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  • Shamus tries Linux. Finds it's an unusable mess. Big shocker.



  • Troll.



  • Oooh!  Oooh!  Oooh!!  A DSW to break the monotony!!  My turn!

    Here you go, a story about an [url="http://blog.eracc.com/2010/03/26/desktop-linux-an-average-user-success-story/"]average user who can use it for his daily tasks!![/url]  At the time of writing, using it for 6 years!!!

    Let the flames begin about how the two situations are not comparable, Linux still blows goats, Linux is a heaping steaming pile of rancid dung, etc. etc. etc.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @gu3st said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    ShamusShamu tries Linux. Finds it's an unusable mess. Big shocker.
     

    Troll. Killer whale.


    KWTFY


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Y'all know he might be mocking the writer's biased inability to learn a technology, right? Or maybe that went over everyone's head. Big shocker.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Y'all know he might be mocking the writer's biased inability to learn a technology, right? Or maybe that went over everyone's head. Big shocker.

    No. He just can't use Linux so he feels nobody can.

    The hilarious part is: The person writing the article seemed to not install build_essential.. which is why <stdio> didn't exist.



  • @nonpartisan said:

    Oooh! Oooh! Oooh!! A DSW to break the monotony!! My turn!

    Dear Sweet Wife?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Shamus tries Linux. Finds it's an unusable mess. Big shocker.

    Shamus tries Linux. Has a problem.

    I don’t know where to look for answers.
    Doesn't try google. Fails at life.



  • @nonpartisan said:

    Let the flames begin about how the two situations are not comparable, Linux still blows goats, Linux is a heaping steaming pile of rancid dung, etc. etc. etc.
     

    But.. but... JerryLeeCooper says Linux STILL needs Windows to run!

    (you lynx types can read a plain-text version here)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @nonpartisan said:
    Oooh! Oooh! Oooh!! A DSW to break the monotony!! My turn!

    Dear Sweet Wife?

    I've seen those around here.  Some kind of shoe store.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Y'all know he might be mocking the writer's biased inability to learn a technology, right? Or maybe that went over everyone's head. Big shocker.

     

    That's how I read it. Sounds like this dude is used to Visual Studio on his Windows computer, and decides to jump feet first into a vastly different system. Most tech-savvy people understand that Linux is not an OS where you say "I'll just install some stuff and see if everything works".

    Someone once said that the best way to get answers on Linux questions is to go to a hardcore user group and declare that their system is inferior because it can't do what you want. They'll fall all over each other trying to prove you wrong.

     



  • @Manni_reloaded said:

    Most tech-savvy people understand that Linux is not an OS where you say "I'll just install some stuff and see if everything works".
     

    Peculiarly, Linux concepts seem to work best with people at the extreme ends of the scale: total nerds and complete beginners (think netbook/iPhone/iPad/android stuff).

    It's the middle-range semi-savvy people too used to a Windows ecosystem that struggle outside of their comfort zone.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Shamus tries Linux. Finds it's an unusable mess. Big shocker.

    He has problems with Eclipse and blames Linux - barking up the wrong tree. Everyone has problems with Eclipse regardless of the OS.



  • So...he installed Eclipse (a Java IDE) from the Software Manager... but unless the Software Manager has an option to select which variant of Eclipse he wants, it'll only install the dependencies it needs to do Java development and not things like the C/C++ header files.

    This is what we refer to as "user error"  in polite company or PEBKAC here on DailyWTF.

    Note surprisingly, installing the code::blocks C/C++ editor installs the missing C/C++ headers.



  • @powerlord said:

    So...he installed Eclipse (a Java IDE) from the Software Manager... but unless the Software Manager has an option to select which variant of Eclipse he wants, it'll only install the dependencies it needs to do Java development and not things like the C/C++ header files.

    This is what we refer to as "user error"  in polite company or PEBKAC here on DailyWTF.

    Note surprisingly, installing the code::blocks C/C++ editor installs the missing C/C++ headers.

    If it presented him an option on which languages he wanted to install for, yes.  If it just installed for one thing, then no.



  • Blame the user, blame the user, blame the user.

    (time passes)

    Hey how come we have no users?



  • I've been working on a project for the last year that is 95% linux scripting.  So I've been using Ubuntu 12.04 for this year as my main work desktop. Most of my work is done via SSH sessions, and Linux works more seamlesly with SSH. I can still do all the Windows work from here with an RDP client called Remmina.  As for IDE's, I have tried many, Eclipse, Mono, etc.  But since most of my work is bash, ruby and python, the text editor is my main weapon.  Our company switched to GMail a while back, so I use Chromium for my mail and calendar. Some of the old internal web apps don't work at all because of ActiveX bullsh*t, but those are slowly being replaced anyway.

    In my spare time, I'm working on getting a corporate Linux desktop solution using Suse Enterprise Desktop (we already have a support contract with them). The goal is to re-use older harware that don't have enough power for our Win7 or Win8 images.  Saving money is everything to pointy-haired mamanger types.  That and pie charts.  And pie.

     



  • @gu3st said:

    The person writing the article seemed to not install build_essential.. which is why didn't exist.
     

    Error. malformed grammar. Cannot decipher sentence.



  • @nonpartisan said:

    Here you go, a story about an average user who can use it for his daily tasks!!  At the time of writing, using it for 6 years!!!
     

    Woo!



  • @Manni_reloaded said:

    Most tech-savvy people understand that Linux is not an OS where you say "I'll just install some stuff and see if everything works".
     

    1. for the average user, apparently it is.

    2. for the technical user, this is the problem.

    This is not "the way things are". This is not a force of nature, a law of physics. Linux isn't a natural occurrence with immutable properties. It's is a human-made system and it's changeable into whatever random thing we feel it should be. If Linux is not that OS where you install stuff and see if it works... then you fucking well round up the community and try to make it become that sort of system.



  • @Sutherlands said:

    If it presented him an option on which languages he wanted to install for, yes.  If it just installed for one thing, then no.
     

    No sane person would use Eclipse to write C++ code on Linux. On Windows that happens, mostly because of the lack of good software available... But no, the person packaging it on Linux has no reason to install C++ headers with it.

    Anyway, as the article throws me a 500 error because it got a 404 on the document that displays a 403 error, I may be talking about something completely unrelated to it. If so, well, sorry.



  • So, if I read right, this guy is trying to start developing on Linux on day one without having no clue of how it works? I've been developing in Linux (Java, C, Perl, Python) for more than 10 years and only once I was tasked with doing some dev work with Win7. It was so frustrating to get work done without a proper CLI, all those .Net libraries and weird names (WPF, SilverLight, COM). Weird ass configuration stuff. Which should I use? Oh! Look at VS2010, it's pretty. Which version of .Net should I use. ARM support? Maybe if I try some web development... OH MY GOD? Where are all my config files? Don't tell me I have to point and click every stupid option. Anyway, moron, of course you have to put up some time on learning, that thing good developers do. Finally, Windows is a software made to watch movies and play videogame, Linux is a fucking IDE by itself. Just see how easy it's to setup any dev environment (if you know what you're doing) for any known language, even for Mono. Look mommy, I don't like MacOSX, all my GNU tools are gone :-(



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @nonpartisan said:
    Oooh! Oooh! Oooh!! A DSW to break the monotony!! My turn!

    Dear Sweet Wife?

    Good guess, but in this case the D refers to something you are and not something you have. It was in the list.



  •  Problem I had with Linux was the conundrum of choice.

     KDE or Gnome? Postres or MySQL? ext3 or reiser?

    Yes, I could install a distro that made those choices for me... only to find that software X which I need to run only works with KDE, while Y only works with Gnome, A only works with MySQL, while B requires Postgres... then your filesystem developer commits murder...




  • @bgodot said:

    Problem I had with Linux was the conundrum of choice.

     KDE or Gnome? Postres or MySQL? ext3 or reiser?

    Yes, I could install a distro that made those choices for me... only to find that software X which I need to run only works with KDE, while Y only works with Gnome, A only works with MySQL, while B requires Postgres... then your filesystem developer commits murder...

    That's definitely an issue, but you can just choose a name that you like, and install the packages you want via yum. Or rpm. Or whatever package system your distribution uses.

    The reason why I switched from Solaris x64 to CentOS for our Subversion server is the lack of decent and free package systems for Solaris. Probably I could have used FreeBSD, but that's about as popular as Google+, so not really an option. And this package and dependency system works great: you just type 'yum install some_package_or_other' and it works.

    That is, until you need to install a package that, for whatever reason, isn't in yum. Java, for example, or such applications like Jenkins CI or Artifactory. Then all of a sudden it's a bit more of a struggle to get things working, and to be honest, I'm getting a bit too old and too tired to spend a lot of time tweaking installations.

     



  • @gu3st said:

    The person writing the article seemed to not install build_essential.. which is why didn't exist.

    I didn't know to install build_essential until at least a year after I had decided to leave Ubuntu. Build_essential though is a essential part of a Linux system! How else are you going to install third-party software?

    Linux is so fragmented that the only portable way to distribute software is in source code form. Linux without build_essential (or another distro's equivilant) is like Windows without msiexec or OSX without Installer.

    Not every application developer provides a link to an Apt repository, not every disto uses Apt. Building from source is the only way to go, and building from source is what you need to do.

    Don't get me started on how Canonical decides you have to upgrade Ubuntu* every six months, which AFICT seems to be just be changing the repository URL. I can understand doing this if they want to support legacy stable versions, but considering that the old repositories are instantly depricated and made unsupported six months later means that there's no fucking reason to do that. Debian is at least better about this shit, but that's just removing one complaint from a pile of complaints.

     

    * Not Unity, X, Bash, Apt, Coreutils, Glibc, or even the Linux kernel. Ubuntu.



  • @bgodot said:

    KDE or Gnome? Postres or MySQL? ext3 or reiser?
     

    They're not mutually exclusive.

    @bgodot said:

    Yes, I could install a distro that made those choices for me... only to find that software X which I need to run only works with KDE, while Y only works with Gnome

    I guess what you're trying to say here is: if I'm not clear about my requirements and leave the installation defaults, then it may make a choice that's not suited to my end goals.

    Many people that walk a journey without a clear idea of the destination often get lost.



  • @MiffTheFox said:

    @gu3st said:
    The person writing the article seemed to not install build_essential.. which is why didn't exist.

    I didn't know to install build_essential until at least a year after I had decided to leave Ubuntu. Build_essential though is a essential part of a Linux system! How else are you going to install third-party software?

    Linux is so fragmented that the only portable way to distribute software is in source code form. Linux without build_essential (or another distro's equivilant) is like Windows without msiexec or OSX without Installer.

    Not every application developer provides a link to an Apt repository, not every disto uses Apt. Building from source is the only way to go, and building from source is what you need to do.

    Don't get me started on how Canonical decides you have to upgrade Ubuntu* every six months, which AFICT seems to be just be changing the repository URL. I can understand doing this if they want to support legacy stable versions, but considering that the old repositories are instantly depricated and made unsupported six months later means that there's no fucking reason to do that. Debian is at least better about this shit, but that's just removing one complaint from a pile of complaints.

     

    * Not Unity, X, Bash, Apt, Coreutils, Glibc, or even the Linux kernel. Ubuntu.

    Unless you stick on LTS versions. I agree that Ubuntu has a really accelerated release cycle (every 6 months without fail). If you want more static releases, maybe you're looking for Debian stable. That has only gone through 6 versions in 20 years.



  • @MiffTheFox said:

    Linux is so fragmented that the only portable way to distribute software is in source code form.
     

    A downside to choice. The flipside is to force a consistent but monolithic distro that forces people to move with change whether or not they require it.

    At least some of the S/W package management tools go some way to normalising and streamlining this process, with dependency resolution and the like.

    @MiffTheFox said:

    Don't get me started on how Canonical decides you have to upgrade Ubuntu* every six months, which AFICT seems to be just be changing the repository URL. I can understand doing this if they want to support legacy stable versions, but considering that the old repositories are instantly depricated and made unsupported six months later means that there's no fucking reason to do that.

    ..and the upgrade isn't even seamless. I moved SWMBO's box from 10.10 to 11.04 smoothly, but then upgrading to 11.10 broke with something as trivial as /var/run being renamed to /var/lock and the upgrade didn't update file paths for many services (a widespread reported issue). I just shoved 11.04 back onto it.

    Poor show, indeed.

     



  • I see the Vi learning curve philosophy is apparently integral to the entire Programming For Linux experience. That's a bad thing.



  • @gu3st said:

    Unless you stick on LTS versions. I agree that Ubuntu has a really accelerated release cycle (every 6 months without fail). If you want more static releases, maybe you're looking for Debian stable. That has only gone through 6 versions in 20 years.

    "Long term" in the Ubuntu world though is only two years. It only delays the inevitable (unless you're one of those people who replace their old PC every two years, in which case, why the fuck are you using Linux?)

    My distro of choice is Debian testing. From what I can tell (been using it on and off for about a year and a half) that never has releases, instead you just keep upgrading packages from the same unchanging repository. Of course if what you want isn't in the repository you're fucked, but...



  • @bgodot said:

    KDE or Gnome? Postres or MySQL? ext3 or reiser?

    Yes, I could install a distro that made those choices for me... only to find that software X which I need to run only works with KDE, while Y only works with Gnome, A only works with MySQL, while B requires Postgres... then your filesystem developer commits murder...

    Simple, install them all. I've got KDE and Gnome installed on mine. MySQL and Postgresl together, sure no problem. Filesystem, the default tends to be ext3/4 for most distros now. I always leave this with the distro default, it's never been an issue.

     



  •  The whole article seemed to be writed by someon who not only did not know Linux, but also made no attempt to learn it befor condeming it as broken.

    He seems to have completly forgoten that it also takes time to learn how to correctly administer Windows (not just launch programs).

     

     

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @ip-guru said:

    The whole article seemed to be writed by someon who not only did not know Linux, but also made no attempt to learn it befor condeming it as broken.

    I first assumed that "Shamus" is a blakeyrat pseudonym. The lack of capitalized profanity, however, tells me this is unwarranted. One thing we can be certain of is that his readers don't like him:

    @Shamus said:

    Going by the comments yesterday, it seems like Eclipse is the go-to IDE for coders on Linux.

    @Manni_reloaded said:

    Most tech-savvy people understand that Linux is not an OS where you say "I'll just install some stuff and see if everything works".

    I'm curious about why you think this. Maybe we're coming at this from different angles. I've had many experiences where I suddenly had a requirement for task X, but had no applicable software installed (and often no experience with X). Search my package manager...found a few things that look promising...tried one or two of them...task X completed. Obviously, this is highly dependent on X and having a good package repository.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Shamus tries Linux. Finds it's an unusable mess. Big shocker.

    there are numerous tutorials on how to start programming in c/c++ on linux including installing a compiler, (one of) the IDE(s), necessary libs, headers etc.

    so i guess his mistake was he was expecting to automatically know how everything works on linux just because he did the same thing under windows.



    i recently wanted to try python. although i'm extremely proficient in several programming languages, i first did a couple of beginner tutorials to get the basic

    principles (although many were familiar) and installed the development environment using a tutorial. since then i have switched some tools with alternatives,

    but not being arrogant and assuming i know everything about development saved me a lot of nerves.




  • @boomzilla said:

    I've had many experiences where I suddenly had a requirement for task X, but had no applicable software installed (and often no experience with X). Search my package manager...found a few things that look promising...tried one or two of them...task X completed.
     

    Echoed, ditto experience, etc.

    My missus took to ubuntu since she used a Mac and therefore was used to identical packages not looking/working identically under different OSen (Firefox, VLC) and also grew accustomed to finding packages that were called something different, worked differently.. but still provided the required functionality (PSP/Photoshop/GIMP).

    She wanted to install some authoring software, so followed a tutorial in adding a launchpad repo then fired off apt to install it. Took a bit of reconfig pissing around in the morning to encourage APT to use our proxy server, but "research+trial=achievement unlocked" really added only another half-hour onto the process, with a side-effect that she learned how to do other installs/updated via APT.

    For me, the only real bugbear is awareness and marketing of these products (and their naming in repos sometimes doesn't easily indicate their purpose). Many of those I use I simply came across due to word-of-mouth, recommendations, blog posts, trial-and-error, etc.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Cassidy said:

    For me, the only real bugbear is awareness and marketing of these products (and their naming in repos sometimes doesn't easily indicate their purpose). Many of those I use I simply came across due to word-of-mouth, recommendations, blog posts, trial-and-error, etc.

    This is true. Sometimes, I come across something mentioned on the internet, and am surprised to find it in the repos. Another benefit is that I'm downloading from a relatively trusted source, not random dude's sketchy web page (and, of course, it's set up to get updates automatically and without any additional updating software).



  • I think package managers are a lot better now, and make it easier to find software that performs a task without knowing what it's called based on searches matching hits in the description. It's no different in the Windows world really. The name Excel doesn't have any spreadsheet conotations, Firefox doesn't immediately scream out "web browser". A big advantage in Linux is that the software is generally available in one place: through the package manager, so it's easier to discover.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Manni_reloaded said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    Y'all know he might be mocking the writer's biased inability to learn a technology, right? Or maybe that went over everyone's head. Big shocker.

     

    That's how I read it. Sounds like this dude is used to Visual Studio on his Windows computer, and decides to jump feet first into a vastly different system. Most tech-savvy people understand that Linux is not an OS where you say "I'll just install some stuff and see if everything works".

    And then they wonder why people coming from the Windows world gripe. When I read about the ridiculous lengths you have to go to compile a plain old C program these days, I was surprised. I mean, really, invoking a separate program twice just to build command-line arguments to gcc? Maybe that's the best way to do it, I dunno. But when I used to use Linux it wasn't that complex.



  • @FrostCat said:

    @Manni_reloaded said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    Y'all know he might be mocking the writer's biased inability to learn a technology, right? Or maybe that went over everyone's head. Big shocker.

     

    That's how I read it. Sounds like this dude is used to Visual Studio on his Windows computer, and decides to jump feet first into a vastly different system. Most tech-savvy people understand that Linux is not an OS where you say "I'll just install some stuff and see if everything works".

    And then they wonder why people coming from the Windows world gripe. When I read about the ridiculous lengths you have to go to compile a plain old C program these days, I was surprised. I mean, really, invoking a separate program twice just to build command-line arguments to gcc? Maybe that's the best way to do it, I dunno. But when I used to use Linux it wasn't that complex.

     

    You know, the people who don't use Linux won't get that joke.

     



  • Shamus tries linux, doesn't know first thing about development libraries, has trouble with C/C++.

    SHOCKER!



  • @Nelle said:

    i recently wanted to try python
    Three things that may have escaped you:

    • <font color="#333399">if low < x < high:</font> is valid syntax in Python, which is pretty cool;

    • <font color="#333399">(10 / 8) == 1.25</font> in Python 3.x, but <font color="#333399">(10 / 8) == 1</font> in Python 2.x because it uses integer division.
      In both versions:
      • <font color="#333399">(10.0 / 8) == (10 / 8.0) == 1.25</font>;
      • <font color="#333399">(10 // 8) == 1</font>;
      • <font color="#333399">(10.0 // 8) == (10 // 8.0) == 1.0</font>;

    • Context managers / the with statement is nice to know about. It's pretty much Python's equivalent to the using statement.


  • And another thing I just remembered:

     

    def some_func(optional_list = []]);
        # the value for the optional argument is evaluated only once,
        # which means every time you call some_func without parameters
        # you get the exact same list.
        print optional_list
        optional_list.append(len(ol))
    

    some_func() # Prints []]
    some_func() # Prints [0]
    some_func() # Prints [0, 1]

    def this_is_probably_what_you_want_most_times(optional_list = None):
    if optional_list is None:
    optional_list = []]
    # Do stuff

     



  • @nonpartisan said:

    Good guess, but in this case the D refers to something you are and not something you have. It was in the list.

    If you don't want to communicate, then don't bother typing anything at all. Typing DHS ASDHA ASDUHADHAS ADhaYUDH ADJHAS DUHAD SU saJDHAUd constant acronym gibberish just wastes everybody's time.



  • @_gaffer said:

    Shamus tries linux, doesn't know first thing about development libraries, has trouble with C/C++.

    SHOCKER!

    He had no problem building a quite complex C++ program on Windows. What's Linux's problem?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

     And furthermore, what's wrong with re-using elastics that you get on asparagus? As long as the spears aren't rotten, they shouldn't affect the quality of the rubber at all.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    @_gaffer said:

    Shamus tries linux, doesn't know first thing about development libraries, has trouble with C/C++.

    SHOCKER!

    He had no problem building a quite complex C++ program on Windows. What's Linux's problem?

    But why would he want to use Eclipse on Windows?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @_gaffer said:

    Shamus tries linux, doesn't know first thing about development libraries, has trouble with C/C++.

    SHOCKER!

    He had no problem building a quite complex C++ program on Windows. What's Linux's problem?

    I'm not familiar with his background, but it looks like he expected everything to be easy on an unfamiliar platform, with an unfamiliar IDE without having to do a bit of work to get going.

    In this case, the problem is that Linux doesn't work exactly like Windows for his purposes, and he doesn't know his way around.

    If it's a case of whether it's easier to get started with Eclipse or Visual Studio, then I'll definitely say that VS is an easier setup. It may not be something I like to develop with, for various reasons, but it's a very well sorted IDE.



  • @_gaffer said:

    I'm not familiar with his background,

    Here's his programming projects page.

    @_gaffer said:

    If it's a case of whether it's easier to get started with Eclipse or Visual Studio, then I'll definitely say that VS is an easier setup. It may not be something I like to develop with, for various reasons, but it's a very well sorted IDE.

    Admitting there's a problem is the first step to fixing it. Unfortunately, the rest of the Linux community is too busy blaming the user to admit there's a problem in the first place.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    Admitting there's a problem is the first step to fixing it. Unfortunately, the rest of the Linux community is too busy blaming the user to admit there's a problem in the first place.

    I can't imagine there are very many people in the Linux community that wouldn't be happy to admit that using Eclipse to do C++ work is a problem. I once got really mad at VS, because nothing would compile. Eventually, I realized that I had to download several hundred megabytes of the Windows SDK before I could do anything useful.

    Then I got mad at Windows because it refused to tell me about security updates for my software. It still does. Why is Windows so hostile to security.


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