Interesting that he doesn't allow comments on his blog.

Im not going to even goto his blog. The guy sounds like a major tool. Its best to just leave him alone, he can play with his linux distro all night long.

I have no problems with linux, I think its neat. But its not something to get in a war over...

Reminds me of when I was in 3rd grade, my dad had brought home an IMB PC because he needed it for work. There was a friend of mine in school who had one of the original Mac's. We used to argue which was better IBM or Apple, It never accomplished anything.

TJ -

"The guy sounds like a major tool"

Hi is.

But he's such a totally *out there* tool. He's about as extreme a zealot as I've ever encountered, and it makes him a very interesting specimen...

I usually check out the links that you have on your page (and most of them end up in my sharp reader) but after readings Chris's few (and quite ignorant) posts, I thought I'd leave a comment or two (probably two, I like to hear myself talk (rather, I like the way my keyboard sounds when I type - we have quite the relationship)).

1. I work the government. Microsoft is great because windows for the average user is a nice comfortable piece of cake. It's not too messy and, for the most part, they know what to expect. If I changed over everybody's OS to Linux to save a few bucks, my users would have a coronary (because for some reason, most govt employees have some sort of heart condition - they must hand them out at the prientation). Also, the cost to train a gaggle of users to use a new operating system is rather large when compared to the cost of a new windows upgrade.

2. I write the in-house programs for my agency. I use VS.net and it is really easy to do. It may also be easy to do with an open source compiler but, alas, I don't know how to do it. To rewrite all of the inhouse programs would be a big PitA. Open source may be better, but should your tax dollars go to some struggling programmer trying to save a few bucks on some free programs?

3. His arguments are REALLY emotional and not real practical. The average user could give a rip about what OS he/she is using - they just want to write a letter/fax/memo/whatever.

4. I would have commented on his page but I guess open source blog's don't allow posting on their pages. Go figure.

Yeah, ok, I took a look at it just like people look at a trainwreck; once is usually enough. I think that he is actually a comedian instead of a techie/programmer/IT person/etc. His post, <i>8 Reasons not to use Windows</i>, was especially laughable touting such points as 1) Linux is hacker proof, Windows is not and 2) Linux is just superior. I think that I will print out this list and look at it when I need a good laugh.

"He's about as extreme a zealot as I've ever encountered"

Yeah, you know, I've met some freakazoids in my time (and been called one more times than I care to remember) but there really is something that stands out about this guy.

That rare, truly disconnected from reality kind of freaky… You’ll be having a drink at a bar with a friend enjoying a conversation and he’ll (out of nowhere) wedge himself in between the two of you and start to spout off just what he thinks of what you and your friend are discussing, never mind that I’ve never met you before, you are going to listen to what I have to say kind of freaky…

Well he is using Blogspot and that does not offer comments by default. You need to really spend some time to search for a decent comment provider..:-)

Uhh, right. All of Mr. Antohony's posts, the "8 Reasons Not To Use Windows" in particular, lack any coherent logic whatsoever. Typically when one makes an attempt at a logical argument, there are things called premises upon which said argument is based... [well, unless you're in politics I suppose, but I digress.] This guy doesn't even attempt at an argument, but rather prefers masturbatory rants devoid of any references or facts.

Let's examine the structure of his arguments.

"n[1...8]. Linux is better because of x. Windows sucks because of y. OSS is so cool. Windows sucks."

Now I am not saying either way whether closed source is "better" than OSS or whether Windows is "better" than Linux - however one would measure such a thing. Rather, there are situations in which one offers benefits over the alternative. In fact, in the past few months I have deployed .NET, Java, Linux, Windows, closed, and OSS solutions for customers (SMBs and enterprise)... And guess what? Each choice was made individually based on constraining factors, informed decisions, and difficult trade-offs - not dogma of the like that this guy spouts.

Reading this guy's rants reminds me of a funny story:

My fiancee's sister attends an art college. She has a WinXP PC, is not very computer saavy; it's used to burn CDs, read email, IM, and write papers primarily. Not too long ago, she began having problems which prevented her from connecting to the university network from within her dorm room. So, she called up the university IT support hoping for a quick fix.

What she ended up with was a sniveling, unkempt, hairy beast of a man, who had not taken a shower, nevermind made an attempt at shaving, for weeks. He had one of those "I am root, hear me roar" T-shirts on, and smelled similar to rotten Camembert cheese.

Instead of trying to fix her PC, he complained for about an hour on the initial visit about how he hated to work with WinXP, lectured her about how she should use Linux because Windows sucks and "these problems are typical with Windows machines." He proceeded to make her life miserable for weeks by lackadaisically trying to "fix" her problem, each time recommending she simply format her hard drive and install Linux because he'd be able to help her then. An _ART_ school. Now, I'm not a demographics expert, but I would suspect that not too many art majors give two flying f__ks about their choice of OS -- they just want something that works, and without too much effort.

Needless to say, it was a simple network configuration conflict.

Not trying to promote any stereotypes, but just another example of somebody who can't see past their own ass.

If I remember correctly, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9804/20/gates.comdex/">some other platforms have crashed</a> at rather <a href="http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/200403.html#d14t1533">inopportune moments</a>.

But we could play the link bashing games for days. Computers crash, sometimes when they're hooked up to overhead projectors, and if you judge an OS by that single case, you don't have much business picking your own OS. I agree, this fellow's off his rocker.

FWIW, I use Linux at home and my Mac for everything: home, school (Unix programming) and work (troubleshooting Windows XP). If you're out for general computing knowledge, but your'e not an OS polyglot, you're missing out on all the good stuff each platform has to offer. Yes, even Windows =).

Marc - It wasn't about link bashing, it was about this dumbass and his absolute statements like "Windows always crashes but Linux never does." Sadly, this moron wouldn't be able to see reality if it was staring him in the face, so I doubt the news will change anything.

CA is an example of a simple mind with a little knowledge, which is a dangerous thing. It's religious zealous ignorance such as his which is the cause of most wars throughout time (on a lesser level here, of course).

He is the type of person who instigates trouble -- he knows he does, and he enjoys it. Most of all, he is probably having the time of his life right now with all the attention he has been getting here and on .NET Rocks. Of course, my post is adding to his attention-grabbing fun, but I just wanted to make this point.

Sure, we're also having fun at his expense, but he got a rise out of everyone, and is probably in seventh heaven right now.

But before we end these threads, though, I'd love to see a cool Rory comic strip about him! ;)

> Computers crash, sometimes when they're hooked up to overhead projectors, and if you judge an OS by that single case, you don't have much business picking your own OS. <

That's the whole point of our "Linux Vunlerability of the Week" segment on .NET Rocks! We want to disprove the bullshit and bring people back to reality.

That was weird. Must be your blogs way of telling me I've got nothing to say?

Anyway, computers crash due to use. I've got a Linux fileserver at my house with my MP3s and home drive on it. It's been up for 16 days straight so far. I think the reason it went down 16 days ago was because I unplugged it cleaning up my desk and re-running all the wires. (wireless networking, HA! Let me know when they've got wireless power distribution down and THEN we'll talk.).

My XP machine I have to re-boot about once every 2 or 3 days. Why, I USE it. If all I was doing with it was serving files, I'm sure it could stay up for as long as I wanted. My ASP.NET process on our production cluster at work has been up since sometime in Feb. I think it was rebooted after applying the Feb security patches. I've never gotten an email saying "Whoops, the cluster crashed again."

Rory, I hate to say this, but I think someone is pulling your chain. I mean, stuff like "Linux can run Open Source programs" can't be serious. Um, right?

How can you possibly argue with such watertight arguments to why Linux is better than Windows:

- Linux is hacker proof, Windows is not
- Linux has a future
- Linux is just superior (When you run out of arguments just say it is because it is. People wont question you)
- Open Source is better

I am convinced. I would comment on Chris's blog. I hope someone offers him a .Text blog (running on Mono, naturally :)) so people can add their say in response to him?

I've got both win2k and linux running happily at home. I haven't had a bluescreen since I switched from 98 about three years ago...

"In 12 months Novell will be the dominant PC Operating System vendor with SuSE Linux and Ximian"

You sure he aint just a deranged loon, escaped from the x-files?

This guy is clearly not living in the same world as us! I have written a lengthy post on my own blog regarding his post: http://www.mspiteri.com.

Comments are more then welcome.

Since when did Open Source become closed to Linux alone?

;-)

I use XP Pro. I rarely run into problems, except every now and again Explorer stalls, stops responding, is closed and takes the taskbar with it, then everything reappears a few seconds later; that's annoying.

I know it's hard to quantify, but I do believe that XP offers the better "user experience" at this point in time. As to the future? Well, alot of Linux commentary seems to think that Microsoft are going to run on the spot. Yeah. Right.

that guy blows so much smoke, it's a wonder he can see his 'post' button at all...

Anonymouse, do you have SP1 installed? I had that problem with XP before I installed SP1. If it's not that, it's likely some explorer extension that's causing the problem, which can be a real PitA to diagnose...

You know what causes this Chris guy to truly lose his credibility (as if he hadn't already): of all Linux distro's out there, he links to RedHat. ^_^

"There is no way a virus can be written for linux"

WOW. That's amazing.

Rory-this guy has to be worse than fidel (That's the name right?)

maybe he's a super villan?

http://www.nata2.info/humor/flash/switchlinux3.swf

>Well, this one has been trounced on:
1. Virus propagation

I will add, I once knew a Novell Zealot that said the same thing about Novell. Course nobody wrote a virus for it. There was nothing worth destroying... (I'm sorry, cheap, worthless crack. We use Novell here, it serves it's purpose well.)

Let's just cut the crap... computers crash because the run on INTEL CHIPS!!! Wait, AMDs crash too...

Okay, computers crash cause they run on the X86 standard!!! Wait, I've crashed Macs too...

Okay, I've really gotten it this time. Computers crash for the same reason cars crash... Human intervention. Let's blow up all people and we will never have to see another computer crash!!!

this guy has to be a troll!

each of his marvelous "8 points" are so....so.....nope, i can't even find words.

absolute genius.

This is precisely the sort of person open source does NOT need. All they do is damage the reputation of hard-working programmers and annoy the piss out of the rest of us. How much free time to you need to have to become so openly derranged? I've used Linux for a couple years on two computers, but I've gone back to running entirely on windows for a slew of reasons, mostly technical and work-related. And while i have a somewhat long-winded view of the comparison between the two OS's, i did find an article that summed it up very well: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1817&e=3&u=/zd/20040324/tc_zd/122534&sid=96120751

One line in particular: "It's [Linux] beginning to look a lot like, well Windows"

We need to start a movement for the separation of church and technology :-)

i think this "christopher anthony" fellow is just another one of rory's multiple personalities...

I'll be interested to see how long his blog lasts. It will be hard work keeping posts like these coming on a regular basis.

Smart move to not allow comments...

Phil -

"Rory, I hate to say this, but I think someone is pulling your chain."

I've considered that, but I honestly enjoy the guy.

He's so completely out there in ways that I've never seen in another zealot.

Yup,

Like Carl and Rory mention on Dot Net Rocks, it's this kind of zealotry that drives people away from technologies like Linux and Java. It's the blind "M$ suxors bcuz they are a monopoloy and the Justice Department and EU say so blah blah blah" crap. They can't see past their fanboy goodness.

Do I really want ot rely on "millions of programmers" to put out patches for my business or my clients, or would I rather I just get the Microsoft auto update reminder, click on it and all ok, system patched.

Most users couldn't care less what OS they use or what program. As long as it's:
1. Relatively easy to use to do what they have to do.
2. Relatively stable.

Windows in most flavours does just this. And hey, if you have to reboot every couple of days, BFD, start the reboot, TAKE A BATH and then you're up and running again plus you're squeaky clean.

Hey, I may have found a solution to both big Linux user problems....

Hmmmmm...

Windows 95, 98 and NT used to crash on me, on a daily basis.

I have been using Windows 2000 for about a year now (behind, I know...) and I don't think it has *ever* crashed on me. Doesn't mean it can't, just means it hasn't on me.

Red Hat Linux has vapor-locked on me more than once (I have version 8). When Linux crashes, it's ugly.

I'm sure that the sessions of X-Chat, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and Openoffice I have here open on my desktop-bar are going to die horribly after reading that.

By the way... he writes Linux and not GNU/Linux...

Let's get him educated!!! :D

http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2002.1.17.21116.9630.html

+ + + +
Guy Incognito wrote:

> i think this "christopher anthony" fellow is
> just another one of rory's multiple
> personalities...

1) toilet paper!
2) Rory is gay!

LOL limaCat. That cartoon series is priceless.

This stuff is too good, it has to be made up by a Windows supporter to give the OS guys a bad name! On second thoughts, I guess you couldn't make this shit up.

I particularly love the bit about the infinite number of programmers working on Linux (I never knew they had that many), who I suppose are also churning out thousands of copies of the complete works of Shakespeare at the same time..

I think you should offer him a regular slot on the .NET Rocks show - say, 1 minute to just spout all this garbage out. That would be hilarious!

Zealots are so much fun, because it takes so few words to tick them off.

I've never seen a blue screen on XP, but I have had my machine spontaneously reboot (corrupted driver). I've had XP run fine for weeks, at other times I've needed to reboot after a few days. I have more problems with some of the programs than the OS.

I've never had Linux crash and reboot, but X kept shutting down without warning on one machine I had.

I've managed to crash a lot of micro and minicomputer OS's over the years. My favorites are Amiga (GURU MEDITATION ERROR) and SCO (KERNAL PANIC). Least favorites are Mac OS (bomb graphics are SO informative) and AlphaMicro (no information whatsoever).

Thanks for the link, Rory. This guy will provide some interesting reading on boring Sunday afternoons.

hahahahahahahahahahahahah *cry* hehe *catch breath* hahahahahahaha

Thanks Rory, I really needed that!

Wow that was rich!

Rory,

I'm thinking this is your alter-ego, your antithesis. By day mild mannered Microsoft user - but *DAHDAH* by night crazed ranting LINUX user (and who wouldnt be using LINUX - at least that fits!) - is this some sort of Jekyell and Hyde thing going on? Good cop/Bad cop - Rory - help us out here - let us in on this - its all to wierd!

People as nuts as CA are often real and actually omnipresent. I'm not just talking about OS zealots, but trashtalkers generally. They're everywhere, doing trashtalk of the worst kind, driving me insane. They make me wish that the earth would explode from inside out.

Oh Rory... what have you done to me?!

http://www.randyrants.com/archives/000381.asp

Ok, thats it, no more silence from my end. That story that Rory posted is Suns Java Desktop. The Sun Java Desktop is not Linux, it is based on Linux. Plus it was more than likely an X-Window freeze. Plus 1 Linux crash does not equal as many as Windows has. I was actually going to dual boot Windows 2000 on a new-to-me machine and after ten minutes after trying to get critical updates I got 3 Windows viruses on my system. I hosed the drive and installed Fedora Core. I link to Red Hat because RH is the best. I wrote Rory to let him know that his beloved Microsoft is supporting SCO and a superior alternative exists. After all there is no such thing as a Windows supercomputer, no one uses Windows for scientific computing. There is no HPC Windows at all. That territory belongs to Linux. Windows itself isnt even a enforceable name, When Lindows wins its case Microsoft will have to change it. Eric Raymond agree's with me, Windows and Microsoft doesnt stand a chance. All you hear about today is the 500 Windows viruses released this week and how so many companies are switching to Linux. HP is going to start loading Linux on its PC's and the future is inevitable, LINUX WINS. Pretty soon you wont find any company that ships Windows. If you people want to help Microsoft fill SCO's purses by buying its inferior products thats up to you, my only hope is that Ballmer and McBride wind up cell mates. Windows as I stated has no future, Longhorn probably wont even ship. I heard during PDC that Microsofts Longhorn machines locked up 8 times.

Ok, here are two more reasons and then it will be equaled to 10 reasons:

9. We have virtual Desktops, Windows does not meaning that we can run more apps than Windows users and makes our time more productive.

10. The GIMP is free for Linux, Windows users have to pay $79.00 dollars.

http://www.wingimp.org

I win.

Hey, Chris - nice to see you.

"9. We have virtual Desktops, Windows does not meaning that we can run more apps than Windows users and makes our time more productive."

I have a job that pays me to code, so I can afford multiple monitors. I don't need virtual anything.

"10. The GIMP is free for Linux, Windows users have to pay $79.00 dollars."

Again, you haven't done your research:

http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/stable.html

I've been running the Gimp on Windows for years, and I have yet to pay for a copy.

You can shove the other comment up your ass :)

Thanks for visiting.

" You can shove the other comment up your ass :) "

You say that because you know I am right. You have no defense. I have better things to do with my time than argue tech merits with you. You stay with your legacy system, I will stay with my superior system.

Chris,

If you wish to have virtual desktops you can either download the Powertoy Deskman from Microsoft of if you wish to get it from my site you can.

http://www.geocities.com/rjdohnert/computer.htm

or you can download SmartBarXP:

http://www.smartbarxp.org

If you want to see a screenshot of SmartBarXP go here:

http://www.geocities.com/rjdohnert/winxp14.JPG

I like the Smartbar because it looks and acts like the Longhorn sidebar and I have my Windows XP Pro desktop looking similar to Longhorn. People can call me crazy but I like Slate. My only hope is that Microsoft keeps it or at least makes it a theme option.

"I heard during PDC that Microsofts Longhorn machines locked up 8 times."

Longhorn isn't supposed to be done until some time in 2006. Going to base any more deductions on a system that isn't even commercially available yet?

You, sir, are a neo-maxi-zoomed-dweebie. I give it another five posts before you contradict yourself and then back pedal some more.

Oh and by the way... how smart can you be that you lost a computer to a power surge? Haven't found out about surge protectors yet? Lemme guess, some how Microsoft is to blame for your hardware trouble, too, right?

Take Outs for 26 March 2004.

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