Slashdot Mirror
Compiling a List of Funny Anti-Linux FUD?
An anonymous reader writes "I am in the process of trying to compile a list of at least 100 anti-Linux FUD statements, preferrably the ones that came from one of the big-shots in the computer industry. I am planning to use it in a multimedia project of mine. I did some searching on the net, including Slashdot, but the information overload has slowed my progress down to a crawl. Could you please assist me in compiling such a list?"
I would like to share with you a story - a story of pain, rejection, denial, loneliness, and perhaps, at the end, triumph and a happy ending. This story begins just three short years ago...
I was in my senior year of highschool, and as was the style at the time, I was very much interested in computers. I loved to take them apart, figure out how they worked, write programs with Microsoft's fine development environment, Visual Studio [microsoft.com]. As was also the style at the time, I loved to read webpages, in particularly, Slashdot.org [slashdot.org]. Perhaps you can guess what happened next. I began to slowly change - I developed an unhealthy obsession with computers, began to dislike and openly question America's policies, started shamelessly pirating music [napster.com] and software [gnu.org], and most dangerously, got turned on to that most deviant operating system of all - Linux.
Now I know many of you must be shaking your head in disgust at this point - "This must just be another one of those M$ trolls, hardee har har," but please, hear me out. This is very important.
As time went on, I got deeper and deeper in the Linux underground. I progressed through the various levels of "distros," from Mandrake, to Suse, to RedHat, finally to Debian, like a drug user going from harmless marijuana to cocaine and heroin. I thought I was so smart; I began sneering at other people who didn't use Linux - "Clueless Windo$e luzers," I would say. I was changing outwardly as well. I became a loner, hunched over the keyboard late into the night with the lights off, listening to my illegally downloaded music [kazaa.com]. All my friends left me after I broke their computers trying to install Linux on them. My hair grew long and unkempt, I stopped bathing and using deodorant, calling them "tools of capitalism and American greed." I got fired from my sysadmin job for installing slackware over the Solaris servers, and installing Debian over the Windows desktops. My bosses told me I cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I would not listen. "How could I be wrong, I'm using Linux?" I thought, "They must be M$ shills." You can see how far gone I was. No girls would look at me, let alone speak to me. I was in a world of pain, anger, and confusion [adequacy.org].
But, then one day, I took a long hard look at myself. I saw that something was wrong, but did not know what. I must confess, for a long time I denied what I knew deep down inside my heart - Linux was the cause of all my troubles. I saw what I had allowed myself to become. I was no longer a human being, I was a Linux Zealot. Instead of judging people by their thoughts, feelings, and actions, I judged them by their choice of Operating System. And so began the long road toward recovery...
I am still not fully recovered from my affliction, for you see, I have only one desktop machine, and cannot install Windows without losing much of my data. That's right, I am healthy enough to admit it, Linux is not for desktop use. I am planning my next desktop machine purchase, which will be an Apple iBook. The one good thing that came out of my years of torment is that I learned the power of Unix. Therefore, I will use MacOSX - a true Unix with excellent support and commercial software backing, something Linux will never have. By paying for my software from now on, I will be supporting the American economy. I want to help get America out of this economic tailspin [www.vasoftware] brought on by open source software [communism.org] and the dot com bust [fuckedcompany.com]. More importantly, I will no longer be an operating system zealot. I wi