PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu - communities divided - Linux

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This is all just the same as any other rivalry, Ford vs. Chevy / Red Sox vs. Yankees / My Dad can beat up your Dad....
It will never go away, it’s human nature... I just like to sit back and watch the show... (hehe)
New users also tend to come in and go around making comments as if they are one of the devs, that’s one which really urks me.
They love to make comments defending their OS, then run back to their forums to post links to it to show everyone how loyal they are... These are usually the types who get very little recognition in the real world and are desperate for acceptance and a pat on the back.
I have always remained the person who chooses to realize that
a. it’s just a car
b. it’s just a game
and finally... c. it’s just an OS

Many others in this world choose to remain in "high-school" mode and continue on with the constant drama... I guess they need it to keep life exciting
I can’t stand arguing with people in my own home, much less, with people who may very well live on the other side of the world..
But, it’s fun to watch the fights....

by Ghost on Sunday 10th of August 2008 at 19:19

Linux is currently rising to be a popular OS for people
as linux is rising the Most Used Linux Distros are beginning to be a replacement from M$ .. I myself "hate" winblows i used to test security vulnerabilities but winblows is not a good OS for those type of things

by RuCCi4 on Thursday 13th of September 2007 at 19:19

I like the opportunity to try and use many Linux OS’s. Their are many common features, but their are many features that are attractive to different users. We aren’t all attracted to the same type of automobiles. There are many differences in appearance, performance, economy, and vallue. So, why wouldn’t we have different tastes and be are attracted to different flavors of Linux. I think these differences give people more of a choice to find a distribution that is attractive and provides the programs they really want to use. I think this is a positive attribute of the Linux community, that makes it much more welcoming, and, hopefully helps to accelerate its growth as the operating system of choice.

by Penny on Thursday 14th of June 2007 at 21:11

well i tried ubuntu using wubi, and it wouldnt even install , giving me different problems each time i tried

pclos installed perfectly , allowing me to dual-boot with xp

pclos works with all my hardware with the exception of my wireless card which uses the new ralink chipset, but i dont use the wireless anyway

in my 5 days of using linux, i have set it up so it looks how i like it, installed some useful apps like nvidia drivers & nvclock, truecrypt, crossover etc

i have now installed pclos on my work pc, if crossover meets my requirements, and its clear that standard office work is not compromised by the switch to linux, i may roll out pclos across the company which atm uses warez versions of xp !!!

certainly for general web usage. mp3 and movie watching, pclos is a class above xp, feeling fast and fresh , with noticeably less heavy disk access and cpu spiking

by darren on Wednesday 6th of June 2007 at 00:35

Regarding the comment that Texstar’s post was "not what a leader should do." On the contrary, I believe it’s exactly what he should do! Remember, he said this in the PCLOS forum and was speaking to members of the PCLOS community. Loosly translated all he said was "make our story known - don’t let everyone else talk about PCLOS and just remain silent. Everyone get involved and make the PCLOS story clear. Correct errors using the sword of truth, and let the world know that PCLOS did not get to where it is by accident."

Someone must really like this distro because it has really taken a lot of criticism over clearly personal choice issues, and Texstar et. al just got tired of it. But back to my point; here is what he did by his post: 1) rallied his troops and reinforced a sense of community, i.e., us and them. 2) Gave his troops a clear goal. What to do, how to do it and where. 3) Reinforced the idea of fair and balanced dialog. He did not suggest that the troops do anything nasty or underhanded-just tell the truth. Sounds exactly like what a leader should do to me.

by NorthCoast on Wednesday 30th of May 2007 at 10:05

Half-ass reviews are worthless, whether you are mentioning the ’competition’ or not. If I want to read crap, I’ll read what an Apple user says about Microsoft.

by CrashMaster on Saturday 26th of May 2007 at 06:35

Unfortunately one of the unpleasant things about modern life is the lack of tolerance and respect for other people’s views.

Both distro’s are very good and appeal to lots of linux users for a variety of reasons.

Whatever your distro you use, enjoy it and accept that other people have different systems and experiences.

The’re entitled to their views which may be different to yours, but no less valid.

As the old saying goes : "One man’s meat is another man’s poison"

by Peter C on Friday 25th of May 2007 at 04:42

Hello Eduardo,

***
Great point of view!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got to work together as a strong, healthy and colaborative community. Ubuntu, PC Linux OS, Open Suse, Fedora, Debian, Mandriva and all the great Linux Distros we can choose from must be congratulated for THE WONDERFUL JOB their developers are doing, in order to give us the privilege of using stable, efficient, good looking, powerful and easy to use Linux Systems. Thank them all!!!
by Eduardo

***
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Last Friday evening I was finally able to do something I had wanted to do for months. I nuked XP off my system. :) It feels good to be a ’Linux only’ house again. It’s been a while. :)

Vista is the best thing to happen to Linux in a long while. It’s so horrible Dell is offering XP to consumers, instead of just businesses which would be normal after an OS release. M$ is driving folks away in droves. We need to be ready to welcome them with open arms.

I run PCLinuxOS but I tried a multitude of distros. Ubuntu was the first. To this day, I can only get 800x 600 video, but I burn and try every release, to see if it’s changed. There are many distros that will simply not even boot on my system.

There are many reasons to pick a distro, it works with your hardware from the git is right up there as reasons to do so. :) Thank you Linus, and Alan, and all the kernel hackers, and especially rcs and the GPL.

People that don’t understand think that the multitude of distros is ’overwhelming’ to the newbie. Truth be told that is the single biggest strength of Linux. It runs on anything you can throw at it. Despite hardware vendors doing their absolute best to ignore us they are going to have to change their tune soon enough.

I have personally run a lamp system on a 90Mhz Pentium with a 2GB SCSI drive long ago. It had 32MB RAM. My video card has more than that now. I did that to learn about Linux and web servers and firewalls and mail and... I had a helluva lot of fun doing it.

Bill

by Bill on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 20:09

lol, hmm weird, ok, well Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, we must all remember that. Honestly this whole thing has been blown and twisted the hell out of place and proportion!!, once one says hes been ignorant and "militant" you ALL follow suit and think he is, god damn, if they jump off a cliff, will you follow suit?!?!? THIS IS THE EXACT same situation, 1 spoke up and mentions some stupid reason of lack of respect, then now he’s the bad guy, I think everybody buying that he’s a douche, are IDIOTS, and can’t read and think or have an opinion of their own.

PERSONALLY, I do agree that PCLinuxOS’s installer (partitioning) is pretty horrible, the DiskDrake or w/e really isn’t newbie friendly AT ALL, I know, I had to partition a drive for my friend like on Tuesday this week! And yes I would prefer Ubuntu’s installer because it is much more noob friendly. I don’t use either Ubuntu/PClinuxOS as my primary distro, but Arch. BUT i do believe PCLinuxOS IS a better migration distro from Windoze to GNU/Linux. SO whatever floats your boat people.

To repeat, the original article WAS correct in stating it installer can be better, AND I do support Texstars comment since there was nothing wrong in it at all, by hammering he meant advocating and informing others of how much they like the distro, not to attack/hammer the blog/post/article. So you are all making a mountain out of a molehill, and ill defend this Texstar guy because he NOR the blog poster was at fault 1 damn bit....

by Eric on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 15:44

i am loosely following the reviews and the comments and i will be fair and honest about how i feel about both distros. the livecd of both ubuntu and pc linux are very fresh and interesting to play with, even if you don’t know much about linux something can be learned from the experience. with the installer from ubuntu, i could never, never get past step 4, the partioner, no matter what i tried. pclinux 2007 was as perfect as my grandmas’ chocolate chip cookies, so that is what i have on my laptop. interestingly enough, i am writing my comments on my wife’s computer and she prefers mepis 6.5. seems like everybody has an opinion.

by mark on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 13:30

> The decent thing for you to do would have been be to remove the entry.

I don’t delete blog/article threads on principal* but I sent Texstar an email offering to put a statement from him on the actual post. Still nothing back. If you know a magical way to get his attention, ask him to read/reply to it.

* I get a million 404 errors popping through the system, links on other peoples’ pages break and this is something that happened.

He apologised but that doesn’t take us back in time before it happened. This is a lesson for anybody operating as a leader in public..

I’m not going to add to it or use it as a bad reason to use PCLOS... It’s just something that happened and people can make what they like from it.

by Oli on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 13:21

lolol, u kno wt i have been thinkin bout moving to linux as i did not want to move to vista. but after this i don’t even kno. ive heard pclinux is one of the best but wen da leader of their distro acts lyk dat i dnt wna eva join pclinux. and dats da truth. even if i do move now it’d b 2 ubuntu rather than pclinux cos i dnt wna b in a position wer i say sumting which ’upsets’ this textar and i get no support from the whole pclinux community. o well, i guess theres lessons to be learned.

by dynasty on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 13:01

I find knocking huge points off a distro based on an installer -- when that installer is really great -- merely because a Ubuntu installer is more friendly to a grandmother in some people’s eyes, shows some bias toward Ubuntu. Oli admitted that he initally jumped the gun on it, but still, that balk alone shows some very possible bias. Tex was a little emotional about it initially in response -- which is a natural reaction. If someone is going to knock another distro, have it be level with what it’s lacking or went wrong -- especially if that someone is a supporter of a "bigger" distro that has more room for error because of it’s general popularity.

I don’t think it’s "militant" to support avid postings in response to Ubuntu-supporting blogs, by supporting PCLinuxOS or pointing out valid balanced flaws in Ubuntu. Yes, even avid postings. I think it’s a response to have voices be heard in response, and obviously comments bear much less weight than articles themselves, so more would be needed.

With that said however, in the heat of the moment, I think Tex’s apology was a good move. Tex could have asked for avid postings in response, showed his general frustration, and at the same time, cautioned people not to ignite a mud-throwing contest, but to maturely point out the pros of PCLinuxOS and the cons of Ubuntu in appropriate places for publicity response. And Oli, don’t antagonize him for it and say that he could have handled his apology better -- come on. You reacted hastily in your review, Tex posted his thoughts hastily in forums in regard to it.

A little bitter rivalry never hurt anyone -- let’s just keep it on that level and not let it get out of hand! :)

by AzureOrb on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 12:00

I wouldn’t say that there is rivalry between the two communities. The problem with both PCLOS and Ubuntu is that there is a lot of new users around who don’t have much experience with Linux and mostly run a single distro. A lot of these kids will act like kids, they are a bit bored (probably the reason they tried Linux in the first place) so they’ll go on different sites and start flamewars. This doesn’t reflect the attitude of the community as a whole but only of a very small fraction. But they are the ones creating the most noise.

by voislav on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 11:09

Oli,

You got your apology. The decent thing for you to do would have been be to remove the entry. The fact that you didn’t shows that you are lacking in some very important human traits yourself. At least Texstar showed some maturity after the incident. Too bad you can’t say the same.

by Justin on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 10:43

> Oli is now acting like a tabloid news paper editor

Please notice I only got the apology *after* I published the blog post... Things could have been sorted a lot earlier with a simple email to me rather than an IRC kickban =)

I don’t think this is creating any sort of hatred inside the Linux community -- it’s just a lesson that everybody that might have an extreme viewpoint probably should moderate their language and even tone to better explain things to other people. It’s a lesson on how to collaborate when you have differing views from your colleagues.

If the Linux community as a whole wants to gain respect from real outsiders, it needs to show that it can be mature. Rather than calling for everybody to stop talking about it, why don’t we look at getting people to look at why we should respect other peoples’ views on a subject rather than calling then names and trying to undermine their credibility.

by Oli on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 10:25

Seopher,

Look at davemc comment to see why publicizing that incident is wrong. Texstrar in human and spoke out of character one time. we should all be allowed the chance to do that, at least once, since we are all imperfect. But, Texstar is now generally known for being "militant", as Oli put it. That is why I call Oli’s blog entry sensationalist. He is taking one incident and trying to defame a very recognizable figure. It reminds me of those paparazzi that bump into famous personalities to get a reaction, and then publish their upset faces and angry words. I guess Oli is enjoying the notoriety. Maybe he has found the way to get the attention that he evidently craves.

by Justin on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 10:19

Its true that there is, and always will be distro rivalry, and its the nature of the beast for this to be. However, as healthy as competition is, it can often turn unprofessional when one key player lets things get out of hand, as Texstar apparently did. This is very unfortunate, because it shines an unhealthy spotlight onto the inner goings on of what otherwise is an outstanding distro. I should think that the lead developer of ANY project should be the most level headed and mature of the bunch, but this apparently is not the case over at PCLos. Unfortunate that this is so, and so I will think again about using that distro so long as this immaturity continues. I do not like Ubuntu/Kubuntu, but at least those teams dont have maturity issues plagueing thier projects. And this makes me wonder, if Texstar is willing to incite hatred for what he perceived was a flawed review, then how does he handle his Dev team, and will they be sticking around on that project much longer if he treats them with the same lack of respect?

by davemc on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 09:58

Have to add, I’m not just talking you here, you do seem quite sensible, just following the topic and reporting what you see, but everyone who does this is to blame, there ARE reasons for things. So you may noy be the true one I’m bithcing about, BUT I hope the community reads what I said too to get a feeling and reminder of being a community, the COMMUNITY are the ones who need to respect others aswell.

by Eric on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 09:45

MAN, let it go..... continuing this is creating hatred within our OSS community :(
You aren’t helping 1 god damn bit with any of these posts along the same line as the other crap. By the way, being HAMMERED wasn’t what he was referring to, hammering is repeating and just advocating his own ART, imagine makin the best you can, NO ADVERTISING, company backing, millio doller advocates, all is just good prise from the community and thier users. I’m defending the dictator of this distro since I believe he desirves SOME respect. I point noobs toward PCLinuxOS ALL THE TIME for an intro to Linux as a viable alternative, I myslef use Arch FULL TIME 100%, and some FreeBSD for sticky situations ( luv FreeSBIE ).
To me YOUR just as bad as any M$ ZEALOT reanting about and defending your own distro, don’t make it a personal battle. We ARE a community, if you don’t want to act like one, you aren’t welcomed into OUR community. Think with your head and not with your ass, sure consutructive critasism IS good, but man, no need to continue such shenanigans.

I humbly request you stop such COMMUNITY bashing, we have enough ditro bashing going around still theses days for this amount of unneded extra crap to deal with, EMPOWER OUR BRETHREN DAMNIT....PLEASE.

by Eric on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 09:42

Seopher,

I didn’t say that this story was sensationalist. I said your friend’s story is, and that by referencing it you are not helping the situation.

Your point about the need to avoid becoming a fanboy is a good and valid one. Unfortunately fanaticism is a part of life and not an easy thing to overcome. That is why most people prefer to ban talk about religion in their forums, most people are just unable to talk about it in a sensible, open minded, rational way. I am all for you talking about the problem though. That is a healthy subject to discuss. But, it has nothing to do with the Texstar incident. Can you discern the difference?

by Justin on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 09:01

I wonder why you wonder. You invited the comments by including comments about your friend’s review, and blog-hammering in your own review. Maybe you should have left it alone.

Seopher: "This spread over into my review where discussion remained off topic and most users felt the need to comment on the situation rather than my review. I can’t help but wonder what’s going on?"

by EduardoZ on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 08:26

Absolutely

If we leave this "fanboyism"cloud our judgment then we cant have a rational conversation.Without that we cant determine what works best and for who.Without that we are trapped in a certain mindset and we cant look forward into the future , determine what has to be done to improve a certain distro or linux in general.And without that we end up right here where we are , in a world dominated by microsoft

by Linman on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 08:23

> Justin

How is this story sensationalist? All I’m highlighting is that there is an undeniable rivalry between the two communities and that it’s unhealthy. I’m not passing comment on who was right, who was wrong etc.

All I’m saying is that we should be bigger than that, take opinions as what they are (subjective) and step away from our raw feelings towards a release and understand that moving forward together is the most logical step.

by Seopher on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 08:22

To be frank, you are not helping the situation. As others have said, Texstar simply said that he wanted "the truth" to be hammered. Yes, he spoke out of character in the heat of the moment. Who has never done that. He acted with class by apologizing. On the other hand, by not removing that blog entry Oli is now acting like a tabloid news paper editor. And, you are simply helping fan the flames by distributing this sensationalist story.

by Justin on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 08:19

Great point of view!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got to work together as a strong, healthy and colaborative community. Ubuntu, PC Linux OS, Open Suse, Fedora, Debian, Mandriva and all the great Linux Distros we can choose from must be congratulated for THE WONDERFUL JOB their developers are doing, in order to give us the privilege of using stable, efficient, good looking, powerful and easy to use Linux Systems. Thank them all!!!

by Eduardo on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 07:50

Definitely. The end goal for Ubuntu and PCLOS are both being the most usable OS around. Giving examples of things that work better (IMO) is better than just saying "I think this could be done better", even if I am mentioning the ’competition’

by Oli on Thursday 24th of May 2007 at 06:39

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