A small FAQ for Linux geeks

All right, I might start by saying that, as you have probably noticed, this website isn't really meant for you :) It's meant for Windows (or Mac) users trying to figure out what "Linux" is, what it looks like, and see whether there's anything good for them in it. You probably won't find any new information here, and you might just as well keep on reading slashdot ! :-p

• Q: Linux is hardly a full OS like Windows, it's just the kernel. Why let users believe otherwise ?

  A: Saint Linus please forgive me :) This is voluntary simplification. If you start explaining this, the fact that Linux is the kernel's name, and that different vendors choose to ship Linux with their choice of software to make a "Linux distribution", etc., half of the audience has already left. This is not a website for people already using Linux as their main OS (unless they want to help out making the site better). For the same reasons, and for the sake of simplicity, I don't speak about the various BSDs and the fact that many of the big servers run BSD and not Linux.

• Q: Why are you saying an OS is better than another? It depends on what people want to do with it.

  A: Of course it does, I agree perfectly. But let's be clear about what I'm trying to say here: 1) Let Windows/Mac OS X users know something else exists out there. 2) Give a few reasons why Linux is a really good system, and why most of the time it is a pretty good choice. Obviously, the website's name is more straightforward than this, but hey, should I have bought whylinuxmaybebetterinmanycases.net ?

  I'm no Linux expert, nor some sect leader, and I don't want to evangelise: I'm just an extremely happy user and developer of Linux, trying to make more people get to know about Linux.

• Q: It's GNU/Linux, not Linux, stupid!

  A: In a website for advanced Linux users this kind of details would matter. But let's keep things simple. People heard of "Linux", not "GNU/Linux", and this kind of geeky quarrel is probably one of the things that prevent "normal" people from understanding what this is all about. For the same reason, I write "OpenOffice" instead of "OpenOffice.org" and so forth.

  And by the way, this "Q:" is not a question, since it doesn't have a question mark. But anyway, since I write both questions and answers... Oh boy, I really am stupid.

• Q: Man, your English is lousy.

  A: Yeah, I know. And I'm working on it. Pass the rod, please.

• Q: I'd like to contribute by translating the website to my language, are you interested?

  A: Definitely! Feel free to drop me an email at ideas@whylinuxisbetter.net. And if you're a native English speaker, please report proof of my bad English to the same address, so that I can correct my mistakes.

• Q: You seem to concentrate on GNOME and Ubuntu. Any hard feelings about KDE and other distributions ?

  A: Of course not. I love and use a lot of KDE apps (if all the efforts put about GNOME vs KDE trolls could be invested in nicely integrating KDE apps in GNOME and the other way around, I'd be really happy). My screenshots mostly show Ubuntu because that's the distribution I use and develop for. Needless to say, feel free to send me other screenshots. You might notice I have an item about AmaroK, don't hesitate to send me further suggestions for other KDE (and GNOME!) apps.

• Q: What the hell do you know about Linux anyway ?

  A: Probably not as much as I should! I'm a member of Ubuntu, I have been using Linux since ~1998, wrote a few pocket books (in French) about some Open Source software (Firefox, Linux, etc.). But I'm trying to fix that, I just ordered the "Understand the Linux kernel" book (by the time you read this, I may have finished reading it, understood all there is to know about Linux and want to create my own version, which I'll undoubtedly call "Manux" -- okay, maybe not).

• Q: You said gamers shouldn't switch to Linux, but don't you know about Wine, Cedega? These work fine for a growing number of Windows games.

  A: I agree that various software solutions make running Windows games under Linux much easier than it used to be. This is a good solution for casual gamers. However, note that I used the expression "hardcore gamers", the ones who buy the most recent games and overclock their CPUs to get better performance; I doubt that these are willing to make that kind of compromise.

• Q: Please add Linux distribution XYZ to your page on installing Linux.

  A: There are many, many distributions out there, and any limited subset couldn't possibly satisfy everyone. For people who want to try out Linux, it's already a little confusing that there are several "versions/flavors" of it. I chose to mention 4 of them that have been and still are among the most popular, I think it is a reasonable choice.

• Q: Hey, aren't you that wacky PCJacking guy ?

  A: Woops, yeah.

• Q: Hey, aren't you that wacky GIMP-Texturize guy ?

  A: Yeah, you got me :) But Jean-Baptiste Rouquier also did half of the job. Okay, more. Huh, next question please.

• Q: Hey, weren't you one of those wacky Google's Summer of code guys, one of the 400-out-of-9000 chosen hackers ?

  A: Yeah. But I just got lucky: I sent 8000 of those 9000 projects propositions, and one of them was accepted. Okay, I got lucky twice (2005, 2006). Next year I'm gonna open source my automatic project generator.