Updated: Never — Philip's Blog

Because those people are used to Microsoft Windows XP!

Posted by Paul Cobbaut at Sun Feb 24 11:53:00 2008

I agree with you completely. Ubuntu gets very fast very irritating, with it's constant handholding and trying to do things for you.

Posted by Jan at Sun Feb 24 18:36:41 2008

err, was it ubuntu, or rather the "user-friendly" text editor you were running (say gedit ?) :-)

Posted by elise at Sun Feb 24 19:08:31 2008

You can use lpr to print something from the CLI, just install the cupsys-bsd package.  Ubuntu is still Linux, not some evil Windows injecting corporation. Try maybe a bit harder next time, big boy.

Posted by Kristof at Sun Feb 24 19:14:04 2008

Heh, last week i had a similar feeling about centos/Fedora/... . I was ready to kick some ass :D But in the end, we're all on the same team :)

Posted by Bart Verwilst at Sun Feb 24 20:00:22 2008

Then don't do that! (using Ubuntu) (tm)
It's quite obvious it's not your system of choice. Everybody knows that. No problem with that.

But be respectfull to the choice of others. Be respectfull to the fact that Ubuntu fills a gap for a LOT of users. Ubuntu is definitely a system which helps to bring Open Source systems to a more broaden public. You should be happy about that.

Posted by Serge van Ginderachter at Sun Feb 24 22:10:45 2008

@Serge: If some delusional madman for some reason replaces a sensible operating on  relatively sensible hardware with crap like fucku-buntu and makes it the only system capable of printing because the printer is a pretend-printer, then it is my only choice.  I have never had any problems using any of a gazillion flavours of Unix.  I can get things printed sanely on an OSF/1 system if need be.  Only on fucku-buntu does it not work.  Conclusion: fucku-buntu is fucked up and broken.  If that is what we are feeding to new users of sensible software, we should not.  It is not sensible, it sucks donkeys.

I am glad that other people seem to agree with my conclusion.  But I understand that you and I have rather different opinions on what the world needs in terms of software.  Let's agree to disagree.

The last thing the world needs is crap like fucku-buntu.

@Kristof: The thing is not internet-connected.  You don't want shit like that on an open network.

@Elise: I don't know.  Which should tell you a thing or two about how crap this is.  I plug a USB stick in, and weird shit happens.  Somehow, I find a terminal (why must it be so hard?), discover that it is mounted and learn that enscript, 2up, psduplex and lpr are Just Not There[tm].  Someone pointyclicks my file open and prints it in an incredibly wasteful way.  Single-sided, one page to a sheet.  That's disgusting.  And then I can't even unmount the stick the piece of crap has idiotically decided to write read/write with caches enabled.  What kind of ridiculous behaviour do you call that?

Posted by Philip Paeps at Mon Feb 25 00:43:03 2008

Disrespect for other peoples choices from a fosdem staff member.

Posted by lunar at Mon Feb 25 17:31:27 2008

Philip,
please don't forget to take your pills...

and fix your captcha. Please.
I mean, seriously? "Which tiger can you catch with tuna fish?"
Knowing you, it must be a reference to the Hitchikers' Guide, but I only read the Dutch version so I don't know all the English inside jokes. Now I had to refresh the page to get a captcha that I do understand.

Posted by Amedee at Mon Feb 25 21:03:37 2008

@Amedee: I have not forgotten to take my pills.  Thank you.  But the only pills that protect one from the suckage that is fucku-buntu are cyanide capsules.

And the CAPTCHA is a feature, not a bug.  I expect people who want to comment to have a healthy taste in literature or at least to have the mental capacity to use Google.  This was from Calvin & Hobbes.  The answer was obviously "Hobbes".

Posted by Philip Paeps at Mon Feb 25 21:08:57 2008

"Ubuntu is definitely a system which helps to bring Open Source systems to a more broaden public. You should be happy about that."

This broaden public is indeed one of the causes for the failing of Windows. Make people happy and forget about any knowledge et voila ... Windows!

"Disrespect for other peoples choices"

Disrespect for other peoples opinion in a free country. If I don't like this posting I don't read it, it's his very own opinion.

Posted by marc at Mon Feb 25 21:10:17 2008

@marc: so you mean it's a good thing that people go from one boatload of suckage to another one?  Charming...

Everyone is free to ignore me or disagree with me.  This is my blog.  If you don't like it, don't read it.

I'll just repeat my opinion here, just in case there was any ambiguity in my original post: fucku-buntu is a steaming pile of horse shit!

Posted by Philip Paeps at Mon Feb 25 21:16:29 2008

"so you mean it's a good thing that people go from one boatload of suckage to another one?  Charming..."

Nope, it's that 'hand-holding' which causes a zero knowledge-effect that leads to massive failure imho.

I don't suggest a hardcore operating system for a beginner, but it should let some freedom to the user, so that he is able to learn something at all. And later he can enjoy his new freedom.

Posted by marc at Mon Feb 25 22:03:45 2008

"I don't want handholding."

whel, good for you...

but many people want a user friendly os, that's what ubuntu is trying to give them...

Posted by jens at Tue Feb 26 13:50:11 2008

Yes, this is your blog. Freedom of speech you know... If you want even more attention why don't you just paste some naked pictures of yourself here?

In the meanwhile: everybody can has his/her own opinion on certain software, but I would have expected a little bit more maturity from a Fosdem crew member ...

Posted by rob at Tue Feb 26 15:29:50 2008

Someone need some ubuntu-love.

Let's all give him a big Ubuntu-hug!!!!!!!

Posted by Thaens Tim at Tue Feb 26 15:43:50 2008

From these comments, I learn that Ubuntu users are not able to face the simple fact that their distribution sucks.

Sorry guys, it's not a Linux distribution if you can't do Linuxy things with it.  If you want to hold people's hands, fine, but don't make it impossible to get things done.  That's called suckage.

No, I won't submit a patch to fix it.  I prefer to spend my resources on systems which I feel have hope.

@rob: Would you prefer me to stop helping out with FOSDEM and preach the "love" of Ubuntu?  I think not.  I'll keep doing FOSDEM and not touch Ubuntu with a very long pole.  I will reserve the right to complain loudly every time it touches me and I hate it though.  Thanks.

Posted by Philip Paeps at Tue Feb 26 15:50:25 2008

Well, I really did Google it. By now I think I can tell you everything about the reproductive cycle of the tigershark. However, I am not familiar with certain aspects of American popular culture. Calvin&Hobbes appears to be a comic. Although it appears to be quite popular on the other side of the pond, this rightpondian never heard about it. Now that you have told me the source of the captcha, I found out that the main characters are named after two 16th/17th century philosophers. Go figure...

Anyway, thank you for the current captcha.

Oh and also this. The Belgian Ubuntu community sends you a lot of love and hugs. You seem to need it.

Posted by Amedee at Tue Feb 26 15:56:16 2008

Thank you all for your positive feedback.  Now are you going to go out there and make it suck less?

Posted by Philip Paeps at Tue Feb 26 16:02:04 2008

Philip doesn't like Ubuntu. So be it. Who cares?

And about CAPTHCAS: Calvin&Hobbes are every day in Belgian newspapers.
Just refresh a few times untill you can solve it.

Hmm, the last letter of dog? Seems really easy to me Amedee.

Posted by Wannes at Tue Feb 26 16:07:16 2008

Wannes has seen the light.

Also try to remember that the CAPTCHA exists to promote high-quality comments...  If you've got something interesting to say, ten seconds of research are probably worth it.  If you don't know the answer and you can't even find it, chances are your comment is not going to be very interesting to me.

My blog is my place to hate the world, not your place to hate me.  Feel free to hate me on your own blog, if that makes you happy.

Posted by Philip Paeps at Tue Feb 26 16:15:29 2008

This must be the most disrespectful, ugly, motherfucking blog post i have ever seen. Go fuck some whore so you will be less frustrated and please take a long bath, the only horse-shit I see here is around your mouth. If you don't like Ubuntu, just get an other flavor but don't call people who like it suckers.

Feels good that I am allowed to say dirty things on a blog ;)

So, you're a volunteer at FOSDEM? Nice ... Does this put you in a position that you are allowed to say these negative things about a successful open-source project? Are you not supposed to be neutral?

Posted by Bart at Tue Feb 26 18:41:36 2008

Let's keep things calm here.

Philip doesn't like Ubuntu. So what?
Philip does a great job for FOSDEM. Great!
Philip works develops for FreeBSD. Great!

btw: bugs.launchpad.net is full of negative things about a successful open dource project.

For reference: I'm an happy ubuntu user. Does that makes me a lesser person in the eyes of Philip. I think not.
Does that make Philip a lesser person for me? I think not.

And for Amedee. Once again I had an easy CAPTHCA! ;-p

Posted by wannes at Tue Feb 26 18:54:56 2008

@Bart: Thank you for your helpful advice.  It is much appreciated.  I will certainly keep it in mind.

I do not understand why people feel that my involvement with FOSDEM should in any way limit my freedom to state my feelings about crap software?  I imagine that if I were to get on stage in Janson and give a long rant about how Ubuntu sucks, I'd get some unfavourable comments about it from my fellow crew members, but this is my blog.  As long as the content I post on it is legal where I post it, I can post whatever the hell I want to post, no?

Funny how people think.

Why are people wasting so much of their time commenting on my frustrations with crap software?  If it bothers you: go and try to make it better!  I will happily post a flowery recommendation if ever I find it doesn't suck.  If you read the archives of this blog, I do post positive things too.  I don't always complain.  Currently: Ubuntu sucks.  Currently: it looks hopeless.  Feel free to prove me wrong if you consider that to be useful use of your time.

I can't imagine how you could consider commenting on my blog to be useful.  If you want me to change my opinion, you'll have to prove me wrong.  Flaming me to a crisp about the blunt way I stated my opinion will get you absolutely nowhere.

Bluntly stating the facts does seem to draw a crowd, however.  My word...

Posted by Philip Paeps at Tue Feb 26 18:55:27 2008

@Wannes: I don't think any less of you for being a Ubuntu user.  On the contrary.  I wonder how you manage to keep your blood pressure to acceptable levels.

All my CAPTCHAs are easy. :-)

Posted by Philip Paeps at Tue Feb 26 19:00:02 2008

Phillip,

you have every right to dislike Ubuntu, you can hate it if you want. If you find something that is annoying you can blog about it You have the freedom to chose and to blog whatever you want. That's why people choose other Distro's or BSD or SUN or ...

But don't forget that your involvement in FOSDEM puts you in a responsible position. FOSDEM has a good name in the Open-Source community. So this makes you responsible for being respectful towards open-source projects. This blog post may give FOSDEM a bad name.

You don't want people to post bad things about FOSDEM on their blogs, just because you're using strong words to express your dislike towards Ubuntu.

Posted by Bart at Tue Feb 26 19:21:09 2008

@Bart: Point taken.  Though I do make the rather bold assumption that the kind of people who attend and write about FOSDEM are sufficiently clueful to understand the concept of 'hats' and 'personal opinion'.  And particularly that anything one writes is 'personal' unless it's explicitly written with a hat on.

For future reference: I never blog anything with a hat on.  I can't remember ever doing so, I have no intention of ever starting to do that.  My blog is not an authoritative reference for anything other than my mood at the time of writing.  And even that's sometimes dubious...

Posted by Philip Paeps at Tue Feb 26 20:05:51 2008

But the article is also on planet:fosdem.org.So there is the fosdem hat.
Readers are fosdem visitors and sponsors/donaters.
It's your blog, and you can write what you want.But remember:visitors and sponsors/donaters can also do what they want.
There are maybe a few hundreds ubuntu fans visiting fosdem, and there was a ubuntu booth.Can you understand what they feel now?
Smart people are making mistakes, smarter people fix them.

Posted by andy at Wed Feb 27 10:20:32 2008

I would prefer that you would not make it appear that open source developers are a bunch of little children who like to scream 'fuck' and 'shit' the whole time. It degrades the good work you do with Fosdem.

Posted by rob at Wed Feb 27 11:42:31 2008

These comments amuse me. I find it quite funny how easily people get upset when someone dislikes their favourite toy. What I find even more funny is how they feel the need to take it quite personally. Much entertainment, please keep it up. You might get another chuckle or two out of me.

Posted by Bram at Wed Feb 27 11:57:47 2008

Oops, refresh resulted in a re-post. You can delete my previous comment.

Look Philip, no sane man would take your (childish imo) insults as the opinion of 'someone speaking for Fosdem'.
But be realistic and realise that people associate you with everything you do and say. Whether it appears on YOUR blog doesn't change that fact. If you want to scream murder and insult people in your own home nobody cares, but posting it on your blog is not exactly private. The open source community is not that big, the people you are insulting were on the event you helped organise and might even be nice people that have the same goals in life as yourself ...

Anyway, I'll stop commenting now. Maybe we can start another flamewar after next year's fosdem :-p.

Posted by Rob at Wed Feb 27 11:59:18 2008

@rob: I've deleted your earlier (duplicated) comment, I've left one copy.  I don't believe in censorship, especially not on my blog.

As I replied to Bart earlier: I understand the point you are making.  It is certainly valid.  Though I stand by my belief that whoever reads this is sensible enough to understand the hats concept.  Regardless of where they read it.

Please also note that I wrote the /software/ sucks.  I have said nothing about the /people/ who use the software (other than the fact that I don't understand how they can put up with it!).  This is a very important distinction.  It's the difference between playing the man and playing the ball.

I know some very nice people who use bad software.  I don't understand how they do it, but I certainly don't think any less of them.  I know that a lot of people attend FOSDEM who seem to believe that there is hope for Ubuntu to one day not suck.  For some obscure reason, they seem to believe it doesn't currently suck - I disagree with both of those beliefs, but more power to them for wanting to try.

We all need our windmills to fight.

Bottom line, two things to remember: 0) I've taken note of Bart and your point.  It is valid, I will keep it in mind; 1) the software sucks, not the people.  Instead of feeling insulted, go and try to make your software better!

Posted by Philip Paeps at Wed Feb 27 12:17:41 2008

If you think something is wrong with Ubuntu (or any other Open Source project), the generally accepted procedure is to file a bug report. Ranting won't fix the bug. It will only make sure that you will have something to rant about in the future.

For Ubuntu, you can file bug reports at bugs.launchpad.net


By the way, your captcha is broken.
0 is the 0th Fibonacci number.
55 is the 10th Fibonacci number.
All sensible enumeration starts with 0. Only some crap programing language like Basic starts enumeration at 1. You don't do Basic, do you Philip?

The formula for calculating a Fibonacci number is:
F(n) = floor(phi^n/sqrt(5) + 1/2)
F(0) = 0
F(10) = 55

Posted by Amedee at Wed Feb 27 18:37:50 2008

@Amedee: all the bugs I mention must have been reported a million times, I'm sure.  They are fundamental "it doesn't fucking work!" bugs.  A product with those kind of bugs should never be released.  The Shame!

And "no".  Deal with it.  If you don't like my CAPTCHAs, get another one.

There are so many interesting things to do with your time -- you might like to fix the fundamental uselessness of Ubuntu, for instance.  I'm certainly not going to do it.  I think it's hopeless, and so far, everyone is proving me right.

Posted by Philip Paeps at Wed Feb 27 20:02:08 2008

What bugs? Tell us please.
Millions of ubuntu users like to know what "doesn't fucking work"
Michael Dell also want to know.
And last:who forced you to work with this ubuntu computer?Were all computers on fosdem with ubuntu maybe?
If I google a few minutes I see that you dislike ubuntu, but never with a reason.Maybe ubuntu's success?Why is your slackware 12 no big success?

Posted by pierre at Wed Feb 27 21:25:33 2008

@Pierre: the bug is best described as "it's not a Linux distribution".  I want to print something from a USB stick.  That means I plug the stick in; dmesg; sudo mount -o ro /dev/foo /mnt; cat /mnt/foo.ps /dev/(u)lp0.  This did not work.  When I plugged the stick in, some mysterious window slapped me in the face.  After finding my terminal again, which took me some time, I found the filesystem on my stick was dangerously mounted r/w on some obscure mountpoint (/media/KINGSTON).  I noticed that the printer was not a normal printer and that I would need to Ghostscript instead of merely catting to /dev/(u)lp0.  Because I'm a planet-conscious sort of person, I wanted to print two pages to a sheet of paper and expected to use the 2up tool, which I believe comes with psutils (without which you might even give up on printing altogether) and found it not present.  After some advice from a Ubuntu victim, I found that I had to use my mouse to click in a number of funny places to recover the violent window that popped up when I put the stick in.  This then popped up an ERROR! saying that it did not know how to "execute" my text file and suggested me to "display" it instead.  Some obscure application with very large letters showed my file at last.  It allowed me to pointyclick my way to a "print" button.  The window that then popped up (have you kept track of the number of windows by now cluttering my screen) offered me a choice of unlikely sounding "printers" (PDF generator? PostScript file?).  I picked the physical printer.  When I asked the Ubuntu victim how I could push the file through 2up first, he went "DUH?" and suggested I pointyclick some 'advanced' or somesuch button.  Yet another window (!) materialized.  Here I could select that I wanted a "booklet" (what the hell?).  I picked the most likely option for printing two pages to a sheet.

What came out of my printer?  One page per sheet, clearly formatted for a wrong papersize, with an enormous unsightly header mentioning the obscure mountpoint I mentioned earlier (/media/KINGSTON/foo).

Of course there were other computers at FOSDEM -- my laptop for starters -- but I needed something printed quick, and you know what a zoo of cables you can find under an infodesk at FOSDEM?  You want to try to pick the one plugged into the printer?  I had assumed, quite wrongly it seems, that Ubuntu would be a Linux distribution and that I could just quickly mount my stick, Ghostscript and 2up my file to /dev/(u)lp and get it from the printer.  What should take two seconds without pain became a very painful fifteen minutes.  And the results were awful too.

Lest I forget: I couldn't even unmount my stick in any sane way.  I had to have someone show me that I had to click somewhere obscure (under the mass of windows that had been spawned in this pesky process) and select "unmount volume" from a menu.

I don't call this userfriendly.  I call it userhostile.  I just wanted a couple of pages of text from a printer?  Why make it so difficult?  Just let me print dammit!

As for Slackware 12: it is a great success!  It does precisely what I want it to do.  When I ask it to please mount a stick ro somewhere, it does exactly that.  When I ask it to please Ghostscript a file, 2up it and dump it on a device node, it does that for me.  This simple process has worked flawlessly on every single Unix and Linux I've seen over the past many years.  Even something as crusty as AIX can be made to print a file without undue blood pressure increase!  Ubuntu?  No go.

And you tell me this is not a bug?  You tell me Slackware is not a success?  Pull the other one!

In my bag for the next FOSDEM: a USB A<->B cable so I can print sensibly!

You know what will happen when I file this as a bug?  They will tell me it's a feature.  It's a feature that I can't print.  It's a feature that I can't even mount a removable device ro.  It's a feature that there's no 2up.  It's a feature that whatever I do is interrupted violently when I plug a USB stick in.  It's a feature that I have to pointyclick all over the place and that files called 'foo' without the X bit can't be 'executed'.  Why does it try to 'execute' them?  Where would the output go, had it managed it?  Who knows?

Is there hope for Ubuntu to ever become useful?  No.

I've wasted way too much energy on it already.  What was supposed to be a twenty second print job has turned into a fifteen minute hell followed by a multi-day flamewar.

I see no need to adjust my conclusion about Ubuntu?  I might have stated it in more fuzzy terms, but surely you must see the frustration here?  Who ships things like this to innocent users?  How do the innocent users put up with it?

On second thought.  Don't tell me.  Please.  I'm happy with functional software.  Instead of protracting this frustrating discussion, go and try to make Ubuntu better.  I don't think it's possible.  I will be happy to be proved wrong though!

Posted by Philip Paeps at Wed Feb 27 21:49:21 2008

And of course it was much easier for you to break down a linux distribution than try the same actions with your slackware computer.It was very simple: put the printer in your slackware computer (I hope there was a auto-install of the printer like ubuntu has,but I know slack from the beginning:no go)and do the same actions, so you could check where the problem was.In your own words:was is the fucking printer, was it that sucked kingston stick or the ubuntu computer.There were 3 hardwares you did not know, you did not install any of them or configured.
Ok,that was one bug:printing direct from usb stick to a 2-pages on one sheet.
What's next?

Posted by pierre at Thu Feb 28 09:06:53 2008

And now the good news.
Someone handed me some FuckBSD cd. (or something else with an f)
I am currently actually trying it.
In a virtual machine of course.
But if it doesn't get in my way and if I can do something with it that I find useful or entertaining, I might actually consider installing it for real. Because I am sometimes sick of Ubuntu - for reasons that are totally different from your reasons for hating Ubuntu, Philip.

Posted by Amedee at Thu Feb 28 21:41:45 2008

game-set-match Pierre

Posted by Lunar at Sat Mar 1 13:19:44 2008

Mature post; let's all return to the /etc/printcap and apsfilters time, that'll bring civilisation up to the Star Trek level.

Posted by Kristof at Sun Mar 2 09:25:40 2008

PLONK !

Posted by f00 at Sun Mar 2 16:11:30 2008

oh fuck them with this crap, they try to get us to read about ubuntu and its crashes - linux is perfected - The thing is (read shit) is jaunty is fucked.  I load it (read microsoft build) and all it does is crash (SURPRISE).  AND VB for my windows (windows guest, er I mean microsoft in her bitch jaunty), updated, and now I can't go online! WTF, this fucking conspiracy.  Ya sure, WE Are Having Problems....FUCK IT

Posted by miki at Wed Apr 15 04:55:16 2009

I wish I found this site before I made the mistake of switching from Windows to Ubuntu.

Every claim from the Ubuntu community about how good it is, is complete Bullshit.

Fuck you Ubuntu, fuck you hard.

Posted by Russ at Tue Oct 13 06:06:26 2009

man i installed ubuntu!! n i am findin hard tym installin shyt in dis thin!!

Posted by jean sam at Fri Mar 5 18:53:19 2010