If it quacks like a duck...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 11:56 AM EDT |
If it quacks like a duck it's probably drivel. DarkDuck insists on doing live system reviews, as in running from a live CD or live USB. Such reviews are a disservice to the Linux community. If you want to fairly evaluate any distro you shouldn't run them live. Second, the misinformation here is staggering. Mandriva's management in Paris and ROSA Labs' in Moscow are the same? Since when? What is your source of information? Clue: he's entirely wrong about this. The distro didn't come out of nowhere. ROSA previously had 2010.2 and 2011 releases. I did a full and proper review of ROSA 2012 Marathon and my results are 100% the opposite of his. If he had taken the time to look at ROSA properly he'd have figured out that it isn't Mandriva 2011 rewarmed. There is precious little Mandriva left except for the look and feel of the desktop, and there are entirely new apps developed by ROSA Labs. Poor form all around. |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 12:27 PM EDT |
I posted this comment in slightly different form on his blog. His response: he doesn't permit discussion of testing strategies and I should close the browser window. Sweet. Never mind if his methodology produces nonsense. Let's be sure not to discuss it or criticize it. Is it any wonder that 'ol ducky gets mocked frequently here on LXer? |
| jacog May 21, 2012 12:35 PM EDT |
Mine was the comment from which that thread sprung ("bad form"). I'm running ROSA right now and it's a very pleasant experience. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 21, 2012 2:18 PM EDT |
Sure, a piece that includes the report of a full install and subsequent running of a normal system is better than just writing about experiencing the live environment. But you can tell a h#ll of a lot about a system by running the live image, and that kind of "mini review," does have some value. I do this on occasion -- I can't and don't want to install everything, but I'd like to relay my experience -- and I've gotten my share of $%^& here for it, but I would never call this kind of thing a full review. I generally call it a "first look," or "first impression." Especially in Linux, and given enough RAM, a live environment can tell you a lot. |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 2:24 PM EDT |
@Steven: You also don't have an axe to grind against the owner of a given distribution. Given DarkDuck's comments and links it seems that anything related to NGI is guaranteed a trashing on his blog. |
| darkduck May 21, 2012 5:08 PM EDT |
@Steven: There are plenty of other resources which do full install review. There are also some others who do Live and then install. And there are some, who only do Live review. I am from the last category.
I do not want to start linguistic discussion about meaning of word "review". It's useless. I fully agree with you that you can tell a lot from the Live review. If something's working fine - it works in Live too. If something is broken in Live - there is no guarantee it works in the installed version. I am working on a bigger article about this at the moment. The time will come and it will be published. @caitlyn: I would advise you to stop spamming, especially using the words you wouldn't use on public. I linked Prashanth's review in my post: his opinion about ROSA is far different from yours, closer to mine. If two different people write about the same issues, it means there ARE some issues. It is far more productive to accept the critic and fix it, than to curse the person who sees the issue. ;-) I have not created this distribution. I am trying to use it. And it fails to do what I expect it to... Ditto. DarkDuck left the discussion. |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 5:13 PM EDT |
Spamming? I haven't sent an e-mail to anyone about this. Has someone hacked my e-mail account? Please tell me. I need to know. If you're not talking about e-mail then what do you mean by spamming? All the words I have used have ONLY been used in public. WTF are you talking about? You can't possibly know what the distribution does or does not do from a live test. I disagree with Steven and I see a test of live having little or no value in judging anything but live. |
| jacog May 21, 2012 5:17 PM EDT |
Oh he'll be back to read any responses. I have been running it for several days now and not experiencing any major issues. One of the issues darkduck points out is that it's slow. It's not. Not sure who to thank, but I'm not even getting any slowdowns while running nepomuk, which is a first for me. I'm boiling his "findings" down to either prejudice, or the fact that he's "reviewing" off a USB stick. His opinions and prejudices aside, reviewing off a USB stick is a big no-no. Good thing it's not a respected source of Linux news/info. |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 5:17 PM EDT |
@darkduck: Let me add one thing: based on the links you added to your response to me on your blog you have a personal vendetta against the owner or ROSA Labs. I don't think you are capable of being objective on this subject. Your review is part of your crusade against Leonid Reiman. It should be seen through that lens. |
| patrickjmquinn May 21, 2012 5:21 PM EDT |
So it isn't just my stuff you go to town on, fewf :) |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 5:31 PM EDT |
Nope. I have nothing personal against you, Patrick. I judge the writing by the content. Nothing more, nothing less. Like I said before, if you write good content I'll be equally quick to praise it. |
| tracyanne May 21, 2012 5:33 PM EDT |
Quoting:... you can tell a lot from the Live review. If something's working fine - it works in Live too.... Not necessarily. twice now I've had 1 of each Ubuntu and Kubuntu work perfectly from a USB stick and fail miserably, either fail to boot, or (in the case of KUbuntu) fail to recognise my mouse and keyboard, once installed |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 6:52 PM EDT |
I heard from DarkDuck. The ludicrous SPAM claim is because someone anonymously posted a comment with foul language. When I tried to login with my Google ID for some reason it posted my one real comment as Anonymous. Now it seems every Anonymous comment is mine. Enough said. |
| tracyanne May 21, 2012 6:58 PM EDT |
caitlyn, you'll just have to stop posting Anonymously |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 7:01 PM EDT |
I didn't want to post anonymously in the first place :( Geez! |
| tracyanne May 21, 2012 7:09 PM EDT |
;) |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 7:23 PM EDT |
Now he went to my review to claim I work for ROSA Labs and am engaging in advertising. I dunno. Do Yarok and ROSA look the same to you? Clue: they're not. |
| tracyanne May 21, 2012 8:47 PM EDT |
I think He doesn't like you, or perhaps He has to be right, to the extent that He will go to great lengths, including making himself look like a Jerk, to be always right. |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 8:52 PM EDT |
LOL, ta. I don't try to explain guys like that. I just laugh at them. |
| BernardSwiss May 21, 2012 9:08 PM EDT |
It's too bad. I never thought he was a bad as some here felt. More importantly, he appeared to be improving. But now he seems to have developed a "bunker" mentality, more focused on "friend vs. enemy" than "right vs. wrong" or "better vs. worse". |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 10:33 PM EDT |
One thing I definitely learned today: you can get attacked for writing a positive review about a distro someone doesn't like every bit as much as for writing a negative one that a fanboy/girl loves. Honest writing is rarely appreciated. |
| slacker_mike May 21, 2012 11:34 PM EDT |
Most distro reviews are little more than than fluff pieces offering little more than the most superficial level of depth. That is why I always found Steven's writings on his attempts to get OpenBSD working for him, or making use of some old hardware so interesting. It would often give you a feel for the distro/project even though the use case might be very specific. |
| caitlyn May 21, 2012 11:57 PM EDT |
Have you read my reviews? I always try to go in depth. http://www.caitlynmartin.co.cc/writing.html has the ones on DistroWatch listed. This was my first one for O'Reilly in a few years but the old ones can be found at: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2654?all=yes#Blog |
| slacker_mike May 22, 2012 1:03 AM EDT |
Yes caitlyn I always enjoy your reviews even though I disagree with your take on Slackware :) |
| caitlyn May 22, 2012 1:37 AM EDT |
That's fine, Mike. I can respect your opinion and agree to disagree. |
| jdixon May 22, 2012 8:34 AM EDT |
> Honest writing is rarely appreciated. I appreciate your technical opinions, Caitlyn, even when I don't agree with them. You always back up your positions with sound reasoning and facts. |
| darkduck Jun 18, 2012 5:58 AM EDT |
And now the promised article.
Even two: http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2012/06/linux-on-test-drive.ht... http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/desktop-os/2012/06/18/the-m-word... |
| caitlyn Jun 21, 2012 12:21 AM EDT |
I read your ZDNet article. You set some new standards for nonsense and drivel there. |
| skelband Jun 21, 2012 12:34 PM EDT |
I really don't understand your vitriol against DarkDuck's reviews Caitlyn. Is there some history that I'm not aware of?
An awful lot of "history" on this board seems to have the name "caitlyn" involved somewhere. I can understand if you have some factual issues with the content of his reviews, but seriously, your main problem is that his review is of the "live" configuration? Admittedly, there are particular challenges to making live configurations work on many machines, but when we are trying to get non-Linux users to try Linux for the first time, they are likely to try one of these things. If it fails all over the place then that's going to look pretty bad and we may lose a potential user right then and there and yet again confirms to someone the (largely now mythical) idea that "Linux" is not ready for prime time. They *are* important. There are many distros out there that have near faultless boots in live configurations and they're getting better and more reliable all the time. I've practically never had an issue sticking with the mainstream ones (such as *buntu) in the past. But I really do think that reviewing live setups is a worthwhile exercise. |
| smallboxadmin Jun 21, 2012 1:55 PM EDT |
@skelband Quoting:Is there some history that I'm not aware of?Actually, there is a lot of history. This isn't just Caitlyn bashing on someone for some personal reason. There are valid technical disagreements between DarkDuck and some readers, including myself, in this forum, and not just for the live reviews. Quoting:An awful lot of "history" on this board seems to have the name "caitlyn" involved somewhere.I won't try and read into what you are trying to say here. While I have had my run-ins with Caitlyn in the past, I respect her technical knowledge. When DarkDuck calls contributers here "narrow minded", I don't think he will get much respect. |
| skelband Jun 21, 2012 2:15 PM EDT |
@smallboxadmin: My comments about "history" were an attempt to try to get at the gist of why the response to DarkDuck's articles are especially vitriolic. DarkDuck's comments on this board (at least the ones that I have read) seem to be fairly even handed and reasonable, not that I particularly agree or disagree with his views or his reviews in general. I'm much more disturbed by the increasingly personal and aggressive nature of the comments on this board, which are surely TOS territory. I've got no problem with taking issue with someone's opinions, but some of the comments here are getting to the point of hysteria and don't really move the debate on in any meaningful way. If you disagree with the guy, just say so and move on. All this constant bickering is getting a tad tedious. |
| penguinist Jun 21, 2012 2:54 PM EDT |
@skelband +1 The personal attacks are wearing thin with me as well. Let's stay focussed on the issues and stay professional. If you have a need to issue personal attacks, then do the rest of us the courtesy of taking them offline into private emails, please. |
| BernardSwiss Jun 21, 2012 7:50 PM EDT |
About what skelband and penguinist said? Seconded! (or is that thirded?) I can understand this militantly negative attitude towards certain bloggers and/or "tech-journalists" who are more deliberately provocative, and/or more blatantly contradict their supposed/claimed expertise (eg. Hess, Gerwitz, a few others), but honestly, DarkDuck just doesn't appear to merit the depths of disdain and vitriol being directed at him, here. |
| albinard Jun 22, 2012 11:58 AM EDT |
Well said and much applauded, Bernard Swiss! |
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