The Howard Stern show is a "null character being broadcast" and it never sounds like silence to me.

Thank you for your comments which have been forwarded to the proper department. You will be contacted shortly to report for rehabilitation. May RMS have mercy on your soul.

Dammit, you're supposed to keep arguing with me. Now what am I supposed to do with my Monday morning at work? Parse my syslogs?

"So, because Ubuntu took the rather rough diamond that is Debian and polished it up, it's somehow "dumbed down"? Really?"

Why does everyone think that what Debian is trying to be is a polished up desktop OS? I hear this time and time again "Ubuntu is a polished up Debian" or "Ubuntu took Debian and finished the job" blah blah... or that Debian is somehow some unfinished rough draft of a project that needed Mark Shuttleworth to come around and complete.

Debian is a general purpose GNU/Linux - server OS, appliance OS, embedded OS... you name it - Debian can be used for it. Ubuntu is a desktop OS. That's it - plain and simple... Ubuntu is made from the ground up with the end user in mind for a rich DESKTOP experience. It just HAPPENS to be BASED on Debian. Yes, there is a "server" version of Ubuntu (which I find silly and is a topic for another conversation) but not even that is meant to be as flexible as vanilla Debian.

Personally I think it's silly to "roll up your sleeves and get dirty" to use Debian as your desktop OS. When I want to install an operating system on my desktop for general purpose use I get out the Ubuntu or the Fedora CD. My firewall at home? Debian. My streaming media box? Debian. My servers at work? Debian. Each distro is tailored to excel at one or a set of different jobs. Those that have a limited understanding of computers in general have a myopic view of the whole thing and expect that Linux is something for a personal computer - and that any distro that doesn't make a PC sing and dance out of the box is simply "unfinished" and "needs work". I'm sorry, but my Debian doesn't need any work or any polishing. It does perfectly well doing what it's meant to do.

Did you just pose a question as a premise?

Okay lemme make sure I have this straight...

Premise 1:
Being a Debian user for 15 years I'm sad to see it relegated to being only identified in the mainstream as something that a dumbed-down desktop distro is based on.

Premise 2:
Anyone who feels that way doesn't understand open source.

Therefore:
I don't understand open source.

It's all crystal clear to me now. My eyes have been opened.

It's actually kind of sad that most people identify Debian solely as being "that one that Ubuntu's based on".

I guess they achieved their ends and I wonder if Microsoft will be collaborating with the MSRC in the future. :rolleyes

Including/excluding modules doesn't constitute a kernel fork or a "different version". That's like saying you rolled your own version of Windows by removing the network driver.

I'm not sure why he got modded troll - he's absolutely correct. TFA summary makes it sound like Linux is an operating system.

Having just lost my wife to a 16-hour-per-day WoW addiction, I finally realized after the past two years that if they don't want to help themselves there's nothing you can do for them. I tried everything I could think to do, and every attempt to "save" her only made her more angry and resentful which fed the addiction even more. Finally I just put my foot down and said "no more" - and she left.

Unfortunately I've found that my story is all too common lately. I've had family members that were hopelessly addicted to street drugs and alcohol - and this is no different. Same behavior, same problem. They even show physical symptoms of addiction, and go through withdrawal when it's not available to them.

I think we're all in for a whole new world of things to be addicted to as more options are available to technologically "escape reality". I wouldn't be surprised if within 10 years gaming and "virtual reality" addiction are an epidemic out of control.

I wish you and your friend all the best, and hopefully he snaps out of it and gets help. Don't push him and don't give him any more cause to be resentful - just be there for him when he decides to come back to Earth.

Windows Userisms:

"More functionality means less performance."
"You should buy a new computer for your new operating system."
"Accessing a floppy drive means nothing else will respond until the floppy is done."
"Number one thing you'll need for your new PC is antivirus software."
"More hard drives means more drive letters."
"You'll need another license for that."
"Any time you change something on your machine, you'll need to reboot."
"Just ignore those error messages, they pop up all the time."
"It's typical to pay $1000 for hardware and $3000 for software."
"Oh I know why that's broken, yesterday was patch Tuesday."
"Windows won't let you do that."

It's amazing the things that Windows users view as "normal".

I just did a vmware install of it and uname shows 7.2-PRERELEASE. I wonder if that was a last minute thing.

I'm pretty sure it's based on 7.2 PRE, not 7.1. The summary also makes it look like the software manager is a new feature, which it is not. The PBI system has been around for a while in PC-BSD.