Linux Sucks (Video)

How do we know Linux sucks? Because Bryan Lunduke says so. How did he become a Linux authority? By using Linux, of course. He has also written a kids Linux book, Linux for Hank, and a grown-up Linux book, Linux is Badass. But wait! That's not all! Bryan is also one of the people behind the infamous Bad Voltage podcast.

And now, for something slightly different: In moments of weakness, Bryan admits that maybe Linux suckage isn't total, and Linux may have a good point or two and maybe some of the suckage could be removed. Zounds! Is that possible? Watch our video chat with Bryan (and/or read the transcript) and see. Or watch the entire 44 minute speech he gave at the 2014 LinuxFest Northwest, which was the 5th (or maybe 6th) "Linux Sucks" speech he's given at LFNW. That makes this a tradition, not just a speech. So if you find yourself in or near Bellingham, Washington, in 2039 you might want to pop in and see if Bryan is still updating his "Linux Sucks" speech. He'll be the geezer hobbling to the front of the room with help from his AutoCane, a device sure to be developed between now and then -- which will no doubt run Linux. (Alternate video link)

Comments

Zounds?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever wrote this summary should be kicked in the balls, hard, at least three times.

Re:Zounds?!

[stevez67]

And, Linux has no sense of humor.

Re:Zounds?!

[i kan reed]

Yeah, I know how you feel. I'm constantly wanting more tolerance of bad jokes from my inanimate objects.

Re:Zounds?!

[ClownPenis]

your object isn't even a pointer to an array

Re:Zounds?!

[ClownPenis]

case of the Mondays?

Re:Zounds?!

[nctritech]

Segmentation fault

Re:Zounds?!

[517714]

You saddle your coworkers with Microsoft products and complain about their stupidity? How much time and resources has your decision cost the company?

Re:Zounds?!

[epyT-R]

There's a lot of this sentiment out there, esp from europeans. It makes me wonder if europeans aren't just falling for the anti american propaganda over there in the same insipid way they claim americans fall for shit here. The fact you're advocating violence (by gun no less, which is quite ironic) as a method of social engineering suggests the european cultural attributes that drove the creation of the US in the first place are still present. How nice.

1. you generalize and stereotype, claiming your 'superior' social(ist) morals where you don't stereotype and generalize people based on their race or culture...err wait.
2. europeans are becoming fat too, haven't you heard?
3. japan is about as close as it gets to herd mentality, with sweden a distant second. In fact social dogma and expectation has gotten so rigid and inflexible in japan that they've managed to beat the desire to breed out of their people. That's hard to do.
4. there are individualistic americans who stand for individual liberty, limited government (and thus no chance of corporatocracy), but in your smug groupthink 'superiority' you whitewash them all with sarah palin, george bush, and fox news. Europeans are just about as ignorant of american culture as americans are of the countries of europe. The difference is that americans don't trust their government and are easily manipulated by corporate advertising, and europeans implicitly trust their government and therefore its propaganda. Neither state is showing long term success for liberty in the west.

Re:Zounds?!

[epyT-R]

No. In the US, people are raised to to be worker bees or office drones, and most of the colleges and universities are paper mills, with the few of the good ones too loaded with left wing ideological tautologies to be of any use in teaching students how to think critically. Not caring what other people think isn't necessarily a bad thing.. Today, society is way too wrapped up in what the many are feeling (never mind thinking) such that we're paralyzed as individuals. Why should we operate society like the mind of a 15yo valleygirl?

As far as computer literacy goes, you're right, it is sad when a triple degree engineer can't figure out the start menu...or zip files... or "how to use the excel".

Re:Zounds?!

[the_digitalmouse]

your balls are inanimate objects?

Re:Zounds?!

[sillybilly]

As an alternative, the government could mandate that everyone create a health care savings account for themselves, at a bank, with 10% of their income deducted into it by employers and sent directly to the bank account, that they cannot touch, except for health care payments, that maybe even earns an interest, and they cannot ever touch it in their life, but when they die they can leave it as an inheritance to whoever they want to, if there is any left over. Of course this setup would cut Da Man out of the game, and blow all his money he so carefully spent on lobbying for mandatory insurance with health care excuses. but oh well, We The People would be better off.

The problem with this setup is all that money sitting in a bank account that people are unable to touch, and constantly think about, so they figure out ways to get to it, such as corrupt doctors paying kickbacks. Such a problem arises even with regular insurance, with fake insurance claims and insurance fraud, but as insurance doesn't have some huge available funds number that one can constantly think about (and 10% of your income does add up over the years), it's less harassing to the weak minded. But it's like IRA's are not mandatory, but available, as an option to Obamacare, people could choose whether to buy insurance policies or invest into health savings accounts, with CD-like rates by banks. That would mean less profit to Da Man, as he doesn't keep a total of your premium payments and pay interest over it like a bank would, and when you die let you hand it over to your descendants, instead he simply keeps all the premium payments. But as there are a lot of tensions over health care issues, that could be some way out, everybody pay 10.2% of your income into health care savings accounts, or buy insurance coverage less than or up to 10.0% of your income, but in either case the government should not be required to pay the excess to private insurance companies, instead they pay directly out of the tax funds like they do anyway when the health care savings account is depleted, in a sense the government is self-insured, and does not pay for policies of the house always wins type bad gambles and bad rates of returns. The government IS big, risk redistribution doesn't fly, who are you gonna share the risk with, another government? You're the only one in the country, so why are you paying bad investment insurance policy premiums with a return of 50 cents out of each dollar spent, that are a way to redistribute risk, who are you redistributing your risk with? The government can require people to either pay 10.2% of their income into an inheritable health savings account, or buy private insurance coverage up to 10% of their income, and if the insurance company is unable to sell it at that price, negotiate with the government on lower limits of coverage above which the government takes over direct payments to the hospitals, while still keeping the premiums under 10% income. Different companies could negotiate different prices for the pool of people categorized by age brackets and income brackets, such as 45-50 women making between 16,000=18,000 per year providing one bargaining point, and the government could bargain with them. That's what the IRS needs to do, be a watchdog for government coffers for the people, not for the private entity crooks they are golfing with, against the people.

Re:Zounds?!

[sillybilly]

Sometimes I could use that 10% income as a means to cut my expenses like achieving extremely cheap housing cost, and then I could save really fast, for all my financial responsibility needs, such as child support coverage, not just health care, so the government meddling in the affairs of private people is kind of not welcome, they should focus on Military Protection, infrastructure like roads, and social security for the elderly, and let me worry about my other issues like building codes, health care, etc.

Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Every distro except the one I use does suck.
And every other window manager, and every other package manager, and every other...

Re:Duh!

[thevirtualcat]

Lucky you.

They all suck, including the one I use!

Re:Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky you.

They all suck, including the one I use!

I note you failed to name a single specific falsifiable instance of the alleged suckage. Therefore I conclude the following:

Your incompetence and inability to RTFM is definitely the fault of the window manager. Absolutely. Let's never question that premise!

Re:Duh!

[thevirtualcat]

I tried to RTFM, but TFM just says I need to RTFM. :(

Re:Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Every operating system I have ever used has sucked.

Re:Duh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your incompetence and inability to RTFM is definitely the fault of the window manager. Absolutely. Let's never question that premise!

Manual? Someone finally updated the README pamphlet?

Re:Duh!

[NotDrWho]

Every distro except the one I use does suck.

You're joking, but that is actually Linux's biggest problem, and the reason it will never make any significant dent in the desktop market. Apple and MS may have a few minor variations of their OS's, but for the most part they make things pretty simple. The consumer can generally choose from two basic flavors of Windows (Home and Professional) and one flavor of Apple OS.

But when you get into Linux, you have to start by telling the consumer "Well, there really is no such thing as Linux" and explaining to them that there are hundreds of different distros to choose from, many of which are radically different from one another. This sort of incredible fracturing may be attractive to uber-hardcore geeks, but it sends the average user running as fast as they can back to Windows and Apple.

For a brief period it seemed like Ubuntu might break through this barrier and become the defacto Linux standard. But, inevitably, the Linux hipsters turned against it ("It used to be about the MUSIC, man! Now you've gone all commercial and so you suck!"). And so we're back to the fringe mess that is "Linux."

And, no, Android is NOT Linux. No one outside of a few autistic nitpickers thinks that running a heavily modified Linux kernel in an almost inaccessible undercarriage of an OS makes it "Linux." That's like saying that a 747 is a Rolls Royce just because it happens to use Rolls Royce engines.

Re:Duh!

[TangoMargarine]

Whoooooooosh

I think we all assumed your initial post (assuming you're the same AC as above) was a joke. So more like a metawhoosh. Boomerang whoosh?

Re:Duh!

[thevirtualcat]

Yeah, pretty much this.

I could go through a laundry-list of problems I have with every OS I currently use (Ubuntu 12.04 & 14.04, Windows 7, FreeBSD 9 & 10, several builds of OpenEmbedded) and what I did to fix them or work round them, but that wouldn't be particularly productive unless this happened to be the mailing list for those projects.

Re:Duh!

[Tough Love]

And, no, Android is NOT Linux.

Android is Linux. Android is Linux with a skin, just as Ubuntu is. Google is intellectually dishonest. The fact that Apple is just as dishonest is no excuse.

Re:Duh!

[ahaweb]

Any instance falsifies "all", so "all" is falsifiable, or at least as much as any specific instance.

Re:Duh!

[KritonK]

It is far simpler to just tell them to install [your favorite distribution] with [your favorite desktop]. Skip the "tell them to" bit, if you are talking to friends and relatives, in which case, change "install" to "install and support".

If, later on, they figure out that there are other distributions and desktop environments, and want to try them out, then more power to them.

Re:Duh!

[Optali]

Nice try mate.
But... have you ever realised that not everybody use desktops?
No?

So, tell me: How do you thing the porn pages you like to watch are actually shown in Internet Explorer?

Always videos :(

[Gaygirlie]

I don't like this growing trend where people insist on creating everything as video, even things where the video doesn't actually serve any purpose other than showing a talking head. Information is so much easier to consume when you can consume it at your own pace, depending on your own speed of reading with no distracting heads and not being limited by the speed at which the video happens to progress. Text also happens to let you quickly jump over things you already are familiar with or jump back and forth between interesting passages.

I want less videos. I want more text.

Re:Always videos :(

[Rinikusu]

Yeah, I read Playboy for the articles, too.

Re:Always videos :(

[bargainsale]

Too right. Have a virtual modpoint. (I see you've rightly acquired lots of real ones, so I don't feel too bad.)

Re:Always videos :(

[Anonymous Coward]

I too hate when the harsh light caused by a video playing illuminates my tech dungeon, bro. I can deal with the minimal lumens from a few terminals but it's complete bullshit when someone forces me to examine the filth I wallow in while using my device.

Re:Always videos :(

[Dan East]

Can you please video yourself reading your comment, upload to Youtube and post a reply with the URL? I read your text too fast and was jumping around in it a bit, and I really would like to adhere more to your original though process as intended. Thanks!

Re:Always videos :(

[meerling]

Contip: That still doesn't return the wasted bandwidth, nor does it give you the random access ability of a page of text. Additionally, if the subtitles are not hardcoded, jumping the video or increasing the playback speed will usually make the subtitles go away. For that matter, depending on what playback device you use, your options for increasing or reducing playback speeds tend to be very limited, especially at the higher speeds where they tend to skip over entire segments resulting in lost text. And that's not even mentioning that you need a good subtitler to keep the timing reasonable and readable, something that is rather lacking in a large number of those that do subtitles. Maybe you mean for them to hire a professional subtitler, though that would massively increase the cost. (Yes, I watch a lot of subtitled videos.)

Sorry AC, but your 'protip' doesn't work worth a damn.

Some things are better for video, some for text, and some for audio. Too bad there's a lot of idiots that think everything should be video. I'm dreading the day I find a video of some baka reading a book, magazine, or newspaper. I'm sure they exist, but fortunately I haven't been forced to view them yet.

Re:Always videos :(

[Farmer Tim]

Then you get to read it at the speaker’s pace anyway, or try skipping with hopelessly inaccurate scrubbing controls. This completely fails to solve any of the problems mentioned.

Re:Always videos :(

[Richy_T]

I think he's more calling for a "Transcript" button.

Re:Always videos :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you get to read it at the speaker’s pace anyway, or try skipping with hopelessly inaccurate scrubbing controls. This completely fails to solve any of the problems mentioned.

The complete and utter failure to address the problem never seems to stop such fucktards from proposing flawed solutions.

Re:Always videos :(

[Richy_T]

Result.

Re:Always videos :(

[MikeBabcock]

Every time I rant about this somewhere (except maybe here https://plus.google.com/+Micha... ) people complain that I'm being "elitist" for wanting to read things that are basically text instead of listening to someone else do it.

Re:Always videos :(

[wonkey_monkey]

However here, at least, Slashdot is a little more progressive than some sites in providing a transcript.

It could also be argued that this video (in common with most that do actually make it to Slashdot, to the best of my recollection), being as it is an unrehearsed interview and not a pre-written statement, does add just a little more in terms of context, phrasing, and emphasis than can be gained from reading the transcript alone.

I don't see any helpful "sarcasm" tags in the transcript, for example. Those come in handy sometimes.

Re:Always videos :(

[jedidiah]

I am an AV learner too. However I am also impatient. If something can be summed up in a small paragraph then I find video to be an intolerable waste of time. Video is for intractable subjects, not random musings.

Re:Always videos :(

[Anonymous Coward]

When you consider that in the U.S. people are graduating high school without being able to read, what choice is left to impart information?

Re:Always videos :(

[exomondo]

Come on, surely on "News for Nerds" it's not going to be that hard to reach the conclusion that the subtitles are there so there's probably some way to extract them and lo, somebody (well actually there are various ones) has already created a tool to do just that.

Re:Always videos :(

[Fwipp]

(she)

Re:Always videos :(

[Darinbob]

They actually have a Braille version of Playboy with only articles (before anyone asks, I checked and there were no special embossed pages for additional interaction).

Re:Always videos :(

[Darinbob]

Doesn't help, as you can't speed up the video to let you read the text more quickly. Print it all out and let us read that, then we'll be done with that half hour video in less than 5 minutes, saving 99.9999% of the bandwidth (assuming ads are turned off).

The main reasons people do video is to get a few cents out of youtube or to feed their ego. The only time video helps is if there is some sort of demonstration.

Re:Always videos :(

[Darinbob]

It's mostly a lot of "umm, like, you know that time, when umm, oh wait uh how do I uh edit this?"

Re:Always videos :(

[Rinikusu]

I have seen these!

Re:Always videos :(

[causality]

Every time I rant about this somewhere (except maybe here https://plus.google.com/+Micha... ) people complain that I'm being "elitist" for wanting to read things that are basically text instead of listening to someone else do it.

"Elitist" has become what the word "racist" has become: originally it referred to something important that should be understood and resisted. Now it just means "I have decided I don't like what you said, but I can't find any fault with it. Rather than admit my dislike of it is irrational and should be changed, I'll just call you names now."

Lots of childish people waste their energy hating reality, leading them to resent anyone who is mature enough to spend that energy looking for better ways of dealing with reality. The contrast embarasses them. Since these small-minded people are resistant to change and growth, they perform variuos mental gymnastics to convince themselves this is your fault. After all, they could go on pretending that everyone agreed with them ... until you came along.

Re:Always videos :(

[causality]

However here, at least, Slashdot is a little more progressive than some sites in providing a transcript.

Hypothetically speaking...

Yes, just as some rapists are a little more progressive because they put on a condom before jamming their dick up your ass.

The fundamentals of the situation remain unchanged.

Re:Always videos :(

[fizzer06]

I tried "Google2SRT.java" on this and had the transcript in .srt format in about 3 seconds. I tried some of the online convertors but didn't find one that worked on this video.

Re:Always videos :(

[pkinetics]

People like video because they don't have to actually understand what was said. They can pretend they groked the subject because they listened to a 30 minute video clip. What they are really doing is using the audio as noise distraction while they are doing something else, typically updating their Twitter or FB status that they are learning something or folding laundry.

People like to read because they want the context. They are attempting to engage their brain around the subject matter. And some just want to kill trees. Or read it in the bathroom without feeling perved on cause some dude is talking to you while you drop taco bell.

Re:Always videos :(

[pkinetics]

Consider this is talking about Linux, I'd assume anyone watching it has a wee bit higher reading comprehension than 6th grade. Know your target audience.

Or maybe the speaker is implying that using Linux to do transcription onto YouTube videos is suckage... hadn't thought of that... well played...

Re:Always videos :(

[Winckle]

I was with you all the way until your use of the word "baka".

Re:Always videos :(

[phantomfive]

I don't like this growing trend where people insist on creating everything as video, even things where the video doesn't actually serve any purpose other than showing a talking head

It's because video ads make more money that static ads. That's why so many companies are trying to create 'content.' Netflix, AOL, Microsoft, WSJ, etc.

I don't like it either but that is the reason.

Re:Always videos :(

[Sun]

Why not provide an actual link?

Shachar

Re:Always videos :(

[Bing Tsher E]

That's actually a defensive practice. Why leave behind large quantities of dna that can be used as evidence against you?

Re:Always videos :(

[Bing Tsher E]

The reason people do video is they are barely literate and can just talk into a camera. Any idiot can fumble around and try to 'show' you something on camera. Creating a coherent written document is a lot more work. People who can create good written documentation are rare. People who can ramble on in front of a camera.. not so rare.

Re:Always videos :(

[epyT-R]

Yup. Video of talking heads is for people who read at 3-5 words per second. For those of us that read at 20 (or more), it's a chore to sit through video.

Re:Always videos :(

[epyT-R]

You're still having to wait for the talking...

Re:Always videos :(

[epyT-R]

This post sums of the essence of left wing morality put into practice.

Re:Always videos :(

[bill_mcgonigle]

people complain that I'm being "elitist" for wanting to read things

If you're hanging around with such complete idiots, maybe you *are* elite in comparison.

Re:Always videos :(

[erlendoos]

So, the correct title for this post would be "Linux video (sucks)"

Re:Always videos :(

[wonkey_monkey]

The fundamentals of the situation remain unchanged.

What, that a website you don't own but provides you a service free of charge gets to do things the way they want to do them? Unless you deliberately click play, it's just an image, and even that can be easily blocked if it offends you so much.

Puhlease. You may be butt-hurt but you haven't been raped. If you ever were you might find the experience surprisingly unpleasant, if this is your threshold.

Re:Always videos :(

[Katatsumuri]

Maybe the producer's preferences are a factor, but I believe these two are more important:

1) Google ranks videos higher and displays them more prominently in their regular web search, plus you come up in video search on Google, YouTube and possibly elsewhere.

2) Some people, for whatever reason, perceive reading as "hard", "boring", or "work", and prefer to watch videos for all their non-work information needs, even if those are just talking heads. I cannot understand it, but apparently this is a real phenomenon.

I believe the producers are just acting rationally to get the word out. I wish they at least provided a transcript more often.

Re:Always videos :(

[TheDarkMaster]

Me too. My theory is that people are becoming increasingly unable to read and understand what they are reading, then they are resorting to videos.

Re:Always videos :(

[TheDarkMaster]

This. And add the fact that many of those who speak to the camera are not even able to express their ideas in a coherent manner, even talking to a camera.

Re:Always videos :(

[TheDarkMaster]

"Lots of childish people waste their energy hating reality, leading them to resent anyone who is mature enough to spend that energy looking for better ways of dealing with reality. The contrast embarasses them. Since these small-minded people are resistant to change and growth, they perform variuos mental gymnastics to convince themselves this is your fault. After all, they could go on pretending that everyone agreed with them ... until you came along."

This. Very well said.

Re:Always videos :(

[AmiMoJo]

Yeah, I read Playboy for the articles, too.

The funny thing is I think a lot of people really do. The porn is pretty tame, with the occasional z-list celebrity (Chyna? Marge Simpson?), so the only way they can still be selling copies is if people actually value the articles as well. I mean, you don't need a subscription just to throw one or two copies around your pad in an ironic way, so how else are they getting sales?

Re:Always videos :(

[Richy_T]

On the internet, everyone is a dog.

Re:Always videos :(

[DaFallus]

Text is almost always better, but even when a video is useful people almost always do it wrong. Instructional videos on YouTube are the worst. People always feel the need to yammer on and plug other crap for 90% of the video before finally getting to the point.

Re:Always videos :(

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

"I'm dreading the day I find a video of some baka reading a book, magazine, or newspaper." I think it's called the evening news.

Re:Always videos :(

[TangoMargarine]

Well, there's always running the video, recording the audio through stereo mix, and then playing it into a text-to-speech program.

Then Google translate to Japanese and back!

Re:Always videos :(

[TangoMargarine]

s/elitist/ostensibly smarter than me/g

Re:Always videos :(

[cthulhu11]

Agreed. And text lets me read when I can't make noise or hear my device, eg. when my son is sleeping or the environment is loud.

Re:Always videos :(

[jwhitener]

growing trend

Depending on what sort of content you are looking for, it can be the new standard, not the exception. Minecraft/Skyrim games for instance. Nearly 100% video tutorials unless you end up in a user forum.

Ditto with home repair for some odd reason.....

Re:Always videos :(

[causality]

With respect to racism, this paragraph is exactly what I believed before I matured as a person. Before I grew enough to deal with the reality that racism isn't actually over, and to face the fact that I was actually part of the problem. Before I realized the futility and irony and sheer awfulness of wagging my finger at anyone willing to brand racist opinions as racist, "helpfully" explaining that their concerns weren't really real.

Real bigotry and prejudice does still exist, sadly. Note that I never once denied that. What I said was that the specific word "racist" has lost all meaning. It lost all meaning because a lot of knee-jerk types with no skill at argumentation found it politically useful to brand everything they dislike as "racist". For example, lots of people who disagreed with President Obama have been called "racist" simply because they thought a different policy would work better, despite showing no actual prejudice.

Speaking of growing up, one sign that someone has done so is their ability to fully understand and calmly respond to something instead of instantly getting offended and emotional. You tell me I need to grow up and you lecture me about life and you throw in a gratuitous "fuck you" because you thought I was denying the existence of all racism. Re-read my post (god damn do I get tired of asking volatile people to do that...). Not once did I say that. My prior comment was about the word "racism" not the existence of racism.

I'm glad you had a personal transformation concerning bigotry and prejudice. Perhaps now you will recognize a need to make another transformation concerning actually understanding what you read before making knee-jerk reactions to it. It'll definitely reduce your stress levels, if you are in need of a self-centered reason to give it a try. If you really want to be a grown man or a grown woman, you can write a new post admitting that your failure to control your emotions blinded you to what I said despite your obvious intellectual capability of understanding it.

Re:Always videos :(

[causality]

s/elitist/ostensibly smarter than me/g

I love meeting people who are smarter than me. That's when my personal policy of listening much more than speaking really pays off. If I meet such a person who is also emotionally mature enough to be humble and modest, that's better still.

Re:Always videos :(

[Tough Love]

I don't like this growing trend where people insist on creating everything as video...

The growing trend of dumbing down? It was always growing and always will.

Re:Always videos :(

[causality]

The fundamentals of the situation remain unchanged.

What, that a website you don't own but provides you a service free of charge gets to do things the way they want to do them? Unless you deliberately click play, it's just an image, and even that can be easily blocked if it offends you so much.

Puhlease. You may be butt-hurt but you haven't been raped. If you ever were you might find the experience surprisingly unpleasant, if this is your threshold.

And here I was thinking my comment was so absurd, so over-the-top, so obviously hyperbole, that no one would actually take it seriously.

Because of you, sir, I admit I was wrong. Someone did decide to take it seriously after all.

That feeling of embarassment you experience upon reading this will quickly pass. You can cover it up by denying that it happened. Or you could take the offensive and berate me some more. Y'know, if you believe such things will save face.

Re:Always videos :(

[causality]

Me too. My theory is that people are becoming increasingly unable to read and understand what they are reading, then they are resorting to videos.

I think you're onto something here.

It's certainly been a long time since I could read a single Slashdot discussion without witnessing the following behavior: 1) Read a post. 2) Note that it sounds vaguely like something you really find offensive, at least, if you twist most of the words around, put words in the poster's mouth, ignore context, and pay no attention to the actual point they were making. 3) Rail against that person, hellfire and brimstone, using various name-calling, ad-hominems, and other invectives while being careful not to actually refute anything they said.

Optional steps follow: 4) Continue bickering and splitting hairs long after they correct you and show you how easy it would have been to understand what they plainly said and plainly didn't say, being careful never to admit your mistake no matter how obvious to everyone it may be. 5) When you run out of excuses and methods of attempting to save face, just suddenly stop replying to the thread, employing the old "ignore it and hope it goes away" strategy.

The main reason I am starting to look at Soylentnews and other Slashdot alternatives is not the incompetent and bumbling "editors", not the choice of stories, not the Beta redesign, etc. It's because deliberately misunderstanding plain black-and-white text just to have something to moan and bitch about has become trendy on this site. I don't want to be the only sane person in a lunatic asylum, nor do I want to be the only adult in a roomful of screaming children. That's what Slashdot is becoming.

Re:Always videos :(

[wonkey_monkey]

And here I was thinking my comment was so absurd, so over-the-top, so obviously hyperbole, that no one would actually take it seriously.

Because of you, sir, I admit I was wrong. Someone did decide to take it seriously after all.

How was I supposed to know you weren't being serious? I don't know how long you've been on the internet, but people say and mean far crazier things than that on a depressingly regular basis.

That feeling of embarassment you experience upon reading this will quickly pass.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't feel embarrassed. Why would I?

Or you could take the offensive and berate me some more.

Only for being so smugly condescending as to think you know how I feel. What's that about?

We all get the wrong end of the stick sometimes.

Re:Always videos :(

[causality]

Only for being so smugly condescending as to think you know how I feel. What's that about?

Yes the name-calling satisfies the berating I had anticipated.

We all get the wrong end of the stick sometimes.

And when we do, it's almost always caused by faulty assumptions we didn't have to make. Depending on what sort of conscience you have, it can lead to a "damn, I should have known better" feeling. Sometimes this feeling is called embarassment.

Of course others prefer to believe these are not matters of cause-and-effect in which they actively participated, preferring to convince themselves it's more like a roll of dice. This certainly avoids a feeling of embarassment but it does nothing to reduce future occurrences and prevents them from learning from their mistakes.

Re:Always videos :(

[wonkey_monkey]

To say I found your post smugly condescending isn't name-calling.

And when we do, it's almost always caused by faulty assumptions we didn't have to make.

One can also make non-faulty assumptions that nonetheless lead to what is later revealed to be an incorrect conclusion.

Depending on what sort of conscience you have, it can lead to a "damn, I should have known better" feeling. Sometimes this feeling is called embarassment.

But I shouldn't have known better - how could I? I'm not aware of having read any of your previous posts, and I don't see any clues in the one in question as to its parodic nature, so what can I do but stand by the assumption I made with the information I had at the time?

This certainly avoids a feeling of embarassment but it does nothing to reduce future occurrences and prevents them from learning from their mistakes.

What is there to learn? That people on the internet sometimes say stupid things they don't mean?

So where is the transcript?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see several links to the video...

But nothing for the transcript. Which makes it hard to read....

Re:So where is the transcript?

[Rashdot]

Click on "Hide/Show Transcript" under the video...

Re:So where is the transcript?

[wonkey_monkey]

What that be the "Hide/Show Transcript" link directly below the video?

Who is Bryan Lunduke?

[Anonymous Coward]

And why should I give a shit what his opinion is?

Linux = cheap UNIX knock off.

[Anonymous Coward]

No forking in OS X land.

Re:Linux = cheap UNIX knock off.

[epyT-R]

no, but if you had a solar panel kit, you could recharge the batteries.. in the desert, you'd have all the sunlight you'd need.

Re:Linux = cheap UNIX knock off.

[Ash-Fox]

No forking in OS X land.

There are some forks, but nobody really uses them due to lacking significant functionality of OS X.

Auto-shillelagh

[bluefoxlucid]

Because canes are for lames.

Re:Auto-shillelagh

[Darinbob]

Those are necessary for Irish people who have bad luck.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

No I will not watch a lame video.

Garbage like this say nothing but hipster, douchebags.

Obvious ad is obvious.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we at least get a [Paid Post] tag/image or something, and let people with high karma filter this crap out?

"Sucks" Is OK

[VernonNemitz]

So long as other operating systems suck worse. Kind of like "democracy is not really a good form of government, but all the others suck worse".

Re:"Sucks" Is OK

[BasilBrush]

So far I'm 17 minutes into the video. And from the things being mentioned Linux sucks far worse than any of the commercial desktop OSs.

Looking forward to the "Linux doesn't suck" video, because I can't imagine what he can possibly say to counter the admissions of suckiness he's made so far.

Re:"Sucks" Is OK

[Darinbob]

Nothing sucks like a VAX.

Re:"Sucks" Is OK

[Darinbob]

Actually when I first got Windows 95 I had a OS/2 user ask me how it was, and my response was "doesn't suck as bad as I thought it would".

Re:"Sucks" Is OK

[greenbird]

So long as other operating systems suck worse.

Am I the only one who remembers the Lovelace unit of measure for suckage.

Re:"Sucks" Is OK

[smash]

Ran Linux extensively between 1995 and 2006. I still have Linux servers, but they're mostly FreeBSD now.

It (and the free desktop in general) sucks, and many of the broken things that I wished were fixed in say, 2000 are either still broken or (in the case of actual software stability) even worse now. Example: playing media from a network share. What the FUCK is my desktop environment attempting to copy the fucking file off the network into temporary storage before playing it doing that for? OS X? Plays from network share. Windows? Plays from network share. Linux? Oh, let me copy that 1 GB video file for you over WIFI before I will play it. I'll be ready in few minutes.

Yes, i could mount the share under a folder manually using the shell and pretend it is local. Why the fuck should I have to? It is un-necessary grunt work that the computer can and should do for me when i browse the network using a file manager.

Don't even get me started on the myriad of different file open dialogs, (some which are network aware, some which aren't) on a typical desktop install. Never mind the inconsistency of keyboard shortcuts, desktop stability (you know the last time I had the OS X GUI lock up on me? Hint, it's not this year or last year. In KDE? within 15 minutes of playing with it to check up on whether any progress in the above areas have been made this year. I remember using (and compiling from source) KDE 1.0, 2.0 and 3.x and they were way more stable than the current KDE releases.

Linux and the free unix desktop has so much potential, but the pervasive refusal to use existing libraries, standardize on anything or actually fucking finish any single component of the OS before trashing it and replacing it with something else means that it is constantly a case of two steps forward, two steps back, with the occasional actual advance, generally due to ripping off the UI of either Windows (in the 90s) or OS X (currently), without making the underlying infrastructure work properly to support the functions those respective desktops actually provide.

Look... the GUI is a solved problem for the most part. Many people are happy to stay on Windows XP, which was released 12 years ago and was only a minor GUI update from Windows 95. Stop re-inventing the wheel, trashing everything and starting over, and actually get the unix desktop stable, and implement the functionality. I couldn't give a fuck if i have transparent windows or rotating cube desktop switching or whatever. I just want the applications I use to actually WORK, please.

Rant over. No doubt a bunch of fanboys will moderate this flamebait, troll, or whatever, but I don't care. Covering ears and refusing to admit to any of the free desktop usability flaws (note: not UX - i'm talking software stability and feature set) will just ensure that the Free unix desktop continues to fail.

Re:"Sucks" Is OK

[BasilBrush]

Bravo. That's very much my experience too. I tried Linux once a year between the mid nineties till about 2003, each time encouraged by Linux users claiming that it was now ready for use. And each the experience was awful.

I briefly toyed with BEOS, which as far as user experience was concerned was everything Linux was not. But unfortunately it never got traction, so there were few apps.

But once OSX had become stable and well supported by apps, I made the move to that and never looked back. It's not perfect by any means, but it's so much better than any other desktop OS out there.

I no longer waste a day a year trying Linux out to see if it's made it yet. That boat has long since sailed. It's wasted me enough time already.

Amen

[future assassin]

I have no idea who inisited on it and when it became cool to have to watch a slow ass instructional video when a small write up and 10 photos will do the job 10x faster and I can scroll up and down the page or print it when I need a reference. Its so painfull just see how many vdeo tutorials where are for say Drupal.

Re:Amen

[wonkey_monkey]

Oh, I don't know, once in a while I come across a tutorial that really does benefit from video. Unfortunately about half of those are ruined because the creator didn't think about what he was trying to do first, and just dove straight in. These are easily spotted by constant repetitions of the phrase "I'm just gonna go right ahead and..." followed swiftly by "Okay, that didn't work, let me just..."

Re:Amen

[Darinbob]

The ones I really hate are where you do a google search (not youtube) about how to fix a bug in a game or such, and the top hit is a looong video of a mouse interacting with windows UI where most of that time the mouse isn't moving because the video maker is talking. Even if you do that sort of thing in a video (for people who can't find menus) it would still be more informative if it just showed the screenshots with arrows pointing to what to click on and get the whole video finished in a minute. But the guys do videos because they want to get hits on the videos and thus hopefully some money from youtube.

Re:Amen

[pkinetics]

Documentation? We don't do no stinkin' documentation!!!

Re:Amen

[cthulhu11]

I think there's some way to generate $ from having people follow Youtube links.

All Oses suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

It so happens that Linux sucks less.

Clearly misinformed

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

TFS is complete bullshit. There won't be Linux in 2039 because everyone knows time resets to Jan 1, 1970 in 2038.

Re:Clearly misinformed

[TangoMargarine]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y...

Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[Khopesh]

OpenSSL doesn't listen to bug reports. They don't even accept offered patches to known bugs. It's this spirit of non-cooperation that caused the forking into LibreSSL. See the 30 day prospectus (/. coverage) from the LibreSSL project lead, which details all of the problems. Brian even says forking is ultimately a benefit, and that he "loves that they're doing it."

It seems to be that his definition of "sucks" is "has room for improvement" ... Everything has room for improvement, so apparently everything sucks.

Re:Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[Alomex]

It seems to be that his definition of "sucks" is "has room for improvement" ... Everything has room for improvement, so apparently everything sucks.

The point is we need people like him to remind us that certain things suck and need to be replaced (cough, X11, cough) otherwise we ae stuck with old badly architected technology for decades.

Re:Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[Khopesh]

The point is we need people like him to remind us that certain things suck and need to be replaced (cough, X11, cough) otherwise we ae stuck with old badly architected technology for decades.

It's hard to find somebody that says X11 doesn't suck. I am definitely not that person.

My point was that he says forking sucks, he gave an example where (unbeknownst to him?) forking was certainly the best option, then he went on to talk about how forked Linux distributions have made the world a better place. He seems to conclude that forking is great and that he "loves" it.

(Also, I misspelled his name. Sorry, Bryan. I guess my post had room for improvement ... meaning it sucked.)

Re:Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[Bing Tsher E]

What I don't get is why nobody is working on x12. I mean, when I first started messing around with linux in 1994 there was this thing called X Window, Version 11R5. I think it went to 11R6 since then. I'm pretty sure there were versions 1 through 10 before version 11. Nothing changed? Nothing to improve? That thick set of printed X Window System manuals from O'Reilly on my bookcase is the final version? (volume 8 is the good stuff- the actual User's Manual, which explains EVERYTHING if you standardize on the Tab Window Manager (twm). )

So X was frozen in about 1991, and now we're tossing it out and starting over. Right...

Re:Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[Alomex]

I've looked into Wayland, and it really does sound like X12. Grab the parts of X11 that are still used, clean them up and ship them.The real question is as you say, why exactly did it take them this long? X11 was long in the tooth by the year 2000.

Re:Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[31eq]

There's an even more basic misunderstanding if he thinks Linux is somehow responsible for an OpenBSD project.

Re:Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[TangoMargarine]

My point was that he says forking sucks, he gave an example where (unbeknownst to him?) forking was certainly the best option, then he went on to talk about how forked Linux distributions have made the world a better place. He seems to conclude that forking is great and that he "loves" it.

What do you expect from a guy that the first paragraph explains also wrote books about how Linux is awesome?

Re:Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[TangoMargarine]

X11 is also the name of the protocol. I assume that the only reason we're still using X11 is *because* it's still compatible with the protocol.

Re:Basic misunderstandings and self-contradictions

[smash]

Um... X11 was long in the tooth in 1996, with the release of NT 4 Terminal server. Which did usable remote display using RDP in a fraction of the bandwidth. Many other parts of NT4 sucked, but RDP is actually pretty high performance, especially since Windows 2000.

Re:Room buffer overflow

[Anonymous Coward]

It got a little noisy, someone said "Sssshhh" and everyone shouted out their passwords.

Every OS sucks

[neminem]

And blows! At the same time!

All together now: every computer crashes, cause every OS sucks!

Re:Every OS sucks

[UnsignedInt32]

That''s somewhat the conclusion I've reached after I've been hopping between different OS. (Windows, Mac OS, Linux)

So I myself find that Linux is least painful for me, at least for the fact that it doesn't try to hide the details from me. While mileage may vary with the nature of the issue, but it at least it's relativy simple for me to <b>try</b> to address and fix the problem before resorting to complete fresh of the machine.

Pretty much every OS suck, but...

[MindPrison]

...at least with Linux, we have the power to do something about it without the constant hassle of a commercial system with all its secrecy, NDAs, policy approvals and we don't have to hide the fact we screwed up in order not go get sued by every paying customer, we just FIX it...and then another bug appears, but hey...have you ever found any human to be perfect? When you bought your first house, was it perfect? I bet not.

At least with OPEN SOURCE everyone is free to chip in, that is the magic of Linux. Suspect a bug? A backdoor somewhere? If you have the knowledge, you're free to look. I've been compiling my own Kernel since the early Slackware days, and albeit I'd never recommend this system to Aunt Daphne and rather have her purchase an Apple iMac instead...Linux is all about freedom. And if you missed this point, maybe Linux isn't for you.

Re:Pretty much every OS suck, but...

[jones_supa]

I rant a lot about quality problems of OSS, but admit that what you described is one of the best properties about the Linux world. It's something what keeps me hanging around. The open development process is very interesting and useful.

can I mod up the original post?

[vpness]

this was very funny diatribe (and I have mod points). I have mod points ! no, really, I do !

Linux really does have serious issues

[Eravnrekaree]

Linux has many positives, there is no doubt. However, there are many problems with the system. The lack of applications leads to situations where a user is told is a great OS, but there is nothing on the OS that does what they want to do. Its great to have a kernel that works well but whats the point if you cant do what you need on it because of the lack of applications. Wine has been around for 20 years yet still has yet to develop an emulation layer that can run 99% of Windows applications reliably. It constantly breaks support for older applications carelessly. The changelogs seem to be filled with obscure performance hacks that lead to a .01% improvement in performance but it appears little is happening in major progress on supporting all of the Windows API.

The bigger problem is lack of hardware support, to the point that the application issue may just be a result of the problem with it being so difficult to get new, novel, or unusual hardware to work on Linux. The fact is, hardware makers will always provide better working drivers in a timely manner than backwards engineering. Its a pipe dream to think that many hardware makers will open source the drivers. By the time open source drivers come around, the hardware is often so old its not even being sold any more or is out of date. Some hardware has no drivers available.

This problem stems from the attitude of the Linux kernel developers. Many of the Linux community have an absolute aversion to actually working with hardware manufacturers to get hardware support implemented, especially with Dell. With Microsoft repetedly throwing Dell and other manufacturers under the bus, there was an opportunity to reach out to Dell to look at Linux as an alternative. This option has been thrown away by Linux. Linux could have gotten much wider adoption by accepting the users using small amount of binary code, which wouldnt even be required to be used as open source drivers would still be developed. Part of the problem as well is the badly documented or not documented at all kernel driver interfaces. It is actually almost impossible to find any comprehensive reference on kernel internals and the driver interfaces. Driver interfaces which seem to change with each kernel version as well, blowing up hardware support for users in the process. Backward compatability is critical throughout the system. Users need to be able to be assured they can use applications and driver accross kernel versions. I have suggested before a driver compatability layer for binary drivers so they will work between kernel versions.

Another problem is the bone headedness of Canonical and Gnome who have copied every disasterous mistake and disaster of Windows 8 in creating user interfaces that are incomprehensible. The fact is, for users, an interface that is well known and practical rather than some hair brained scheme concocted by some crackhead who thinks they know better than everyone else and wants to ram their self righteous idea of user interface design on users, as with Ubuntu Unity and Gnome 3. Just stick with the tried and true taskbar start menu paradigm, please. These people are actually worse than the kernel developers because they think that they are genuises with user interface design but are self absorbed, obsessed and arrogant with trying their insane user interface experiments without any sense of practicality or really caring about users at all. The user interfaces they create are vastly worse than what the kernel developers would come up with.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[dclozier]

The linux kernel devs had an offer open to manufacturers to write drivers for free. But I guess it's been 7 years since that offer so maybe that's changed. If so it was most likely because the manufacturers didn't take them up on the offer.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[Anonymous Coward]

The rot goes deeper than the interface. It goes down to DBus and Systemctl..... NetworkManager????? good fucking grief. I've seen an article suggesting it's a RedHat NSA conscription to control the kernel and make sure that all the major distros and almost any way you run Linux you're going to have their hooks in your system (yes in selinux, and even if you disable it, it's still there; do you *know* there are no back doors?)

Hey I'm not paranoid, ... . they're not out to get me ... but only because I don't think I've got anything worth getting. If I did, I'm sure they would.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Another problem is the bone headedness of Canonical and Gnome who have copied every disasterous mistake and disaster of Windows 8 in creating user interfaces that are incomprehensible. The fact is, for users, an interface that is well known and practical rather than some hair brained scheme concocted by some crackhead who thinks they know better than everyone else and wants to ram their self righteous idea of user interface design on users, as with Ubuntu Unity and Gnome 3.

As much as I hate Unity and Gnome 3, you can't blame the developers copying Windows 8. The first final version of Unity was released in June of 2010 and the final Gnome 3.0 was released in April 2011. Meanwhile, the first public preview release of Windows 8 wasn't until September of 2011. Since very little was known about Windows 8 before then and Unity/Gnome 3 development had been in progress for a few years, it's impossible for the developers to have copied anything from Windows 8. If anything, you could argue that Windows 8 developers copied their terrible UI ideas from Unity and Gnome 3, since most of that development took place in public.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[epyT-R]

It's easy to say "just accept a small amount of binary code" when you're not the one who has to debug the whole system looking for errant code. Also, when the kernel is ported, the binaries cannot be transported over to the new arch. The real truth is that binary only distribution doesn't really protect your code from someone who really wants to know how it works ( the plethora of cracks out there show this), nevermind any potential competitors who have the money to throw at people to figure it out for them. I can guarantee you that nvidia has amd's drivers at least partially reverse engineered and vice versa.

It's not the linux devs who need to accept this, it's the hardware devs who should not be hiding their secret bits in the driver. If the drivers are open, the user won't even notice the interface has changed because the driver will get ported along with the (usually trivial) changes and recompiled by the distro. You're right, though, the lack of a stable driver ABI was chosen purposely to encourage open drivers, which are in the developers and users interests.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[Anonymous Coward]

With a stable kernel ABI you wouldn't need to worry about that, hardware manufacturers could just write the Linux driver once for the lifetime of the ABI just like they do for Windows. The reason they don't is because the ABI is a moving target.

An unstable kernel API and ABI along with the GPL results in a situation of hostility toward proprietary vendors, oddly enough those are the exact people that the Linux community is begging for help from. Free and proprietary ideologies can co-operate, the problem is the free side doesn't want to make any concessions in order to foster that co-operation and then they get upset when the proprietary side just gives them the finger. Stop being such a religious absolutist and realize that not everybody bends to your point of view, that sort of rubbish is usually reserved for jihads but the restrictive (as opposed to permissive: MIT, BSD, Apache,) FOSS world does exactly that, a culture of exclusion based on ideology.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[hweimer]

Your issues have quite simple fixes:

Applications: Typical GNU/Linux distributions provide at least 10,000 packages. It's ridiculous to claim that "there is nothing on the OS that does what they want to do". Applications might be somewhat different from their Windows equivalents, but time spent on getting familiar with them is a better investment than fiddling around with Wine.

Hardware: Only buy stuff that has been certified to work with Linux. Easy.

Unity/Gnome 3: Well, if you don't like it, then don't use it. There are plenty of other distributions supporting alternative desktop environments.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[TheDarkMaster]

+10 Insightful to you, I have problems like you described all the time. And when I think that I managed to fix them, some bastard changes everything again just for the sake of changing and throws all my work down the drain.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[Ash-Fox]

Note: I am not the grandparent.

hardware manufacturers could just write the Linux driver once for the lifetime of the ABI just like they do for Windows.

Until you install a service pack and then it breaks, as it has for me.

An unstable kernel API

The kernel API is generally stable. Generally, when it's broken, this is unfavourable.

Free and proprietary ideologies can co-operate, the problem is the free side doesn't want to make any concessions in order to foster that co-operation and then they get upset when the proprietary side just gives them the finger.

Except that the kernel licensed by Linus allows use of proprietary binary blobs to make this possible, so concessions have been made. In fact, because the kernel contains some binary blob, some people have provided tools to remove the blobs from the kernel.

Stop being such a religious absolutist and realize that not everybody bends to your point of view

This may come as a surprise, but your view clearly isn't exactly absolute or accurate.

FOSS world does exactly that, a culture of exclusion based on ideology.

I don't really have a problem with this difference to exclude something using ideology as opposed to legal licensing or company interests. It's obvious that FOSS is ideology based, but I don't really see what the point is you're trying to drive forward by identifying this, especially when compared to other software in the industry.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[RabidReindeer]

It's easy to say "just accept a small amount of binary code" when you're not the one who has to debug the whole system looking for errant code.

Actually, the correct expression is "All You Have To Do Is..."

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[TangoMargarine]

Another problem is the bone headedness of Canonical and Gnome who have copied every disasterous mistake and disaster of Windows 8 in creating user interfaces that are incomprehensible.

Technically Unity came out before Windows 8. Unity, June 2010; Win8 preview Sept 2011.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[TangoMargarine]

The only real objection I have to Linux GUIs is that there are at least 2 different cut/copy/paste subsystems at work, as you can see if you try and copy text from something like gnome-terminal to a text box in Firefox (or vice versa.) There really wasn't any excuse for that.

You realize that you're trying to copy between a modern GUI and an emulator of a 60's-era physical teletype device, right? Terminals didn't have a concept of copy-and-paste I don't think. So that's kind of an excuse. And unless Gnome Terminal is much suckier than the XFCE terminal (a distinct possibility) it should be more or less (less) doable via the X buffer. (cue screaming)

You think that's bad, you should try to make the clipboard play nice with emacs :-)

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[smash]

It isn't just a lack of applications - many of those that are included in a typical desktop distro are either unstable or lacking features. I put it down to a few things:

• Hobbyist developer(s) who have an itch to scratch, get the app to do what they want and then lose interest when it gets hard (not all cases - there are many talented developers out there who persist, but they don't tend to be desktop application developers
• Constantly changing API(s) mean so much time is wasted re-inventing the wheel porting to the current desktop environment flavor of the month

Hardware support is an issue that will fix itself when people have an incentive to run the platform to get actual work done (and by work, I don't just mean network administration and other nerd stuff. i mean actual work that one would do in an office during the course of a typical business).

Make Linux business friendly, with business/corporate friendly apps and the bean-counters will sit up and take notice. I doubt that will happen any time soon though due to the inherent disconnect between the open source development attitude and corporate needs.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[smash]

I think you misunderstand the concept of a stable ABI. A service pack won't break it. Windows can use many classes of drivers between Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1. Why? Because Microsoft published an ABI and do their best to prevent breakage.

"We don't want to be held back" is a fucking cop out. FreeBSD both ensure ABI compatibility within a major release (not for drivers, but user software) and on the driver front can (could? "project evil") make use of Windows NDIS network drivers. By way of a compatibility shim.

Of course there's the argument that some people do not want binary drivers at all. Good luck with that. We've been there for the past 20 years, and the problem isn't getting any better.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[smash]

If you have a published ABI and a debugger, you simply trace where the code crashed, and if it is in the driver, you push it back on the author and say "fix your shit" unless THEY can prove there is a bug in the kernel. That all drivers in Linux are in kernel space and can cause kernel panics is another issue which could be solved for a large number of drivers by pushing them to user space... as Windows has done since Vista (for video drivers for example. modern windows vista+ video driver crash = black screen while the driver is reloaded, system stays up).

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[smash]

A typical linux distro may have 10,000 packages. This is not necessarily a plus, or a "solution" to the application problem. If there are say 80 half-assed attempts at an application which each implement perhaps 65% of what I actually want to do, I spend hours and hours just looking for an application to get my job done rather than... you know... just actually doing what I set out to use my computer for.

I'd much rather take maybe 2-3 applications for a particular job that actually fucking work properly and have a complete feature set, than 80 different apps with their own quirks and different subset of features that I actually need.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[Ash-Fox]

I think you misunderstand the concept of a stable ABI.

I said API, not ABI. API was also mentioned which I then quoted and directly countered. I did not disagree that the ABI was prone to change.

Windows can use many classes of drivers between Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1.

Windows has many drivers that have broken between Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and various service packs despite this claim of yours.

"We don't want to be held back" is a fucking cop out.

It seems to be working well for GNU/Linux when you compare them against other opensource operating systems like FreeBSD etc.

FreeBSD both ensure ABI compatibility within a major release (not for drivers, but user software) and on the driver front can (could? "project evil") make use of Windows NDIS network drivers.

And you can use solutions like NDISwrapper on Linux to do the same thing. I'm not really seeing a problem.

Of course there's the argument that some people do not want binary drivers at all.

Indeed.

Good luck with that.

I wish them good luck with that too.

We've been there for the past 20 years, and the problem isn't getting any better.

Except in the last 20 years, we have seen the creation of open hardware organisations, certain manufacturers (such as those in the graphic card industry) actively open sourcing and contributing work. I'm not really sure how you're measuring better, but that seems better from everything being 100% proprietary as it was in the early 90s.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[smash]

And in the last 20 years that I have you know... actually been running Linux, I still can't actually reliably decide to install Linux on a machine and have it work. I still can't reliably upgrade my kernel, and have X functionality survive the reboot. Yes, I can fix it. The fact that I have to, in 20-fucking-14 is a joke.

Re:Linux really does have serious issues

[Ash-Fox]

And in the last 20 years that I have you know... actually been running Linux, I still can't actually reliably decide to install Linux on a machine and have it work.

You sound like those two secretaries whom had 20 years experience in computers couldn't use their computers when I upped the resolution of the desktop from 800x600 to 1024x768 so they could use certain websites.

I still can't reliably upgrade my kernel, and have X functionality survive the reboot.

I still can.

The fact that I have to, in 20-fucking-14 is a joke.

Sounds like you have personal issues.

WHY

[DeathElk]

I've watched two of these stupid talking head videos. Why is it that I've wanted to punch both of the subjects in the face?

That....

[RedHackTea]

Shasta Cola man!

Missed something

[duke_cheetah2003]

One thing I think he misses pointing out is the good ol' saying: The right tool for the job.

Which is probably a huge reason there's so much forking and so many different distros for Linux and all the open source software that follows it, and for that matter the reason there's more than one OS.

We want to use the right tool for the job.

I do like the general premise 'Linux Sucks', because I think it's good that Linux as a collective, a community, can look at their creation and say, "Well, it still sucks." And carries on to keep making it better every day.

Re:Missed something

[Bing Tsher E]

Actually there is so much forking because everybody wants it Their Way. It is easier to just grab what's out there and run off with it to change on your own than to communicate and cooperate and work together.

Software could converge and improve over time and become ever closer to perfect, but instead everybody wants their chunk of code in there that they wrote to replace something they ripped out because doing so was easier than working to understand the old one.

Re:Missed something

[duke_cheetah2003]

Actually there is so much forking because everybody wants it Their Way. It is easier to just grab what's out there and run off with it to change on your own than to communicate and cooperate and work together.

Software could converge and improve over time and become ever closer to perfect, but instead everybody wants their chunk of code in there that they wrote to replace something they ripped out because doing so was easier than working to understand the old one.

I think you just described what is so awesome about open source. Don't like it? Fix it yourself, if others like your fixes, they'll incorporate them upstream, if not, then well, you still have your version that does what you want it to do.

Re:Missed something

[jones_supa]

Right. I assume that you have never contributed a patch to an open source project.

Re:I remember the asshats...

[Assmasher]

Hell, I remember when running a GUI on your linux box made you a p***y... Curses was borderline metrosexual. ;)

X sucks

[TsuruchiBrian]

For anyone who wants to explore this specific topic further, this is a really good video talking about the problems with X from former X developer and current Wayland developer David Stone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44

He's full of shit about LibreSSL

[Dasher42]

A fork of OpenSSL which is stripping out support for VMS, Win16, and other ancient platforms by the *OpenBSD* group is making a bug more likely? It's supposed to make another Heartbleed twice as likely? This guy is completely full of shit. He has no idea what coding is, he just wants to hear himself talk. Give me 8:32 back!

Can't we get a written transcript?

[damn_registrars]

Any halfwit can post their monologue to youtube. Spare me the lecture, and save me some time - post a damned transcript. If you are too cool to post your actual slides, just post the transcript of what you said.

Re:Can't we get a written transcript?

[Soulskill]

There's a link to expand a transcript right below the video. Is that not rendering for you?

Re:Can't we get a written transcript?

[damn_registrars]

There's a link to expand a transcript right below the video. Is that not rendering for you?

The transcript that I can expand below the video is not the transcript of the "Linux Sucks" video, it is a transcript of an interview that he gave after giving that speech. I'm trying to find a transcript of the video of his presentation, and as best I - and others - can tell, no such transcript exists. If he doesn't want to share his slide that is his own business (although I think he would make a stronger case if he did), but for him to go running around claiming to have such a brilliant argument and not be willing to share it with us in a way that does not insult our intelligence is just ridiculous.

Re:Can't we get a written transcript?

[Soulskill]

Ahh, gotcha.

Yeah, I haven't seen an official transcript for that either. The YouTube page for the video has an automated transcript-maker, but it's pretty janky.

Re:Can't we get a written transcript?

[damn_registrars]

The YouTube page for the video has an automated transcript-maker, but it's pretty janky.

To the best of my understanding, the only way to use the youtube transcript tool is to actually watch the video and read the transcript as it goes along. Useful if you want to watch the video without listening (or if for any reason you cannot listen to it) but not useful if you want to spare yourself the time of sitting through its duration.

If there is a way to get youtube to spit out a transcript of the video to text, without having to sit through it, please let me know.

Is he running for office perhaps?

[damn_registrars]

It seems that the philosophy of "video >>>>> text" is particularly popular with politicians. I figured they liked it because they tend to get a little more control of the propagation of the medium (as slightly fewer people know how to rip videos from youtube than know how to use copy and paste) and because they can use it to ensure that the people the message is being delivered to are a fully captive audience.

Why exactly this guy feels that he has something to gain by posting his monologue as a video instead of as text - especially when he is clearly giving a canned presentation that was made in some sort of powerpoint-type program - is unclear at the very least.

Linux doesn't really have any advantages...

[rsilvergun]

back in the days of Win 98 it was loads more stable, faster, and it used all my hardware.

With XP, Microsoft got it mostly right and with 7 SP 1 they fixed it. Yeah, Vista and 8 suck, but you don't have to run those. So until Win 7 drops support I can't think of anything practical I _get_ with Linux besides a kick ass shell. I do like Bash though. But I'll run some Linux in a VM for that.

Re:Linux doesn't really have any advantages...

[jma05]

Aside from the shell, these are the things I do get with Linux that I don't with Windows, out-of-the-box.

- Virtual desktops
- Compiz effects
- KDE Activities
- A package manager with a huge package repository
- All open source libraries that just compile and work. Mingw works, but doesn't quite cut it.
- No upgrade costs
- No need to pay for each and every machine/VM
- Better OS trust in a post-NSA world.
- Ability to run the latest OS that still receives updates on the weakest hardware (with IceWM).

What I do miss
- Speech Recognition
- Better Text to Speech

Re:Linux doesn't really have any advantages...

[jones_supa]

Actually, in a half of decade. January 14, 2020.

Re:Linux doesn't really have any advantages...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from the shell, these are the things I do get with Linux that I don't with Windows, out-of-the-box.

- Compiz effects

Meh.

- KDE Activities

More meh. And with KDE you also get a bloated semantic desktop shoved down your throat for no good reason. There is no way to disable it at compilation time.

- Better OS trust in a post-NSA world.

What makes you so sure?

Re:Linux doesn't really have any advantages...

[jma05]

> Meh * 2

Those are your preferences. I have mine. But they are functional features nonetheless.

> you also get a bloated semantic desktop shoved down your throat for no good reason

As opposed to Windows (the post I am responding to) not having any features that I don't need?

> What makes you so sure?

It's not a question of being sure. I said *better* trust, not absolute trust, which does not exist.

Re:Linux doesn't really have any advantages...

[walterbyrd]

Except that Linux is far faster, more stable, and more secure.

And Linux works with other technologies *far* better than anything from MS.

And I don't have to constantly fight with product keys, and DRM, and other nasty tricks designed to prevent competition, or force upgrades, or further vendor-lock me.

When I do have problems with Linux, they are much easier to fix than Windows problems. Microsoft keeps everything hidden, secret, and deliberately obfuscated. Everything is a registry key eight levels deep, or something like that.

Also, I don't supporting a scummy company, that makes crap products, and tries to force people to use them.

LibreSSL... yeah.

[JustShootMe]

I stopped listening while he was talking about LibreSSL. This guy is utterly ignorant of why LibreSSL was forked (because the OpenSSL maintainers were not responsive to bug reports and were actively working around memory issue detection), of who was forking it (OpenBSD, Linux has nothing at all to do with it), and what is hoped to be accomplished by the fork.

I just can't pay attention when someone is blabbing about something he has no idea about. Sigh.

i'm sorry

[znrt]

if this is some sort of joke it' clearly woooshed me.

please someone explain what's funny in this ignorant nonsense. this guy has absolutely no idea of what he is talking about, and makes it evident on every single sentence. i don't even unterstand how this gets published here. is it a parody?

Linux DOES suck

[YoungHack]

I'm a die hard Linux user, but seriously, it sucks.

X breaks my shit every time I upgrade. I just spent 90 minutes tonight getting my Synaptics touchpad working again. I spent hours 2 years ago making it work. All the focus on compositing is leaving good 2D stuff in the lurch I feel. I do a lot of work remotely, and it is the devil trying to find a display manager that will work over VNC and let you choose your window manager without crashing. And then what do you use, Gnome, Unity, KDE? It's getting to where nothing works without a compositor and 3D.

Sound is a disaster. How many Linux sound systems are there? OSS, ALSA, Jack, ESound, PulseAudio, some I don't even remember. Alsa has been a disaster since it came out, from the perspective of documentation. I don't know how anyone ever wrote the first ALSA applications. They're supposed to be compatible, but they're not. If you play ALSA applications on my PulseAudio system, you get static and distortion. I went through all the fixes, and none of them work on my system. Fortunately the author of my application added PulseAudio as a natively supported output method (in addition to the OSS and ALSA that they already supported). I need to send them a thank you.

Notifications? Behavior I depended on two versions ago has been removed from the current version.

My system tray in XFCE4 is quirky. Some application icons won't appear unless I run the application as root (Hamster and redshift). Maybe that's a quirk of upgrading, but Google tells me I'm not the only one with these problems. And XFCE4 sucks less than other window managers, so it's a behavior I just live with.

That's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

And it sucks.

Re:Linux DOES suck

[jones_supa]

Yeah, these are the quality assurance problems that I so often talk about. There's all this little breakage here and there.

Re:linux does suck

[walterbyrd]

> because it can't be used by someone who isn't a computer geek.

Bullshit. That worn-out meme is - at least - ten years out of date.

I spend *way* more time mucking with my win7 laptop than my linux box. It's always something with win7: the boot becomes very slow, the sound stops working. Won't shutdown because of another win update, slow start because of another win update, have to reboot because of another win update. Windows apps are forever putting crap in my registry, or putting crap in my startup. I just don't have those problems with Linux.

> You have to use the terminal for almost everything

Bullshit. I don't you even use Linux.

Re:Linux DOES suck

[walterbyrd]

If Linux sucks, it sucks a lot less than Windows.

I have been using Linux over 15 years. I have had problems from time to time, but windows is *much* worse especially anything after XP.

I am constantly have to fix my win7 laptop. Usually because some windows apps put crap in my registry, or crap in my startup, or misbehaved in some other way.

I recently had the fix the sound on my win7 laptop. Some windows service got shut off for god-only-knows what reason.

Windows problems are especially hard to fix because everything is hidden, and secret. I go on the internet, find 39 million "fixes" for my problem, and none of them seem to work. Some obscure registry key, eight levels deep, needs to be given permissions - how are you supposed to know that?

I had to re-install windows. It took about half a day, because of all the constant rebooting. Then re-installing my HUP version of Office-2010 was *much* worse. I had to make, at least, six call to Microsoft support. Constantly put on hold. Constantly talking with people with accents so think I could not understand them. Constantly having to slowly repeat my serial number, spelling out "W" as in "Whiskey". Finally I had to let MS remote into my system - it took them hours to get it installed. Unbelievable.

Yeah, this is *so* much easier than Linux.

Re:Linux DOES suck

[walterbyrd]

That does not match my experience at all.

Seems to me that Microsoft goes to great lengths to hide everything from end users. Everything goes in that registry bit bucket.

When I google for something, I get a crap load of answers, most of them wrong.

Re:linux does suck

[znrt]

A regular computer user who just plays games / browses the internet

that's not a regular computer user. it's more like a regular tv-watcher. computers should make us smarter, not dumber.

of course, everybody seems to endorse getting everybody dumber. governments, industry and preachers of all sorts, for good reasons. even the users, although their opinion is pretty irrelevant. they have very much proven to be eager to eat whatever shit they get served.

Linux, it's harder than you've been told.

[Trax3001BBS]

Started Linux with RedHat in the mid 90's I gave up in disgust when I couldn't create the "partitions" or split up the hard drive as required. I've been doing the same for a while with Mint over many installations, this one time I let Mint select it's placement, as it's never put itself where I've suggest it to.

When Grub was my bootloader the problems really started, of all the things that doesn't have a GUI it's grub; I've complained recently that everything was GUI. Linux is a learning process to many (myself included) nothing to put on-line blind (while a firewall is available it's off and has zero settings, not even examples.

I knew Mint would claim the boot but also expected EasyBCD (NeoSmart Technologies) to fix it, as it's been very good at that.

I've always had a dual boot system, having Linux Mint available would work just fine. Yet working with Grub is no easy task. Some don't even mess with Grub they just select the drive from the BIOS when their computer starts. http://community.linuxmint.com... this one creates two grubs - I don't see it
http://www.howtoforge.com/dual... Just saying many avoid Grub, in one way or the other.

I had to be at the computer when it started to select windows, or have to reboot; playing around with Mint and having to use it are two different things; EasyBCD was of no help...

So I reinstalled Win7; I had been planning to reinstall Win7 as it was showing signs that it was time. It's no big deal (normally) C:\ drive is my Win7 Drives D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L (total of three drives) are support, another OS, or storage. I just format C drive, reinstall windows, the drivers and my favorite programs; 2 hours time I can be up and running with my base system.

Now here's where I came across Microsoft messing with those who use Linux; once a MBR has been touched by Linux, Windows won't have anything to do with it, and it's a damn pain.

This time the Win7 install claimed "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition" (a new one for me) I was able to continue on, it gave me a 100K boot partition, and Win7 partition, this screwed up my drive arrangement (my drives are named Drive_D, and so on). I formatted the drive again using Hirens boot disk 14 and Win7 install format both. This time I couldn't install Win7 at all, there's even a "FAST PUBLISH" "as-is in response to emerging issues". Support.microsoft.com/kb/2272294 claiming the partition the BOOTMGR is located must be in 4K clusters (NTFS is 4K clusters).

Searching for the problem, the accepted fix is to disconnect all drives except the one to hold Win7. I did that, no big deal as it's how I installed Mint without Grub loading Win7; and it worked, but there were problems. Win7 wasn't acting right, things weren't working as they should if at all.

So I started over, all this time the MBR seemed to be the problem but with Win7 formatting it before the install it should of been taken care of that, as well as my using Dart (Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... to repair the boot structure; specifically the "Bootrec" command. I had every reason to assumed it had been taken care of.

It was only when I specifically wrote the Win7 header to the MBR did everything start working. This was three days into the fiasco.

Until I learn Grub I'm not going there again, and Grub isn't all the friendly.

Re:Linux, it's harder than you've been told.

[rklrkl]

In my experience, it's Windows that doesn't play well with the MBR or provide any sort of menu system for non-Windows OS'es like the way grub does. In fact, the Windows installer is amazingly bad from a dual (or triple etc.) boot kind of way:

It won't touch a partition formatted in anything it doesn't understand (you can't even re-format it in the installer). You actually have to trick the Windows installer by using fdisk in Linux to change the partition ID to something like 7 (NTFS) and then magically the Windows installer will let you format it. Quite surprising how dumb this is, because surely MS would *want* to destroy non-Windows partitions the first chance it gets?

The Windows installer in the latest releases insists on hogging the first partition on the first drive in your system (i.e. it has to be formatted to Windows format), which is utterly appalling.

The Windows installer destroys the MBR (and effectively kills grub) with no attempt analyse it or the various non-Windows OS'es that might be on the rest of your system. This is disgraceful behaviour - most Linux distros will detect existing OS'es (including Windows) and set up grub menu items for them.

Of course, to work around these atrocities, you soon learn that you install Windows first (letting it wreck your MBR and partition setup) and then Linux second. You then get a dual boot grub menu with both Linux and Windows items.
If you have to re-install Windows later on, it will destroy the MBR yet again, so you end up having to boot a Live Linux distro and run grub commands to restore the MBR/grub setup.

So, to sum it up, the Windows installer is nasty to anything else that isn't Windows on your system , both on initial install and on any further re-install. So the blame here is 100% with Windows and not grub or Linux.

Re:Linux, it's harder than you've been told.

[Trax3001BBS]

So, to sum it up, the Windows installer is nasty to anything else that isn't Windows on your system , both on initial install and on any further re-install. So the blame here is 100% with Windows and not grub or Linux.

Grub 1 I could understand and edit. This Grub 2 is beyond me and I see myself as being fairly competent. In fact I didn't know Grub had updated and learned how to edit Grub 1 (first Google hit), Grub 2 carries over nothing.

First I have no clue which "partition" Mint installed itself to, I made three "partitions" Boot, data, and swap. Mint will select boot or data to install itself to. This drive is in between others it's not the first or last. I have to load Hiren's boot disk to see where Mint has installed itself to then find the drive which is shown as SDC.

I go to edit GRUB and I'm at a loss and I've read a lot about it and feel prepared; yet no clue where to start.

Windows Boot.ini was just a copy and paste to select the boot order, Win7 there's EasyBCD (NeoSmart Technologies) to change boot drives and what I use to install Mint to the boot menu. But with Linux it's Grub. I know there are other boot programs but ones stuck with Grub from the onset.

Grub is my road block for using Linux as I always multi-boot and require a boot manager. I could turn drives on and off in the BIOS as many do but that's not for me, I also may need the data from a drive I disabled.

I believe what you say as truth but I just can't use (edit) Grub.

Re:Yes, Linux sucks

[epyT-R]

what areas need improvement?

Advantage of Video talking head

[advid.net]

As soon as I saw his eyebrows and glasses, I figured out the video wasn't worth watching.

This actually saves time, even when you compare with text only media.

One must filter information according to prejudices that one have on the physical aspect of the Narrator...

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances”
Oscar Wilde

Re:The old bait and switch huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think Lunduke had quite fair arguments. He wasn't just doing foam-mouthed rambling. The guy participates a lot in the Linux world and mentioned many things (such as the evolution of various distros and Wayland) that also make him happy.

Look Closer

[DamianJPound]

I totally agree, videos suck for things like this, but were you completely oblivious to the text that said "Hide/Show Transcript"?

Forking is bad? Since when?

[twocows]

No, fuck that. Forking is awesome. When the people managing a project, he mentions GNOME, that's a good example, when those people get their heads too far up their asses and no longer serve the interests of the people who actually USE their software, forking lets us take back control by making an entirely new project without their shitty management. Is he really arguing that projects like MATE and Cinnamon are somehow bad things? Because a substantial number of users would disagree, and many developers, too.

Likewise, OpenSSL is a huge mess. The folks at OpenBSD have a track record of doing shit right and making it very secure (some would say to a fault, but this is supposed to be core software used to secure nearly every web server on the internet, I don't think there's such a thing as "too secure"). Their philosophy is perfect for a project like this, and I think their OpenSSL fork, if it ever branches out from being OpenBSD-specific, will probably be a lot better than the original.

Obviously, forking has other uses, as well. Sometimes someone just wants to take the software in a different direction that's outside of the scope of the original project. That's perfectly fine. I don't know if he's implying that's a bad thing, but if he is, fuck that. He's wrong.

I agree with his overall philosophy that GNU/Linux has some good and some bad shit about it. That's to be expected, it's not perfect, and we absolutely do need to acknowledge the suckage. But forking is a good thing, not part of that suckage, and it pisses me off that he would even insinuate that it's a bad thing. Now, the fact that things so often get to the point where forking is necessary, that is most definitely suckage.

Re:True Linux does suck

[TangoMargarine]

While I find hybrid Linux like Chrome OS doing better

Well apparently you need much more then what Linux has offered

You say Linux needs more and your alternative is Chrome OS? That's a bold move.

lamest comments ever

[deadweight]

So...pages about shotgunning bad drivers and pages about why videos are annoying. Maybe about 2 about the actual subject. BTW - I am really liking Mint and thought all LinSuckage was removed until I went to add a printer.

Re:Why not just use Windows

[smash]

Those problems were mostly fixed in Windows NT5, assuming you followed basic security hygiene as you would with Linux and disabled services, didn't run everything logged in as administrator, etc.

Re:Moron

[smash]

"Because he talked shit something i like"

Re:The old bait and switch huh?

[smash]

So summary: Linux sucks because OpenBSD forked OpenSSL. In other news, fruit consumption linked to the price of gas.

Elementary ??

[Optali]

Hmmm, you got my attention sir.

I am not too happy about a sort of private company doing a distro (nothing against them, but after Canonical I'm sceptic)

But I'll give it a try... one of the nice things of Linux is that we can change distros, software and whatever just like we change underwear ;)