Is GNU/Linux for you? Probably not

Sam Varghese
Friday, 02 March 2007 10:16

Opinion and Analysis

 Nine times out of ten, this kind of tripe ends up being linked off a dozen or so so-called technology websites, and Linux fanbois begin to vent. The site where one is most likely to find this kind of "I love Linux but I can't use it for no fault of my own" rubbish is the American website Slashdot.

The normal outcome when such tales emerge from any location is that testosterone-charged teens and twenties (and sometimes even older people) begin a kind of self-flagellation, castigating themselves left, right and centre for the said individual's inability to use GNU/Linux.

The fault evidently never lies with the person making the confession; something has to be wrong with GNU/Linux.

The most recent instance I recall is that of an alleged tech support person who, despite having a number of applications in his workplace that ran only on Windows, suddenly decided that he wanted to run GNU/Linux at work. As is to be expected, he failed miserably but that did not stop him from declaiming loudly and at length that it was all the fault of the operating system he had tried to use. Commonsense did not enter into the equation at all.

Another case I recall is that of a longtime GNU/Linux user who decided some years ago that he would go back to using Windows. He wrote a long article about it and sounded extremely apologetic about his decision, as though he was doing something terribly wrong which he felt he had to justify.