OS Wars

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Not so long ago, at a nerd convention far too close for comfort...

Mac, Windows, and Linux in an unstable alliance. Note that the only computer you can do this on is a Mac. Also note that there is no reason why you'd want to do this.

Operating System Wars take place wherever nerds gather: internet-forums, game stores, 7-11s at 3 AM, postgraduate offices, and RationalWiki. There are largely two camps: The Mac Users and The Windows Users. The fact that these words are capitalized emphasizes the religious zeal with which these positions are held. They argue constantly about which is the Superior Operating System, always overlooking the fact that a) all computers, when you get right down to it, are shitty, and b) there are alternatives.[1]

Contents

[edit] Windows

ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!11!!1!!!!1!

Windows is famed for being on 90% of the world's computers, for its pathetic attempts at user friendliness (remember Clippy?), for crashing when you have more than two programs running simultaneously, and for making any change to software or hardware as difficult as possible. Windows 7 seemed to buck the trend, as even IT guys - who by default hate Microsoft - like it, but even the final release version wasn't immune to some form of "[insert whatever feature the error generates] of death".[2]

[edit] Windows Users

Windows users are characterised by any one of the following traits:

  1. Swearing, usually at what the computer is doing wrong/the difficult way.
  2. Being your average office drone.
  3. Calling IT support because there is something wrong.
  4. Assuming that any application will run on their machine.
  5. Terrified that other operating systems might actually be better.
  6. Cursing at people with the correct drivers installed for the amount of shiny devices they can connect their computers to.
  7. Thinking that this is 'way cool dude'.

[edit] Macs

Ten percent of the market share
Ninety per cent of the crazy.

Macs are famed for their user friendliness and innovative user interface. Windows users think this prevents the users from actually having to know how their computer works making them counterproductive for software development.[3]

[edit] Mac Users

Mac users are characterised by the following properties:

  1. Over emotional attachment to what is actually a machine.
  2. Calling IT support because there is something wrong with them because they can't find out how to set the printer to two-sided.
  3. Generally being complete tossers, except of course for Stephen Fry and Douglas Adams who has a get out of jail free card for reasons of being Stephen Fry and Douglas Adams. [4]
  4. Owning iEverything even though they are just like (or sometimes worse than) any other, mobile phone, mp3 player, etc.
  5. Thinking that BSOD is some kind of sexual fetish.
  6. Cursing at Windows users for the amount of shiny devices they can connect their computers to.
  7. Really scary Mac users are a twisted hybrid of Mac addicts and Unix geeks who can tie a cherry stem in a knot with nothing but an AppleEvent-aware Perl script.

[edit] Linux

Most Linux boxes were Windows boxes before their owners revolted. Yes, Linux users are revolting!

[edit] Linux Users

Linux users are characterized by the following properties:

  1. An unhealthy desire to recompile the kernel at every opportunity.
  2. A disdain for newcomers who don't know how to recompile the kernel.
  3. Constantly rebuilding their machines because a kernel recompile failed.
  4. Cursing at Mac users for the amount of shiny devices they can connect their computers to.
  5. Believing a Windowing System is a very clever way of having lots of command lines on screen at the same time. Like screen only less clever.

[edit] Unix

Unix boxes are big, black and live in caves called Data Centers

[edit] Unix Users

Unix users are characterized by the following properties

  1. Not knowing how to use a GUI even if they had one.
  2. Considering anything less than a terabyte to be small beer.
  3. Feeling totally superior to mere users.
  4. Cursing at Linux users for the amount of shiny devices they can connect their computers to.
  5. Getting pissed off when, at a party, someone says "I hear you work with computers - can you fix my internet connection?"

[edit] RationalWiki's position

RationalWiki does not endorse any specific operating system and believes people who argue over it should get a life. That said:

  • RationalWiki prefers Windows because, uh, it... well, it has the best games.
  • RationalWiki prefers Mac OS X because it was designed by people who are rather anal about interface design and coherency and evolved to fit the needs of the very demanding graphic design, publishing, and multimedia markets, as well as the lucrative sitting-in-a-cafe-looking-cool market. And, it's Unix anyway. [5]
  • RationalWiki also prefers Linux because it's open source — wait, let's repeat that: open source — and almost anything you need to do that doesn't involve gaming or custom applications that are written by sub-par vendors who won't even release the specs can be done with something you download for free.
  • RationalWiki also prefers Unix because it was written by techies for techies and everything is a file.
    • RationalWiki prefers BSD Unix in particular, because if there's a platform that doesn't run NetBSD at the very least, it's not worth using.[6] And FreeBSD, for obvious reasons.[7]
    • And OpenBSD because of its developers' obsession with keeping it secure. And DragonFly BSD, because it's different. And PC-BSD for people who aren't tech-savvy.
    • RationalWiki prefers OpenSolaris because it's a Unix System V OS that people are free to screw around with the source code of.
  • RationalWiki prefers DR-DOS running on an Osbourne for obvious reasons.
  • RationalWiki prefers the Commodore 64 because there's nothing a programmer on a modern platform can do that a C64 developer can't do in half the memory, in 8-bit machine language, with a dark ages character set and some truly hairy raster interrupt tricks.
  • RationalWiki prefers analogue. Especially where thermionic valves are involved.
  • RationalWiki prefers running Rule 110 in a desert.
  • RationalWiki prefers ReactOS because it's open source and is basically Windows for cheapskates.
  • RationalWiki prefers FreeDOS because it's more old-school than most other open source operating systems.
  • RationalWiki prefers Plan 9 from Bell Labs because not only is it intended to succeed Unix, it's named after a famous B movie.

We do, however, laugh heartily at Amiga users because they compensate for their persecution complex by collecting Transformers, working at porn studios, and writing furry comics. What's that about being ten years ahead of their time and being the first multimedia-specific computer? Nah. Couldn't be.

[edit] And if that wasn't enough

Don't forget to have friendly discussions about

  • The one true brace (Use Psion's bracing style to annoy people, thanks.)
  • emacs vs vi
  • GUI vs command line
    • Users of Linux, BSD, and other Unix-like operating systems who have decided to go with the GUI then have to decide between GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and numerous other, generally less feature-rich (and thus less resource-hungry) GUIs
  • The computer religious wars of the 1980s
  • Tabs versus spaces. Burn the heretics who say the tab key should emit between two and four spaces!
  • Linux is a Communist plot. Please report anyone using it to homeland security so they can be dealt with by our friends at Blackwater.
  • Choice of Web browser

[edit] Metaphors and similes

The ferocity with which OS users will defend their systems sometimes borders on that of fundamentalist religion, and occasionally the rhetoric they use to back up their position would make a homeopath look well versed in current literature. Indeed, one of the best ways to engage a geek in conversations about politics would be to give an analogy to operating systems. Want to give them a deeper understanding of how global politics works? You could do much worse than start with "it's like Microsoft and Apple". Religious and social tension due to diversity? Driver conflicts! Airport security? Get Firefox! The complex issues in Palestine? Have you seen what happens when you put an XP installation disk into a machine with a Linux partition? And so on. You could even make a case for explaining 9/11 as akin to the first virus for Macs; everyone thinks they're totally immune to that stuff, but they're not really, they're just waiting for someone to have the balls to try it, and when they do, it'll be big. It totally works.

[edit] Road map to peace

Here at RationalWiki we are about conflict resolution so we propose the following,

  1. Type your documents in LaTeX (there is a version for every system) and build to PDF (so the poor Mac Users don't have to open postscripts),
  2. If you must use a WYSIWYG word processor, then use Opendocument Format (ODF) and then build to PDF,
  3. Use comma separated variable spreadsheets,
  4. Send plain text emails

[edit] Give War a Chance

However, should you wish to incur the wrath of teh interwebz, consider doing any or all of the following:

  1. Type all documents in Word 2007 and be sure to save in .docx format.
  2. If saving in .doc format, be sure to embed large image files, preferably reduced in scale on the page. Feign ignorance when your "friends" get shirty when you send them a 15mb file for a two page document with one or two small images.
  3. Be sure to use Incredimail to send all your emails, and share your love of animations with all your "friends".
  4. When designing your webpage, or interface for programs, think outside the box and use slightly bizarre screen resolutions to test your visual masterpiece, ideally something almost impossible to achieve without having to delve into the darkest depths of your monitors OSD, like say 960x760. For best visual impact, and to ensure backward compatibility, dither all graphics, and stick to 16 colors.
  5. Make all help files and interfaces monolingual. Everyone speaks English anyway.
  6. When setting IT policy in any organization, think security! Ensure all users must create a fresh password at least once a month, composed of sixteen case-sensitive characters, with at least two numerals and punctuation signs.
  7. When sending image files for publishing, be sure to put them in a highly compressed .jpg file, as these save space on their hard drive, and upload more quickly as well.
  8. When discussing the latest games and accessories you got for your PC, be sure to include your Mac and Linux using "friends". They love to hear about the latest games and gizmos.

[edit] The origins of computer related religious wars

Here we present evidence that computer geeks arguing over trivialities is as old as the programmable computer:[8]

The English mathematician Charles Babbage, who conceived programmable computation, wrote to the young poet Tennyson. "In your otherwise beautiful poem," he said, "one verse reads,
“ Every moment dies a man,

Every moment one is born.

”

" ... If this were true," he went on, "the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death. I would suggest [that the next edition of your poem should read]:"

“ Every moment dies a man,

Every moment 1 1/16 is born.

”

"Strictly speaking," Babbage added, "the actual figure is so long I cannot get it into a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry."

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ And the real hardcore alternative crowd just use an abacus!
  2. ↑ BBC News - Malware suspected of 'Black Screen' issue
  3. ↑ The users, that is, not the developers. The Mac actually has quite a few bells and whistles that Windows has never quite been able to equal -- AppleScript, for one. Also, OS X is Unix. Has the trademark and everything.
  4. ↑ Channelling Andrew Schlafly: According to my Dad, who was at university with him, Douglas Adams was in fact an utter tosser.
  5. ↑ And it comes with a full set of developer tools, which Windows doesn't.
  6. ↑ Everything runs NetBSD if you need it to. PCs. Macs. Amigas. Toasters. Teddy bears. Chuck Norris. (Well, at least it would be better than what he's running now.)
  7. ↑ This is what happens when you mix sex and computer nerdiness
  8. ↑ This is anecdotal, but if it's good enough for Stephen Fry and QI, it's good enough for Rational Wiki.
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