I recently had a bit of a run-in with some of the goons/returds in the DistroWatch Weekly’s comments section at DistroWatch.com . I was actually surprised to see a couple people somewhat support my comments that I wouldn’t have ever believed that would. Well, maybe they weren’t really supporting me, but who cares, I’ll remember the gesture next time. Ok, I’m an Elitist, who am I kidding, I won’t remember squat that they did for me.
There was also some background comments from the ever present sheeple too. You know the ones, they don’t like honesty so the minute they see three or four with the balls (see: stupidity for a true definition) to argue against my comments, they feel safe and slink out of the shadows they normally wallow in when it comes to interacting with me on their own. One such person was davemc. Man, he really makes me laugh. This is a guy that professes untold Unix-like knowledge, yet doesn’t know his _ _ _ from a hole in the ground normally. Here’s a case in point: Some months ago he made this huge statement about Gentoo which was totally in the wrong, and talked about hours and hours of installing it, but also considered himself well versed in Gentoo. So he’s as dim as they come and stated that to install Gentoo you have to setup your overlay. I was reading it and went, WTF? What is this freak talking about now? Seriously? Overlay to install Gentoo? I’ve only ever used one overlay, and that was to get an old VIA Chrome chipset to work right ‘before’ the openchrome driver in X worked properly. It had absolutely nothing to do with having to set it up to install Gentoo. Anyway, so this week what does he say? I’ll get a direct quote! This is classic, I love it:
“The fact is that there truly is no advantage to running a source distro over a binary one except perhaps in the “I am the geekiest of all the geeks in the world!!!” factor perhaps. You can compile programs on binary distro’s too. Big whup dee dooo!!”
Dave, you’ve said you used to use Gentoo right? So, ummm, where does that put you?…..Returd
Another one that has to be as thick as a boulder is Patrick. WoW! I mean that, WoW! How can anyone be as intelligent (by his own reckoning) as he is, yet is as socially inept, with zero comprehension and common sense is beyond me. He hated the fact that I personally deemed him too bent to discuss his views on Software Freedoms, The FSF, and why he thinks Richard M. Stallman doesn’t love him the way he wants him to(no slight against RMS, I admire the man). He has waited for some time no doubt, to exact his revenge for the slight! He’s bent right? lol! Oh Patrick, don’t worry, you really are special. I mean that too. What does Patrick discuss about Gentoo when he actually can’t discuss any real technical aspect of it because he’s as clueless as any other kiddie distribution using noob when it comes to Gentoo? He discusses being Green and saving the planet! lmao!!!!! You’ve got it folks! Patrick ‘Captain Planet’ Van Oosterwijck blames Gentoo (and any other source based distribution) for harm done to the planet! lmao!!!!! What a f’n reach that is! WoW! Let me say it again, WoW! How does Captain Planet achieve this? Easy! He posts some crap about bogus numbers from on-line that prove his stand against the Mighty Gentoo! First let me quote this before we get to the meat of it(and I’m not going to even discuss in detail how utterly dense, and completely over the top every aspect of his quoted comment is, that’s obvious):
“With about 1 billion computers in use, and using the lowball number of 1% Linux use, if every Linux machine would use Gentoo and need to compile for 1 hour a day, and assuming an idle PC needs 100 watts and a compiling one 200 watts, that would add another gigawatt-hour per day in energy wasted worldwide. I like efficiency, and any efficiency you gain by running code optimized for your machine is more than offset by all the compilation needed.”
Ummm…..No…Mr. Planet…Sir…..You like being off your nut (or is that keyboard?), not efficiency, bottom line.
Here’s his next one: “I got those ballpark wattage numbers from the net, where people used real power meters to actually measure the power of their systems while idle and under load. I don’t have a power meter myself. Do you?”
WoW Captain Planet sure has powers! He wasn’t able to get “accurate numbers” from all these ‘real people’ on the internet so he had to make up “ballpark wattage numbers”, but he knows for sure they used “real power meters” (even though they were so inaccurate, but oh so ‘real’, he needed to make up “ballpark wattage numbers” WoW!) and they were one billion percent able to gather the information and be totally honest about it all, he knows they were!!!! Way to go Captain Planet!!!!! I’m not surprised that Captain Planet doesn’t own a “real power meter” himself, he probably just has some ‘Super Powers’ that lets him insert a ‘probe’. He actually asks me if I own one of the meters! I guess he wants to really have someone real with a real meter that he could use in a future argument instead of him getting real numbers from real internet people with real meters that he just found from a real search engine..lol Whether I have one or not is none of your business, C.P., and if I do, it makes me far more energy conscious than you are. A piece of advice, don’t go off on some completely absurd tangent, professing this and that, then quoting some fictitious numbers, from fictitious people, and then asking the person if they have something you should. lmao! WoW!
The next time I need to verify my comments I’m not going to copy Patrick’s wisdom and use ‘real people’ from on-line as a legitimate reference. No! I’m going to do one even better and get my information from the best source there is, Pluto! No, not the planet (I still love it enough to call it a planet). I mean Pluto the dog from Walt Disney. Then I’ll use Pepe Le Pew from Merry Melodies as a ‘real’ reference too!
He thinks he’s so smart it leads him to be as dense as they come. Someone else posted they build/compile Gentoo on their netbook. I’ve stated in the comments section many a time that I was planning to, then was, installing Gentoo on my netbook. I’ve also done the same on my other blog at Landor’s Place. I’d love to know how he thinks my ASUS 1005HA is using a “ballpark wattage number” of 200 watts while compiling..lmfao!!! The brick to charge it has an output of 40 watts maximum. Man he’s thick. Really thick. That’s the problem with the loons that I’ve noticed, they have no idea what they’re even saying from one moment to the next, and they’re more linear than any ruler ever made. Dave was another example. Zero intelligence, zero comprehension, even when it comes to their own thoughts. You can try to come in and explain it away Mr. Planet, but facts are facts, you’re thick, and that leads you to be narrow minded. Almost the same thing, but not, in your case.
He’s also pro-nuclear power generation. Says it’s the best thing..lmfao! Yes, I agree, Mr. Planet! They’re detecting raised radiation levels in livestock worldwide from the fallout due to the Nuclear Crisis in Japan and it’s the best. Sure it is. Just ask any major Government Body how safe. ‘Since they just raised the safe consumption levels because of Japan that is…..’ Don’t forget, Japan’s also making it worse by dumping radioactive water into the ocean, and why? Simple, they have more they need to get rid of too! Yes, Gentoo, and other source based distributions cause the world severe harm, yet Nuclear Power Generation is the way to go!!!! LMFAO!!!!!!!! Seriously, WoW!!!!!
Captain Planet, doing his all to keep the world safe from Source-Based Distributions, and still able to leap radioactive dust bunnies in a single bound!!!!! WoW!
All of this started from the simple fact that I yet again called Jesse Smith out on a bad review (he reviewed Calculate Linux). His reviews have become fluff, nothing more. They’re literally getting worse by the week. This happens to a lot of people writing week in and week out. Facts are, he’s doing nothing about it, probably incapable to at this point though. I’ve also come to question his technical abilities as well, really question them. Which could be a good reason why his reviews are what they are. An example of this is a recent ‘Question and Answer’ article of his there. He was ‘supposedly'(I don’t always believe he’s been asked some of these questions, sometimes just fluff to add to DistroWatch Weekly)asked how to remaster a distribution. His answer was probably one of the worst things I’ve seen anyone give as help. It didn’t really answer the main question, and created so many more it was ridiculous. For one, that type of question should not have been answered in such a short space. Second, I honestly don’t believe Jesse knows anything about remastering other than what is generally known by the masses in our community. Okay, maybe a bit more than that, but not much, honestly. If he was asked that question in all truth, he did a disservice to the person with his answer, and in that small space. He should have A) Written a full article on it with reference links to help the reader along, or B) Emailed the person back, told them the question wasn’t suited for the space and gave them some reference links. Not what he did do. It was that bad in my opinion. I personally can’t believe that Ladislav published it. I really can’t. Doesn’t say much for the direction DistroWatch Weekly has taken. I’d rather read a technical review about Puppy than the crap I’ve read there, and that says it all.
Since he’s become popular among the kiddie crowd, he now has a pack of bodynerds ready to take up his cause. Want proof? He didn’t even post a reply comment to me himself this week, he just let the ankle bitin’ returds do it for him. From now on I’m going to be calling them ‘the Kernelteers’, especially when Captain Planet’s in town.
Oh, some others said that the reviews were not that good as well. One also stated that anyone could write a review pretty well. Someone who was defending Jesse’s review replied that they couldn’t do it, etc, etc. So the person who said that reviews were easy to write told the person not to sell himself short. Guess what? He’s so stupid he said he took offense to that..lmfao!
I gotta do it one more time, WoW!
Keep your stick on the ice…
Landor
linuxelitist.wordpress.com 
I agree, it’s all Gentoo’s fault! Really funny. Your ranting reminds me of an old punk friend of mine. We were gonna do a song, 14 to 44 – and still angry, but he moved back to Liverpool. Keep going, but if you’re not careful it will turn into another Linux haters blog. I’ll check back for a laugh.
The DW kiddies are killing the landscape and have no regard for the core values (that should be) driving free software. If a fscking video card needs a proprietary driver, a distro better cover it for them automatically or it sucks. If their wifi chipset isn’t similarily configured for them, it’s a meltdown. I wish they’d just buy Macs and leave those of us who get it and have paid our dues alone. Next thing you know, the cli will be eliminated and new gui crap will replace the tried-and-true way to get the job done correctly.
Freeturds, indeed. Keep giving them hell publicly. Maybe 1 or 2 will get a clue and begin thinking for a change.
There are two ideas in your post (in antichronological order)
a) Jesse in DWW does a bad job
b) Prejudices against Gentoo (and self compiled stuff) are absurd, and planet saving arguments are ridiculous.
First, let us look at a). I asked two things to Jesse , put some questions and some answers bout unetbootin and debian demography.
The 1rst topic was linked with the fact that there are, in Distroquatsch, many people having windows -I agree with you on this point-, and that modern “net” “books” do not have CD/DVD readers, making testing live Cds/DVDs difficult.
It was well treated (the idea of using Slitaz, instead of a bigger live CD, was clever and was not used in a much longer and very empty french unetbootin review).
The absence of IT links was not an issue, as many people above 7 years old can google search (that is more likely to waste electrical power than compiling from sources, if one is in a Planet Saving mood )
I asked about age and sex of Debian communauty to know whether they would be conqservative (this happens with old people) or likely to change their hobby once married and having a job (but they might be innovative). I could get an answer about private life (demography questions do not link to names of individuals)…
And I cannot evaluate distro reviews (they seem better and more informative than 3 years ago, anyway; but testing a disto every week -and it is superficial, whatever the tester’s skills- may be boring).
b) I currently use compiling from source for upgrading, independently of the distribution;
Arguments angains compiling are slowly vanishing (they were told it needed more IT bandwith(30%) than binary downloads, at a time wher IT was 30 times slower… and to take hours on **slow CPUs * compiling by night might lead to bad sleeping?)
Almost every exotic cards one can find and working on GNU linux need to be cross compiled to try unsupported changes (they come with a GNUlinux kernel and somtimes even a gcc/g++ compiler):
I know two exceptions
E1: http://www.lextronic.fr/P6389-platine-fox-board-g20.html is based on Gentoo, but can be modified to have Debian binary packages.
E2 http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?product_id=1072 new version is based on Debian (it has however an embedded GCC native compiler),; the former version had to be compiled with a special toolchain to make unsupported changes, if they were complicated -there was a native gcc inside).
This has nothing to do with the looong lasting irony of distro fanbois (the funniest thing I read was in a slackware derived forum, where one of the “developers”/contributors asked how he could learn C easily : how can he make minor fixes from upstream?).