Linux.com

I agree that this must get pretty annoying after a while. It reminds me of a similar situation which makes my blood boil everytime it comes up:

Ever asked a group of programmers "Hey, anybody happen to know how to do this or that random task in [insert language here]?".

There's bound to be at least ten people who won't know anything about the programming language, didn't read the question, can't really give you an anwser at all, but who still complain loudly about your choice of programming language. It annoys me to no end.

The Perl guy will attack your choice for PHP, the PHP guy will attack your choice of PERL, the Python guy attacks all other language choices, the Java guy doesn't even seem to know other language exist, etc. If you don't have the anwser, then keep quiet please as I don't have the time to discuss religions.

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Yessem!

I had that once when I went to a gamedev chatroom asking for help with OpenGL.

Next thing I know, everyone's bitching at me for using Linux...

Stupid communist Windows zealots!

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AMEN BROTHER !!


Trying to discuss the real issues / concerns / challenges<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc. with these types of people ALWAYS seems to result in "character assassination". Instead of debating the pro's & con's they want to resort to name calling / FUD / and other childish tactics. ANYTHING to keep the focus on the person instead of the real issue(s) you're trying to resolve !


You know what I've found out in my 20+ year career ? It's usually the least confident people who fall back on this tactic the most often. They know in their hearts they don't have only the foggiest clue of the "big picture". So in order to not expose their own incompetence on the subject, they get off on these character assinations so as they themselves won't be exposed !


Would you agree ??


Joe Ashe

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Ok, let's just face it. Some things just suck. Like Perl. Some suck less like PHP. And some don't suck. The truth hurts, deal with it...

Ok seriously, I agree with you. I hate going to #perl, #c, #c++, #python, #fedora or most other IRC channels and asking people for help (save #debian). Most of the time they don't answer my question and tell me what I should be doing instead (i.e. "Don't use threads, they are evil").

We have kind of a running joke here around the office where we poke fun at each other's language of choice. And in that same vien, I refuse to reguarly use any language that insults me each time I decide to name a variable tupid. (think $tupid...<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

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Whether or not some things suck is not the point. That's not the truth that's hard to deal with.

The truth that is hard to deal with is the truth that in many situations you are bound to use language x due to factors which are of your reach or not relevant to the discussion.

And when people then start telling you that you should be using another language - you get friggin' pissed and tired and, in the long run, suicidal.

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This article is simply brilliant. Sometimes, the text-mode lobby behaves exactly as DOS diehards, who in turn compete with GUI-fanatics. This kind of article is the right response. Best of luck. AR [i.e. Anonymous Reader]

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i think there always clowns out there who will bad mouth anything . open office is a enterprise grade suite which i recommend to anyone getting away from Microsoft . its light years beyond coral and better supported . i have been helping test the beta 2.0 and this is a great piece of work . Microsoft might even sue with the quality of this release and i hope they do . i think its time to see how all this will stand in court as there is allot of work going in to this project .
so bring your spears and your lawyers and lets dance

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Since Newsfoerge articles have a tendency to be less educated on the package manager front, and bluntly advise everybody to install from source, I always make a (more or less) standard comment that one should never install from source but use
the native package manager instead.
Deride standard comments as you like, I am beginning to see some change.

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I don't agree with you. Package managers are certanly a great thing, but they often introduce a huge series of annoying problems.
RPM cross-dependencies are a classic example; I think everyone should improve his ability to build from source, but I also know that lack of time doesn't help in this task.
At the end, my personal experience is:

"build from source as often as you can"

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That means you either have out of date software on your system (with potential security holes) or you do the reinstall dance at least once a year.
Those RPM dependencies are valuable, because they keep you from putting your system in a half-working state. The dependencies can easily be handled by apt|yum|yast|urpmi.
If you are unable to see the advantages of a PM, look at it this way: If nearly every distro uses a PM, what makes your situation so special that you should not use one?

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Here's two things about my situation:

1. I manage multiple distros, with inconsistent package managers.

2. Some of my favourite software is only available from source.

Since compiling from source is pretty much as easy as installing from a package manager, I would say the onus is on you to explain why I SHOULD use a package manager.

Consider:

1. The source is almost always available, packages are not;
2. The source will work cross-distro;
3. It is much cheaper for me to download one source package than multiple binary packages (think dial-up modem);
4. For me, the reason I came to Open Source - was for the source!
5. If you can be bothered looking, the source often includes extra bits of information, readme's, extra resources and so on.

You also seem to be putting some sort of value judgement on out-of-date software. I have tested a dozen or more distros, yet the one I use for my personal pleasure is the one I started with 5 years ago. Why should I stop using a distro that I know well, and which works, just because you seem to be hung up on 'flavour of the month', or seem to think I should be concerned with security on a machine with no network connections.

Look at it this way: If nearly every distro includes gcc and make, what makes your situation so special that you should not compile from source?

Does that help?

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I'm perfectly ok with people compiling from source on their own machine; how you waste your time is, after all, your business. However, for the love of $deity, if you admin a server that other might have to work on, save them troubles and use your distribution's standard mechanism for installing software. I hate having to troubleshoot a server where half the stuff is spread over<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/usr/local with no way to track which is running and which is just leftover from careless would-be admin. Add to that non FHS-compliant habits, non-standard init script (admins using rc.local to start service deserve to be shot), half-assed syslog and logrotate configuration, and you have a recipe for disaster.

I appreciate availability of the source just like the next guy, but experience tell me distributors do a better job than I at compiling and packaging software. If, like me, your time is too valuable to reinvent the wheel constantly, do yourself a favor and learn your distro's package manager (yum, apt, yast, urpm, portage, ports, whatever).

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First of all, your personal situation is not a model for every other user. Using the same linux distro for 5 years straight without bothering to update or connecting to the net is pretty exceptional.

Second, how you choose to waste your time is your business, not mine, so no onus is on me.

In your case I'd say that Package management is not for you. Package Managers were invented to make software installing, up-(or down)grading and removing easier, without handing a big rope to the user to hang himself with. AKA: maintainance. If you choose to never maintain your system or prefer the long rope to hang yourself with, then PM does not make your life easier and you should not use it.

For myself, I don't think system maintainace is very interesting, but I am concerened not to keep insecure software on my box that offers some services to the net. I could keep tabs on every security related mailinglist for the software i have installed, but I think that is a pain in the butt and a waste of time.

That is why I run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade once in a while. I trust the debian developers to keep the repository safe, and in return I don't have to do a lot of work others have already done before.

When i wish to install some new software or remove some old things, I have to do very little myself, apt-get install or apt-get remove do the trick nicely. I had to do that with software installed from source, I'd have to figure out what it depends on, install that, then compile and install the actual package. For removing I'd have to pray that a uninstall target was in the makefile or I remembered what install location I had chosen at configure time. I'd also have to deal with software that depended on the piece I just removed. All in all a chore that is a pain in the butt, wastefull and can easily be automated.

As for your 'maintaining multiple different distro's over a dialup onnenction', that is just very far fetched. If you wish to keep them in running order, you will have to invest time in them to learn how to do it their way. I you only know one way and don't wish to learn any different, then go find the one distro that you can treat your way, and chuck the others. Treating Gentoo, Debian Suse, Redhat, FreeBSD or OSX are not Slackware, and if you treat them that way, you are asking for misery.

Look at it this way: If nearly every distro includes gcc and make, what makes your situation so special that you should not compile from source?

Well, because it is a waste of time? Installing a binary package takes a few seconds, compiling it takes a lot longer and leaves you without all ease of use of PM. Even the distro known for compiling from source, gentoo, has a package manager to handle source packages, now why would that be?

So one can easily turn your question around:
Almost all distro's are installed and maintained with a package manager. What makes your situation so special that you should not use a package manager?

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That's simple: you can install from source on any system but is not available on every distribution, so installation fron source is the most distro (and OS) agnostic thing you can show.

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From source or managed package as is one's preference; but every half-decent Linux user should have a working knowledge of both.

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For unknown reasons, this article makes my firefox go poof ! More annoying than the snarky article.

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Lately my firefox was crashing with every article here. I just removed some custom fonts I had installed and it works again.

In case it helps.

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More likely your timing was the cause. Firefox was blowing up here, too. Now it doesn't. I haven't made any changes. More likely, NewsForge stopped posting a Flash-based ad or two which caused the problem. (Or they're still being posted, but randomness has allawed this page-load to survive.)

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The banner ad I see in Moz (which works fine for this page) is the M$ tco fantasy. Reach your own conclusion.

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Same here, lately my (t)rusty old Mozilla 1.4.2 crashed on every single NewsForge article. It might be ad-related, because it crashes _after_ the article and comments are displayed.

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Mozilla 1.7.10 is also crashing on numerous Newsforge articles/comments. Strange.

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Me too (this is on Windows on Monday night). I click on some of the talkbacks, and some are OK (that's how I replied here) but others hang with "connecting to doubleclick.net" on the status bar. When that happens, I can only restart Firefox by killing the old process using the Windows task manager.

Hmm, maybe that's because I've got my doubleclick friends on my block-cookies list (Tools | Options | Cookies<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... "Exceptions" button, type in "doubleclick.net" in the edit field and hit the "Block" button). Sorry, that site stays on my list no matter who they sign up as customers.

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Is that a new trend for newsforge editorialist to insult their public ?

Are nf readers not good enough for you Bruce ? So why don't you just write somewhere else ?

About the OOo related trolls: by the hell, why do you consider that this instant resitance come from nowhere or is nonsense ?

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...Well some people beg to be insulted...

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And some go out of their way to feel insulted.

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I guess is because it apply to any distro and avoid to say<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... but I use slackware..deb...urpmi..yum...apt...emerge..blah.<nobr>.<wbr></nobr> blah..

source is for everyone.

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You know as soon as someone in an article mentions RPM, you'll have comments like

"RPM is for fscking n00bs, us0rz teh SLACKS"

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Seeems to me this is only insulting if you fall into this group. I thought it was both true and funny.

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I'd like to think that this comment is the result of end-of-the-week sleep deprivation, and, having got up late on Saturday, this poster remembers the difference between humor and insults.

However, in case that's not so, a couple of points:

- Notice the opening sentence. I'm talking about posters who chime in with points that have nothing to do with the specific topic of an article. Relevant comments that correct a mistake or bring up a related point or add information are a different matter -- they help everyone, including me.

- Actually, I do write about OOo somewhere else. In the last fifteen months, I've done about 20 articles on OOo for the Linux Journal site, too.

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The bloatware comment isn't THAT off the mark... That beast takes literally 3 minutes to load on my computer at my office.

It's okay after using it a minute, but it's still REALLY annoying.

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It would be nice if a major focus of OOO v3 development is to properly split up and componetize the beast.

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What makes you believe that this would make it faster? It wouldn't. It'd just make the download about 4 times bigger.

Cheers,
Daniel Carrera.
OpenOffice.org volunteer.

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...Common sense, something a lot of techies lack.

Loading presentation software, spreadsheet software and more just to run the word processor is obviously not bright.

Nor would splitting it into a few executables (all the rest of the shared components are the same) increase the download size 4 times.

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><nobr> <wbr></nobr>...Common sense, something a lot of techies lack.

Informed opinions... something non-techies lack.

90% of what goes into making the office suite is not something you can split. Take the graphical interface for example. Take vector graphics. You do want your word processor to be able to display drawings, don't you? You want to be able to make a chart in Calc and paste it on Writer, right? then writer must have vector graphics and so does Calc. Do that a lot, and you'll see that these products actually do have a lot in common. Blindly sepparating them would simply create a lot of duplication, which would effectively be more bloat, not less. Just because Calc and Writer look different to you it doesn't mean that they don't share the vast majority of the code.

When you first load OpenOffice.org, only the "core" program loads up. When you then start a new Writer document, it then loads up the extra bit of code that makes the Writer interface. You then open a spread sheet, and OOo loads the extra bit that makes up the Calc interface.

Not duplicating code is the reason why OOo 2.0 beta installs in 1/3 of the space of MS Office 2003 for comparable functionality. Inspite of the fact that OOo has the burden of being cross platform (which causes bloat) and MS Office doesn't.

> Nor would splitting it into a few executables
> (all the rest of the shared components are the
> same) increase the download size 4 times.

But naturally you don't know what you're talking about. You've used the probram. You see that they have different buttons and menus and you conclude that they are completely separate things. You are unaware that the vast majority of the code that goes into making a spread sheet is also necessary for making a word processor and a drawing program. And hence, you don't realize that separating them would mean that the bulk of the code would just be needlessly duplicated and it would give you an inmensely bigger program.

Cheers,
Daniel.

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Alright, fine, it runs like molassis for other unrelated reasons.

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Ever heard of libraries?

Couldn't the vector graphics stuff be in a shared library, that both Writer and Calc could use?

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I'm another OOorg user and I also think the startup time of the program is too long. Microsoft's products seem to work a lot better in this regard, which makes OOorg look clumsy to the first-time user. Noboly likes splashscreens and long waits anyway.(?)

I think this is a real problem with OOorg, and the developers should do something about it, instead of telling the users that they're wrong. And no, I don't want to fork the program and make it better myself, this is just a suggestion to the developers.

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ok, I agree on the bloat on my antique windows machine OO takes a while to load and get it's feet on solid ground.

BUT... I stand proud as an OO user for several reasons (and have pressed the donate button a time or two)
1) I can move documents between windows desktop, windows laptop, FC4 laptop, FC4 desktop, all work machines, the three other machines in the house, all of my clients (even the ones with the MS flag tattooed on their forehead), etc... ( I could list machines all day)

2) I have played a bit in the source with some ideas I thought I wanted, figured out, implemented, tried and decided I didnt like after all.

3) I installed a copy for my technology challenged mother (on a pentium 166) and have not had a single help call from her since (for her wordprocessing) and she likes #1 as well because she can read everything sent to her by the rest of the little old ladies she hangs out with.

4) installed a copy for my (not technology challenged being a retired Boeing engineer) father (an author of local history books for places where our family has played important roles) with the same results as my mother EXCEPT for one city which only uses the Corel product which he still has to use for them.

5) my wife who works in research for a large university has never looked back, and the "honey I cant get XYZ to work will you drop your work and come help me please..." has completely stopped in the word processing and spread sheet categories, and been greatly diminished in the database area.

Opensource is a good thing in a great many ways, and should be supported in EVERY form it takes except true uglyness (and yes there are some open source projects which have/should die a painfull death.

Until we all get along and support all GOOD opensource the evil satans of the world will continue their dominance of the world, and those of us who hope to some day make a little mad money from donations will never see that day!

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To these individuals: Let them keep the old woman and keep refusing to change over. When the dog and all other inhabitants of your home are gone, you will have much more room and money for new computer equipment.

Stand firm!!!

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Everyone knows that any list like this should have at least 10 points. If you can't come up with 10 you shouldn't bother writing the article.

Why didn't you provide any links to prove your points? Without links it's just your &*@%#%&^ opinion. I've had enough of your opinion but you haven't had enough of mine. If you had you wouldn't have written such a lame article.

Maybe you should research your article a little before you write about it. I have personally seen many more standard replies in my casual reading in Newsforge. You could have made a database of all the replies and cross - referenced them for similarities. The data is all there. You are a lazy writer!

I read an article exactly like this 3 years ago. What you say is not original, it's a rip off of other peoples ideas and hard work. Why don't you get a real job and stop wasting my time. I don't have a job and I don't go around wasting other peoples time. What makes you so special that you can waste mine? Newsforge is really scraping the bottom of the barrel when they publish rehashed trash like this.

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*lol* Good one<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:D

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Why it is so difficult to understand that getting violent and inpolite is uggly and show just a weak character?

        Why can you be decent even if you mainly disagre? Whay can't you just bring up objective aguments and refrain from being insultive, impolite and basicaly mean?

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I knew someone wouldn't get it. Restores my faith in humanity, it does.

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I must say, this list is certainly good. I'm sure it gets annoying to have pedants constantly judge your work. Of course, these same people have often never written an article themselves!

Thanks, and keep it up. We need less flaming and more constructive discussion in the open source world.

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Sir, you're implying we would believe in such automatic nonsense! Do you really think we're so fool?

No, this surely wouldn't work.

Because, if this was possible at all, what would prevent monopolies from having employees using such Eliza-like babblings to criticize, say, the Linux desktop?

This would never... erm... hum... I mean... I... Hey, wait a minute! Those lame arse bas**BEEP**!

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Fire this person immediately. this is neither informative or the least bit interesting. bruce, writing should be enticing, not forced on some grudge. however, there is a place for something like this; bruce's blog. keep it there.
ac

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didn't even rtfa but it really seems the article hit a point with some people, when I look at the comments. I guess the Freedom of Speech idea is not popular with these people.

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Then RTFA, a**hole. The (ahem) writer just wasted everyone's time with useless derisive retorts to a much bigger problem that can't be simply hidden with lies or mockery: OOo is not good enough in spite of what the zealots say. Yes, that loser really should be fired.

--Luc

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This is what this cone head did:

Lots of people come up with very reasonable complaints against OOo.

Lots of people come up with very unreasonable complaints against OOo.

So this Bruce fellow focuses only on the (arguably) unreasonable ones and mocks them, causing the overall impression that one has to be a moron to ever criticize OOo or compare it to anything better. All justifiable criticism is suddenly gone in a sleight of hand! And this wanker thinks that NF's readers are stupid enough to fall for such a lousy move.

Don't quit you day job, Bruce.

--Luc again

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Hmmm. He tells unreasonable people making irrelevant comments that they are unreasonable people making irrelevant comments. That seems reasonable to me.

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read the article and it's still good humor. Try to contain yourself, sir.

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"Not good enough" is even less informative than his list of common complaints. At least his were made up.

I've used nothing but OOo for five or six years, personally and professionally. If I've lost productivity or functionality somewhere, I certainly don't miss it.

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Sure. Well, I only work with text, rarely ever having to edit text in pictures. So let me paraphrase you (and still not lie at all):

I don't see why anyone might ever say that Photoshop is better, since I've used nothing but MS Paint for five or six years, personally and professionally. If I've lost productivity or functionality somewhere, I certainly don't miss it.

Duh!

--Luc

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Just clarifying my own (original) post... it was meant to be cynic.

I was not really protesting. I agree with the author. Some people have nothing better to do than criticize all Linux-related aspects, Ooo or not.

They would also criticize the Amiga, but Linux is really growing and starting to disturb their unified-opinion single-OS universe.

But, I hope, their Universe is about to fracture and we'll return to times like those of yore, when the Amiga had a chance. If Linux helps this happens, I think this will be a Good Thing (TM).

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5!

--
blindy

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4

--
rgds

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I think I fully understand your problem. If you like then please take some hours and read issue 1820. It's such a kind of issue where everyone wanted to interpret something different into it. You might understand the parallels between your article and the content of that issue. Your article is well done. Thank you.

<a href="http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1820" title="openoffice.org">http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1<nobr>8<wbr></nobr> 20</a openoffice.org>

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The choices are always a bit different from what I want to really answer and there are never enough choices.

I'm glad this is just a humor article to drive traffic for the advertisements. Too bad for you my proxy automatically filters out the ads. {flame away on this if you care - I don't}

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"I'm glad this is just a humor article to drive traffic for the advertisements. Too bad for you my proxy automatically filters out the ads. {flame away on this if you care - I don't}"

We have a superfluity of evidence that Linux users are freeloading parasites, but thanks for your input.

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ha ha ha ha ha. Are you flaming now?

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I completely agree with you. The only thingy I mind about OOo is it takes a lot more time to load than M$O. That's THE ONLY thing!!

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I thought the article was funny, tongue in cheek and Bruce's point was proven by many of the comments: The article is under the category "Humor" to most normal people this means you are supposed to not take it literally (like many of the posters here did) and have a laugh.

Good one Bruce!

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I think of all of those comments the one I see the most is Word Perfect. I never used the software as I grew up on MSO before switching to FOSS, but it must have been some piece of work for people to keep referring to it as though it were the Holy Grail of Word Processing. Every article I have every read on OOo has at least one comment saying, "If they would at this feature that WP created X years ago (where X is big in software time scale), it would be perfect"

I don't doubt these convictions, but if it really was so amazing, why hasn't anyone copied the concepts?

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I can't find the place to click my response. I tried clicking on the numbers but they are just standard text. Also, can we choose more than one answer? I can't seem to narrow it down.

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This sounds like the same problem that I have seen in every reply thread from every Red Hat/Fedora review I have ever read.

It doesn't matter what you say. It all ends up with 50 comments moaning about the lack of multimedia support accompanied by 25 moaning about rpm/extolling the virtues of apt.

It must be quite disheartning for the author.

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