Code|Beta

So, Matthew wrote on his blog over at http://matthewhelmke.net/ an interesting article that basically replies to a question done by one of his buddies, I read the 22 points and my reply to them is open your mind and now I’ll analyze each of the statements that Matthew does in order to prove my point

I must point out that at one point I did see the world like many of the new comers to Linux do but have since then opened my mind and seen the world differently, like mentioned on previous posts.

1. Upgrade to the newest version legally and without paying money

Well yes and no, you see not all GNU/Linux applications and distributions are free of charge, so in those cases, such as RedHat and SuSE, you need to pay in order to upgrade to the latest version of applications or the OS itself.

2. Have the latest version of the operating system run faster than the previous version on the same hardware

Not necessarily. The reason for this is simple hardware won’t stay current and will obviously slow down with time and you can’t expect to run Beryl on that old Pentium 1 PC that has been keeping dust for centuries, ok so I’m exaggerating the time frame here, but certainly looks like it ;). So I can install the latest Ubuntu on my Intel Celeron with 512MB of RAM and try to run all the applications you mentioned on another statement and I will definitely notice the system slow down drastically and I’ve done this.

3. Easily install and run different graphical interfaces if I don’t like the default setup

Yes this is true, so you got one right :). But guess what you can also do this with Windows and, I believe, MacOS. I have installed BlackBox in my Windows system and it has worked great.

4. Install twenty programs with one command

It really depends, but at the end yeah you can do that

5. Have the system automatically update all my installed programs for me

Well no and yes, you see if you manually install an application, whether it was done over a package for your distribution or it was compiled, it won’t be upgraded to the latest version when you run “pacman -Suy” or “apt-get dist-upgrade”. Let me show you a real world example of this. I have on my mom’s computer Ubuntu installed, possibly the same one as you have, and I installed Skype 2.0 now this installation was done
manually with the usage of one deb package and everytime I go through the system upgrade, guess what, Skype’s version is still the same…go figure

6. Install the same copy of my OS (Ubuntu) on multiple computers without worrying about license restrictions or activation keys

First, Ubuntu is not an OS it’s a distribution. And yes this happens with the exception of those distributions that are not free of charge, in that case you can’t do that. Don’t know how MacOS works on this matter.

7. Give away copies of the operating system and other programs that run on it without breaking any laws, governmental or ethical or moral, because it was all intended to be used this way

Once again, this only happens with free distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, ArchLinux…so on and so forth.

8. Have full control over my computer hardware and know that there are no secret back doors in my software, put there by malicious software companies or governments

Hrmm, I’m not 100% sure on this one…but I’ll leave this for someone else to comment on

9. Run without using a virus scanner, adware/spyware protection, and not reboot my computer for months, even when I do keep up with all of the latest security updates

No, GNU/Linux is not virus free and this is something that has been wrongly informed by the media, like many other things they wrongly inform you on. There are in fact virus scanners for Linux which are freeware and non-freeware. Sure you can update to the latest version of Firefox while still using it, but guess what as long as you don’t restart the application the changes won’t come into effect and this also happens with the libraries that you update. So you’ll need to reboot once in a while, maybe not as much as you do with Windows but you’ll eventually need to.

10. Run my computer without needing to defragment my hard drive, ever

Again, another misconception, filesystems are bound to get fragmented data over time. Ext3 was done in such a way that doesn’t get as much fragmentation as Windows’ NTFS yet it still occurs, check your filesystem and you’ll see that it does get fragmented. There isn’t a tool to actually defragment the ext3 file system, or at least I haven’t heard of one, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen.

11. Try out software, decide I don’t like it, uninstall it, and know that it didn’t leave little bits of stuff in a registry that can build up and slow down my machine

Well GNU/Linux doesn’t have a registry but uninstalling an application can leave bits behind, most likely the configuration files and such. Say I install OpenOffice and run it, then later decide that I didn’t like it and remove it, but wait a second I still have the configuration directory in my home directory wasn’t that supposed to get removed as well, well no.

12. Make a major mistake that requires a complete reinstallation and be able to do it in less than an hour, because I put all of my data on a separate partition from the operating system and program files

Sure, you can do that in GNU/Linux, I’ve done this multiple times. I can also store the data on a separate partition in Windows and in fact I can tell Windows to mount the other hard drive or partition as a folder and not as a drive letter, so I can tell Windows to mount the other hard drive in my PC in the Documents and Settings path which means that all my user data is stored in that hard drive and not on the same one as the Windows OS and when I reinstall Windows I won’t loose any of my data, wow isn’t that mind blowing. And I bet that we can do that on MacOS as well, you know because it’s based off of BSD, just a thought.

13. Boot into a desktop with flash and effects as cool as Windows Vista on a three year old computer…in less than 40 seconds, including the time it takes me to type my username and password to login

Oh wait, I can do that in Windows…wait that’s right I have to use the correct version for it. So a three year old computer is like a 1GHz box, right, I can install Windows Vista on that too and guess what it will run slow as well andGNU/Linux won’t run slow on that but after I install all the applications that I need I’m pretty sure it will run as slow as Windows will, you know just a thought as well.

14. Customize anything I want, legally, including my favorite programs. I can even track down the software developers to ask them questions, contribute ideas, and get involved in the actual design/software writing process if I want to

Hrmm, yeah, doubt many people are doing this but sure I can give you that.

15. Have 4+ word processor windows open working on papers, listen to music, play with flashy desktop effects, have contact with a largely happy community and have firefox, instant messaging, and email clients all open at the same time, without ever having had to beg someone for a code to make my os work, and without the system running so slow it is useless

Hrmm, the last time I tried a trick like this on that old box you mentioned earlier it ran so slow I had to close a lot of applications and I can do that in Windows too…I do that everyday. I have multiple IE sessions open, Firefox with multiple tabs, VIM, Outlook with a pst nearly 1GB in size, Pidgin, Excel, some Word documents, PuTTY and maybe some other thousand processes running as well and my system is still running smoothly and wait it’s running on top of Windows.

16. Use the command “dpkg –get-selections > pkg.list” to make a full, detailed list of all software I have installed, backup my /etc and /home directories on a separate partition, and you are able to recover your system any time, easily

Well, yes and no, because if I’m running ArchLinux I can’t run that command and, although I don’t have the /etc and /home directories in Windows, I can surely backup My Documents and also Program Files and the Registry of Windows to another partition and restore them later on when I need to.

17. Run multiple desktops simultaneously, or even allow multiple users to log in and use the computer simultaneously

Well I can have multiple users using the Windows installation that I have on my PC, remember that Microsoft added that feature with XP and later versions and they even included a way for me to run an application on my session as another user and we are still talking about Windows. Sure the Virtual Desktop feature would be great but I can add that with a software.

18. Resize a hard disk partition without having to delete it and without losing the data on it

But wait I did this with my Windows partition just the other day, you can do this with almost any partition. Now I’ve only heard the warm resize on UNIX based systems and not on Windows. Can anyone confirm this?

19. Use the same hardware for more than 5 years before it really needs to be replaced…I have some hardware that is nearly 10 years old, running Linux, and still useful

Yup, I can do that with Windows…again using the correct version. Have you tried running the latest version of Linux with all the cool new apps in that box?

20. Browse the web while the OS is being installed!

hrmm, maybe not browse the web but I can play solitare while Windows is installed

21. Use almost any hardware and have a driver for it included with the operating system…eliminating the need to scour the internet to find the hardware manufacturer’s website to locate one

Well you clearly use the standard hardware…because the last time I installed Linux on my laptop I had to scout for the drivers and how to install it on GNU/Linux…yet according to your statement that shouldn’t happen. The Killer NIC also has this as well, I have to download the drivers from the site’s website. So I guess this statement is not true either.

22. Get the source code for almost anything, including the OS kernel and most of my applications

Yeah, gotta give you that too.

So in conclusion, a lot of your statements are not true in the sense that they can be done outside of GNU/Linux, whether it’s on Windows or MacOS or anyother OS. So I guess what’s left to say is simply… open your mind and review your statements.

-LM