News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:On the state of Windows on the desktop by brudgers on Monday January 14, 2013 @09:51AM (#5054803)
>"Somehow this aggravates me."

That might be because it is poor parody.

"Please note that this article is a parody of what some Windows users write about Linux. The events described here have not actually taken place. However, the article is based on author's experiences with the Windows 7 operating system."

What is being parodied - the experience of Windows users encountering the peculiarities of Linux - is not particularly interesting, nor is it particularly worthy of ridicule. Such stories tend to be about people giving Linux a legitimate chance and running up against technical unfamiliarity.

The particulars of this parody just don't carry any water. Windows downloads drivers automatically? That's dog bites man since the 1990's. Windows doesn't have a live CD? Nobody [1] expects it; again there's decades of precedence AND nobody cares.

The parody isn't funny. It doesn't go anywhere intellectually, and if there is a message it's something along the lines of Windows users are inept. The last point is salient because Windows users tend to admire people who understand Linux, not hold them in contempt.

I read the title and clicked. I read the lead and thought it could be interesting. It wasn't and I too was annoyed. Not because I love Windows, but because the article is dull.

[1] "Nobody" in a statistically significant sense relative to the population of computer users and potential computer users.

Re:On the state of Windows on the desktop by Garoof on Monday January 14, 2013 @12:03PM (#5055428)
"What is being parodied - the experience of Windows users encountering the peculiarities of Linux - is not particularly interesting, nor is it particularly worthy of ridicule. Such stories tend to be about people giving Linux a legitimate chance and running up against technical unfamiliarity."

Yeah, that was what bothered me about the post. The piece that it links to, the example of what is being parodied, is some guy giving Linux a shot because he's tired of Windows breaking all the time. Responding with an attack on Windows seems like missing the point pretty badly. Windows not being very good was like the premise to begin with.

Also note that lots of the stuff in the "State of Linux" piece is about stuff that is clearly wrong/buggy. It is a little funny when Branko goes "people come from Windows to Linux expecting it to behave the way they are used to, and that was the main point." Cause then the whole thing comes off kind of like it's one guy complaining about segfaults and disappearing GUI-elements, and another responding with "you're just expecting them to behave differently because you come from Windows."