Slashdot Mirror

Uhhh...maybe because its true? I own and run a little PC shop, it is guys like me that Linux really needs to grow. We get ZERO price breaks from MSFT so there is no loyalty there, and we certainly aren't doing it to get rich, we do it because we love computers and helping folks.

But with all the fragmentation nothing in Linux, not any of the real important stuff, ever seems to get fixed! Take drivers, everyone else has an ABI, Linux don't. You don't want an ABI? Fine and dandy then fix it so the drivers don't break when you upgrade the thing! Maybe if everyone wasn't spread so thin with a bazillion distros then you wouldn't NEED an ABI because there would be enough guys working on drivers to keep them from breaking constantly! I tried Ubuntu/Mint, Mepis, and PCLOS, these are the ones usually listed as "friendly" Linux distros. In every single case the 6 month upgrades broke something. Do you think I can afford to give away lifetime free support?

And please don't say LTS, I've been down that road and found that LTS is a codeword for "really old software" thanks to the totally messed up some software requires certain kernels. That is totally nuts! And the ONLY way LTS might be even kinda sorta viable is if you catch it right at release because last I checked XP has more time left than the current Ubuntu LTS.

Look I'm old enough to remember when we actually HAD choices in OSes, we had Commodore, we had GEM, we had DOS, we had Mac System. With the XP EOL countdown I would really like to have a "third way" as I have a feeling a LOT of former XP machines will end up on my doorstep. but as it is now with every Linux I try its the same: Install and fiddle until everything works perfect, Oh look, there's an update or upgrade. Install updates or upgrades Linux falls down with broken drivers, lather rinse repeat.

If you are a server admin, addicted to CLI and getting paid to deal with that? Linux is cool beans daddy-o. if you are a geek that thinks fiddling with OS guts is fun, and learning Bash commands is a good way to spend the weekend? Linux is for you. programmers? Ditto.

But if you are gonna gain REAL share you NEED guys like me, who can market and service your product, but right now the service and support costs would bankrupt me. My time is a minimum $35 an hour, at that rate a single borked driver forum hunt can cost me MORE than a copy of Windows 7 HP. If there wasn't 50 bazillion choices, if everyone settled on some standard and everyone worked on it? maybe things like this wouldn't happen and guys like me could get on board.

Time is ticking fellas, the XP EOL is less than 3 years now. That is gonna be hundreds of millions of boxes with NO Windows licenses. Will they end up in the dump like the last ones I got, because the cost of a Win license is worth more than the box, and I can't keep the drivers working 100% in Linux? Or will guys like me be happily installing "Linux Home Edition" and putting them in the window? That is up to you, the community. All guys like me can do is write articles and point out in forums like this what we need to sell your product. Of course all that will most likely happen for our trouble is a bunch of labels of shill and troll, and the community can go back to enjoying their 1% share and arguing for Vi VS Emacs.

Ahh the classic horseshit that is FOSS. if you dare to say a nerd wankfest isn't up to snuff you get "Do it yourself". tell me did you perform your own engine rebuild? Did you perform your own dentistry? Then WHY THE FUCK should I have to write a game just because you suck and can't get past CTF huh?

And people wonder why FOSS doesn't go anywhere, why after 20 damned years it is stuck at 1% while an OS with a $1000 barrier of entry is gaining like mad. Well it is THIS, this right here, which I call the "shit sandwich" approach to design. Someone says "Hey you want a free sandwich?" and you say "Sure, i could eat" so they hand you a big steaming turd between two slices of moldy bread and go "Now you can't complain because its free!"

Well ya know what? its still a SHIT SANDWICH and making it free doesn't make it fucking veal alright? if you want FOSS to gain ANY traction YOU NEED a "killer app" and yet another DM/CTF wankfest? why the fuck would anybody care? We have TF2 which is frankly better than any game FOSS has put out by leaps and bounds!

So you go back to playing Tux Racer and your latest ripoff of Quake III and give us a call when you have an original thought, kay? meanwhile i'll just join the other 99% of the planet in ignoring your ass, which seems to be what you want anyway, considering you don't ever fucking listen to anyone and your answer is always "Do it yourself". Well those of us with these green slips called MONIES? We can afford to BUY games! I know, its a concept? And since these games run on Windows? Well i guess I don't need FOSS anything, now do i?

Remember Sparky, FOSS is a PRODUCT. You want companies to provide software and drivers? To open up their code? Well you need marketshare for that and the shit sandwich attitude gets you NONE. Zip, aero nada, squat. Now if you'll excuse me I picked up Kane&Lynch II for a whole $4 and haven't got around to firing it up yet. Sadly even though it has probably the worst scores in history it'll be more entertaining and original than the entire history of FOSS gaming.

Just going by screenshots huh? I'd agree with WinXP, the "Fisher price UI" wasn't any real improvement over Win2K it was just....blue. But Win 7 is leaps and bounds better than any other GUI MSFT has ever put out, and here is why: It lets the ones who can just barely get around a desktop like my dad get MUCH more functionality out of their computer.

For example he typed "mic" to find out how to set up his microphone and under related concepts it gave him a nice tutorial on speech recognition which he didn't even know Win 7 had. In just 6 months of using Win 7 he has found more features and gotten more use out of his OS than the whole previous 9 years on XP put together. At the same time it lets old hands like me get our work done MUCH quicker, thanks to breadcrumbs and libraries, instant search and jumplists. Having all the folders I have been using lately be as easy to get to as a single right click on the explorer icon? That is DAMN handy right there! My only fear is the sweaty monkey will go "oh oh oh...we don't look enough like teh Apple! And I love teh Apple! Make Win 8 more like teh Apple!" and cock things all up. Luckily for us Windows users and VARs Windows 7 is supported until 2020 so if there is a bad release like Vista? We can easily skip it.

As for TFA while I'm sure I'll get hate for daring to point out this emperor is kinda nekked I really lost any respect I had for the guy after reading this article with linus in his own words. His attitude when it comes to the kernel is "Plans? We don't need no steenkin plans! We gonna let it grow like a virus LOL!"...yeah Linus its called the clap! No damned wonder I could'nt ever get half my drivers to function past a single upgrade cycle and why Linux Linux is stuck at 1% with so many retailers like myself becoming frustrated and giving up on Linux. Can you imagine if you went to YOUR BOSS and told him "we don't need no steenkin plans!" on a multimillion dollar project? Yeah that would go over well.

I just don't understand why guys that are supposed to be good at math just can't seem to grasp that yes Linux only has 1% and this is even giving Linux the benefit of the doubt by using heavily nerdish sites like /. in the counting!

As a PC retailer who has tried Ubuntu/Mint, Mepis, and PCLOS on the stacks of off lease office PCs that go through the shop I'll be happy to tell you why Linux is stuck at 1%...your driver model sucks! I'd love to be able to offer Linux on my PCs, as most of what my customers do can easily be done on any Web accessing OS, but until you fix the driver model so that the 6 month upgrades don't make the drivers shit themselves? Well I just can't carry your product.

I have 8+ year old XP boxes in the field where the only thing I've had to do was the occasional hardware upgrade but out of all the office boxes I tried not a single one survived the 6 month deathmarch unscathed with all having at least 1 driver shit itself, usually more than 1, and it didn't matter if I used FOSS or non FOSS drivers it was the same. But what can you expect when the head of Linux, old Linus Torvalds himself says Plans? We don't need no steenkin plans, it'll go like a virus LOL! yeah Linus its called the clap. That kind of attitude was fine when it was just him and his buds trading builds on IRC, but it ain't 1993 anymore and that kind of bullshit won't cut it in retail.

As a wise Linux user told me when I complained about the constant driver breaks "Yeah, it does that, you just have to get used to it" which is fine if your time is worthless and you think spending an evening in front of Bash while trawlling the forums for "fixes" is nice? Then I'm happy for you. But as a retailer I can tell you that kind of shit just won't fly if you want more than the 1% you currently have. if you want the public to embrace you then you have to give them what THEY want, not tell them they have to do things YOUR way. They will NOT "Open up Bash and type" and in fact see the term for what it is, a 70s throwback that doesn't belong on a modern OS, they will NOT trawl forums for "fixes", nor will they spend days looking up obsolete hardware lists in the hopes of finding something that they can buy that will actually work in Linux.

Fix this, make it so there is a stable ABI or hell sacrifice Linus to Cthulu if that is what it takes so drivers are "write once, use for years" and retailers like me will be happy to carry your product. think we like shelling out for Windows licenses? Hell no! But I can't sell a product where every 6 months something can be broken for a week or more because Linus got an itch and Goatse'd the kernel. It is simple math folks, you have X number of guys qualified to maintain drivers, you have Y times tens of thousands of drivers. Even if the driver devs never slept and spent 24/7 doing nothing but rewriting borked drivers you would ALWAYS be behind!

Sorry to burst your bubble but yes Linux only has 1% and if you will bother to read this link they have the numbers from several sources to back it up.

And why is that so hard to believe? I frankly have yet to see a single Linux install on any of my test beds survive the 6 month upgrade deathmarch without 1 or more drivers shitting themselves, there is no "rollback driver" or any other simple user friendly way to fix drivers when they break (with Windows it is "reinstall driver, reboot" and that is if a driver breaks, I honestly haven't seen it in years) but instead you have to trawl some forum, hope they have a fix, tweak said fix because it is for hardware b rev g and you have hardware d rev j and then IF you manage to pull off that, and put it all perfectly in a 70s era term, with NO spellcheck or autocomplete? Well then you might have your drivers back up...until the 6 month upgrade happens all over again.

In my shop I tried ubuntu/Mint, I tried Mepis, and I tried PCLOS, and in ALL of the above the drivers shit themselves. As one Linux user told me "Oh it happens, Linux guys just accept it and learn to deal" but you know what? Joe and sally average will not deal with that bullshit nor will the trawl forums for fixes, nor will they deal with a 70s era term.

Quit acting like the terminal gives you magical gonad powers and make it friendly for the masses and you know what? they WILL come. But sadly after dealing with the Linux community for years it is pretty damned obvious they will accept nothing less than the world doing things their way and it is never ever not in a million fucking years gonna happen, okay? Vista was a dog and you STILL didn't gain shit, instead a company with a $1000 price of entry gained like mad. If a product that costs $1000 stomps your product which costs ZERO dollars? That should be a big old clue stick whacking you in the head.

Now waste your mod points but it won't make up equal down, black equal white, nor will it make my words any less true. Fix the God Damned driver model already!

Most piracy is driven by avoidance of payment as seen by the heavy piracy of DRM free indy games like world of goo. If everyone was like you then DRM wouldn't exist but sadly that isn't the case. When it comes to the pc there are plenty of people that can afford the games (and high end gaming rig) but choose not to pay for them.

http://www.binplay.com/2011/03/comments-from-crysis-2-pirates.html

Yet again the Mac reliability myth rears its ugly head.

http://www.binplay.com/2010/09/reason-5-why-i-will-not-buy-macbook-not.html

All laptops are made in China, I'm not sure why so many think that Apple laptops are somehow magically special on the inside.

Have they bought into the Mac reliability myth?

http://www.binplay.com/2010/09/reason-5-why-i-will-not-buy-macbook-not.html

http://www.binplay.com/2011/03/can-slashdotters-get-over-windows-geeks.html

And perhaps switch to the PS3?

PC gaming piracy has gotten out of control. Not for casual stuff like Farmville and The Sims but games that require an aftermarket gpu. It's the 'hardcore' pirates that have made the situation go from bad to downright embarrassing.
http://www.binplay.com/2011/01/pc-gamers-and-their-lame-excuses-for.html

by Slashdotters who want to believe that key release didn't cause any real damage.
http://www.binplay.com/2011/01/mw2-ruined-by-ps3-jailbreak.html

In the absence of effective hardware security, this is the only way to stop people cheating in online games. This has become a big problem on the PS3 since the jailbreak enabled it.

On the PC, where there was never any hardware security to prevent cheating, publishers have been using the same technique for many years. Consider Blizzard Warden, Punkbuster, and Valve Anti Cheat. All of these allow the publisher - or their authorised agents - to download and run code on your machine when you connect to the online service.

Now Sony's platform is thoroughly broken, Sony has to adopt Punkbuster/VAC/Warden-style technology. It's either that, or suffer a mass exodus of players to other platforms which will be free of cheats.

Let the excuses begin

http://www.binplay.com/2011/01/pc-gamers-and-their-lame-excuses-for.html

It's a myth that Mac is on top when it comes to reliability. They also don't use the best hard drives:
http://www.binplay.com/2010/09/reason-5-why-i-will-not-buy-macbook-not.html

Why is this modded flamebait?

Come on, the code is ripped or its not.

Sorry, but Google flubbed on this particular file. If the particular coder who was responsible for that also worked the same magic on other files, Google's going to be in a world of hurt.

ZDNet code comparo
http://www.binplay.com/2010/10/look-at-copied-oracle-code.html

And yeah, if M$ did the same thing (embrace and "extend") to Python or PERL that Android did to Java, the community would be up in arms.

There is logic flow that is independent of any interface.
Someone already broke the code down, it's not looking good:
http://www.binplay.com/2010/10/look-at-copied-oracle-code.html

A programmer already broke it down:
http://www.binplay.com/2010/10/look-at-copied-oracle-code.html

It's a cut and paste job, and a poor one at that.

Someone already broke down the code:
http://www.binplay.com/2010/10/look-at-copied-oracle-code.html
Looks like a cut and paste job with amateurish renaming.

http://www.binplay.com/2010/07/cent-vs-ubuntu-for-web-serving.html