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Greene ‘Lame and rather unknowledgeable Linux wannabee’

Harry Go Home-owner

Re:

Mr. Thomas C Greene:

From the sound of it, you didn't have to force SuSE at all. Maybe you
should have named the article "Too Lame to Understand Mandrake" or
better, "I Should Just Run FreeBSD and Forget All This Distro Crap."
You started out with, "The Presario 1200 is an exceptionally poor
candidate for Linux.." and ended up with how easy it was once you
popped in the SuSE disks. Yet the title to your article implies that
you had to force Linux on it.

All your article reported was you buying hardware that you considered
lame and then getting confounded by your inability to install
unsupported (by the hardware manufacture) software on it. Then you
found that another kit of unsupported software did work well on it.

I'm not sure what your thinking was when you decided to use Mandrake
in the first place. It seems that SuSE works well for you in your
other computers and you are comfortable in it. If you did so because
of the challenge, then why did you bitch and moan about your choice
when it proved a challenge?

The side line about not having the Windows .cab files on the cd show
that you didn't backup the files from the hard drive like the fine
manual told you too and that you don't understand the first thing
about Microsoft OEM policy (which is covered well by The Register.)
How long would it have taken you to setup Windows for your home
network and ftp'd the files one of your other boxen? Or would that
have dirtied your pink little FreeOS hands too much. Don't bitch at
Compaq, you were too lame think it through.

You "quite deliberately" bought "the piss-poorest laptop computer ever
built" that was "specifically designed to run Windows" then bitch and
moan that it wouldn't do what it wasn't designed to do and then have
the balls to call Compaq "damnable cheap bastards". All Compaq did
was offer a working product for sale at a price you could afford. If
you hated the Compaq so much, thought the laptop was junk, why the
fuck did you buy it? Are you fscking insane? Or do you expect
anything with an 80x86 in it to run what ever you decide it should.
A critical read of your story would suggest that you should have more
of a problem with Mandrake than Compaq. (And you should send a letter
to SuSE thanking them for their support of XFree86 so that your X
works.)

A computer is a piece of hardware, it executes instructions you give
it. If you don't give it exactly the right instructions, it may not
do what you wish it to.. no matter why you think it should or how you
feel about it. Loading software you didn't write is trusting others
to provide those instructions for you. If you don't make a good
choice in your instruction supplier, your hardware may not do as you
intend. It's not the hardware's fault and it may not be your
instruction supplier's fault either. It may be your fault for
assuming that they would work in together in the first place.

If your article is any indication of how you handle hardware and
expect it to respond I truly hope that you don't drive.

I'm getting really sick an tired of all the "Windows sucks and Linux
rocks" mind set that is taken to the extreme here. No, I don't run
Windows, nor Linux.. I use FreeBSD. One of the reasons I gave up
Linux (and the suse.org domain) was people like you, Mr. Greene. You
abandon logic and blame others for your choices.

This article gave me the impression that The Register is willing to
publish sniveling crap from a rather lame and unknowledgeable wannabe
Linux insider. There were no helpful hints other than we should use
SuSE for the Compaq 1200 and we should really backup those damn .cab
files just in case we need them someday.

I'm waiting for your next article entitled "How My Dishwasher Sucks
Because it Doesn't Wash My Clothes Well Unless I Use Laundry Soap"
sure to be followed by "When I Run My Dishes in the Clothes Drier,
They Crash".

-Joe

Fascinating stuff - with only one flaw...

Isn't a Presario the "kind of crap" that Harry Homeowner buys?

It's certainly the kind of low-end kit on offer at Staples or CompUSA, and so it qualifies as a likely Homeowner purchase .

And as for "Loading software you didn't write is trusting others to provide those instructions for you" we only hope Harry can find gcc and gdb in time to write his own replacement.... ®

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