Potential Employer: "Er, so you are saying you're not part of any social network online whatsoever?"

You: "Yes, that is correct."

(Potential Employer quietly checks the box next to "Does not play well with others", and upon conclusion of the interview, places your resume in the "don't bother" pile)

The best approach in an interview is to give the potential employer something to work with, rather than just a flat-out denial:
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Potential Employer: "Er, so you are saying you're not part of any social network online whatsoever?"

You: "Well not exactly. I am a member of several tech sites and forums, helping people with problems and discussing various issues."

PE: "But what if you want to communicate with friends/family?"

You: "Email, the phone, etc. I have a Dropbox account where I share all my photos in the Photos gallery it provides. I don't use Facebook because I don't trust it as I'm concerned as to what might happen if my private data is leaked my accident or otherwise."

(Potential Employer considers this to be a different but thoughtful approach to remaining social and the interview progresses as normal...)

Really easy for you to say when you have not been on unemployment for over a year, your wife is about ready to leave you, your house is in foreclosure, repo guys are going to come take your car away, and the collection agencies you around the clock demanding you pay them back and harassing your family members.

In such a scenario is unfortunately, very typical in this economy for those who got laid off at the absolute worst time.

My God, you Americans really have a fucked up country. Just in case you weren't aware. I'm surprised there's anyone left who could be described as genuinely happy.

As per a YouTube Comment:

Autismï is a hell of a drug.

who said it would protect 'against internet evils,'

Seriously, who talks like that? Internet 'evils'? Ohhhhh! I've noticed the rhetoric from Iran, North Korea and other reclusive countries consistently sounds like it was made up by some hammy Z-grade Hollywood writer, rather than written by someone who wants to be, you know, taken seriously by the world.

Actually I don't care about what you say anymore. I was just glancing over at your previous comments to see if I was dealing with a nutbag, and I saw that in response to someone saying ""Medicaid and public universities both work fine", you replied "No, they don't."

In my country (Australia) we couldn't afford private health insurance so we relied on Medicare and the public health system. We also have predominately public unis although there are some private ones, but once again due to lack of funds I went to a public uni like most other people. I turned out alright and now have a great hardware engineering job. So as far as I'm concerned you can fuck off, because you clearly don't know anything.

I feel happy knowing I don't have to keep debating with a stranger when he's actually quite stupid and in the clouds. :)

After all, for most software the major part of the value comes from all the other lemmings.

Belittling people who see value in purchasing non-free software just makes you look like an arrogant ass. There's nothing wrong with a balanced middle-of-the-road approach.

I think he favours the Blender model of FOSS: there are people in the community coming up with ideas for new features and making fundraisers for it. It's like Kickstarter except the result becomes OSS. If not enough money comes together, less features will be implemented. Of course it only works for people with proper resume/portfolio. (See their OpenCL renderer.)

Blender is rather unique though. They have their milestone rendering projects to create short films (Big Buck Bunny, Sintel, etc) that push the latest features and raise their profile. This helps in fundraising and allows the project to continue. I think Blender is a success story for a professional-level tool in the FOSS ecosystem, but not all software can be made like this. A single product like a game, well... maybe the engine can be released as FOSS and you end up buying the data (maps, models, sounds, etc). But from his post I don't think he'd be satisfied with any financial compensation as an end-user, no matter how minor. That's his prerogative though.

Shit, I'll admit it. It used to be because I though it was a nice ideology (and it is), but nowadays I'll freely admit that I just like free software. I don't want to pirate anymore, but I don't want to buy software if there's a perfectly good OSS alternative available. Plus by using the OSS alternative I future-proof myself in case I finally decide to move to Linux (which may never happen, but it can't hurt to keep my options open and make the possible transition as painless as possible).

There's nothing wrong with being tight with money, particularly if the OSS options are good enough. I tend to now buy games and media more than tools, so long as the games are cross-platform and the media is non-DRMed. Keeps me happy, and yes it's a cheaper way to do things. Big deal, I like cheap. :)

I am basically opposed to the idea of paying for something that it is already done, payed for and that has zero replication costs too.

So what if the replication costs are zero? The work to make the software in the first place isn't free (we're assuming of course a for-sale product), so compensating for said effort is appropriate. It might take quite a number of sales before the costs for developing a product breaks even. Then there are the distribution costs, which even if it's something as simple as a server requires upkeep and maintenance costs.

Your position doesn't match the realities of the real world and no-one would take you seriously if you tried doing business with such a position.

And, if you still don't like it, easily replaceable: sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

I think you made a typo, here's the correct command:
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

OK it's still pretty new, but it's very quick and functional, and people are making themes and addons for it already.

What I've come to realize (speaking as a Linux fan but not a full-time user) is that a lot of Linux supporters like to blame everyone else for the lack of Linux's success on the desktop, EXCEPT Linux itself. They don't seem to acknowledge the fact that perhaps, just perhaps, it's the kernel developer's insistence on the lack of a stable ABI/API, the lack of support for commercial developers and the often hostile attitude of the community to said developers who write proprietary software, that might make Linux distros undesirable for the developers, and so the lack of software/hardware support and indeed, polish, ends up pushing people away.

But no, it's everyone else's fault. The Linux ecosystem is surely not at fault right? As long as people keep believing this, nothing will get better (and since it's such a pervasive idea that it's everyone ELSE who's at fault, no wonder uptake of Linux desktops is not only at a standstill, but in some reports is regressing.) It's fucking disturbing how many people think Linux is good enough for mainstream users, and ignore the legitimate complains people have about it. Personally I'm prepared to work with its deficiencies but at least I'm not blind to them!

Can't please everybody, but just the other day I thought about how I will mount my Pi when it comes

Am I the only one who was thinking something when reading this?

I can appreciate your sentiments, but I haven't had the experiences you've had.

Doesn't make them any less annoying or worthy of recognition of their existence. Plenty of people have had these issues, posted on various Linux forums, with varying levels of success at fixing them.

If a desktop configuration gets corrupted in Windows and I can't login to my user profile, then I usually I have to blow the user profile away to have it rebuilt.

What in God's name are you doing to your system that ends up corrupting your user profile? To be fair I shouldn't complain too much because in a past life I did IT support (never again!) and some people somehow fucked up their profiles so badly that new ones had to be made. I still have no idea why it happened.

With Linux, the settings are ruled by text files

Traditionally yes, and this is a good thing which has saved me some trouble when copying settings between various servers. However there seems to be a new breed of Linux developer who stores their settings in binary files now, sorta akin to the Windows Registry, and if this trend keeps up then you won't be able to mark this as an advantage anymore.

I use Linux because I find it very attractive. Sure, there are problems I encounter but I'm committed to working through them. That's how I learn how computers work and I have learned more about how computers work with Linux than I ever have with Windows.

Are you sure you're learning about how computers work, or just how Linux works? I've had many problems with various Linux distros which I've managed to solve through shear determination, but I'm not convinced I've expanded my knowledge about the fundamentals of computers - rather I've expanded my knowledge about how to fix Linux-specific problems. There's a difference.

Also, I do enjoy learning how to fix problems. But only in my OWN TIME. I do not enjoy coming home to fix problems unless I'm in a mood to do so. If I come home and find that a kernel update I applied the night before had killed my wireless adaptor or my graphics drivers, this does not please me. I can fix them most likely (or boot an older kernel), but I don't want to have to deal with this shit unless I'm mentally in the mood to do so.

Apologies - Slashdot ate the keyboard shortcuts in my post. For reference the steps came from http://en.libreofficeforum.org/node/498