E-Dribble

Linux Today is linking an article titled “How to make Debian more attractive for users“.  I was going to do the same thing a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t come up with enough content to warrant a whole article.  Here, I’ll show you what I had come up with:

How to make Debian more attractive for users
By: schwim

Get rid of the pompous douche bags that inhabit the Debian forums.

I happened across an incredibly entertaining Dell support page designed to help the consumer that can’t decide between Windows and Ubuntu.  Basically, you choose Windows if you have any Windows software and you are to use Ubuntu if you don’t want to use Windows.

Although there’s an incredible number of symptoms of Linux’s lack of popularity, I think it mostly comes down to a single main cause; it’s very hard to take Linux seriously.  Self-appointed spokepersons that wear robes, act like the world’s largest emo and have an incredible God complex, companies that mock more than promote Linux(use this if you don’t want to use Windows???  Really?) and rabid fans that ostracise the whole community in the process of telling the world how great their OS are all things that combine to make one big pot of laughing stock.

To be honest, I don’t have a very good relationship with Linux myself, in part because of the community tasked with promoting it.  I grow tired of the blind allegiance that many harbour and I find it very hard to ignore the actions of people like Richard Stallman.  I just want an operating system that works and while Linux is a pretty great operating system, to act like it doesn’t have any shortcomings is akin to acting like Mr. Stallman is a sane person. Just like any other operating system in the world, it has plenty it can improve upon.

As for Mr. Stallman, if he gets any more emo, then we won’t have to worry about him at all.

I’m no longer using linux for my day to day stuff, so I don’t have any tentativeness concerning upgrading whatever linux install is on the computer partition that I’m not using.  In the case of my laptop, it’s Ubuntu.  I had read that they had released the beta of 10 and since I could care less if the install was unusable after the upgrade, I upgraded from 9.

I have used it for a couple hours and no matter how much I explored, I can only find one change between the old and new.  This change, however, will alter the landscape of linux computing.  Years from now, after every distribution, in all OS camps have followed in Ubuntu’s steps, the four of you that read this will remember my heralding of a new era.

So what’s the change?  What incredible insight did Mark Shuttleworth have that is sure to forever change the way we compute? (continue reading…)

I settled on Ubuntu for my first attempt at linux on the new machine.  To end the suspense, I’ll just say that everything is working as it should and MY GOD, THIS COMPUTER IS FAST!

After getting everything installed, set up and tested, I moved over all the important stuff in my home directory and replaced the old work machine.  Then I got to reflect upon the install.  I can say that I still would never think of handing a linux disk to a Windows user and telling them to try it as their OS.  At the same time, I’m astounded at how far linux has come in regards to the desktop.  Here’s the highs and lows:

(continue reading…)

As an early Christmas present, my lovely wife allowed me to purchase a computer to replace my aging work machine.  So I bought a new gaming computer.

Wait a steenking meenoot.  I know what you’re thinking.  I was supposed to be buying a work computer.  Here’s how you too can manage to get a new gaming computer any time you need a work computer.

I purchase the snazziest gaming computer I can afford without making us homeless, then relegate the old gaming machine to work detail.  In this case, I’m getting a quad core 2.4 ghz/4mb ram with a 9xxx Nvidia card as a work machine.  The new machine is almost identical, but with dual graphics cards.

<insert evil laugh here>

I’ve already burnt the latest iso’s for the distro’s I’m going to try on it.  I don’t know what I’ll settle on but I can say that I’m going for ease of use.  I don’t think I’ll stick with Dreamlinux this time around.  I’m probably either going to go with Mint, Ubu or Fedora.  Fedora is comfortably familiar, Ubu is popular enough to have tons of apps and mods available and Mint takes a kitchen sink approach to dirty stuff, which I like.

It will be the first time I’ve ever run linux on a machine from this decade, so I’m understandably excited to see the results.

I’m wondering if any of them will install drivers for the stupid miniviewer that’s built into the case.

Another week in the news and while Microsoft continues pushing their next big OS and Mac releases another commercial making fun of Windows, the open source community deliberates on why there’s so much sexism in the FOSS world. It’s not the first time that the question has been raised in the community.

While I wait for the people that develop my OS to put on their big-boy pants and join the adult world, I have time to wonder how we got the reputation that we did.  I mean, let’s be honest with ourselves.  In spite of the fact that inarguably *nix is a better foundation upon which to build an OS, a very small percentage of the technical community takes the movement seriously.  I have my own suspicions but to be honest, I’m cynical, jaded and very often wrong.  I try to at least challenge my preconceptions and prejudices, so I won’t waste anyone’s time putting them to paper.  Instead of my canned rhetoric, I’m hoping for some enlightenment.

(continue reading…)

If there was any part of your being, no matter how small, that thought the techs at BestBuy had any knowledge concerning computers, this should snuff that out.

Microsoft partnered with BestBuy to create a tutorial/exam designed to show the techs why Microsoft Windows 7 was a superior choice to linux.

I shit you not when I say that it’s a fantastic read.  The original post lost it’s images, but I’ve linked to a mirror, so hopefully you will get to witness exam in all it’s bullshit.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has decided that he has figured out how to save the internet from DDoS attacks and other nefarious actions happening inside the various tubes of the intardnet.  His proposal?  Kick Windows off of the web.  His reasoning is along the lines that Windows is terribly insecure and linux is impervious to bad people.

After his attention grabbing headline, used to ensure that he’s gotten you all riled up, he completely dismisses his proposal and waters it down to “patch your OS before being allowed on the web”.

Regardless, his points concerning the inferiority of Windows made me smile.  People being completely wrong tend to elicit that reaction from me.

(continue reading…)

I found this article in my feed reader this morning, which piqued my interest because, as you all know, I think the mind numbing number of forks is one of the most asinine aspects of linux.

Sadly, it was hard to follow the article long enough find any merit in his opinions.  I couldn’t get past the written lashing he assigned to the poor bastard he quoted at the start of his post. Since quotation marks were used in his article, I was made aware that he was  quoting someone.  If there was any doubt however, he did name the author of the missive prior to the actual quote.  In spite of this, he used my favorite quoting tool, (sic).  Meaning thus or so, this allows the reader to understand that the written error belongs to the person quoted and not the person quoting.  Additionally, it lets the reader know that the author feels that the quotes alone weren’t enough to ensure that the reader blame someone other than the author.

But wait, there’s more.

(continue reading…)

From ComputerworldUK: Linux will trounce Windows 7

From Datamation: Google Chrome OS: Desktop linux’ last chance

A dichotomy, you presume? Well, not really.  What can be gained by combining the two posts is very simple:  Before linux becomes extinct, it will trounce Windows 7.

I guess there’s some comfort to be had in that.