The Linux Bandwagon

So, I’ve been noticing something recently. Some of my acquaintances that have been using Linux for ages are jumping off the bandwagon for unknown reasons. Somehow, they’ve become all depressed about the state of Linux on the Desktop, have been maligning it with increasing regularity. (see: I’ve Made A Grave Mistake)

Personally, I think they’re bailing out just as things are starting to get interesting. The introduction of the Ubuntu distribution is a pretty good example. Look where we were less than 2 years ago. Debian hadn’t had a stable release in years, X configuration absolutely sucked for n00bs, power management (suspend/hibernate) was utterly unreliable at best, and bootup times were slow, just to name a few. The polish work done by Canonical and volunteers has made Linux a pretty big hit, more people than ever before have heard of Linux, and it is being recommended to more and more parents/grandparents/etc… as a low cost alternative desktop OS. The lowered barrier to entry and strong community values have encouraged active participation in the project by users, which vastly helps with QA on the distro.

I was very disappointed today when I started hearing one of the guys who started me off with Debian in the first place is moving back to Windows, and possibly resigning his position with a popular open source project. I’m not going to call him out by name, but… THIS SUCKS MAN. You were one of the most adamant supporters of Linux I knew. Don’t be part of the problem by bitching and moaning… HELP OUT MORE.

Anyways, see you guys in hell. I’ll still be here in a year when you get bored/pissed off with Windows or OS X again. Just don’t look to me for sympathy.

~ by schweeb on November 17, 2005.