Linux is mentioned twice in the summary. Is there a reason why? We all know Linux has major use in the embedded and scientific world, this isn't a secret. Are people still desperate to mention Linux anywhere as some form of validation that they chose the right decision to stick with it or something?

I thought Linux had "won", or something. If that was the case then it shouldn't be necessary to circlejerk the name anymore.

Actually nevermind. I read your profile history - the vast majority of your posting style is a mix of passive aggressive and confrontational. You don't like to just discuss things - you want to make it clear that your opinion is right and the poster you're responding to is an idiot.

Is this just how you act on the Internet or are you as much of a dick in real life? Why the fuck can't you act a little respectfulness when posting? God know the Internet is a cesspool already; don't need to piss into it yourself.

Honestly it's not that difficult to understand... unless you're deliberately being obtuse just because you don't want to give credit to opinions that are difference to yours.

My point, put simply as I can - I don't want to use a platform that provides LESS than what another platform provides.

In further detail - a platform that doesn't support flash at all is less capable than one which does. Even if the experience of flash is suboptimal, the fact it's there at all is wholly better than nothing for the times when it comes in handy. The porn argument is trivial of course - there might be other sites that are flash-less, but they might not have as many vids, who knows. What I know for certain is that the sites I like can CONTINUE TO WORK IN ANDROID, but will fail on an iDevice.

And that's all I'm trying to say.

Depends how old the peripherals are. Windows 8 can use Vista drivers for a lot of things since they share the same driver format, so as long as they were made around 2006 onwards they should still be supported. Occasionally there are driver sets killed off from the Linux kernel for lack of support or interest, so it EOLing hardware happens everywhere.

As for new hardware, I still disagree that you need to check compatibility with Windows because, well... no-one is going to be selling consumer level hardware if it cannot be used with Windows. Unless you're using XP perhaps, and even then it's likely you're aware that an OS from 2001 is probably not in the forefront of manufacturer's minds anymore.

I suspect we could go backwards and forwards on this for a while - you'll say that Linux supports more hardware out of the box, I'll say that it's more important that the drivers exist in the first place; I'd rather deal with something that's not supported OOTB but still be able to download the driver and install it via Next, Next, Finish, compared to not having it available at all, which is sometimes the case in Linux.

You sound puzzled about that. You shouldn't be. Ask anyone in an enterprise environment to open a selection of their workplace docx and xlsx files with LibreOffice, and it will be immediately obvious that LibreOffice is not even ready for beta testing in the enterprise.

I'll be honest - I'm not puzzled at all. I just wrote it for the karma, since I know my audience. :)

LibreOffice is OK, but I won't use it because I have access to Office 2010 which is superior in every way (except for not being able to run on Linux, but I've given up on Linux desktops so I don't care anymore). You can't even interactively crop an image in LibreOffice's writer like you can in Word - you have to edit the properties of the file and specify the crop measurements by hand, check the preview window, and adjust again until correct.

Ultimately it's all the very small things added up together that ruin LibreOffice's chance with the big leagues.

I've heard that line way too many times and it simply doesn't work well in practice. When people buy hardware, they don't check compatibility with Linux because they've never had to do so with Windows. Why would people want to expend more effort when they aren't required to? That's basically going backwards.

Furthermore, it's not always easy. For example my computer motherboard has a Renesas USB 3 controller for two of my USB ports. In Windows they work fine... with the drivers installed of course. In Linux there's a reported incompatabiliy with that particular controller chip I'm using (can't remember the exact lsusb output) that results in an inability to detect things like external USB3 HDDs unless they're connected during bootup - plugging them in during a running session doesn't work. No-one has a fix, cos no-one looks after the edge cases except for the manufacturer.

Yes it's the manufacturer's fault because they obviously doesn't give a shit about Linux. I know this, you know this. But people (including myself) don't care who's fault it is because in the end, it means I can't use my USB3 ports to back up my rather large storage drive every so often like I do in Windows, not unless I want to wait for over 24 hours. And I don't, which makes Linux less capable than Windows FOR ME.

I should not have to change to suit the deficiencies of a platform - the platform should serve the user, not the way around. It's the same reason I don't use Linux anymore - I got tired of not being able to run top-tier software like Office and Photoshop, and although there are workarounds in the form of LibreOffice and GIMP, it's not enough.

Likewise, why should I have to use different sites to get around the iPhone's lack of a feature when Android supports what I'm already used to?

The installer's only one side of things though. There are still lots of annoying bugs and edge cases that simply don't get any attention by anyone apart from the occasional bug report that's never acknowledged. Don't get me wrong I appreciate a good installer - make it easy and it's easier for a novice user to start experimenting with Linux. Just don't expect them to remain when they start to compare the levels of polish to the proprietary systems with far more support.

You're probably right. I'm mainly making a comparison to all the naughty bits.

Then you tell your boss you're also "uncomfortable" of being accused of saying something offensive, without being given the ability to defend yourself due to a lack of information about who the accuser is and the alleged offensive remark.

But in my entire life, I've never heard anyone talk about a woman's cunt size.

There's a reason for that - nobody cares about the size of that.

But everyone knows that men are self-conscious about the size of their penis, and so one method used for destroying the confidence of a bloke is to suggest that they are "insufficiently equipped", to suggest they wouldn't be able to satisfy a woman. Hence why people talk about dick sizes.

Now one might say the equivalent for a woman is the size of her breasts, however I'd argue women have greater latitude with that. There are men who prefer nearly all of the breast size spectrum; from small to large there's something for everyone. But men only care about a big dick and so it's easier to offend them by talking about sizes.

Cunts are digital - you either put your digit in it or you don't. There are no other specifications to worry about.

I like that pair of lines at the end. Think I'll use them later...

As others have commented, Linux is competing with free copies of Windows. Further, it lacks the games that the Chinese want (also free).

It's extremely frustrating when I see people pirate something when there are free alternatives. One could argue that the free/FOSS alternatives for certain classes of software aren't good enough, but there are enough cases nowadays where the quality of the free stuff is sufficient enough to make this something of a cop-out.

A Google engineer recently blogged about his experiences in Vietnam and how computer science was taught there (http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/03/16/). The story itself is interesting enough (when it comes to computer science Vietnamese kids kick the ass of American students, to the point where half of the students in one particular grade 11 class could pass the Google interview process), but he mentions this:

By grade 3 they are learning to how to use Microsoft Windows. Vietnam is a 100% Windows XP monoculture. Probably all with the same serial number. However, given that a copy of Windows costs one month's salary, it's easy to understand.

Touch-typing is taught using Microsoft Word. As with all their software, it is in English, which adds to the difficulty at that age.

Linux/LibreOffice is free, and yet still ignored. Obviously they aren't concerned about the BSA breaking down their doors to arrest everyone (yet), but it'd be nice if more countries with limited funds learnt the same basic techniques with more open source software. If you can't even give away your software, then Microsoft clearly have nothing to fear.

Ah yes, the good old "if I'm not having a problem, then the problem doesn't exist" idiocracy way too many Linux fanboys have. How exactly does that logic fit?

Why should I do that? I have my known sites that work on both the desktop and the mobile, and I can view them both equally because Android has flash support.

It's better to have SOMETHING, even if it's a crappy implementation, then to not have that capability at all. Yes I know I'm using porn as a crude example, but it still exemplifies the issue I have with Jobs deciding that Flash on the mobile was useless even though it's going to take a long time for it to die out.