OpenSUSE Linux Rants

The gospel truth:

Excerpt:

“The battle between Linux and Windows will most likely rage on for years to come. I can foresee that even when all things migrate to the cloud, users in both camps will still be screaming the virtues of their favorite operating system. And, of course, I will be one of those campers (and I can bet you know just which camp I’ll be in). But being in that camp does not preclude me from seeing the benefits and strengths of the Windows operating system.”

1. Compiz
2. Multi-user
3. Log files
4. Centralized application installation
5. Cron
6. Regular release cycle
7. Root user
8. Pricing
9. Installed applications
10. Hardware detection

Read all of “10 Linux features Windows should have by default“

It seems that M$ still doesn’t get it. At least that’s quite obvious when one considers the “training” that they have been providing to Best Buy employees. For example, take a look at this screenshot of the training (click for bigger graphic):

The original poster of this info couldn’t have said it better:

“No iPod support? Really? And the Zune doesn’t work on the Mac either although there has been some progress from the Linux community. And I’ve never had any problems pulling pictures from cameras.

I’ve yet to see a printer that doesn’t have a driver. You might have to download it from the products website though (gasp!).

Yeah yeah. Software. Although WINE has been vastly improving lately (we even got around that stupid Secu-ROM).

There are free alternatives to all of the Windows Live “essentials”.

WOW. Of all the games to mention, they mention World of Warcraft. I wrote a tutorial on how to get WoW running on Linux not to long ago. Its probably the easiest game to set up with in WINE.

Authorized support? Well you have Red Hat and Canonical, oh I guess you can count Novell…

Video chat with Pidgin? Or Skype?“

Of course, not to mention the endless lists of Linux equivalents to Win software.

Take a look at the original exposé here:

Microsoft attack Linux at the retail level

See also:

microsoft (mis)educates best buy employees about linux

Microsoft’s training materials teach Best Buy employees how to trash Linux

You know Microsoft would only say something like this if there was absolutely no other alternative. They are marketing experts, not software experts. And apparently, the software experts that contribute to Linux have created an OS superior enough that, with little to no marketing/advertising, it enjoys a quickly-expanding install base.

Excerpt:

“While Linux on servers is a well-established market among business customers, Linux as a viable alternative to Windows on PCs has never taken off. However, the emergence of the netbook as a low-cost, smaller form factor to the traditional notebook PC has certainly changed that, so much so that Microsoft lately has been pushing a lightweight notebook as an alternative to netbooks, Helm said.”

Read Microsoft acknowledges Linux threat

Celebratory wallpaper:

Click for full-sized wallpaper.

This came in my email….

Sucks to be a Windows user.

IT: Korean DDoS Bots To Self-Destruct on Thursday July 09, @11:41PM
Posted by timothy on Thursday July 09, @11:41PM
from the someone-needs-a-little-hanging-before-bed dept. security tsu doh nimh writes “Several news sources are reporting that the tens of thousands of Microsoft Windows systems infected with the Mydoom worm and being used in an ongoing denial of service attack against US and S. Korean government Web sites will likely have their hard drives wiped of data come Friday. From The Washington Post’s Security Fix blog, the malware is ‘designed to download a payload from a set of Web servers. Included in that payload is a Trojan horse program that overwrites the data on the hard drive with a message that reads “memory of the independence day,” followed by as many “u” characters as it takes to write over every sector of every physical drive attached to the compromised system.’ ChannelNews Asia carries similar information.”

Right you are, my good man.

The London Stock Exchange completely crashed running Windows 2003 servers, MSSQL Server 2000, and custom .NET applications written by Microsoft and Accenture. The systems were down for nearly 7 hours. Yet another reason not to use M$ software in mission-critical situations, especially those that affect the economy of a country. I’m guessing they’ll start looking at something more stable, like Linux.

Excerpt:

“It should have been a great day on the London Stock Exchange. The U.S. government had announced on the Sunday before that it was coming to the rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Trading would have been extremely brisk, but then, at 9:15 AM GMT, the Exchange’s software failed due to “connectivity issues.” Six-hours and 45-minutes later, the London Exchange, along with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which uses the LSE’s trading platform TradElec, were finally back up.”

Read more about why the London Stock Exchange should switch to Linux

The BSOD strikes again, this time at the Olympic torch lighting ceremony:

What’s funny is that China is assembling their own distribution of Linux…

Excerpt:

“Well, this is just perfect. At the exact moment Li Ning was rounding the lip of the Bird’s Nest during the amazing torch-lighting climax, someone snapped this photo of our good friend the BSOD nestled among the Nest’s steel twigs.”

Read the entire article here

People seemed to have a good time with my last Linux T-shirt post, so here’s another one for you. I really like this one:

Click for a slightly larger version.

So again, where can I get one of these?

When I did the Novell Request an App Survey (follow-ups: article 1, article 2, article 3), a few things were brought into focus. Using the idea of supply and demand, you can assume that software development targets platforms based off the demand principle. If there’s a demand, the supply will rise to fill it. If there’s no demand, the supply will dwindle. Basic economics.

Take, then, this thought: Vista’s big problem: 92 percent of developers ignoring it. Well, when Microsoft admits Vista (is a) failure, you know it has to be bad. The kicker? More developers are writing software for Linux than for Vista.

What does M$ do? They use their tried-and-true iron-fisted dictatorship tactics and force the issue. How are they doing it this time? Killing off their most popular operating system to date to force people to upgrade to Vista. OMG, STFU, WTFH? Hold the phone. You are going to annihilate your most popular product to try and force people to buy your most unpopular product? OK, I haven’t been to the latest MS board meetings, but someone needs a conference call with their marketing department.

How about this, then…. Find a way to transition (where possible and appropriate) to Linux. Pick any of the most mature distributions with the tools that you need. For email-checking and web-surfing home XP users, this will be fairly painless. For businesses, the non-specialized end-user desktops should be easy to switch over. Especially with the release of OpenSUSE 11.0 imminent. Download it. Take a look. Try things out. Give it a few weeks. Then, when XP is officially dead, switch completely over.

Sure, many cases will be a little more complex than that. But if I gave my business to a corporation that snubbed me as hard as M$ does to their customers, you’d hear me breaking the sound barrier getting out of there:

Must have taken this photo the day Vista came out…

The end of this video rules.

I can’t remember where this came from, but I need to know who can help me find where to buy this bad boy. I’d probably even pay a finder’s fee, man. Seriously. So here it is:

Where do I get one of these?

I would have paid dearly to have seen this in person. Adam sent this my way (thanks, bro!). I can’t believe how awesome this is.

Apparently, the guy is saying, “Let Microsoft give back the 25 billion forints (160 forints = 1$) what he stole from the Hungarian taxpayers.” as he launches the eggs at Ballmer.

take a look at this great footage

Can anyone verify that this unbelievable claim is, in fact, true?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080429/095514977.shtml
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2004379751_msftlaw29.html

OK, I am totally stealing this one, but I wanted to share it (thx Steve).

“It’s official, Microsoft knows no shame. We used to think that the Zune tattoo guy was bad for publicity, but now it’s clear that the video promo team needs zero outside help in dragging whatever shred of dignity this company has through the mud. Whoever thought up this Bruce Springsteen-defiling “Rockin’ Our Sales” piece of garbage to promote the launch of Vista SP1 should be fired instantly and sued for defamation. It’s just that good. Video is naturally after the break.”

You HAVE to see just how low they can go.

Masochists click here for punishment.