🚀 go-pugleaf

Okay, I had nothing better to do on a saturday morning than pick the errors
out of this article. We all know what's wrong with it, but what the hell
... i'm bored ;)

Titled: Linux, the PC program from hell Author: David Hewson (an77@dial.pipe
x.com)

* WAS I the only one who broke into a scream of terror when I looked at
this month's copy of Personal Computer World? There, staring out from a
free CD-Rom on the cover was the program from hell, and all you needed to
do to let it take over your PC was double click a couple of times and kiss
goodbye to your sanity. *

Well the Linux installation usually isn't that simple.

* The nasty piece of digital scurf in question is known as Linux and there
are plenty of sad types who will tell you it is the future of personal
computing. Do not fall for this bizarre line in geek thinking. *

I don't think anyone has every claimed it was the future of Personal
Computing. Truth is, Linux is limited as a home user system (for doing Word
processing, spreadsheet, drawing, etc). That's not what it's designed for.
The first silly mistake of this arrogant wanker. Let's read on!

* Even Personal Computer World, after making it so easy to enter the
twilight zone without a return ticket, saw fit to enter a few caveats in
the fine print. Linux, it said, came with a serious health warning. Don't
even think about it, the magazine said, unless you are technically
proficient and have backed up all your PC files beforehand.*

Congratulations to PC World for acknowleding that MS Windows 95 or NT isn't
the only operating system that runs on a PC. And double congrats for
warning people against installing Linux unless they REALLY know what
they're doing.

* Yes, but we know what the average PC user is like. He never reads the
words, he just slings in the CD-Rom, clicks on the install icon, and hopes
for the best. And if you are now looking at a blank screen with a few
impenetrable commands where you once had a working PC, then all I can say
is: "You have only yourself to blame." *

I guess that's what happened to the author of this article. He thought he
knew something about computers, when all he really knows is how to fire up
MS Word and type crap articles. Perhaps he installed a Soundblaster a few
years ago. This guy's a real professional ....

* Linux, for the uninitiated, is a version of that old computer donkey
known as Unix. If you need to run big computer Unix tasks then it is, I am
told, not a bad solution at all. Equally, if you believe there is no point
in doing easily something you can achieve the long way round, it is
doubtless the way to go. *

Another startling admission of ignorance. I wouldn't think any self
respecting "computer journalist" would shoot himself in the foot like this.
Unix, he doesn't realise, is basically the backbone of the entire Internet.
For many years it WAS the Internet. It has an incredible depth and power
that can never be fully exploited. And, when we're talking Linux, it's
free. Why would I run NT, (firstly ditching my little p100 and getting a
ppro 200 with 128mb to run NT without any speed hiccups ;), when I can do
EVERYTHING I want, and MORE with Linux? NT is, as they say, a dummies Unix.
And Unix is by far, the choice of professionals, who want to customise and
get a job done, rather than screw with propriatry Microsloth software.

* Imagine a tougher version of MS-Dos; where the commands are even harder
to memorise and less forgiving of errors ­ and you are starting to get
there. And if you want to cheat a little, you can put on a pseudo-graphical
front end and; bingo; you might just manage to turn a modern Windows
NT-capable PC into a passable imitation of Windows 3.1 circa 1992. *

Oops. Another ignorance admission. He's comparing MS-DOS, that basic of
basic OSs, to a fully fledged multi-tasking multi-user operating system.
Hmmm. Actually X-Windows (i think he is reffering to it), is FANTASTIC. I
can't do without my multiple desktops, my Afterstep windows manager, my
utter and complete customisability (sp?), my fast applications, my lack of
swapping to disk every time I start an application ....

* However, to read some publications, you might think that Microsoft's Bill
Gates is quivering in his boots at the idea that Linux will do what IBM and
Apple never managed to achieve; kick Windows off the everyday desktop.
Really? Well, no. Linux is flavour of the month with the geek community for
two reasons; it's free, and it's not from Microsoft. *

Bill Gates should be quivering, because NT is no match for Unix. For real
tasks that need some computing power, a professional turns to Unix. Again,
this guy seems to think that Linux is aimed at replacing Windows and MacOS
as an operating system! Not so! Linux's strength is in the server market,
and for power applications. Not running a spreadsheet or playing pinball.
That's not the idea ... at all!

* For a certain breed of bug-eyed computer user, that really is all you
need. Trivial details such as usability, the lack of decent everyday
software, and the plain fact that, when things go wrong, you are on your
own are not setbacks to Linux addicts. These are the very reasons why they
like the wretched thing; because it sets them apart from the mainstream of
tedious, ordinary users who just use PCs to get on with the job. * 

Bug eyed? This guy has the hide to blemish my browser with a photo of
himself, and further more to say Linux users a bug eyed? Decent Everyday
Software(tm), isn't what Linux is about (this seems a recurring theme,
doesn't it?). Sure, use a Windows PC for your mundane job - I do myself!
But I'll keep my DNS server running under Linux, if that's okay with you.

* Personal computers seem to have attracted some strange and obsessive
people along the way to becoming common or garden information tools. If
Linux hadn't been invented by a Finnish student a few years back, something
equally strange and esoteric would have appeared to take its place.*

Strange and esoteric to someone used to the MS help wizard assisting them
in troubleshooting their print problems. I wonder if he still lives with
his parents.

* Computer geeks despise simple, common standards. Gates is the object of
their hate simply because he won the operating-system war. If Apple or IBM
had come out on top, the people now buzzing so excitedly around Linux would
have treated them to the hate mail they reserve for Gates today.* 

Linux users on the whole don't care about Microsoft, rather they just
object to corporate monolpolies and dirty tactis in general. At least,
that's the way I think. MS tried to come romping into the server market,
stepping on everyone's toes, the height of arrogance. That's what generates
the bad vibes. This guy again view Linux users as some sort of crusaders
who are trying to do their every day tasks on a 'nix box to spite Bill
Gates. Weirdo.

* Fads like Linux are diversionary characters in a digital freak show on
the sidelines of modern information technology. Finding them on the cover
disks of mainstream magazines says more about the novelty value of computer
journalism than the real issues facing those trying to make tomorrow's PCs
a sight better than the ones we use today. *

Fad? Novelty? I agree it's odd to find one as a cover disk. Obviously it
frightended the pants off of this journalist (probably upset because he had
to fdisk his hard drive after installing Linux, probably thinking it was
some R-rated game preview). Another marvellous display of ignorance when it
comes to the real computing industry. It's all fine for this guy to hide
inside his little microsoft orientated world, taking pot shots at what he
doesn't understand and comprehend. These statements about Linux, and Unix
in general, are patently false and should be rejected by any person with an
open mind.


* The idea that great developments in personal computing will be invented
in some dismal student bedroom in Helsinki might make nice bedtime reading
for people who dream in hexa-decimal. But if all you want is a computer
that you can aspire to understand, chuck that blasted CD-Rom in the bin
right now. *

This is nothing but detestable slander on a computing genius - Linus
Tovalds. He designed a multi user Unix clone, and this guy dismisses it as
if it were worth nothing. What an astounding display of stupidity and
arrogance. I've never seen someone so goddamn ignorant. As soon as he
encounters something that he can't understand or interperate, he resorts to
personal attacks on anyone he sees responisble. This paragraph hardly
deserves a spoken response, it deserves a slap on the head with a fucking
BRICK. Wake up you moron. It seems to me that this article is inspired by
nothing more than this guy's arrogance, and if it had of been say - a
microwave oven with a difficult control system (to the uninitiated), he
would have gone to great pains to rubbish the inventor and denounce it as
unusable and unsuitable. What a jerk. If all you want is a computer that
you can understand, use Windows95. What in god's name did you attempt to
install Linux for anyway? Do you have a use for it? Do you need to run a
server? It's like buying a goddamn bulldozer when all you want to do is
drive down the road to your dingy little office and write articles
attacking things that are beyond your realm of understanding!

Man, this article the guy wrote was worse than I thought!!! Luser.
--
/*********************************************
                Luke Burton
            Tablelands Internet
               0419 698 112
                 722 400
        http://www.goulburn.net.au
*********************************************/

"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!"  <huff, huff>