Fred Langa contends that some Linux proponents harm their cause by hiding from the facts–it’s just as buggy as Windows XP: “As much as the partisans wish it were so, open sourcing isn’t a magic solution to the problems of bugs and security issues. As Linux and other open-source software grow in popularity and extend into a fragmented, uncontrolled mass marketplace, they will inevitably have their own full share of bugs and security problems, same as with any other software. Anyone who tells you differently, or tries to convince you that their favorite operating system is somehow immune to market forces, human error, and plain malice, is doing both you and the operating system they espouse a disservice.”
Any system has bugs. This is a known fact. A fact noone can argue with, and a fact everyone knows. What is the point of righting an article about this?
The way things are fixed in an open source scinario is what people use the software for. The admin can easily fix errors and recompile the software, and if they did everything right, the bug is no longer there. Then s/he can send in his/her fix, and its fixed for everyone. If you have 20-30% of all Linux users (estimated to be about 20 million) then a fix’s likely will happen alot faster!! The fact that now Linux is being spread to the average user is a BAD thing. Now there are more and more people messing with stuff that don’t know what they are doing, you have more and more people just using the software because they can get it for free. This is not good for the community, but the linux community is the reason its spreading out so much. People that know what they are doing and apreciate the power say “Linux is amazing” and average users get interested. This kinda is counter productive because Linux is only amazing is you know what you are doing.
Noone needs to be using Linux if they have no idea how an OS works, it is rare that Linux users now even read up before playing, and I see far to many people logging in as root to do everything. Not reading, and logging in as root is just dumb… to much things can be broken because its there to be broken. People that don’t understand computers need to stick with Windows or MacOS, and Linux people need to not try to sell there OS to morons!
Could you provide more details about the distro and version you are using? Maybe the GOD just very kind to me since on every installation that I did I never came across any problem with mouse.
Well, the fact that this world is full with zealots might be true. Many said Linux or *BSD are full of zealot. This articles shows that Windows also have its zealot. If not, maybe the power of money that made sombody to wrote an atricles which at first glance look very technical but the reality is it just contained incorrect information
THERE is no Linux. There is no mous. Linux is available as a distro. A mous is a sign or your own stupidity. IDIOT.
first of all, sorry for the long post :-
I found the article a good read, and i don’t think its spreading FUD as one reader has posted, I believe both Linux and Windows have their strengths and weakness’s. I dual boot Redhat 8.0 and Windows XP Pro sp1 on my desktop and laptops and they work great on both however RH still has a long way to go with regard to multimedia, sure XINE is nice but its buggy, crashes often and doesnt (for me) allow me to put a window on top of the video content currently playing (which i can do easily with windvd or even wmp in windows XP. Just a minor niggle… Also, why can i not get ‘decent’ audio support for my santa cruz soundcard, this is 2003 after all 😉
As regards crashes, Windows XP has never crashed on my laptop since first install in august 2001. it has crashed on my desktop but that was due to a duff 2nd CPU and took a few weeks to figure out. Linux (tried rh7.x-8.1) has had mixed results but seems overall stable.
On my desktop, my first choice is always XP due to better multimedia support for my digital speakers and better gaming. On the laptop i use RH more often, but cannot do things suchs a dialout via infrared on my GPRS T39m phone.
I tried Phoebe (8.1) beta last week twice and it was buggy as hell, even starting the package manager bombed it out with an error.
I’ve done both a upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1 and a fresh install of 8.1, below if anyones interested are my initial findings for Phoebe after ‘upgrading’ redhat 8.
overall for me windows (xp) wins for multimedia and gaming, no contest there, and im still too much of a linux newbie to claim to have done anything significant with it
hopefully in the future
cheers
anyweb
http://anyweb.kicks-ass.net
i’ve downloaded and done an upgrade (wanted to see what would happen) to my existing up to date redhat 8 config on a Dell Latitude C640. The install went well i chose to upgrade only packages that were installed (it highlighted them itself)…
Rebooting into the new version of Redhat though has so far presented me as follows:-
*DISLIKES*
1. running xmms to listen to some mp3’s pops up an error along the lines of ‘due to patent licensing laws, mp3 playback functionality has been removed’, strangely running xmms later without applying any additional plugin allows mp3’s to play…
2. my ‘login screen’ choice has now changed from the one with the sunflower (theres 3 provided with redhat) to the rh8 default
3. if you adjust the volume level in xine while it is running the video now becomes jumpy, the volume level does not budge and you cannot do anything with xine (locked up) its still playing but you have to kill -9 PID it, same results if logged in as su or root.
4. the redhat ‘info’ box that shows whats happening when you login to x now displays a number of ‘gnome.. FEET’ instead of the familiar icons
5. rdesktop (a utility to connect to windows boxes using Terminal Services) now gives an error: error while loading shared libraries: libcrypto.so.2. cannot open shared object file: no such file or directory
6. synaptic does not start anymore, asks for root password then errors with ‘ error while loading shared libraries: librpm-4.1.so: cannot open shared object file….
7. wine no longer starts the error is : wine: lstat /home/anyweb/.wine/winserver.localhost/localdomain/socket : no such file or directory
8. redhat up2date icon appears to be gone (maybe becuase im not connected to the internet yet)
9. video glitches such as clicking on an xterm icon, the window progress zoom seems to just zoom to max of the screen before showing the terminal
10. mozilla has forgotten that my default search engine is google, but has remembered that i am pretending its on a windows box in user.js
11. trys to start something called ‘cannaserver’ (and fails probably due to no network connection) and i have no idea what that is ? suggestions ?
*LIKES*
1. overall fonts look absoultely great, really nice and smooth, superbly better in everything, definetly looks better than psyche !
2. start menu is now changed and has removed those pesky ‘extra’ menus that repeated everything, so its now sparsely populated and sensible
3. start menu has a ‘logoff button’ and ‘recent files’ button
4. gnome meeting is pre-installed, looks good too
5. quake3 is still working
6. new mozilla v 1.2b
7. fluxbox still works
8. seems to have left my iptables rules intact
9. GRUB dualboot menu still works fine
10. my icons on my desktop are still where they were, as is the background wallpaper etc…
oh well, just my findings, hopefully i’ll be able to remedy some of these when i get home today and get on the internet, however i’d advise some caution before you consider updating your box from psyche to phoebe or maybe its just me
@emey: I tried Suse 6.0 , 7.x and 8.1 (hope I rememberd correct ^^°)
@jeffery: Thanks for your reply
I know that my first contact with linux was a desater. And your post doesn’t make it any better.
The problem with this argument is that it is not a fair comparision: linux vs XP. When people say linux is more stable than XP, they’re thinking of terms of “well if the GUI freezes, I can probably ssh in and kill it”.
You don’t have that seperation of GUI and OS in XP, therefore, XP will always be at the mercy of poorly written drivers as is XFree86. The difference is, X isn’t linux, its just another application, albeit an import one.