As Linux on the desktop recedes further and further into infighting and obscurity, you see the following argument for its “superiority” made more and more often:
“Freedom from viruses is worth a great deal to me, as someone who has spent years repairing fucked up Windows systems.”
(Quoted from slashdot)
Even Poggo-San has been known to make this claim. Apparently the argument from utility is impossible to sustain without even fellow Freetards laughing at you, so you fall back on the anecdotal evidence that you have wasted too much of your life “repairing” broken and virus-infested Windows systems.
It’s an odd sort of hobby for these people to have, isn’t it? They could be spending their time more fruitfully by installing the latest version of Ubuntu, oops sorry it’s now Mint, let’s just tar up the ole home directory and here we go. Or they could be scouring the electronics market for that perfect combination of hardware that will play nice with the World’s Greatest Desktop. Or they could be creating great art with the Gimp, or great literature with Libre Offal.
But no, apparently they relax by turning to the Dark Side and repairing the horrible mess left behind by That Other OS. Oh, the nobility!
Never mind that almost nobody outside the community has even once seen a borked Windows desktop. (And with awful symmetry, nobody inside the community has even once seen a borked Linux desktop.)
And never mind the obvious fact that the easiest way to help your poor, deluded, M$-ridden friends is to create an Admin account for them, restrict the User login, and let UAC do the rest.
Not as much fun as making stuff up and then boasting about it, is it?
Comments
“I’ve dealt with far too many windows-using idiots to wish that upon the linux community.”
Oops, I think this already happened, around the time Ubuntu came out…
“Freedom from viruses is worth a great deal to me, as someone who has spent years repairing f*cked up Windows systems.”
Guess they aren’t able to do something as simple as install and AV and set a password to protect it. Or have a system image ready to drop on the HD so they don’t have to reinstall the whole system.
to be fair i use ubuntu at work because I deal with customer’s viruses every day and just need the peace of mind. it suits me better than windows as it also supports more file systems out of the box. I would never dare to put linux on a customer’s computer though. it’s too buggy.
“ ...also supports more file systems out of the box”
Erm, does anyone – besides Garegin – here gives a f*ck about the filesystem and uses anything besides the, hm, lets call them 'mainstream’ filesystems – ntfs, ext(2/3/4) and fat variant for the usb sticks and why?
Disclaimer – I dont nag, I really want to know.
I would actually love to have ZFS support in Windows, but surprisingly Linux doesn’t really support that either thanks to UberFree license that is not compatible with CDDL, so it should be reimplemented from scratch – thing that million eyeballs developer army failed so many times (it’s not that they don’t try to start everything from scratch – they just fail to FINISH implementation).
Ext is a mainstream filesystem? I am pretty sure HFS+ (Mac OS, OS X) would be higher on the list.
Anyway, I did notice that while I was searching the web for reactions and opinion on Ubuntu’s Unity (I’m considering writing something on my blog about it. That is partly why I posted the SprayOnUsability™.) and when I see the various testimonials, they’re almost never about the things you can do on Linux (except perhaps run it on a 486 from 1997). They’re always about getting away from virus-plagued Windows, or complaints about the registry or booting, etc. At least with Mac advocacy, you have people bring up Apple exclusives like iLife or Final Cut. With Linux, it seems to be simply FreedomFromComputerMaintenance™ except you then have to fiddle with config files or the command line or etc…
http://www.igornuk.com/2011/11/unity-or-how-ubuntu-turned-itself-into-a-windows/
“And with awful symmetry, nobody inside the community has even once seen a borked Linux desktop.”
My gut tells me that’s technically antisymmetry.
Sorry, just being anal
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