Sure, Windows apparently has loads of security holes and is incredibly unstable. Somehow though, in the last 5 years of using XP on my personal desktop, I NEVER once had a BSoD and was never attacked.

Just take a look at the bug reports and feature requests. OpenOffice has had a request for dashed borders since 2001, but the f*cking stuck up developers have refused to do a thing. I’ve used open-source libraries and every single one so far has had some bug or limitation that has required me to go into the source code and fix or add.

Open-source bugs get fixed fast my ass. It’s right there in front of your faces – major bugs that haven’t been fixed for nearly a DECADE. Firefox STILL has the text search bug and crashes even faster than before.

Ever wonder why not everyone uses shitty open-source software? Because it sucks and is unstable and open-source is ALWAYS filled with bugs. The only Linux programs I haven’t experienced bugs with after BASIC usage are the ones that have been out for decades and command-line tools.

If you run the program yourself and experience bugs with it within the first 5-10 hours of using it, why the f*ck would you release it unless under beta? Maybe, it’s because you’re a stuck up f*ck who thinks he’s the best.

Example:
FireFox sucks–use OPERA. It’s free, it’s not IE, and it supports a crapload fancy features out of the box without installing a million stupid plugins. FireFox not to mention other browsers) has been stealing features from the INNOVATION PIONEER browser for years – yay Opera. Opera is an example of (former) COMMERCIAL software that HAD to work well or it would have died. Looking at FireFox’s current state, projected evolution, and the final state of Opera, the debate is about settled.

Try using a fancy 3d editor like Rhino (commercial) – pretty easy right? Now try Blender (OSS). I rest my case. You’ll kill yourself within 5 minutes trying to learn that piece of UI design violation trash.

If someone would make a SOLID gaming OS..
no matter if its LINUX or MS or APPLE..
YOU WOULD HAVE SALES..

They will blame everyone and everything except a piece of open source software for problems.

As an example, I recently made a run at using Linux as my primary home desktop. The reason I did this was because (a) my hard disk had crashed and I did not feel like recovering Windows XP at the moment, and (b) I am fearful of the cluster-f*ck that is Vista. XP has served me faithfully for years now; why must Microsoft keep trying to FORCE me to buy Vista? Oh right, money…

But, I digress.

Installing Linux (Ubuntu, the “easiest” of the distros, no less) was easy. Making it WORK was an absolute nightmare. For instance, for some reason my system would invariably hang during boot if the splash screen wasn’t disabled. Why this is, I don’t care. But it would. So how is this a good user experience? I googled the issue and it was far from an uncommon problem, apparently.

Next, making my graphics card support dual monitors and screen-spanning was an absolute, absolute, absolute NIGHTMARE. Something that Windows XP had handled effortlessly, almost in its sleep, required — in Ubuntu — endless reboots, endless twiddling with poorly-documented switches in xorg.conf, endless unexplained X shutdowns.

Now, 90% of my hardware wouldn’t work. My TASCAM-US144L that I used for music production? Unsupported, never will be supported. My Logitech Razor mouse? Works, but none of the “extra” buttons work. My G15 keyboard? Only works as a 101-key keyboard (and don’t fool yourself, the open-source G15 libs are hobbyist quality AT BEST).

Some of my Windows apps worked (yay! I could play WoW… and in Linux’s defense, it actually ran faster under Wine with OpenGL than it did natively on Windows; I blame DirectX) — but most didn’t.

My VPN software (Juniper’s Netconnect) required an incredible amount of work and googling, not to mention the patience of a Buddhist monk, to get even limping along. And it’s written in Java, so you can’t blame OS-dependant code.

The clock — the damned, system clock, that part of the PC that has “just worked” for me on computers since, oh, the stone ages — drifted, on the order of 20 minutes per hour. One time I ended up keeping my girlfriend up till 11pm playing WoW because the bloody clock said it was 9pm. I finally fixed this by disabling the TSC read (IIRC) in the kernel boot parms, but how many “mom and pop” people are going to be willing to touch the kernel params, let alone know which one to use?

I mean, every aspect of the bloody OS was broken — from the UI to the clock to the drivers to the utter lack of compelling applications. I was never — NEVER — able to play a DVD from Netflix on that computer. But Windows “just worked”… hmmm…

And that’s why I eventually switched back. Linux and open source may be great for some closed-box, server closet type applications (but even there, if I were a CIO, I would question whether saving a few hundred dollars on the OS was really worth having *NOBODY* to call when it broke). But for the average user, it’s just an absolute nightmare.

And the attitude of the open source crowd — you know, the fanboys who think that typing “M$” is somehow clever — this just makes things worse. I’ve been writing kernel drivers for Windows for ages. I’ve hacked more programs than many of these fanboys have RUN. I’ve been doing assembly-level debugging (and coding) since 1983. I really, honestly, know what I’m doing (I just don’t want to have to reprogram my goddamn OS just to play a game…), so smug insinuations that I must be too stupid to understand Linux and open source really aren’t helping your cause much. There are some very, very clever, and very, very helpful people in the open source community… but sadly, they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

After this latest, six month experiment with Linux and open source, I’ve happily reverted to Windows XP. So far, everything just works — except Firefox, that is.

*sigh*

Corporate America is what stands between us and the never-ending threat of PRC, Islam, and Commie Liberals. If Microsoft dies, then so will America and the American family values. Open Source is UN-AMERICAN and threatening the very values that our Founding Fathers had strived for. Open Source is COMMIE. A true, patriotic American uses Microsoft.

I find the responses to the original article quite typical: a OS product has departed from standard in a specific way. Rather than agreeing that the product must conform to accepted standards and that a fix is required, we get a great deal of emotion. I suspect this convinces no-one, outside the movement.

The problem of standards gets to the heart of OS S’s great weakness: unity. There is an ancient idea: divide and conquer. This is particularity applicable to operating systems: Linux has dozens upon dozens of variants. If you are releasing software to users you cannot possibly perform QA on all of them, unlike other major platforms.

On “flexibility”: flexibility is not actually what users want: users want tools that work well ,work the same way everywhere, and work first time (and every time) without needing to know anything outside the problem domain the tool addresses.

And why was 75% of this thread editor holy wars when there was virtually no follow-up to Dodge Impalas?

He sounds like he really needs mom to hold his hand.

Lol he sounds like he is in a wrong job. Sad fellow.

And all the while he is blaming others for his ignorance. Poor fella, I hope you keep his identity secret as no-one intelligent would hire the guy.