These people have spent literally years in man-hours online helping people (for free, I might add) and there is a justified sense of frustration at the complete lack of tact on the part of people asking for questions.

But with all that I still see people being courteous, calm, and collected even when the novice Linux user asks a seemingly silly question. The same variety they would as from MS.

How is it the developer’s fault that they were promised an OS that would serve them breakfast in bed? Shouldn’t the person who recommended the system been more specific about what exactly it is they would be getting?

Here’s the real difference in MS and Linux tech support from then on…

When the MS tech responds, he/she is required by the company to maintain a certain degree of professionality and detachment. Afterall this person is helping because of a meal ticket. They don’t have any vested intrest in the product at all beyond its ability to help with bills. Now, no matter how tactless the customer is, and no matter how rude (perhaps due to frustration) the tech is supposed to respond with the same attitude.

When the Linux tech responds, you get what you give…
These are everyday people with day jobs who are using part of their free time to respond to questions and help with solutions. And, thanks to their feeback, Linux has been turned a self-healing platform on par with commercially available solutions.
I’ve yet to see any developer respond to a user with legitamate problems with build it yourself, asshole!. Though the garden variety troll might.

“It’s all about perspective, I guess”

And yours is, tragically, myopic.

I have no idea what distro you used, but I’ve never seen anything as broken as in your description. I would think Linux developers have more pride in their work than to release such a broken system.

Or is this an experience from a few years back from a garage distribution?

Virtually all commercially available Linux distributions have professional support included as part of the bundle. That includes a hassle free installation and phone tech support. So when you “buy” Linux, you get exactly what you pay for. Unlike with MS, most of the time.

The rest of the time, I’ve been very happy with GUI package tools available in all different flavours. Of course, that was before I learned anything in-depth about the OS and learned how I could customise each package prior to installation. The last time I had to “build it myself” was when I built an LFS system.

…And then I learned about Ubuntu.

“User is frustrated with Windows (not OS X, of course)”
You give me a video editing job requiring that I actually “use” the full capabilities of the system, and I’ll show you a crashed Mac.

I’ve spent hours building video sequences in Blender, only to have the system crash on me with a few seconds left. I’m sure if all you do is do some office work or browse the net, then your overpriced Mac will do just fine. After all, why not use a shovel as a tooth pic.

It’s all about perspective, I guess.

Here’s how I see the typical Linux migration:

1. User is frustrated with Windows (not OS X, of course)
2. Linux users tell frustrated Windows user that Linux is soooo much better. It’s sooo fast and stable, it never gets blue screens of death like Windows, it never gets viruses or malware like Windows. Everything is free and open and wonderful. Come over to our side and see the light.
3. User installs Linux.
4. Nothing works out of the box, programs crash, and getting the computer working normally requires non-stop studying and learning a new language.
5. User is disenchanted/pissed off.
6. User complains to developers that nothing is working right, asks for help.
7. Developers get pissed off.

After being promised the world, they receive it and find out they need to assemble it themselves.

You elitists make it sound like all it takes to write and compile your own software is to work at it a little bit. Like the only reason your aunt couldn’t compile software is because she’s lazy. It takes *years* to develop these skills, not hours.

Yes, anyone could cobble together something edible from a kitchen full of food, even if they don’t know much about cooking. But only a very small proportion of the population can compile software, or even read and understand a configuration file. It’s just not possible for most people to understand things they did not specialize in, even if they read the manual a hundred times. Compiling software is more like giving someone a kitchen full of car parts and expecting them to build a sedan.

This “build it yourself, asshole!” attitude is the reason Linux has a 1% market share. Ubuntu is a great force for change in this realm, with its codes of conduct, ubuntero pledges, “Thank you for filing this bug report and helping to make Ubuntu even better”, etc., but it still needs a lot of work if Linux is ever going to be useful to the masses. Most people haven’t even heard of Linux.

Sorry for my poor English. I hope you understand me.

Best regards