Dear Microsoft, I'm Sorry

Dear Microsoft,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I dissed you over the years complaining about your monopolistic business practices. I'm sorry I complained about your non standards compliance, your focus on adding fading menus, cursor shadows, and transparent window support. You were right, I was wrong. Is letter this a joke? Sadly no.

Why am I apologizing to Microsoft now? I'll tell you why. I have just come off a month long stint trying to live with Linux on the desktop. I have come back to Windows and ditched my Linux desktop.

This was after I was forced to google for a solution, download extra software, and search for the right text files to edit to allow Linux to run at my new Dell laptop to run at its native 1200x800 resolution. This was after I had to google for a solution, download extra software, and search for the right text files to edit to allow Linux to connect to my wireless router with WPA-PSK security enabled.  This was after experiencing various unexplained problems of my wireless network stopping or slowing down. This was after I struggled to get my system to play multiple video formats. This was after I struggled to get video to work in web pages. This was after I was disappointed to find that flash 8 wasn't supported. This was after I experienced the unexplained loss of sound when trying to watch videos online. This was after I struggled to get mid files to play. This was after rogue processes locked up my window manager, forcing me to reset. This was after my window manager refused to start when I selected the Crux theme. This was after my distro automatically downloaded updates and in the process removed my desktop manager. This was after chatting with Linux users on irc and receiving replies like "why are you complaining, it's free software" and "just re-install". This was after giving up my quest to find a decent windowed text editor which supported the system clipboard and allowed you to record, save, and playback keyboard macros. This was after I struggled to fix monodoc's unexplained random crashes and isolated the error in my distro's faulty glibc library. This was after unsuccessfully struggling to find old versions of some libraries to compile f-spot.

It's not that I couldn't get Linux to work, it's that it takes too much of my time to get Linux to work. I realize now, back in Windows, how nice it is to not have to worry about any of those things. I realize now, back in Windows, how great Textpad really is. I realize now, back in Windows, what a well behaved wireless network connection is.

I'm sorry Microsoft. I apologize for disrespecting you.

Excellent post, man!  One thing that the Linux zealots refuse to admit is that Linux is just not ready to be taken seriously yet.

However, I am looking forward to the day when Linux is fully able to mount a real challenge to the Microsoft-Intel monolith.

The PC world would benefit greatly from some honest competition.

troposphere wrote:

Excellent post, man!  One thing that the Linux zealots refuse to admit is that Linux is just not ready to be taken seriously yet

The desktop market isn't the only market. Linux is a serious contender on the server end.

Most excellent.

We could build an entire ad campaign around your testimony. We could show harried, frazzled system admins and home users working at their computers hour after hour after hour on their distro. You could show a clock on the wall just spinning the hours away and then cut to a Windows user installing their software in minutes. Microsoft cares for you and you don't even realize it!

TimP wrote:



troposphere wrote: Excellent post, man!  One thing that the Linux zealots refuse to admit is that Linux is just not ready to be taken seriously yet

The desktop market isn't the only market. Linux is a serious contender on the server end.

This is true.  Server rooms are going to have a few *nix boxen.  My favorite setup is going have to be a Win2k3 machine to provide AD stuff, and *nix boxes working for other simple services like ftp/svn/whatever.  The world needs interoperability.  It really depends on what needs done though.

When I tried a distro on my Dell Latitude C610, it worked fine.  Took a bit of getting used to, and tweaking, but I got it usable.  It really depends on the distro and how technical the person is.

DarthVista wrote:

We could build an entire ad campaign around your testimony. We could show harried, frazzled system admins and home users working at their computers hour after hour after hour on their distro. You could show a clock on the wall just spinning the hours away and then cut to a Windows user installing their software in minutes. Microsoft cares for you and you don't even realize it!

I would love to see that as a C9 video (Jamie!), and yet if it ever hit the TV screen I would be reminded of those awful Mac commercials that I whole-heartedly bashed.

Great Post!

alwaysmc2 wrote:



DarthVista wrote: We could build an entire ad campaign around your testimony. We could show harried, frazzled system admins and home users working at their computers hour after hour after hour on their distro. You could show a clock on the wall just spinning the hours away and then cut to a Windows user installing their software in minutes. Microsoft cares for you and you don't even realize it!

I would love to see that as a C9 video (Jamie!), and yet if it ever hit the TV screen I would be reminded of those awful Mac commercials that I whole-heartedly bashed.

Hey...I have an idea. We could hire somebody who looks like the Dunkin' Donuts guy in those old commercials ("Time to make the donuts!") but instead have him mumble "Time to make the build!" or something like that. Or maybe Larry Osterman would play the part.

Have the commercial show Microsoft employees laboring away at all hours of the night on software "so you don't have to".

P.S. btw, the Dunkin Donuts guy is "no longer with us".

I got my ThinkPad X60 running SUSE 10.1 pretty flawlessly in a few hours one evening. Almost everything worked out of the box and I had to install one extra package that I missed to get wireless working. Xgl runs great on my integrated Intel video card. Linux might not be ready for the mainstream desktop, but it's a viable desktop platform if you're willing to accept something that's not Windows.

You never mentioned (that I saw) which Linux distro you used - I'd be interested to know which one it was. I am betting it wasn't Ubuntu.

Rossj wrote:

You never mentioned (that I saw) which Linux distro you used - I'd be interested to know which one it was. I am betting it wasn't Ubuntu.

Sorry to ruin it for you, but it was Ubuntu Dapper Drake.

TimP wrote:



I got my ThinkPad X60 running SUSE 10.1 pretty flawlessly in a few hours one evening. Almost everything worked out of the box and I had to install one extra package that I missed to get wireless working. Xgl runs great on my integrated Intel video card. Linux might not be ready for the mainstream desktop, but it's a viable desktop platform if you're willing to accept something that's not Windows.

My install seemed to work perfectly ar first as well; that is until I tried to change some of the settings to something other than default.

Like setting up wireless network to use WPA-PSK and keeping it up. Like setting up Linux to use my Laptop's native resolution of 1200x800. Like getting video to work with most the common formats, in web pages, and fighting to keep my sound working when it would mysteriously stop working. Like changing styles in gnome, only to have my window manager crash and refuse to restart.

Those are just a few examples, I could make up another long laundry list of the almost daily problems I encountered in the month I played with Linux.

Did you attempt to change anything on Linux, or did you just accept the default setup and were satisfied with all the default settings? No WPA, no native resolution changes, no video codecs, ect? All fairly common things someone might first change when first setting up after a default install.

Don't get me wrong, in concept I like the idea of an alternate Desktop operating system, but even if it falls short in any area, even a tiny bit, it translates into major pains for the Desktop user.

TimP wrote:



troposphere wrote:Excellent post, man!  One thing that the Linux zealots refuse to admit is that Linux is just not ready to be taken seriously yet

The desktop market isn't the only market. Linux is a serious contender on the server end.

True, this date the only Microsoft host I have ever used was my office localhost Everything else has been LAMP. Primarily because LAMP's dont cost a single dime. I'd have to pay whazoo just to get and IIS host going.

I once spent about 6 months with a linux only desktop. And for that 6 months I couldn't print. I read hundreds of pages of documentation on CUPS and lpr and spent hours tweaking that bloody print config file (don't even remember what it's called). I ended up printing via sneakernet to a windows computer.

I spent hours trying to get the right balance of video drivers and X Windows configuration settings in order to get a usable UI.

I spent hours trying to install programs, and resolve dependencies. Some things I could never get to build. It usually went like this:

make package A
Error: need package B
make package b
Error: need package c
make package c
you get where this is going

So forget about installing the latest version of KDE or anything.

Oh, and did I mention that this computer was on dial-up? That was one of the few things I actually got working, mostly because PPPSetup took the defaults I found on the internet. Because of the dialup you could forget about downloading any dependencies, and do you think I could ever figure out how to resolve those by hand with stuff I'd downloaded elsewhere?

All of the forums I visited were full of people asking for help and getting responses like: "WTF n00b are you stoopid? It's easy...<10 pages of barely coherent rambling with lots of assumptions about knowledge later> There, so easy any idiot could do it. Now go away, your presence is disturbing the hounds"

I tried, I really, truly, honestly did try. For 6 months I put up with more crashes, slower software, worse usability, worse documentation, more reinstalls, a system much easier to destabilise and render inoperable, and more cursing than than the hundreds of windows workstations I was supporting at work.

I admire the FOSS community, they've accomplished a lot. But in general they are getting quite a bit wrong.

Maybe some day I'll dabble on that side of the fence again, but it's not looking like that is anytime in the forseeable future.

sysrpl wrote:



Rossj wrote:You never mentioned (that I saw) which Linux distro you used - I'd be interested to know which one it was. I am betting it wasn't Ubuntu.

Sorry to ruin it for you, but it was Ubuntu Dapper Drake.

I *am* surprised, I am just as surprised that the guys on #ubuntu were rude and unhelpful.

Rossj wrote:


I *am* surprised, I am just as surprised that the guys on #ubuntu were rude and unhelpful.

On a whole on the folks over on irc.freenode.net #ubuntu were quite helpful, but on a few occasions they were not. When I posed questions about my sound suddenly going mute I received the "just reinstall" replies. Not satisfied with the reinstall any time something breaks solution, I pressed further and received the "hey, it's free software, stop complaining" response.

I also found it a pain to work with Linux's everything is configured in arbitrary files spread around your hard disk philosophy. From the 915resolution.conf (previously 850resolution.conf) I had to make, to editing my interfaces file for auto eth1 start up, to searching for the conf to smooth my screen fonts, to searching for the files to configure Apache ... I found it all painful.

I get the idea though, if I was administering a remote server I could ssh into it and overwrite some file to configure it. But guess what? I'm not remotely working to configure some machine, I'm working right there on the desktop.

There was no MMC'esque snap in to configure Apache and it's various plug-ins. There was no wireless networking tool with WPA-PSK support.

I was forced to use google and the find command to locate these files, back them up, edit them hoping I have the parameters set correctly for my specific hardware and software setup, then cross my fingers as I restarted services hoping I didn't screw anything up.

I've got to say, I used to be a hard-core Caldera/RedHat/Mandrake guy for the server side.  I  am a web type, so php and asp.net are dear to me..  php is still great as a LAMP app, but it rocks as an IIS app, and especially so as ISAPI IMHO. 

After trying Enterprise AS3 (RH), Fedora Core, Gentoo, Ubuntu, MandrivaOne and some other flavor-thingy, I found them **ALL** to be a royal pain in the butt, compared to my Vista Beta 2 64 bit app which seems to be VERY COOL and FRIENDLY (after of course you kill off User Account Security annoyances.. hehe)

I too have been very critical of MSFT but I have to say, in recent years they have approached the developer community with open arms, made software more accessible and affordable to developers, and incrementally have been deploying (READ: SHIPPING) great code tools, both from within and outside (Anyone here ever use .NET Reflector? )

I was actually happy to refute a relatives "my text-file based web app is a whole lot faster and responsive" claims by dropping in an ODS, a GridView with some templatecolumns, and some Atlas controls..  Wham it took less than 30 minutes compared to her DAYS of text-file and javascript coding.  Sure it may be a bit more bit-heavy over the pipe, but had she tracing, caching, and performance capabilities in her text-file app??  Could the text-files be decoupled? Could we engage profiles, roles, and membership (read:security) features without some more hours of coding? 

The bottom line is, even beyond the desktop gadgets, the WCF and '3.0 Framework' features, Windows is as much and more a server app as Linux is.  But I feel the heat already

Did you all read this Microsoft Announces Principles to Guide Future Development of Windows

This will make developing software in windows more complelling as they are going to release all APIs which were not available to common developers. This will surely hit linux development. (atleast marginally)

One of my friends experience... New in computing world, he was really crazy for linux, so he installed Red Hat on his desktop. He configured the screen resolution which his monitor didnt support and the screen went blank! Now, as he was new, didnt know how to restore the settings and was forced to re-install Red Hat !

Shreyas Zare

While I agree Linux isn't ready for desktop yet, I wish to suggest the OP that buying a PC with Linux pre-installed would save a lot of problem. (There are branded PC maker such as IBM and HP selling Linux pre-installed models, and the good news is that all of these PCs uses parts that supports Windows, so there is little to lose except the chance of buying OEM licence and the recovery CDs.)

And for kettle's problem on package dependency, I suppose you can try one of the package managers as they calculates dependencies and download required packages for you. (I'm using "yum" which is good, other than the distro's default ones you can add many custom repository such as those provided by freshmeat and freshrpms. It surely should ease lifes of Linux system administrators)

And just to remind you that "make with tarball" on a system that uses package manager can be disasterous, especially if you're "making" a library/component that many other package use. So stay with the package if your distro has package manager available. The only exception for this is the "kernel", but it's recommanded to install the packaged kernel first, then use something like yumdownloader to download the right source for you, and apply appropiate "kernel flavor" before you start altering the configuration file and "make" it yourself.