I was not being sarcastic Nick. You are doing a lot of typing but are not really making much of a point. I do thank you for regurgitating some of the material you learned in argument 101 though! Nick, there are no strawmen or red herrings in my posts. And Nick, I most certainly am not making any ad hominem attacks on you! I stated that you are doing a lot of arguing without saying anything. Ad hominem is when I start attacking your character as a new Mint user to make you look foolish compared to my vast experience. Or to bring up the irrelevant lie you told in the chevy forum to try and show your point in a Linux forum is wrong.Sarcasm isnt a good basis for dialogue. I didnt say that peoples thoughts are irrelevant if they disagree, I am point out a logical fallacy. There were a few straw men and red herrings that needed to be called out. Its not that your positions or feelings are invalid, they just didnt address my argument. You do understand logic and the fallacies right? Ad hominem (Attacking the poster rather than the argument), Straw man (Arguing against a position that isnt quite what the OP was saying), and a red herring (similar to a straw man, but designed to divert attention away from one issue rather than necessarily framing your opponents argument inaccurately).
I think I made it clear that I was talking about ubuntu and mint rather than the kernel. There is nothing inaccurate about saying that Ubuntu cant control what is done with the kernel, though I dont think that is going to stop them from making the shell/interface more user friendly or contradict my claim that the OS is in fact trying to compete with windows and fight for our 'market'. Its not that what most of what was said is wrong or that I am invalidating your feelings or thoughts, they just didnt address what I was really getting at.
I still don't think you quite understand what Linux even is! You compare Ubuntu to the kernel, but why not debian? Or Gentoo, Arch, Fedora, Slackware, Puppy, DSL, Suse, Knoppix, Sabayon, or any of the other 500+ Linux distros? You do realize Ubuntu is JUST a Linux distro do you not? One that is based on debian just as Mint is based on it. But that does not mean the fork has anything to do with the parent project. Why do you think there was a fork in the first place?
You might want to pull out your argument textbook for a handful of terms, but there was no strawman or red herring here. I quite distinctly state in my post that you are doing a lot of arguing without making any kind of point. You prove it yourself. I listed what I felt you were trying to say, if I got your argument wrong then you should spend the time clarifying your point instead of trying to argue mine!
By OEM install i do not mean the manufacturing floor. I mean a boxed Windows that you buy off the shelf. One that was not made for a certain computer. This has EVERYTHING to do with your argument! If you want to compare the reinstall of your HP laptop's version of Windows that came on it then yes, it will probably be easier than trying to install Linux on a computer that it did NOT come on. But is this not an unfair comparison? I recognize that the fact that Windows is pre-installed on most computers is a serious advantage to Microsoft. It is keeping many people from Linux. Why suffer something you do not know when the Windows that is already on your computer works just fine?That might have been what YOU were talking about, for whatever reason, but that didnt have anything to do with my argument which is based on the end user experience. I guess if you had made an argument linking OEM installations for the sales floor to how linux competes in the market that would have been valid, but for now most people are installing linux themselves. I said my experience as a user was that intalling linux to a state where it works for basic needs (before mint, which tipped the balance for me) it was historically harder for noobs to install linux than windows at home....end user experience, not corporate or commercial experience.
Now thats changed though. Mint for me is now easier to install than windows and it works pretty much out of the box, except maybe I have to click on a link for the broadcom drivers.
My point was you take an off the shelf Windows disk and try to install that on your HP laptop! This is what we did on ours. The HP version of Vista Home Premium that came on our three HP laptops was garbage! The HP crapware made it buggy and unreliable. There was no way to strip this crapware that did not damage the underlying OS. We were able to get Windows Vista Ultimate through our school very cheaply. When you install this on a computer you will need to find all the drivers yourself. The Linux install on MOST distros is vastly easier than this. This is making a fair comparison. That is the point.
But, then you go and validate this point yourself. Ubuntu is no harder to install than Mint, I would imagine you know that if you have been using Ubuntu for 6 years. Fedora is no harder to install. You have to invoke a 3rd party repo to get the proprietary graphics drivers and some of the patented codecs. So what? This involves two copy and past bash commands that are easily found. Much simpler than a Windows install!
But that is all beside the point anyway. I do not care how much of a problem it is for you to install or run Linux! I do just fine, that is all that counts! If you need help you can ask me and I may help you out.
Sheesh, I even quoted you direct from the Mint install guide. Let me ask you something, what benefit is it to attract more users? Does Ubuntu or Mint make more money? Are they taking the competition away from Windows? Do they actually compete with Windows? Is it not just a talking point anyway?That is both hyperbole and a partial straw man.
Its not that Mint or Ubuntu is trying to destroy Windows for the sake of destroying them, but Ubuntu IS trying to compete and Mint is based on Ubuntu and is even more user friendly. Here you are substituting "destroy" with "competing with their market share" just to belittle your opponent.
Ubuntu and Mint are trying to be the best OS's they can be and are trying to compete for our market share, or at least Ubuntu is, not just to destroy windows but as a consequence they do have to compete with them.
Listen, Ubuntu can keep their bug #1. I do not think they even take this seriously! If they do then they sure have been screwing up that last couple years! They are getting more cutting edge if anything. Mint has nothing to do with all that either. Just because it is based on Ubuntu doesn't prove anything. This argument is just getting silly. If you want to take market share (what market? ) away from Windows then great! Have at it. Personally, I would rather play in a fire ant hill then worry about how Windows compares to Linux, but each to their own I guess. Doesn't really change much on my end.
Great! You win! I never argued to the contrary! I am arguing that LINUX is general is not worried about this. I am sure EVERY distro has its share of dorks who are! Just as I am sure that Ubuntu has a vast majority of more experienced, regular users who do not give a damn about Windows one way or the other. What is your point? Why are we even arguing this? The Linux Mint forum is just shock full of users who want to see Windows destroyed and Linux Mint on every computer in the world. Do you really want to be a part of THAT? Whatever! That is YOUR waste of time. If it were me, I would be learning all I could about Linux!Actually you are purposefully omitting the strongest argument I made to support my case and substituting it with the weakest one to make your own position look more valid than it is. I was talking about the distros, not the kernel, specifically Ubuntu and their offshoots. They are not competing for our market share just because they are getting easier to use, though its not that unreasonable of assumption.
I am arguing that Ubuntu is trying to compete for our market share because I have written documentation of their stated intent to do so. Im not sure how you can dismiss that one, unless you try to claim that I must have been talking about the kernel despite naming Ubuntu by name.....Still, you have provided no evidence that the people behind the main kernel distro are not also trying to compete for our market share....and lets not forget that you made the original claim which means the burden of proof is on you and not me. I have however substantiated my counter claims with documented facts, and I was describing "linux" as the sum total of open source software in the distros and not just the kernel.
I think I will bow out of this one myself Nick. If you want to win then okay, you won. Whatever that means. It changes nothing. I am not even sure what your point is? That Ubuntu has Windows listed as its number one bug? Okay, you are right, that is documented. I have no idea what other documented facts you have presented, but I will roll with it.
Any developer that has half a brain knows Linux will NEVER rival Windows on the home desktop. They really do not care. Windows is Windows and Linux is Linux.Your pessimism isnt shared by the developers.
And you say that you are not allowed over on the Ubuntu forums
I think that is a really negative attitude and may prove not to be the case. I think Linux has the capacity to compete with windows.
Who says I am not allowed in the Ubuntu forums? I am not banned form any forum! Not that it matters though, because I do not post in the Ubuntu forum. I really very rarely post any help requests in ANY forum. But I use the Ubutnu forum all the time for help. I have many threads over there bookmarked, I did even back when I was using Fedora. But I think I have benefited most from the Arch and Gentoo wikis. Great source of generic info.
Sounds like good advice. I sure hope Ubuntu beats that evil MS soon though...Biker wrote:And with that, I'm bowing out with a famous quote from Heinlein.
Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.