E-Dribble

Seriously.  I promise you.  Just try it, please?  I’ll help you install it.  I’ll give you a computer to put it on.  Pretty please?

Matt Hartley feels that we as linux users are not pulling our weight.  Linux hasn’t crushed the OS opposition because we’ve not tried hard enough to persuade our friends, family and acquaintances that  Linux Is The Greatest Operating System Known To Man.

My question to Matt is this:

Why in the hell should I have to convince anyone to use it?

First off, I could care less what you use for an OS.  Really.  I hope you enjoy what you use, but I don’t care what it is.

Secondly, and my main thought when reading Matt’s post is this.  If linux is so great, why do we need to tout it’s greatness?

Do we have to explain to people to use an automobile instead of a bicycle to travel far distances in a short period of time?

How many times have you had to convince someone to use a flashlight instead of a candle for travelling through the woods at night?

My point, though deluded it may be is only this; if Linux is as dandy as he believes, we shouldn’t have to talk anyone into using it.

Think we need to because the Evil Empire has squashed knowledge of it?  If linux were so great, MS would have released a commercially supported version of it by now.

Is it because open source applications don’t get the proper advertising required to make it to the top?  Word of mouth works fine. If it’s the greatest thing sinced sliced bread, people will find out about it.

I’m not knocking linux.  I use it 365 days a year for my work desktop.  However, it’s not ready to handle everyone’s requirements.  It has enough shortcomings that there would be no way in hell I would try to talk someone into using it.

Oh, you can’t listen to that file without the proper codecs, Bob.  See, you need to either admit that you’re a thieving bastard and download these after the acknowledgement, or you can go to this site, pay an unnamed entity that has nothing to do with the codec in question, then download them.  Oh, you still don’t have the right one.  Yep, that’s the one.  Still won’t play?  Oh, your player is still the “clean” version.  You need to add this repository, then download the “dirty” version.  There you go.  Oh, wait.  it’s looking in the wrong folder for the codecs.  Copy your codecs to these three folders.  Now try it.

Can’t get Quake working son?  Oh, you’re using the open vid driver.  While it’s come a long way, it still can’t run the game.  You need to install the closed source drivers for your vid card.  You’ll probably need to hand edit your xorg.conf file afterwards, but it’s no big deal.

Oh, you want to install java, mom?  Just follow this simple tutorial, download these packages, create these symlinks and drop these into your browser plugins folders.  Still not working?  Oh, you didn’t command your desktop to use the new version.Please.

Mom, click the install button.  You might need to restart.