Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS
Note: if you are not good with computers, none of this article will make you laugh.
Every operating system sucks. Unfortunately, you have to use something a little bit higher-level than the BIOS to be able to do very much. This need to "be able to do something with your computer" is what has led to the crappiest products on the market today: operating systems. They all suck. Yes, all of them. Yours too.
Windows:
Windows does, and always has, sucked. Windows XP is the pinnacle of Microsoft products to this point, but flaunting this is like bragging about living in the highest point in Kansas. The problem with Windows is that they have all of their goals mixed up. Instead of doing something smart like not crashing any more, they work 4 years or so to make that goddamn paperclip. What? Do I need help writing a LETTER? Anybody that doesn't know how to write a letter DEFINITELY DOESN'T NEED TO HAVE A COMPUTER. Don't worry about user friendliness, worry about being able to shut down programs that break, because, guess what, genius? STUFF BREAKS ON EVERY COMPUTER. You need to be able to slaughter it with an axe and flush it from your system without it making your whole computer start puking steaming bitstreams. Windows seems to treat processes like small children. I try to close a program with CTRL-ALT-DEL and it spends the next minute and a half trying to gently and patiently tell the process to simmer down, now. Then it comes back and says "It doesn't want to. Want me to do it anyway?" at which point you're screaming "YES I WANT TO KILL THE THING YOU ASS-JUGGLING PANSY! WHY DO YOU THINK I'M USING CTRL-ALT-DEL? Oh, and luckily the memory isn't partitioned and the process-killing-device is done through a GUI, so it could take a few minutes just for the list to load while the rampant program devours your memory like one of those huge spheroid people at the KFC lunch buffet. Now, I might be able to see through all of this if only I could have control of my own computer, but apparently I can't. Every time I get the automatic updates for Windows, I shudder in horror—I'd like to think that a product that has been out for a while now wouldn't have any major security issues. The security patch would be something like "if somebody tries sending tons and tons of data at your IP address, your computer might accidentally write 1 bit incorrectly to the file that it's reading at the same time, which, if properly executed, won't be caught by the error-correcting code." Instead, you have 5 security updates released all at once that all say "A properly formatted webpage could allow a user to GAIN CONTROL OF YOUR SYSTEM." YOUR ENTIRE FREAKIN' SYSTEM. FROM A WEBPAGE. Maybe I'm the only one, but I think that a freakin' MARKUP LANGUAGE shouldn't have the capacity to take over your system. send all of your money to me<\take over system> What are the Windows people doing with their time anyway? Did they just spend the last few years making sure that system files are hidden by default so I can't find entries in my registry from their crappy search utility, which is the only way to search the disk because their command prompt has the approximate functionality of conjoined retarded monkey twins? Windows just needs to stop trying to add functionality that nobody wants, like capitalizing everything for you so that all of your www's turn into Www's, and then are considered misspelled. What? WWW isn't a complete sentence? I never would have guessed. Just cut all that crap out and get back to doing what Windows does well: being compatible with everything.
Macintosh:
Reading all of that might make you angry enough to buy a Macintosh. Don't. I can't even begin to describe all of the things that suck about Macintoshes. First of all, you only have one freakin' mouse button. They always talk about how they never crash, and you would want to believe them because they make all of the hardware themselves. They don't have to worry about driver compatibility or anything, because every thing that can possibly integrate with a Mac has a freakin' Apple logo on it, and all they have to do is send a memo around to their company to get the protocols established, and yet—THEY CRASH ALL THE TIME TOO. They just crash in a different way. For example, instead of getting a blue screen, you get a stop sign with a hand on it. I don't know why—it's like some big indian chief greeting you and welcoming you to the new continent. Only instead of that, it crashes. And then you get really mad, and you want to do what any good American would do to an Indian chief—kick it across the room into your corner. And that's what you should do with a Macintosh. What's up with their RISC processor, anyway? "We're going to follow a completely different paradigm when creating our chips to ensure that our computers aren't at all compatible with anybody else's. In fact, we'll make sure that they're slower and crappier so nobody will use them, and nobody will produce the hardware because they all feel like making money." I think Macintosh's business model was a car getting chased off a cliff by lemmings. I bet some engineer was like "Hey, I had this idea that we try to make our stuff compatible with everybody else's, and we can still make it look pretty" and Steve Jobs just kept screaming at him "LEMMINGS! IT HAS TO HAVE THE LEMMINGS! FALLING OFF A CLIFF ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH BY ITSELF." And for all of this ranting about not crashing things, why is it that the one product that they try to port to other platforms—quick time—CRASHES ALL OF THEM? They always have movie trailers on their site and you're like "Rock, a movie trailer...oh, it's in quick time, I may as well slam my foot in a car door 30 times, set it on fire, run around screaming for a while, and when I end up in the hospital, jab an IV into my eyeball." After you get out, though, you can watch the movie on DVD with your one good eye. It probably has the trailer somewhere on there, too.
Unix:
Definitely the coolest name of any operating system. This is definitely the operating system that you would imagine inside of a robot that shot missiles and burned things and destroyed all of society. And that's exactly what Unix did. Unfortunately, the end of society isn't quite as cool in real life as it is on the movies, which is why people cut together movies on Macintoshes (while crappy, Macintoshes are sparsely used, and thus cannot bring about the end of society, even while piecing together clips of the end of society. That's why movie editing software is only allowed to be made on Macs). Unix was created by somebody with a penchant for pain. I'm not sure who invented the commands, but they definitely had a single goal in mind: make it as difficult as possible to ever guess the name of the command you need to use. They take a word that vaguely relates to the concept of what you are wanting to do, extract all of the vowels, and choose 2-5 of the remaining consonants. Then, sometimes, they reinsert a vowel for fun. Then reverse the command if you're below the equator and in the western hemisphere, but create an anagram of it if you're in the eastern hemisphere and your name begins with a capital letter. The final step is to beat your computer senseless and buy a UNIX manual, or better yet, a real operating system. Yes it's nice to have a command prompt and an OS that can load quickly, but command prompts are only useful if you can command them to do something. And for all that annoying user-friendliness, it is kind of nice when Windows tells you that you aren't allowed to delete all of your system files. Unix has no problem with this. And even though I wish that paper clip would morph into a noose and hang himself, just about any word processor beats the Unix console editors. Just trying to figure out how to move around on the lines in vi makes me want to rip the tape backup drives off of the wall and hang myself from one of the rack mounts.
Linux:
It started off as a nice idea: let's make a free, open-source operating system. So naturally, they decided to model Unix. Frankly though, it's gained quite a community around it, and it's been enhanced to the point that I don't hate Linux nearly as much as I hate the people that use it. I've had one too many open-source Nazi screaming at me through his braces about how if he can't sort through the code himself to find all of the buffer overflow exploitable code that was written by teenagers with no job and no real life, then he doesn't want to use the product, because he doesn't think that huge corporations that glean billions of dollars from software revenues have any justifiable reason not to disclose their source code. I admit: open source has a time and a place (last week at the LAN party in Jason's basement) but it's not the messiah. And nobody is impressed that you set up Linux by yourself, because the only people that know enough about computers to know how difficult it is know enough about computers that it's not impressive to them. Now go tell your mom, she'll probably pretend to understand, and hope that it motivates you to stop failing out of school. Now go write a virus you stupid slacker, since you've been dipped in egg and rolled in the powdery goodness of open source, which now makes you better than the rest of society. Now just bake yourself at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, and I'll stop complaining.
I hate computers. Just writing this makes me want to drag my monitor out to the parking lot so my computer can watch as I rip out the disk drive and smear it all over the asphalt.
Disclaimer:
Don't send me hate mail, because I really don't care that much. If you try to send me mail telling me why anything I said is wrong or why any operating system is great, I will ignore you because you are wrong. I hate people that advocate any operating system, because they are all horrible. Finally, for the satisfaction of that raging thirst in your twisted little rodent minds: I use Windows XP Pro for general use, Solaris or Linux for development, and Macintoshes to make fun of. I would probably use Macintoshes for video editing if I wanted to do that, but I haven't had to stoop to that level just yet. Now go eat a candy bar self-righteously.
