Three things which irritate me (scope creep - the post was originally Two Things Which Irritate Me):
1. On Cnet’s Help forums, a newbie is looking to buy a second-hand computer. The catch is, the particular computer has no operating system on it. Somebody suggested putting Linux onto it, and was immediately shouted down ("Newbies shouldn’t try to use a Linux OS").
Why not? Why the heck not? Installation wouldn’t require any complicated partitioning, just a straightforward wipe of the hard drive. The distribution is likely to configure itself perfectly, because it’s running on older hardware and it’s a desktop computer. (Once Linux is set up, there’s no need for the command line). There’s no malware to worry about, and all the software you need is available with just a couple of clicks. The 256 megs of RAM in the computer will be far more effective on Linux than on Windows - I know from experience.
I put in my two cents, but I don’t think it did any good. I doubt any of those naysayers has even tried Linux.
2. There are some computers that are STILL being sold with only 256 megs of RAM. We’re what, four months away from the release of Vista Home? This is totally unacceptable, especially considering that it’s not just one or two machines - it’s a whole heap of them. Imagine buying a computer, and then finding that you’ve got to upgrade it a couple of months later just to run the latest software.
3. How stupid is this: Dual-core laptops being sold with Windows XP Home. In other words, you’re paying for dual-core power, but unless you buy XP Pro (or use Linux-SMP) you will never see a performance improvement over the single-core laptops. I’m not sure if I am allowed to swear on a Friendster blog, but that is fracking crazy. What sort of twit would buy one of those?
One thing which inspires me:
1. I have a yearning to buy a second-hand computer or a quit model, install gNewSense on it, and don’t let a single piece of proprietry software onto it. No Flash, no w32codecs, no Skype, no 3D graphics drivers… not even restricted formats (possible exception: MP3 playback). Linux computing, the way it should be. I doubt I’ll ever get around to doing that, but I think it would be a great computer to keep around.
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