“In the true fashion of top ten lists, I’ve written and published for geeks without brains and decency my list of reasons for hating them.” Read the top ten list at TUX Reports.
Humor: Ten Dumbest Things Linux Users Say
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Been meaning to post this anyway – how’s about we *all* have a laugh instead of baiting someone with inanities.
Try: http://rinkworks.com/stupid/, and maybe all the “experts” who insist that Macs, Windows and Be are *so* usable will realise – there is no such thing as a genuinely intuitive computer (though I will admit that I think Mac does a damn good job).
The “The bleedin Obvious” section is a good place to curl up and read.
That “Computer Stupidities” is a riot!
So its ok to bash an operating system if you are doing it out of humor? I much prefer the link that Mr Anonymous posted, atleast there it’s obvious its humor.
THe guy obviously doesnt know much about linux and just venting some anger at the fact that he cant figure it out.
linux is stable
current uptime: 20days, for a workstation, i find that stable enough.
This unstable/stable talk is just childish (as is the article).
Windows 95, etc wasn’t unstable it was broken. Besides of this MS error, every system has crashing apps and a kernel error from time to time. That is something that Windows XP, BeOS, Linux, etc have all in common. None of them is particulary stable or unstable, they are just not completely broken. And there is not a single OS out there that magically makes it’s application not crash or hangup.
I think I’ll stay out of this one. It’s like a house marked “Do not enter. Trolls inside”.
#m
Must be a *very* slow news day. @_@
It is indeed.
what an idiot. not funny or insightful.
There are plenty of things I find annoying about the hardcore Linux zealots, but this article really doesn’t do a good job at anything except venting hot air. Here are three things I find annoying about Linux zealots (not necessarily all Linux users, since some of them can be quite reasonable):
1) “What do you mean, difficult to use? Is opening up a terminal and typing so on and so forth really that difficult?”
2) You’re hairy, smelly, and filthy. Get a haircut, shave, take a shower, and wear deodorant, for God’s sake. Long, scruffy beards are not cool. And no, penguin mascot t-shirts are not cool, either. You’re not going to look cool wearing them in public – AT ALL. NOBODY CARES about what you do with your computer in your parents’ basement.
3) Anti-Microsoft jokes aren’t funny. They just aren’t. I mean, I don’t like Microsoft either, but come on. The following acronyms and aliases for Microsoft and/or its products are neither funny nor clever nor original nor anything else but irritating and juvenile: “M$,” “Micro$oft,” “Windoze,” “heXpee,” “Micro$loth.”
I’m sure I can think of more – just give me time.
To those who see themselves and don’t think it is funny.
Penguin #1: How did you lose your wing?
Penguin #2: Another penguin gnawed it off.
Penguin #1: May I have what is left over?
Thanks for the link, though. Next time I hope your readers can see that first word in the title – The first one that says “HUMOR” …
Drats … I can’t laugh so I have to criticize. Blah. :-p
Quit taking yourselves so seriously.. .. No one else does. So to the idiots that are so lame that they only know to post “lame, beyond lame, and idiot.” … Do you see yourselves, or what???
LOL
Come on you guys, lighten up! This is a classic example (through alleged humor) of the impression that Joe User gets about Linux from people who don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s sad but, given the choice of laughing or crying, I think I’ll laugh <g>.
This is the calm before the storm. Tomorow we’ve got MacWorld starting and earnings reports coming out all over the place.
The article has a point: A lot of us Linux users are people who get really arrogant and stubborn when people criticize Linux. I remember the days when Linux advocates seriously thought that you average secratary (“Administrative assistant” these days) could use TeX for day to day word processing needs. It got so bad that there came out a Linux advocacy HOWTO which explcitily said “Don’t make yourself look ridiculous by claiming that LaTeX is a better wordprocessor for the masses than MS Word.” [1]
While the article is tongue-in-cheek, I have seen versions of that kind of idioticy posted to Usenet, Slashdot, or insert-the-name-of-public-forum countless times. People posting such things are going through a state of Linux expertise. This level of expertise is not much higher than the beginning state of using Linux. The next step after that is to concentrate on making Linux better instead of being a preacher on the streets.
One example of this annoying kind of Linux user is an anonymous coward who recently stated “Adam Wiggins is an asshole. I’d bet he’s never seen linux” here. Adam Wiggins, of course, is a long-time Linux user, who has, among things, written kernel device drivers (which makes him a Linux wizard), and advocactes Linux usage at the company he works for. He was criticied for posting a top ten list of things wrong with Linux. (The flamer is from Portugal, and probably doesn’t have good enough English to read the article through before he got emotional)
And no, penguin mascot t-shirts are not cool, either. You’re not going to look cool wearing them in public
I beg to differ; I have a penguin lapen pin which I wear with collared shirts sometimes; I have consistantly received positive comments from girls about how cute the penguin is.
– Sam
[1] http://liw.iki.fi/liw/texts/advocating-linux.html
I was unaware that marking somthing as funny made it so. If you have to explain to everyone that something is funny, then it probably isn’t.
Linux needs to shed the fat. Replace X with TripleX (TX) and loose the ppl who have nothing better to do instead posting to uselessly.
Only then will you have a stable OS with a stable community.
Get it?
Hey Sam,
Thanks ! I’m glad that you realized where the comments for the story came from … yes, all of the comments in the top 10 were from posts made after Top 10 Things Wrong with Linux Users, Today. As someone on Tuxreports pointed out, I did put the wrong title but I thought making a reference to it within the background section would help those who read linux news. Guess many people skipped over it. Too subtle – my bad.
And to the Humorous declarations dude … instead of saying, “If you have to explain to everyone that something is funny, then it probably isn’t.” Why not say, “I didn’t get it, sorry.” Isn’t that more polite than continuing the arrogance that others have posted here? Or are you just interested in eating my other wing?
Or do I have to explain that last question too?
It would be nice if people did try to offer help occasionally instead of just saying read this or just do that.
I think BeOS is quite stable in terms of the kernel. I’ve used Dano (which is allegedly beta quality) and haven’t had a prob yet!
I think that at some point RTFM might be appropriate, but of course it should be accompanied by a url or a manual reference, so that the user can get to the right part.
Answering a question times and times over do take time, and very often the docs/manuals are better written then a little piece of explanation in an IRC channel.
One major point is, if you have a question, take the time to formulate it properly with details. if you take the time to prepare a question, ppl will take the time to answer it.
It seems to me that these poor Linux users are all innocent victims of marketing. As we know from Gene Kan’s Daffy Duck like final act, getting caught up in the hype can lead to some dark and gloomy places.
1) Someone chooses Linux as their OS, ignoring the obviously superior alternatives, of which AmigaOS is clearly the best. They choose the inferior Linux because they think it will make them an 3llt h4x0r and it costs a lot less than a Mac, which they hear makes your dick grow limp.
2) When buying hardware for their Linux machine, they research the Internet but fail to purchase the exact same system as one of the key Linux developers.
3) After mucking with the software to get it to install (see #2 above, wrong choice of hardware), they decide they want to see some pretty graphics. Why they chose to do this on an operating system that grew up without graphics, it is hard to say. The answer has been lost in the vast oblivion of history.
4) After mucking with the software to get it to run (see #2 above, wrong choice of hardware), they decide to change their screen resolution. This poor decision brings them much pain.
5) After days of trauma, drinking, and drugs, they get their screen resolution changed only to find that the screen is jumpy and unclear when they drag a window around on the screen really fast. This leads to more trauma, drinking, and drugs.
6) After they sober up a bit, the Linux user keeps thinking to themselves, “Why, oh why, did I not just get an Amiga? At least the damn screen draws right!”
Another soul, finding enlightenment. The guru beams.
#m
Here is my top ten things wrong with linux users
1) First post!
2) they dream about hot sexy fat penguins but they still don’t have the guts to ask one out for a date
3) their tendency to come up with such enlightened names such as grep, Hurd, and anything ending in nux. Yuck!
4) their idea of Enlightenment is cheesy desktops straight out of the movie Alien. Om.
5) “One crappy email client is not enough! we have to have 1 million crappy email clients!”
6) they have no problem that one of the biggest champions of the GPL is this deranged hairy smelly homeless looking guy
7) they have this “thing” against free beer. hey guys…free beer rules!
8) their idea of competing with Windows is to make everything look exactly like WIndows, feel as slow as Windows and crash as much as Windows…but make it free!
9) during the 90’s they came up with an ingenius business model: sell stuff that anyone can download for free and coast on the IPO!
10) Linux stands for Linux Is Not User-friendly (thanks to) Xwindow
I’ll chime in with a few of my own things that are wrong with Linux zealots
1) If you try Linux and don’t like it, they will say that it is because you’re too stupid/lazy/inept/ignorant to understand it.
2) … or else they were using the wrong distro.
3) This goes along with #1 above – Linux is obviously perfect, there must be something wrong with all of these people out there who don’t find it user friendly
4) As someone else already pointed out, the M$, Windoze, and all that other crap just needs to go. It’s alright if you don’t like Microsoft (as I’m sure most of us don’t), doing the ‘Mickey$oft’ thing makes you look childish and immature.
5) They seem to not have a hatred of any other corporations except for Microsoft
6) Many of them consider compiling from source and XF86Config as being user friendly
7) It doesn’t matter how much it sucks, as long as it’s not from Microsoft
8) They have such a passion for the OS, they try to convince you that it is technically superior in ways that it clearly isn’t
What happened to “OSNews stands behind all operating systems”? A few days ago you said someone’s post was unacceptable because he made a sarcastic comment about Microsoft and Intel being innovative because they finally came up with a 64-bit platform. I realize that the guy was a repeat offender and had put some pretty insulting posts on the site before, but his barb thrown at MS/Intel was no more offensive than most of this thread. My point is just that this top ten list, “humor” or not, is little more than flamebait, and posting it here invites a slashdot-style flamefest, not the civil discussion we associate with OSNews (and at one time, BeNews)
Anyway, thanks for OSNews. It’s a great site and I know it is just a hobby for you.
And besides, it’s better to get the Slashdot evil out of your system in a dedicated troll thread than to get into protracted wars with Mac zealots on those damn Apple/MacOSX threads 😉
And we know BeOS, Amiga, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows XP all suck. OSNews is just an online therapy group for all the people stuck using shitty operating systems.
Apple ][ PigDOS is the shit. Along with DiversiDOS. Makes the Amiga look like a resource hog that it is! Whatever you can do on all those chips in Amiga, you can do with good programming on a 1Mhz 6502C. If it can’t be done in 1Mhz, it’s not worth doing!
As for hobby-vs-real-life, well, remember, life itself is just a hobby of death.
#m
my Commodore 64 kicks the stuffing out of your Apple ][ any day of the week!
It is humour for heaven’s sake! You guys have *no*, and I mean NO sense of humour.
I think BeOS is quite stable in terms of the kernel. I’ve used Dano (which is allegedly beta quality) and haven’t had a prob yet!
Isn’t using Dano illegal?
when he said linux was unstable…he was probably referring to linux APPLICATIONS…face it most X apps are more crash-prone than a 90 year old drunk driving a studebaker without any brakes and don’t get me started on KDE and GNOME…just b/c the source is available doesn’t mean it’s instantly stable…and linux commercial apps really suck…ever use StarOffice or Nutscrape navigator…they’re horible…and i’ve had XFree itself crash more times than i can remember taking out all visuals…even text-mode making my linux box worthless…and long uptimes in and of themselves do not a stable OS make…i could run DOS 2.0 for years and years at a time b/c the core OS is VERY stable…it’s the apps that you run that destabalize it…Linux is very good…i like it a lot (hate X though)…but it’s not perfect and it’s not the cure for world hunger, no matter how much the zealots want it to be
ok … that does it … i thought this website is about operating system news but in the last few months osnews lost about 80 percent of it’s quality and well, this article tops it. if i wan’t to read about Linux OS bashing i check microsoft.com’s linux articles.
osnews.com bookmark deleted.
osnews.com removed from linklist on website.
Mind you when it come to TeX it not only Linux users. I remember being at an Amiga Developers Group meeting and having a person talk for three hours about how great TeX was for editting documents. Some mental bugs cross all operating systems.
I’d have to agree with Dave. The only time the RTFM answers are appropriate are when someone asks a really generic question like “How to I configure a Linux box so that I can start an ISP” or “How do I configure <application x>?” or “Why doesn’t <application x> work?”
If someone spends the time to ask a well thought out question with specifics on their problem, most people will give a thorough answer.
On the other hand, RTMF as pointed in the article, is not helpfull all the time humour aside. I think if I read the Howtos and man pages when I started using linux, I’d be lost. I’d just like to think the howtos could be better written instead of resembling techincal manuals. They’re certainly helpful to me now but really boring to read.
I’m sure Donald Knuth’s secretary (err… Admin) uses it regularly 😉
I miss my Apple ][ with its 40 column display…. and I did adore my (well a friends) 64.
Rambliing…. rambling… back to paying the bills.
The author obviously had a bad experience trying to install Linux. So he posts all these blurbs out of context and then flames them. He then fails to make a point or at least one that is worth listening too.
Back in the good ole days of UNIX, a little elitism saved time when you were working on that 5,000th line of socket code, etc. If someone came up to you and asked a stupid question(a question they could find the answer to on their own in 5 minutes or less) they’d be lucky if you didn’t throw something at them. If someone send a stupid question to an email list, it was perfectly acceptable to reply back with “What time is it?” to underline the point it was a stupid question they could find the answer to in 5 minutes or less on their own. That attitude worked great for it’s intended purpose. The idea being to condition junior admins on the idea that they should be less reliant on people that had more important things to do than waste their time on stupid questions. With the rise of the script kiddy, the linux newbie, and generally anybody else that thinks they deserve respect for making some boot disks and becoming a redhat expert, the net is flooded with stupid questions and complete a$$holes that think they’ve earned the right to act like computing gods. I think it’s why I stick with freebsd. The attitude there is earned, and done in the spirit of the “UNIX Way”.
1) everyone else uses Windows so it must be the best (yeah and Big Macs are better than filet mignon sure…)
2) it’s not a bug! it’s a feature!
3) I send you this file in order to have your advice
4) don’t take away Microsoft’s freedom to INNOVATE!
5) I’m a 31337 coder cuz I knows mirc scriptz d00d
6) I’m a networking expert because I have a MCSE.
7) so what if it requires an extra 500 mhz to get the start menu to work? That’s progress!
8) the registry is one of the most useful features known to mankind
9) I need to download a 40 meg security update to patch up the 50 meg security update I downloaded last week.
10) I hereby forfeit all my files, hardware, basic human rights, children, eternal soul etc blablabla where’s the Accept button?
even when it is humor ? too bad. Add #11 on the list: “linux zealots have no sense of humor”.
I argued on another comment thread about “linux on the desktop” and “lazy & dumb users”, and now that…. I guess I’ll stay away from Linux for another year or two.
I’m going to post this here first to give everyone a fair shot at understanding one of the jokes. This link will explain why Linux is NOT stable.
http://www.tuxreports.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=art…
After you’ve read the explanation then hopefully you will feel better about the joke. Sorry that the joke was too obtuse. My bad. Fortunately, I received many emails where people did get the difference – and therefore – laughed. And hopefully you will agree with me that Linux is NOT stable. Enjoy your day.
I actually founbd list the funny and sad. So much of it happens all the time.
Dang did I feel stupid when I read the explanation. I almost posted a reply to the story and then caught myself. Then I read all of the other posts. Geez. The guy is 100% right. People don’t read. It says right at the end of the story to read “About Tuxreports.” People are just posting. And most of the posts reinforce the ideas in the story !
Did you see the RTS post? (rolling eyes)
I read up on this guy (doing a google search). You can find lots of stuff on the site, too. Turns out he actually has a strong background in computers. He used to own a computer company. I then found him online and chatted with him. He’s okay in my book but is tired of people showing stupidity by posting to the story without reading everyhing first. He’s just deleting a bunch of the rude ones. He figures it might scare off new users. He’s right.
To arielb: in my experience, Windows users only ever actually say #1, #4, and #6 on your list. Well, maybe #5 too, but not seriously.
To LPH: Stuff goes over people’s heads all the time. It happens. Thanks for the explanation.
S.A. Wilson: What about simply delegating the person with the stupid question to someone with something less important to do? As in a very simple, “I’m busy, ask this person.” Elitism preserved, and the person gets their question answered.
Also, in general, people just don’t like to read manuals or help docs or whatever. This is why Dell, Gatreway and friends all have giant, colorful posters with their new computers with few words and big PICTURES. People can read but they don’t feel like it. Also, when people do read the manuals, they find that they are often badly written or edited, or even not available in their language. Worse yet, manuals are becoming smaller and smaller, forcing people to ENDURE the wonders of tech support. People would much rather have an experienced human being live with them to help them.
Basically, people have to be taught to use their computers, whether they teach themselves or have someone to give them a helping hand. This is just how it is, unless there is a revolution in interface technologies where it becomes super easy to teach oneself.
-JM
the author of the article clearly hasn’t really used linux. i found i only really got to know and love it after i completely rid myself of windows.
it was only when i had to survive doing real work on linux that i wass forced to learn enough to survive. a few years down the line and i dont know what i would do without it.
true, linux is difficult to use and the documentation is largely beyond the ken of most new users who dont have a CS degree. but perserverence (?) produces the best results.
and yes, google knows everything
arielb you should’ve changed the name of your post to 10 stupid things you can say about windows users, since I have never in my entire life seen a windows user say any of those. You see them said about us all the time though.
matt did you read the article? Did you read any of the replies here? Obviously not since its been extablished that he’s a linux advocate. He was making light of the worst elements in the linux community. Also comments like yours will keep people from linux, not draw them (who the hell wants to use an os you have to survive using?).
anybody notice one of the comments to the article on the site was basically in cli linux is uber stable? That made me laugh more then the 10.