Opening the word processor is a rare thing for me. I usually make do with LaTeX. But it is needed sometimes, like when you have a desire to write for your blog, and the writing will end up copied and pasted anyway, and you want a completely unrelated way to start your post. That done, let’s start:
Our first topic of discussion is distribution menageries. Some people, with a drive I confess I cannot even begin to understand, install distributions. I am not talking about building a stable desktop for yourself with Scientific Linux and putting a Fedora or Arch next to it to play with latest innovations and software, I am talking about those people who install (and I took this list from an anonymous from Ubuntu Forums) Ubuntu 10.04, openSUSE 12.1, Ubuntu 11.10, Xubuntu 11.10, Mint Linux 12, Windows 7 and the last Kubuntu. Agreed, not everyone goes that extreme, but it is common to see people who installed 2 or 3 spins on same Ubuntu and something like a nonworking BSD. They speak of this on public forums without embarrassment; and as it happens, there is no embarrassment to be felt as all they get are pats on the back. This gives me, so conveniently, a way to introduce our next topic of discussion: Fanboys or fanbots, whichever you prefer. People who write window$, M$ (winzort is popular here) and claim that Microsoft is out to conquer the world. This last world conquering part is what really angers me; after all, world domination should be goal of every self respecting nerd; do not discriminate against Linux people, please.
Getting back to the distribution menageries and consequently getting into a fleeting feeling of bloginess and talking about myself, I have to say that I’ve never even owned a small one. Only distributions I used until now are Corel Linux which introduced me to Linux, Mandiva (it was Mandrake back then) Arch and Ubuntu. The last I have used for 3-4 months total over years, Arch I’ve used for years and years, Mandriva (and Mandrake) a little more than a year maybe. Mainly, I am an Arch user for the last 6 years. 4 distributions, that is. I should not even count Corel and Ubuntu as I can count the weeks I used them with my fingers, so there are 2 distributions I used and know. I don’t have any desire to use any other even in a virtual machine. But lately I’ve been thinking about using Scientific Linux with Xfce on top it; security and stability is slowly becoming a lot more important for me as the time goes by, a sure sign of aging I am afraid. I am not interested in the latest and shiniest any longer. Anyway, I don’t think I need to see openSUSE or Fedora to use Linux and become knowledgeable about it. This is all I will say on this matter; because, quite frankly, I can’t even begin to comprehend why this menageries exist. Illuminate me if you know.
Fanboys are a matter not so different. They also create and maintain menageries sometimes. But their biggest quality is their capacity for self promotion. You use Ubuntu, goooood for you; you hate Windows, I am there with you bro, screw logic; You need Pro Tools, don’t be a boob and use Ardour, it is better (With an added Ada and and dropped u, it will be better then everything). The real Linux people who know how Linux works and are able to use it beyond installing Mint because of Unity are the ones who spent time learning Linux; and with the effort they’ve spent they’ve also learned the value of effort itself and the definition of software. Last one is also available on Wikipedia, our possible savior from SOPA: “Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provides the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it” (insert random citation). If you don’t like how Windows speaks with your hardware, don’t use it; but Windows is not something to hate, it is software. A product. Hating Windows is just like hating goat milk and spending obscene amount of time on forums to bash it. Just because you want to play games but cannot run Skyrim on Ubuntu does not give you right to bash Windows. Windows and Linux are different things. There are even more amusing things they say: when one of them encounters a problem while trying to replace Windows with Linux and obviously fails, he says that “Now, I also hate Windows, bla bla bla...). Every time they criticize Linux, they feel the need to say how much they hate Windows. There are also insider fanboys. They hate things like Ubuntu, Unity or Arch. Why, I do not know. But their logic is clearly faulty: “I hate Unity so I went to Fedora, Linux is about choice”. Fishy, no?
Well, you now the adage: “The playas gon’ play. Them haters gonna hate.”
