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This is a rant, and possibly a long one, I'm not sure yet. The subject is Windows
vs. Linux, or more importantly, everything vs. Linux. If you don't want to read
about it, don't. Any comments/flames/whatever can be directed to my email, which
you will find using the nice little icon on the corner of this post. But if you
find my spelling offensive, I don't want to hear about it.
Lately I can't help but burst into a frenzied rage whenever I hear someone mention
something about Windows crashing, or hear questions like "Why don't you install
a real OS?". You can bet whenever someone says something like this that they are
not an advocate of alternative operating systems in general, but some sort of
masochistic linux monkey.
These people can't help but jump into the conversation whenever the chance to
bash microsoft or mention linux presents itself. They don't have anything really
intelligent to say, they just want to inform you that obviously linux is a superior
operating system, so why the hell aren't you using it? They argue that it is more
stable than windows, that it's open source (which most of them haven't a clue
about; source, or the ramifications of it being open), or that it's free. Free
is the only good arguement here. I agree that the price tag that windows carries
is a little on the steep side, especially for Windows 2000.
My question for these people is, what do you do with linux on your machine? Do
you write software? Do you play games? Do you chat on the internet? Or, more likely,
do browse your extensive collection of '1337 h4xx0r sites looking for 'sploits
and scripts?
I'll admitt, I'm not a hacker by any extent of the word. What I am, however, is
a person who values a tool that I can use with very little hassle that does what
I need it to do. Currently, this tool is my Windows 2000 box, just recently changed
from a Win 98 SE box. What I like to do with my machine, given any time to play,
is to enjoy a good game, or possibly write a couple applications. The coding could
easily be done in both operating systems, especially with the coming Kylix, which
I'm sort of looking forward to trying. The games are a different story. Sure,
you can play all the Q3A and UT you want on your linux box. Assuming of course
that you took the time to recompile your kernel to include sound, and managed
to get X and the drivers for your sound card running properly. I've got no idea
how to get the video card to work, since I've never bothered to try to play a
game on my linux machine. But I have recompiled the kernel many times, and played
around with everything else. Of course, there are other games for linux, those
were just two that I've played on my windows machine, and were on the tip of my
tongue.
Now, for a description of my Windows box... Here's usually how it goes. Assuming
I've got the OS and the drivers installed properly, which would probably take
me a total of about an hour, if that, to do again if I had to, to play a game,
all I do is throw the CD in and go. Is it a driving game? Do I want that nice
logitech force feedback wheel to control my vehicle of death? Sure... why not.
That's why it's there. It's USB though, is that going to be a problem? No, of
course not, it was made for this OS, which was to get a little off topic, an OS
designed for desktop systems to do a variety of things.
What I'm getting at here is this. Why would you want to run an operating system
which was not designed to do most of the things people are trying to get it to
do in the first place, which needs to be endlessly configured using a text editor
such as vi, and to which you're always asking the question, "Is this supported
under linux?". I know, X can be used to make things easier, but it in itself can
be a pain to set up, even in cases like mandrake where it can be installed for
you. Then there's the entire problem of the difficulty of everything. WHY? I'm
a reasonably intelligent guy (I think...), and I've managed to learn my way around
linux, and see what it has to offer (apart from gaming), but I can't for the life
of me understand why people enjoy, and pride themselves, on using something as
ugly as vi. Probably something I will never understand.
Now, to finish this all off, even though I've managed to get only about half a
point across since I lost my train of thought in the middle somewhere, I'm not
trying to convince you to use Windows, or not to use linux. If some would be script
kiddie reads this and then actually puts some thought into installing linux, just
because, I will have accomplished what I wanted. THINK! This is all I want. If
your computer needs are no more than what linux provides, and you like it, USE
IT. It's an excellent networking OS, especially for web servers and the like.
CoP HQ is hosted, by me, on a slackware box. For those of you who still can't
use Windows for some reason, be it hatred of microsoft, whatever... consider other
OS's... BeOS, QNX, OS/2... they might offer you something that linux cannot. OS/2
is one of the best operating systems every, in my opinion. And I used "is" there
because I still have my copy, and I wish to hell it would play the games, cause
it was an excellent OS and I would install it again in a second if there was a
bit more support. But then again, there's always Wine.........
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