people who breach licenses. They cannot say they were not aware of the cost of it.

Funny enough people seam not to be able to find this http://ldn.linuxfoundation.org/lsb/linux-application-checker-getting-started Yes its numbers of distrobutions covered will keep on expanding.

Anonymous said...

I've vowed to stay away from Ubuntu and all of its little metoobuntu bastard offspring from now on.

When the ultimate priority is on fixed release dates, you know they've got their heads in the wrong place.

They join Fedora on my shit list.

And as for netbooks, I'll return to the PDA analogy. Microsoft was an early utter loser in that market with WinCE. In the short time before the platform became irrelevant, they were the undisputed leader. The best thing anyone had to say about Palm devices then was that they were lighter and had better battery life. Apparently the majority of the market didn't care. And I wager that the market will wake up and eventually prefer usefulness and performance over thin & light and thus the netbook fades in favor of sub notebooks.

Microsoft takes time to get the juggernaught turned on to a new course. That's one of the advantages of zealous Linux development. But MS is pretty hard to beat once they seriously set their sights on something.

If Linux is a netbook champ in a years time, THEN it has established a foothold worthy of more than a footnote in computing history.

If it ships on a majority of the things in 2 years time (assuming the platform as we know it is even relevant by then), THEN it will be a significant player.

If the (linux) netbook grows out of being a turn-key internet appliance in that time, THEN maybe Linux has a chance to jump over on to the desktop market as a contender, rather than the charity case that it is today.

Anonymous said...

I've absolutely given-up on Linux. All of the latest distributions shipping the 2.6.27 Linux Kernel not boot on most HP Laptops unless the user holds down a key during boot. See Ubuntu Bugs, Kernel Bugs, Mandriva Bugs...and thus far nothing at all has been done about a huge REGRESSION. Hell the kernel team has not even acknowledged the REGRESSION.

Can you imagine if Windows released a new version that failed to work on every HP laptop? Right...that would be acceptable. Would Microsoft get away with blaming HP and the hardware vendors?

I have found that Vista (dare I say it) is so much better than anything Linux I have used in the last 3 years that I actually enjoy my laptop again. I can use an external monitor by plugging it in. That's right, I just plug it in and it works. My webcam works without fucking with xorg. My video card doesn't stop working everytime Microsoft releases new updates.

And one last thing, I am sick and fucking tired of every www.planet.freetard.com blog posts about Obama winning the election. give it a fucking break. If I want to read about Obama, I will look to the appropriate sources. last thing I care to read is a buch of fucking freetards explain how Obama is going to fix everything. When you freetard developers learn to fix one piece of your failed distributions, then I will consider your political beliefs as not being half fucked and clueless.

Wow...feels good to get that out. I suppose after you have been fucked over by distributions that spout how they 'just work' and they don't 'just work'..a person needs to get it off their chest. I would call customer service and let them have it but there is no customer service department in to FOSS world.

Now, I sit and look forward to Windows 7.

thepld said...

"And one last thing, I am sick and fucking tired of every www.planet.freetard.com blog posts about Obama winning the election. give it a fucking break. If I want to read about Obama, I will look to the appropriate sources. last thing I care to read is a buch of fucking freetards explain how Obama is going to fix everything. When you freetard developers learn to fix one piece of your failed distributions, then I will consider your political beliefs as not being half fucked and clueless."

Heh, Aaron Seigo ranted about how Obama's election was on par with the invention of calculus. We totally needed Seigo's ringing endorsement of Obama, because as we all know, Germans are great judges of political character.

oiaohm said...

2.6.27-rc0 by the way has that bug of hp laptops not starting up. Not the true final release from kernel.org. The reason why its not marked as a kernel.org regression they fixed it.

Not all Linux Distrobutions are effected. Only ones that screwed up applying custom patches to there kernel and removed the fix that was applied in 2.6.27-rc2 or there so called 2.6.27 is really 2.6.27-rc0/rc1.

Another cases of blaming the wrong party. Something I am more than sick of.

Anonymous said...

Another cases of blaming the wrong party. Something I am more than sick of.

Technically, you are probably correct, but you are (deliberately ?) missing an important point. People treat a Linux distro as a product. They go to distro site, download an iso file, burn it, perhaps even buy a media, install and run. Linux defenders do the same, they are endlessly harping about Linux having all these applications ready, while Windows only has very limited number of applications by default. Of course, they will quickly defend any failure with 'Linux is only a kernel' and 'try another distro, it's a freedom of choice' Party lines.

So, when the product doesn't work, it really doesn't matter who is to blame... I bought the damn thing and if it doesn't work, it's broken. And, if it doesn't work for hundreds of people, then it's broken by design.

Anonymous said...

@oiaohm

I don't know if you realize that your arguments are the same type of arguments that the Linux community has been spouting for time immemorial (at least concerning Linux). It's not a mater of blaming the right people, it's a matter of being stuck in an endless loop.

I think the community needs to debug itself and put a good sentinel value in to catch itself before repeating this loop again.
It's a great idea to have a stable API/ABI, installer, reliable consistent video, audio, wireless, update.... (I think I might have missed a few things in there) but when the community has been saying it for so long it becomes a problem of the world saying what wolf... even if it does why should we care, it took this long to get to that point.

With Windows/OS X it's much more likely to "Just Work" (sorry, trademarking a saying gets hairy with common sayings.)

When Microsoft says "There are problems with the vendors drivers." The problem resolves itself fairly quickly - I haven't met anyone yet (stress the yet part) that have had problems with Vista after SP1. Windows takes responsiblity for it's erros, it doesn't say well our wireless division messed up, or our graphics division doesn't handle 3D very well right now but we'll hack a patch on soon... No, it's Windows fault. If it's a Windows problem they take the blame and fix it(and yes there have been some quick fixes when the severity warrants it.)

When the Linux community says there are problems with drivers/kernel/wireless/WINE etc... it doesn't get fixed, at least not in a way that the average user can/wants to handle. And it's never Linux, it's always WINE's problem, or ALSA, or the distros not doing something... there are a lot more moving parts that don't communicate or follow a planned development cycle. When there are problems with Linux the buck doesn't stop, it just keeps passing around. It's not Linux it's XORG, or those darned hardware companies don't want us to have their code, or the Distro's shouldn't have used that - it was placed out there for people to test, not use, or any other myriad of excuses and blame-game turns. The Linux community can be too much like herding cats - it sounds like fun until you want to try it.

So please stop trying to tell us that it's not Linux it x, y, or z. If it's part of any distro that the average user can download and install then the problem lies squarely on Linux's shoulders.

Anonymous said...

Of course, they will quickly defend any failure with 'Linux is only a kernel' and 'try another distro, it's a freedom of choice' Party lines.

you forgot the "there's no reason to complain, since you got the SW for free" (as in 0 $/€) ReadyMadeArgument (tm) ;-)

thepld said...

"
you forgot the "there's no reason to complain, since you got the SW for free" (as in 0 $/€) ReadyMadeArgument (tm) ;-)"

Remember: For every dollar you save, you waste an hour trying to fix something.

oiaohm said...

I made a mistake the hp one I had forgotten about what it is. There was a power activation issue but there is a worse one.

2.6.27 activates all sensors on the laptop motherboard. All of them. Here is the nightmare.

Fault in hp laptops has nothing to do with model. Its kinda random across them all for some reason in some laptops the sensors are not starting up right when on battery.

MOD_BLACKLIST=(ac battery button fan processor thermal)

Yep stop the sensors from being watched problem disappears. Most cases only 1 of them needs to be on the black list due to the intermittent failed sensor being there.

Sensors are lieing. The most evil bit here is that can say the fan is stopped when its working, system in thermal overload and so on. Linux is responding to a message that says hardware failure of some form. Hitting keyboard rewakes Linux up in its delay time and it rechecks if the event that sent it into the paused state is still true.

Its the devil and deep blue sea location. Messages be true and do nothing hardware fails user hates you. Message be false and stall startup until a correct message turns up user still hates you.

Windows is working because its disregarding the messages. Basically praying that the hardware is not broken.

With wine if its a wine internal fault wine takes responsibility. When faults are transfered to X11 or video card drivers we have test cases to back that up. Most people are not aware about the numbers of work around wine uses so defective drivers that cannot be replaced kinda work.

Funny enough X11 DRI 1 does handle 3d to the same standard as Vista. Anyone else notices that run some opengl programs that aero interface disappears.

If aero was not disabled the same failure as running X11 with compiz would happen.

You are far too quick calling windows perfect to wake up its not. Windows is even better at sweeping defects out of view than Linux.

Distrobutions are to blame for some major defects. X.org and the X11 protocol has taken responsibility for the compiz issue. Then worked on fixing the issue. Now once that is documented why did distrobutions keep on shipping a combination that was known to be defective. Lack of due care.

DRI 1 driver + compiz + complex opengl program equals failure. That is documented in the x.org bugzilla and lead to the start of DRI2 to fix it.

Microsoft does put out equal recommendations from time to time. If you don't obey them its your fault.

Drivers ok so you want http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml#dkms

Of course it would be nice if we could push that threw the LSB at moment http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Driver_Backport Its one of the side projects not on the fast track at moment.

This is the issue lot unfair actions are taken. Lot of blame is dropped were it does not own.

By the way there are more than 1 X11 server out there. Funny enough the other X11 servers smartly refuse to run compiz.

Anonymous said...

The only thing the freetard community excels at wonderfully is at throwing blame at others. Can't you see why Linux is so fucking perfect? Because the fault always lies elsewhere!

oiaohm said...

That is where you are wrong. If you correctly point to a fault we accept it.

Issue is a lot of people blame stuff without correctly doing there homework.

If you are going to throw stones get it right or expect to be hammered to death.

Its like process timing for years everyone said the scheduler in the Linux Kernel was at fault. Guess what 90 percent of the issue is locking systems in the Linux Kernel. So its not only your guys starting out who stuff up highly experienced coders can get it wrong too.

Simple fact if you are fixing the code that is not causing the problem. You are only making a future problem.

Now with the laptops HP while 2.6.27 was in testing it had been tested against there complete range. No defective ones. The drivers causing the head aches was coded by HP them-selfs. It was not third party reversing.

People are yelling and screaming about Linux without doing there homework.

Linux is not perfect it has defects. Windows is not perfect. No OS is perfect. The problem with defects some cases they allow things to work when they should of failed.

So just because Windows is not having a issue on X Y Z hardware and Linux is doing something strange does not mean that X Y Z hardware is functioning correctly.

Many people are making very bad presumes. Same with vice verser. There can be cases that the hardware is defective and Linux runs and Windows fails all due to what the two are interfacing with.

Its basically a failure to do homework and look at problem objectively.

On the cups one if he had done is homework there are a few ways to get cups to show the numbers of pages. Only one major problem we were never told what printer the location was using. http://www.cups.org/software.php?VERSION=Windows+Driver

Read down that page. Foomatic-based drivers do not work with Windows clients. Also clients must be 32 bit. No 64 bit windows clients can use that interface.

That limitation applies to apple Linux BSD... Everything using cups. Way around that limitation to allow access to printer is using raw interface at a price loss of counting of numbers of pages.

Clear lack of understanding and homework. Never throw a stone unless you know what you are throwing at.

Now attacking cups for not providing adequate windows drivers could get rather interesting. Basically Linux Hater Redux had a perfect strike yet his lack of homework missed hitting it.

This is happing over and over again. If you hit a perfect strike there is nothing I can do about it bar accept it.

Bodhibuilder said...

English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?

Anonymous said...

Trying to understand him is half the fun, let him be.

I'll translate:
Understand what saying be meaning is nice happen, so we is empty without.

Anonymous said...

English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?

Come on, there's no need for this. He's probably doing his best, and some of his writings are quite interesting.

Anonymous said...

@Bodhibuilder:

why don't you fuck off!

oiaohm said...

Yes I use English. Grammar is missing.

Be thankful for small mercies. I am a full blown dyslexic.

So that the words are the correct spelling is a effort.

If I recorded my voice it would be worse. I am a verbal dyslexic in most people hearing it has a brain lock-up.

Yep speech recognition is a complete paper weight to me.

Other than the lack of grammar my writing is PHD grade English. It does obey all the non grammar the rules of English completely.

So yes Bodhibuilder your english skill is incompetent. I do use a lot of the exotic rules of English.

Anonymous said...

@Bodhibuilder:
Feel proud of yourself!

Anonymous said...

hey where is the unix-haters-handbook review?

Anonymous said...

Unix Haters is an interesting read.

If all of the points in there were valid and true at the time, it makes you wonder why in the hell anyone would bother cloning the thing.

It's like reinventing a square wheel.

...and even today on any given forum you always will see a freetard who will render opinion that Microsoft should dump NT and base Windows on BSD, as though age somehow makes Unix the best OS since punch cards went out of style.

On my server, maybe, but not on my desktop baby!

Anonymous said...

Sorry for beating a dead horse (this article is almost a month old) but still, WTF is the Gnome theming link doing here? IMHO you must remove it quickly because it brokes so many rules of freetardism:

Rule #1: Thou shalst not write any docs. Be especially afraid of tutorials.
Rule #2: Thou shalst not use the work of others but fork and start anew.
Rule #3: It must be user-unfriendly.

Well it is a tutorial and not a bad one at this. I am neither a GUI nor Linux programmer and I don't use Linux but I did understand it. Rule #1 lays defied.

These guys has chosen CSS for theming. What is a theme? A way to customize the looks of a program. What is CSS? A language to express looks separately from the content and behaviour of the application. It was invented for Web applications but they have the same user interface needs as the desktop ones. So it is the right choise for the job.

Most importantly for our discussion, by using CSS there is no need to write yet another parser / interpreter / etc (thus defying rule #2). Also users already know how this stuff works and do not need to learn yet another half-baked wanna-be-turing-complete-configuration-language (thus defying rule #3)!

Anonymous said...

Reading His Highness Stalman's interview, I found this gem:

Who can be held liable when problems arise with free software?

We free software developers do our best to avoid liability for any bugs, just as proprietary software developers do. Free software gives you something much better than the chance to sue someone if there's a bug. It gives you the chance to hire whoever you wish to fix it. If you want a rush service, there is probably someone who will offer it to you, for the right price.

Ladies and gentlemen, please take a look at this article: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9120561 !
In a nutshell, some troll sues Dell for patent infringement which Dell believes is actually in Visual Studio. And Microsoft jumped and actually protected their clients by telling that the problem is theirs and not Dell's and counter-sued.

Now, imagine this. You make a web site using some GPL licensed content engine and host it on Linux server serving with gpl-licensed server. A random troll comes and sues you for patent infringement. You belive the problem lies in the gcc*. Do you believe that Highness Stallman and Highness Eben Moglen will jump and protect you? Because that's exactly what Stallman said, "We free software developers do our best to avoid liability for any bugs, just as proprietary software developers do." Also, if the problem is within some of the other "community-driven" gpl software running in our hypothetical situation, do you want to bet that their authors will side with you in court?

* It's an overstrech. I have to find something owned by FSF in this situation.

-- Teo