Mark Shuttleworth lashes out at "anti-social muppets"
Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, recently lashed out at some users in the open source community. In a comment on his post on Google+ he vented his frustration with “anti-social muppets” who have been directing hate at Mir.
Simon Sharwood reports for The Register:
Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has labelled some members of the free software community habitual, hateful and reflexive contrarians.
“The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind,” he wrote.” It's free software that does something invisible really well. It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance.”
“I came to be disgusted with the hate on Mir. Really, it changed my opinion of the free software community.”
“I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream.”
“…The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that iOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence.”
DistroWatch reviews PCLinuxOS 2017.03
PCLinuxOS has been a favorite Linux distribution of many users for quite a while, and now DistroWatch has a full review of PCLinuxOS 2017.03.
Jesse Smith reports for DistroWatch:
PCLinuxOS is fairly easy to set up, offers good performance and includes a wide range of software. I generally enjoyed using the Plasma 5.8 desktop and the System Settings panel makes it easy to customize the Plasma environment. I very much enjoyed working with the Control Centre as it makes tasks like setting up network shares or working with the firewall easy. In short, there is a lot about PCLinuxOS that I enjoyed.
However, I did run into several minor problems. Nothing show stopping, but a handful of "papercut" style issues that bothered me. For example, PCLinuxOS makes it easy to install VirtualBox, but not to get working VirtualBox guest modules. When running the live environment on my desktop computer I had trouble with sound and network time synchronization. A few programs were missing their documentation files and I ran into an error while setting up secure shell access. None of these items are big issues in themselves, but when combined they suggest to me that not enough people are testing the distribution and reporting issues to the developers.
In general though what stood out about PCLinuxOS was the distribution provides a rolling release platform that receives regular updates, while also providing a relatively conservative environment. Most distributions either stick with a static, point release system or offer a rolling release with cutting edge packages. PCLinuxOS seems to be finding a pleasant middle ground where core components and the layout of the desktop are conservative while the desktop applications are the latest and greatest. I like the balance that is achieved between providing a traditional environment and newer applications.
Nasty users preventing Linux from gaining market share?
Many people have wondered if Linux will ever attain greater desktop market share. A writer at TechRepublic thinks that some Linux users might be driving away new users by directing nasty comments at them.
Jack Wallen reports for TechRepublic:
The original poster asked a simple, innocent question, "What's the easiest Linux distro for a newbie?" It was reading the responses to that question that caused me to draw my conclusion. Said responses ran the following gamut:
”Linux isn't for newbies."
”Linux is supposed to be challenging."
”Go back to Windows."
”If you have to ask, Linux isn't for you."
”User-friendly Linux has a name...Apple."
I get it, comment sections tend to be rife with such statements. But in this case, it helped to highlight a problem that should be addressed. This attitude that Linux should be made for advanced users is not only damning, it is one that prevents the platform from gaining market share. A possible new user comes to such a forum, is met with that kind of response, and turns away — right back to the operating system from whence they came.
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