I’m really disappointed to read your “if you want to play games, buy a console” comment. I keep reading that one of the biggest reasons to use Linux is to get away from having somebody else (usually Microsoft) tell you what you can and cannot do with your computer.

I LIKE to play games on my computer. I’ve been trying Linux intermittently for the past couple of months and have had almost zero success in getting my games to run in it. I’ve pretty much given up on Linux gaming for now. Sure, it’s much easier when I’m at work using multiple RDP sessions in Linux than in Windows, but when I get home, I have little reason so far to fire up the Kubuntu part of my dual-boot with Windows.

When I finally get around to firing up a mail or webserver at home, I expect to do it with Linux instead of forking out a thousand dollars for Windows Server 2003/2008. But for home computing, Linux doesn’t really suit my needs right now.

I’m pleased to agree that, as all here have testified, we don’t need to compile software at all in most cases. This is strikingly different from the time just a few years ago when a friend installing BSD had to go find a keyboard driver and recompile. How does someone without a working keyboard get a keyboard driver? The leap forward in usability from that to my Ubuntu machine in such a short time is a good sign.

The time I mentioned that I did need to compile was while installing a program used only by my discipline. There was no pre-compiled package at the time and may not be now. Maybe not so rare in that kind of situation, but hardly representative of daily, non-work computer use.

Hi, you’re referring to the Open source software in the real world guest post I wrote. (Part 3 should be up soon.)

If all you took away was “Users should be developers” then I think you missed what that section was saying, and probably the whole point of the article. This guest post discussed the features a free/ open source software project needs to have to get off the ground. (Part 3, should get posted soon, will talk about things a F/OSS project needs to do to be successful over the long run.)

The “Users should be developers” section you mention starts with:

The basic definition of open source software is that the source code must be made available for others to see it. A necessary side-effect of this condition is that anyone who uses the program has an opportunity to make improvements. A well-managed open source software project will accept any improvements in the form of patches, which modifies the program to solve someone else’s slightly different (but similar) problem. Releasing new versions of the software with the new features ensures that everyone benefits from these changes.

To emphasize: source code must be made available for others to see it, so that anyone who uses the program has an opportunity to make improvements.

That post goes on to use the example of writing the FreeDOS Kernel. In the beginning, everything was written by one developer (Pat). When we released the source code under the GNU GPL, everyone could see it. Those users who were also developers looked at the code, and began to contribute bug fixes, and patches to add other functionality. FreeDOS quickly improved performance, added network and CD-ROM support, LBA, etc.

All this was possible because we enabled our users to be developers.

However, this does not mean that your users must be developers. We have lots of people contributing in FreeDOS who are not developers, who know nothing about “compilers” and “debuggers” and “source code”. They just want to run a DOS system. Some use FreeDOS as a dedicated system (for example: building an arcade cabinet using the MAME software), and others run FreeDOS so they can play old DOS games. Nothing there about compiling code to get things to work.

This whole “you need to compile stuff to use Linux” is a myth. I run Linux on my laptop, but I haven’t compiled anything on it. My wife runs Linux, and has never compiled a thing. It’s not that I don’t know how (I think I’ve demonstrated my developer cred … see also GNU Robots, GNU Emacs, Atomic Tanks, Freemacs, Cats/Kitten, etc.) but that I just don’t need to compile anything to use a Linux system.

Not sure what you were trying to compile on your Ubuntu system, but my guess is that you could have just installed a pre-compiled package for whatever you were trying to do, rather than compile it. If you’re a developer – sure, I can see you trying to compile the code from scratch so you can see how things go together, then contribute a fix for something. But if you’re not a developer, or just not interested in compiling – don’t compile, man. That’s why there are pre-compiled packages that are easy to install.

Today she’s dressed in subtle earth tones and has the comforting, home-spun look that you usually associate with her, but memories of yesterday, when she seemed to be living in a totally different skin, where it was a little harder for you to find what buttons to press, but wow, what a result when you finally found them… And you think how fun it is that her whole personality can change across such a wide variety. Other girlfriends can’t do that.

And you think how your new girlfriend wakes up bright and cheery in only a few seconds every morning, and goes gently and quickly to sleep without asking a lot of dumb questions every night, how she makes no demands on your time or pocketbook when she moves easily and cleanly from one task to another. So, you havn’t quite figured out how to watch all the possible movies together, but you never have a total breakdown just because one thing or another goes a little wrong.

And you understand her. It’s like she’s made of basic, reliable, simple components with a handful of straight forward but powerful abilities that can be put together to do almost anything. You never worry that if you are doing something important that some other task will make her forget what is going on and have a total breakdown. You know that if you find something going wrong, you can sit down and work out, with her, how to manage and how to make it all nice again by looking as deeply inside her as you need to using simple methods.

And most important of all, you know that she will never, ever lie to you.

Imagine seeing an old girlfriend suddenly show up on your doorstep wanting to get back together. She’s pretty, of course, but too pretty. She wears too much makeup and carries that desperate look in her eyes. The fragrant haze around her is the perfume she overuses to mask the scent of failure.

But standing there in that low-cut top, you’d almost forget for a moment what a psycho she was- how she used to shut down in the middle of a date and forget everything you were talking about and how she was only happy when you were buying her things. You’d almost forget about carrying around her legacy baggage or those nights when, for seemingly no reason at all, she would simply stop speaking to you and when you asked what was wrong she’d just expect you to figure it out.

You complained about her for years before finally deciding to get rid of her. But here she is again. Though, somehow she seems like a completely different person now.

Tempted though you may be, you know that over time she’ll get bored and slow down on you just like she always does. And then you’ll be right back where you started: trapped. She keeps you by convincing you that you don’t have a choice. You’re just not smart enough for one option or rich enough to afford the other.

“But I’m different now,” she says, batting her eyes innocently. “I’ve changed.”

Indeed she has. Apparently, she’s really into Cabala now or something like that. It’s helped her discover loads of untapped potential in herself. But it also means that you’ll have to buy all new furniture to fit with her understanding of feng shui. That’s not the only change she has in store for you. The minute you let her move in, she’ll have a new alarm system put in that succeeds only in preventing your friends from coming over on poker night, but your TV gets stolen anyway.

She doesn’t love you, but she doesn’t hate you, either. The truth is that she couldn’t care less one way or the other. She’s here because she doesn’t want to be alone. Like all human beings, especially those well past their prime, she wants to feel wanted and – after a string of lost jobs and bad investments – she needs a place to stay.

But all in all, she’s OK. She’s a 7. She’ll do, I guess.

That’s Windows.

Is that what you meant, Dave?!?!? 🙂

Linux is clearly the superior system and has been for years. No one seriously doubts that. It is true that Linux is not for everyone. Many people can’t use Linux because they are punished if they do. Others because they don’t have the balls. Others because they prefer Macs and that’s a good system too.

And then there are all these others who use Windows but don’t have to. They’re just dumb-asses. But Linux is not for dumb-asses. Not because dumb-asses can’t use it … it is quite possible. Rather, we just don’t want them to. We prefer to be uncontaminated, pure, free of such things. Life’s better that way.