Linux is for Losers

And men wearing bras are....well nevermind :D

That's certainly an interesting argument to make about Linux though.
 
I'm a fan of the BSD's, but I have nothing against Linux either. Given the choice, I'd probably go with FreeBSD.
 
I agree with his comments on Linux and BSD. Not so much than Linux is for losers, it is terrible in alot of ways. They lack standards and there are so many differences between distros of the stuff.

I can't stand the damn things. I hate the Xvid codec for the same reasons.
 
Interesting argument.

Unfortunately, his credibility should be called into account. The phrase "does this belong here?" appears no where in the source for the Linux Kernel - at least the newest version. Check http://www.kernel.org to see the source yourself.

In his defense, FreeBSD and the rest of the BSD deviants do seem like awesome OSes. Linux is just one of a plethora of open source solutions to the OS dilema. While Microsoft and Apple might have tighter code, (can't be sure, we've never seen it) Linux, BSD, and other open source OSes do offer a level of customizability that precompiled OSes can't compete with.

If an open source program has a problem that really bothers people, for example, "low quality code," as he calls it, the open source community, whether for Linux, FreeBSD, or any other open source program, can easily fix the problem by rewriting the code.

Again, interesting article, but I believe that Linux (and the rest of the open source OSes) are not for losers.
 
A lot of the comments about Linux ring true to me (just a gut reaction), and I find myself nodding my head in agreement by the end of the article. That said, I'm not an expert on either, and definitely unqualified to make any kind of comparison between the two systems.Unfortunately, I think the title will encourage a campish response - if I were a Linux fan, I would be put on edge immediately after reading the headline.
 
I don't think it's usefull to even compare the two like the article does. Linux and the BSDs have different goals and different methods. The BSDs are designed with a specific set of goals in mind, and are cleanly coded to reach those goals. That is certainly a good way to do things. Linux just doesn't work that way. Linux is an OS where hundreds of people/groups each have their own goal. Because of this, Linux doesn't have a clear direction and doesn't have a code base that cleanly points toward any one set of goals. On the flip side, Linux has more features, better hardware support and a much larger community than the BSDs, because it doesn't have a fixed set of goals.
 
This seems to be more of the cathedral vs the bazaar stuff that's been going on for years. And the personalities involved do clash, which flavors the article. I've used both and maintained servers for both. The only generality I've seen is Linux tends to support more hardware than BSD and has more apps (BSD has a Linux emulation mode, Linux doesn't have one for BSD). Aside from that, different flavor and distros of each have different focuses and strengths, so it's a end user's choice. You go with the tool that's best for the job.
 
"You know what I found? Right in the kernel, in the heart of the operating system, I found a developer's comment that said, 'Does this belong here?' "Lok says. "What kind of confidence does that inspire? Right then I knew it was time to switch."
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Wow I think thats awefully baseless, thats all i have to say.
 
Forbes took many of his quotes out of context, and made up the "linux is for loosers" themselves. makes Theo look really bad when some of his points were legit.

Oh well. I dont use any of them. (*BSD or *Nix) They are all a pain in the ass to me.
 
I like how the article says BSD powers two of the BEST operating systems in the world.
 
BSD ownz Linux that all I got to say. FreeBSD is the best And this guy has built one of the most secure operating systems available. So he knows his stuff.
 
Strangely feels like those who are with the SCO project might say....

Another

who cares

comment here.
 
I dont care either...linux is cool for what it is and its not "for losers", but its definitely not what alot of people think it is
 
This whole linux vs bsd has lead me to believe Microsoft has nothing to worry about. From all the talk, linux is unfocus and bsd is not a general purpose Os.

I've tried linux but just to install something you have to compile this and compile that (like I know how to compile). Linux has tooo much different versions. Microsoft made computing simple (love it or hate it). Having to choose what version of linux to use is a pain. They need to make an ultimate linux that a 4 year old can use.
Windows, they can't beat you yet.
 
kmanuel said:
I've tried linux but just to install sometime if of to compile this and compile that (like I know how to compile). Linux has tooo much different versions. Microsoft made computing simple (love it or hate it).
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I do agree with you that to take on the world of Microsoft, there has to be a kind of unified Linux distro that is simple to use. Some distros are supposed to be easy to use, like Ubuntu or SuSE - this is good.

Of course, you're not really compiling, all you really ever do is type in...

Code: 
./configure && make && make install

It's not like you're actually compiling like

Code: 
gcc -o executable.exe [a bunch of options] [a bunch of stuff]
 
I have found that specialized linux distros made for firewalls are awesome, quick, well thought out and just plain work without fuss.

but the amount of bloat-ware in X as well as just about every application seems to kill me.. im all aobut making my system microsoft free, but i wont do it at the expense of taking 2-3 times longer to do my simple day to day crap. for example...

Loading mozilla in Linux on my computer = 10 seconds
Loading mozilla in windows on my computer = 1-3 seconds.

Linux seems to have a great kernel.. seems to run stable.. but im sorry, it just doesnt have its act together. i have to agree with the point made that linux's development track is 10,000 hackers hacking a code to work, 250 people sorting through hacks, passing those hacks into a universal hack, that is officialy developed so its not a hack.

Also, i can rememeber looking through the source code for a kernel about a year ago. I can remember the line commented //* does this belong here? while it may not exist currently in the "kernel" code (look elsewhere you will find crap like that all the time), it did at one point.

Linux is great. No lie. I have a linux box. it protects my windows boxes from attack and makes my internet connection alot quicker. :)

But if i was to install X on that thing, i would be waiting years and years for anything on that box. Not like i need it, its a box, that has no holes, no external ports open, just a firewall and proxy.

Shame on coders for writing X. Clean it up guys... your code sucks. Why should i have to wait 5 minutes for my CPU to compute how a window will fade out?!?! BS! !$#@^!%$#
 
I liked the "who cares" comments. To answer your question.. "probably everyone else who posted on the thread".

You'd think that if Linus and a select few get to make all of the decisions with the kernel (based on submitted code) that they'd be able to keep it all clean and otherwise. Ive worked on projects in the past where my role was to take all of the different code sections (written by team members) and combine them into the final project. I basically ended up reformatting all of the code to keep it organized and matched.
 
Anyone with a clue would recognize the big picture. There's a market for all of the above, obviously. And each have their uses.

I use BSD, Linux and Windows at home. (My primary PC is XP, but hey, I'm a gamer too.) I've got an FBSD box running basic services and a Linux box for everything else I want to do as a desktop. I use Windows, FBSD, Linux and Solaris at work... I used to really like Solaris (especially on sparc hardware), but realize it's faults and flaws.

"X is better than Y" is not the approach to take. As internet-facing servers, I really like FBSD. I'd go with Solaris/Linux/Windows servers, depending on the application, for internal corporate servers. For the general user, Windows is way ahead of the pack. I'll use Linux as a desktop, but would I allow a novice user (like a family member) to do so? Would you have your mom hop on your *N*X box?

And that's where I draw the line. FBSD starts losing it's luster when it comes to desktops. It's a little less forgiving... But FBSD is far better than OpenBSD when it comes to desktop usability. OpenBSD never really grabbed me much, but to me it seems like it's those types of zealots who are masochists. The Linux community has it's own share of zealots, but at least they seem somewhat enthusiastic.

As far as 'Quality of Code?' Sure. Whatever. Sounds like a semantic argument to me. De Raadt sounds like the type of guy who spends his leisure time alone at home, in his basement naked, in the dark masturbating with a clawhammer...
 
That guy obviously just hates Linux because it's more popular than BSD. I tend to agree with him that the Linux community in general suffers from a lack of vision and direction.

And that's about all I care about BSD and Linux, because Windows rocks! :D
 
S1nF1xx said:
That guy obviously just hates Linux because it's more popular than BSD. I tend to agree with him that the Linux community in general suffers from a lack of vision and direction.

And that's about all I care about BSD and Linux, because Windows rocks! :D
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yea im starting to just roll my eyes whenever i here someone says windows sux0rs because frankly windows xp pro is pretty damn solid and itll only get better with long horn
 
S1nF1xx said:
That guy obviously just hates Linux because it's more popular than BSD. I tend to agree with him that the Linux community in general suffers from a lack of vision and direction.

And that's about all I care about BSD and Linux, because Windows rocks! :D
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Well Windows XP does rock, except for all the damn spyware and virii. Which isn't Billy's fault necessarily. The problem is, that Windows is the most popular OS. Which is why everyone screws with it. People who exploit system vulnerabilities will go for the most popular platform, as that will cause the most damage. Or net the most results.

Mac OS gets vulnerabilities reported about as often as Windows these days. But who cares since it makes up less than 5% of the market share.
 
I do think some of his quotes were taken out of context. As well, he does have some points. OpenBSD is developed to be compact, and feature filled, and security throughout the system.
 
Linux is great. No lie. I have a linux box. it protects my windows boxes from attack and makes my internet connection alot quicker.
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Is there any internet resources to help people do this?

I am really interested in speeding up my internet. I live in Hawaii and the best ping i ever get is 92ms. :mad:
 
JOESKURTU said:
Is there any internet resources to help people do this?

I am really interested in speeding up my internet. I live in Hawaii and the best ping i ever get is 92ms. :mad:
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cant do much about that, you got thousands of miles of undersea cables and repeaters and such between you and everything else
 
JOESKURTU said:
Is there any internet resources to help people do this?

I am really interested in speeding up my internet. I live in Hawaii and the best ping i ever get is 92ms. :mad:
Click to expand...

The main ways I can see to make an internet connection feel faster would be:
  • Add a caching proxy (squid, usually). Will make webpages you've already seen feel faster.
  • Using a firewall to stop traffick from viruses, spyware and the like. Only helps if you've got a problem with it.
  • Using a firewall to prioritize some kinds of traffic. (This mainly helps if filling your upload holds your download back. Mainly a problem on ADSL.)

Only the last one might, in some cases, help your ping.
(You are far from everythng, and no software magic will help that. I'd happily trade locations, though. :D )
 
I've seen on this thread a few people use about 4 different operating systems. My question is why? Can't Windows do everything? Gaming- windows, Server - windows, Programming - windows, Cad/3d/ video editing - windows. I just don't see the need for running 3 - 4 OSes.
Can you guys who do explain?
 
kmanuel said:
I've seen on this thread a few people use about 4 different operating systems. My question is why? Can't Windows do everything? Gaming- windows, Server - windows, Programming - windows, Cad/3d/ video editing - windows. I just don't see the need for running 3 - 4 OSes.
Can you guys who do explain?
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no i agree windows xp pro is all you need
 
maleficarus said:
Well to be fair steve it was a question. Front page makes it sound like it wasen't a question. Is Linux for losers? (?)
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no its for experimenters because its not practical, but its not for losers either
 
well I just gentoo for my server and kubuntu for my desktop... but I'm not a.. err..wait.. yeah I guess linux is for losers.
 
Speaking from the viewpoint of having used every version of Windows from 3.1 up, Mac OS 7.1 and up and from RedHat 4.2 up (including Suse, Mandrake, BEOS, and even Slackware distros periodically) they've all advanced a great deal.

Stating Linux is for losers is quite a bold statement and quite frankely takes balls. It's like saying Mac is for idiots. No, they're not, they're a DIFFERENT product and have different uses. Agreed Windows XP is the best version so far for stability but still has inherint problems. It relys on a floppy disk with drivers for installation on a RAID array or specialty drive. Linux may require a driver for some oddball cards but most are supported out of the box but that driver can come from a floppy, a folder on a hard drive or even a network share.
Mac OS you have to find something that Apple says is ok to use.

Windows you pick up an app off the shelf, install it and go. Linux it may take a bit of tweaking but generally works. Mac it pretty muc works with little to no tweaking at all but you have to find it first. Yet there are a lot of Linux apps to do nearly everything you want to in the Windows world that you don't have to pay for that are very likely already included in a particular distro.

Think of this. Any Linux distro you get gives you web browsing, word processing close to or in some cases more featured than Word, a spreadsheet and email app, database capability, HTML creation, graphics manipulation, even video capture and some form of editing. You don't get that much capability with XP. Yeah you can technically use Wordpad and Paint but admit it, they are VERY limited. Mac OS has quite a bit of capability from the get go. Hell 10.3 has nearly everything your average family would need not including games or advanced graphics manipulation. So people who are comfortable with losing some of the "buy it, install it and forget it" mentality of the Windows world who don't want to spend time and/or money looking for programs to use and want something with a lot of functionality are losers?

The one thing that most people seem to miss still is that Linux isn't an OS really, it's the kernel. Red Hat itself isn't Linux per say, it uses the Linux kernel and Red Hat chooses what apps, window manager, and features to include in it. Same with Suse and Debian and Mandrake etc. There really isn't much difference between them other than a few tweaks to the GUI. You can make a Red Hat install have all the same apps as a Suse install or a Mandrake install, you just won't have Suse's control panel.
The main reason there are so many distros is if you don't like one particular distro's included apps, you can switch and find something that you like more and not have to spend time removing apps you don't want and installing apps you do want. There's bound to be a distro that has it built in. Don't like Gnome? Get Suse or Mepis where KDE is default and Gnome isn't. Don't need a GUI? there's a ton of server based distros that don't include bloated GUI code.

Bottom line here's my general feeling from each OS.
If you go soley on what each OS has out of the box, Windows is like a car with no AC, cruise, an AM/FM radio (no CD or cassette), front wheel drive and no luxeries. You can suft with IE, check email with OE and write basic word processing with Wordpad. You can't make a spreadsheet, you can't make a database, you can't do any detailed image manipulation, very basic video editing, very basic FTP and you're stuck with MSN as your IM software. If you want anything else, you have to buy it and install it. Yeah there are several free options but they always have a catch. Not so with a Linux distro or Mac OS (Heck Mac OS you get support from Apple on the apps included). You get many of those advanced capabilities built in (Gimp, iMovie, OpenOffice, etc.) So to me, saying a Linux user is a loser is like saying someone who bought a car with all the features they wanted included is a loser becuase they didn't buy a car that was what most people had but you had to buy and install the AC, CD player, moonroof, etc. yourself. Doesn't make sense to me.
 
If you go soley on what each OS has out of the box, Windows is like a car with no AC, cruise, an AM/FM radio (no CD or cassette), front wheel drive and no luxuries.
Click to expand...
Good point. I'll add: "and costs 12 grand, but comes with its own on-call mechanic. *N*X is the mid-size with many of those options STANDARD.... you won in the church raffle for a ticket your grandmother GAVE you. You had better hope it doesnt break down though........the mechanic works in another state!"
 
cell_491 said:
no i agree windows xp pro is all you need
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Then why have you gone out and purchased/downloaded programs to install in it if it's all you need. It can be, but you're going to be paying a lot and installing quite a bit of software to get the same capabilites other OSes give you out of box.

Games - Windows. Agreed. Mac OS and Linux have gaming capabilites but Windows is still king.

3D CAD = Unix. Any Engineer you talk to who has used a Unix workstation and switched to an NT/2000/XP box will tell you the NT platform isn't as powerful and is slower. That may change with 64-bit Windows and A64.

Video Editing = Mac for the most part but there are Windows boxen out there. Pixar isn't using WIndows for much if anything, that I guarantee. Neither is Lucasarts.

Server = Unix/Linux/Novell with a few Windows boxen for smaller and/or less flexible markets. If you think the vast majority of servers in the world are Microsoft, you're fooling yourself. Hell the DNS root boxen are Unix machines. Yes you can use Windows as a server, it's just not as mature or as flexible.

Programming = Windows/Linux mix with a few Unix machines scattered about. Nearly all programming languages have a Linux and Windows coding environment with exception of Visual Basic. Why? Coding portability. Macs aren't used as much because they're a premium and that money is needed for licensing.
 
Monkey34 said:
Good point. I'll add: "and costs 12 grand, but comes with its own on-call mechanic. *N*X is the mid-size with many of those options STANDARD.... you won in the church raffle for a ticket your grandmother GAVE you. You had better hope it doesnt break down though........the mechanic works in another state!"
Click to expand...

Except you're missing something there, there's no mechanic. Microsoft offers no support for OEM, they push you off to the PC maker who may or may not help you. Retail you get one free call and usually 30 or 90 days of support then it's pay. Server OSes you have to pay for a support contract. Apple, 90 days unless you buy Apple Care. Linux, depends on the distro.

If you don't pay for support with MS, you have the same options as Apple or Linux, look it up on the net. They don't give free support unless they're forced to. Seriously, when was the last time you called Microsoft and got help fixing a blue screen? Don't believe me? Call them and see for yourself.
 
I'd like to point out that the Theo de Raadt didnt say "Linux is for Losers", Forbes put that as the title to get a rise out of people.

Linux, the car, does come w/ alot of nice features like A/C, but you also have to hand-crank it. ;)

I'm not anti-linux, btw, since I spend 40 hours a week developing for it. But it *is* a pain when a new kernel release breaks old code, etc etc, and knowing they're using bad programming practices doesnt help either. I put a lot of time into writing very solid, very easy to follow code so that when I *do* have to update it, it takes almost no time, and there's no hidden suprises down the road.
 
Quanticles said:
I'd like to point out that the Theo de Raadt didnt say "Linux is for Losers", Forbes put that as the title to get a rise out of people.

Linux, the car, does come w/ alot of nice features like A/C, but you also have to hand-crank it. ;)

I'm not anti-linux, btw, since I spend 40 hours a week developing for it. But it *is* a pain when a new kernel release breaks old code, etc etc, and knowing they're using bad programming practices doesnt help either. I put a lot of time into writing very solid, very easy to follow code so that when I *do* have to update it, it takes almost no time, and there's no hidden suprises down the road.
Click to expand...

My god I could kiss you, except that might lead into the whole "gay" thing and well let's not go there... The same can be said about any app written though. We don't know how the code for WIndows is written because it's hidden from us so if we follow their rules in writting an app, it works. However the app can only do what MS allows it to do or provideds. A Linux app can be completely flexible and self suficient if necessary. There's another factor, linux programers in general aren't paid and work on their own time. I bet you get paid for your work dont you? ;)
 
kmanuel said:
I've seen on this thread a few people use about 4 different operating systems. My question is why? Can't Windows do everything? Gaming- windows, Server - windows, Programming - windows, Cad/3d/ video editing - windows. I just don't see the need for running 3 - 4 OSes.
Can you guys who do explain?
Click to expand...

Let's see, I use Windows on 1 box. Why? Because I have one app which I runs on it, that I need for work.

What can't Windows do for me. Let's see uptime, I run servers which run businesses, which means I need them up all the time. They need to be stable under extreme loads.

Windows has a crappy command line interface. I like to get my work done, and move on. I can do tasks via command line on Linux, or BSD much faster than I can via GUI in Windows.

Ever tried to remotely manage a Windows box over 9.6Kbps connection. It's horrible, but I can run SSH to my BSD boxes and hardly feel a thing.

I could go on, but I think my point is clear.
 
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