Why I left Linux for Windows. 2157

On Saturday 26 August 2006 05:45, Christian stood up and addressed the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.miscas follows...:

Not necessarily so. GNU-Linux aims towards compliance with both the POSIX standards and the Single UNIX Specification, and most distributions also largely comply with the latest Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. Next to that, there already is the Linux Standard Base, which most distributions try to adhere to.

Anything else would be a limitation of Freedom.

Because there needn't be one. The kernel development project is supervised by Linus Torvalds and Andrew Morton, and to some extent also by Greg Kroah-Hartman. The rest of the software is up to its developers for as far as thevanillacode is concerned, and up to the distribution makers towards end-user oriented stuff. That's where Freedom comes in.

Perhaps you need to look at the *$KERNELVERSION-Documentation* directory more closely?

In addition, I also agree with whatHadron-Quarkwrote in his reply to you: good standardized C code needn't be documented, as kernel-level C developers will recognize the code for what it is and what it does.

Other than that, you probably need to pay more attention to the Changelogs, as every patch is explained almost in full inthere.

Linux is a kernel, and kernelspace code has no effect on the development of userspace code, for as long as the POSIX and Single UNIX standards are respected. The API is all userspace developers need to know and adhere to.

That's ridiculous. Understanding the code by looking at it is an unwritten requirement to be eligible for participation in the development. It simply means that if you don't understand what you're planning on changing, you'd be better of not messing with it.

Then you should have no problem understanding the source code, should you?

In an ideal world, yes. But that's not how it works. What do you think is more important: the writing of the comments or the writing of (good) code?

Bloat only pertains to proprietary software,in-casuMicrosoft software. Microsoft artificially bloats their code so as to ensure that heavier and faster hardware is needed - which stimulates hardware sales, and which will then pay back in the form of hardware support for Windows, or the lack of hardware support for GNU-Linux - and so as to make enough room for future updates.

I've never been one to adopt a computer vendor's or market's choice of operating systems. I've used OS-2 for 6 years while everyone else was using Windows 3.x and Windows95, and I've only briefly used Windows NT 4.0 Workstation - for about two years - when everyone was using Windows 95, 98 and early ME betas.

During my experiences with NT, I've installed several Service Packs, and I noticed that with every installation of a Service Pack, the executables and libraries it replaced never grew in size. This is only possible if the original executable contains loads of unnecessary whitespace - however a compiler manages to keep that in is another matter, but Microsoft has never been known to have good code as its priority.

While it is true that projects like KDE get heavier and heavier on resources consumption, this is perfectly justifiable by the amount of eye-candy included (and intended to be used) with KDE, and then *still* does KDE not even buttume the resource-hunger of a contemporary Microsoft Windows version, which lacks all this eye-candy.

Have you taken a look at the hardware requirements for the upcoming Windows Vista yet? Windows is not my thing and I actually couldn't care less from the user point of view, but as a GNU-Linux advocate and being subscribed to a (lately) rather Windows-centric computer magazine, I am aware of its hardware requirements.

Well, all that Vista can do, GNU-Linux can already do better now, and with far less spectacular hardware. A decently set-up recent GNU-Linux workstation runs very swiftly in 256 MB of RAM on a Pentium II or Pentium III (or comparable AMD platforms). Far better than Windows Vista or even Windows XP.

So much for "bloat" as an argument...

Fortunately for the rest of us, the KDE developers don't agree with that. As for X11, there are various different branches in use. XGL is an upcoming and promising project. X.Org was already far more advanced than XFree86 was when it forked.

On this I agree. I was never really a Gnome fan to begin with, but the lack of configureability - from the vantage that "the user needn't be troubled too much with configuration" - has ticked off even Linus Torvalds, who actually called the Gnome developers "code-nazis" in an e-mail to them, and pleaded "Please, tell your users to use KDE instead" - not that Linus Torvalds uses KDE (or Gnome) himself, mind you.

This applies to most software, free, open source or proprietary. The US does seem to think it's at the center of the world, and so the US and the English language have always been at the center of information (and other) technology.

Wireless adapters are supported by the Linux kernel already, but it isn't any of the Linux kernel developers' fault if the hardware manufacturers insist on only developing code for Windows (and often the MacIntosh), or on keeping their code proprietary even if they do supply the end-user with driver modules for the Linux kernel.

As a sidenote to this, a recent survey has shown that proprietary code contains several hundreds more bugs than a comparable amount of FOSS code, and if any GNU-Linux system crashes, it is usually due to proprietary video drivers from ATI or nVidia.

And yes: driver modules are kernelspace code. In the event of X11, there is both a userspace driver and a kernelspace driver, and as you (should) know, userspace code cannot hang the system.

To a certain degree, this is being done already, but since FOSS is all about freedom and not about money-making, no further resources are wasted on this when it is experienced that the hardware developers have their own little reasons for not wanting to open up their source code or support GNU-Linux, and stubbornly cling on to those little reasons.

One of those little reasons is the (less-)documented fact that Microsoft has certain written and unwritten deals with hardware developers and computer equipment vendors, and is using bulk Windows licensing support with some very maffia-style stipulations that dwell on the border between legal and illegal. Microsoft is also counting on the lack of courage of most smaller-scale hardware manufacturers or vendors to not dig in too deep into the legalese of it all. Or did you really believe that Windows is so popular because it's a superior operating system?

As I wrote in my reply to the previous poster, this is a shortsighted consideration, because those codecs *may* *not* be distributed freely by third parties - i.e. by a GNU-Linux distribution vendor - due to licensing reasons.

At the same time, those codecs and plugins *are* being supplied (and pre-configured) with the *commercially* *vended* versions of those very same GNU-Linux distributions.

For instance: a Mandriva Linux 2006 Workstation Edition DVD does contain proprietary code, but must be purchased. The freely downloadable Mandriva Linux 2006 Free Edition does not.

Considering that all those Windows advocates are pretty willing to shell out far more money for a Windows license - which is only a license as they will never be free to do with the code as they please - than is required for the purchase of a boxed retail version of a GNU-Linux distribution (which offers them a plethora of application software on top of the operating system), I'd say that's a cheap shot.

In addition, and as another poster already pointed out, those Windows advocates obviously don't seem to mind that they have to buy separate application software suites and install them - e.g. Microsoft Office, Norton, McAfee or whatever other anti-virus software, Ad-Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy, and whatever else there is - yes, I know all that stuff because I'm not exactly blind and not all of my friends run GNU-Linux.

In other words: the argument made was cheap and sortsighted, or perhaps it was hypocrisy. I'll leave that up to the one who made it.

Actually, we don't want to have GNU-Linux replace all the Windows desktops, because we're well-aware of the fact that some people would be better off with Windows and all of its quirks, even if only because they've been conditioned to see computers as Microsoft has learned them to see them, or indoctrinated by the advertising and the industrial-strength glued-on "Designed for Windows XP" stickers on computer hardware to believe that a personal computer was made specifically for Windows and must run Windows.

And then I'm not even talking of all the "Fear Uncertainty & Doubt" regarding GNU-Linux being spread into the media, not only by Microsoft Corp., but also by the media themselves, such as (but not limited to) the self-overestimating editors of computer magazines aimed at the end-user.

A GNU-Linux distribution is a collection of software. How this software is packaged is up to the one doing the packaging, and then it's still a matter of how it is organized on disk after it has been installed. An ideal set-up utility is therefore moot, because that would impede with the freedom of the packagers.

You're obviously overlooking the fact that those distribution developers are not selling or offering GNU-Linux; they are offering you $DISTRIBUTIONNAME, which they see as an independent operating system.

The only ones who seem to be stepping away from that somewhat are the Debian developers - they're also the only distribution to feature "GNU-Linux" in their name, rather than just "Linux".

Gentoo and Linux From Scratch are also more or less staying away from "branding" their distributions, but then again they are not really distributions anymore; they're meta-distributions.

I don't think the diversity of GNU-Linux distributions has anything to do with religion at all. Advocation of GNU-Linux itself as an operating system on the other hand can sometimes take on religious or philosophical proportions, and there is nothing wrong with that, as long as the basics of the philosophy are respected, i.e. freedom.

Windows users and advocates are also free to use Windows, as much as that platform sucks - which as I have said elsewhere is not just something I say from my two years of experience with Windows NT but rather from studying how Windows works. On the other hand, they should also respect *our* freedom of not wanting to be tied to proprietary software vendors.

Even the Windows addicts are free to download, burn and install a freely distributed version of GNU-Linux, but considering that it doesn't cost them one cent more than the time of being connected to the Internet for doing so - proverbially speaking, as broadband internet is usually charged at a flat fee and those on dial-up would have to be waiting far too long for the download to complete - they should also not complain about having to fetch and install a few codecs or plugins, which they also get without having to pay for them, especially not when their Windows installation came at a high retail price and without any application or protection software, and with all the bugs and security leaks it came with.

And then lastly but nevertheless importantly, GNU-Linux *is* *not* (and never was) an alternative to *Windows.* GNU-Linux is an alternative to proprietary UNIX operating systems, and the desktop market is only a small fragment of the computer park worldwide.

I do call myself a GNU-Linux advocate, but every complaint or negative remark I've ever heard about GNU-Linux comes from Windows addicts and MacIntosh users who used to be Windows users before moving over to Apple. No complaints I have ever heard about GNU-Linux has come from someone used to working with UNIX systems, proprietary or otherwise. I guess that says enough, doesn't it?

GNU-Linux is like quantum mechanics and astrophysics. You can't possibly expect those too lazy to learn anything beyond what shirts $FAVORITEFOOTBALLTEAM wears to understand. They're not interested, and they don't care.

They should then also just learn to shut up about things their brains can't even fathom instead of unpleasant womaning about it the way they've been doing for ages now - this whole thread was started by a known and established Usenet troll anyway. 1 It's getting boring, and nobody will ever be able to please everybody in the world.

"Whatever you do, there's always going to be at least someone who doesn't like it." -- author unknown.

1 My apologies for the somewhat harsh language. I try to be civilized on Usenet for as much as I can, but it's not always easy.

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (registered GNU-Linux user #223157)