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“Getting married or falling in love does not mean that your better half or lover is the best in this world and now you won't be attracted to opposite sex. (Rather, you may have a wife and you are also dating your girl friend. :P) ” I think, this is also true when it comes to technology. Well, I am talking about Windows and Linux. These 2 names are so unconsciously loved by their users that they start abusing their competitors OS unknowingly. Many people have started debating on blogs about which OS is liked more, Windows or Linux? If it's only about liking them then, no one can like Linux and Windows more than there fathers (Bill and Linus). I use both Windows and Linux to some extent and I am not aware of everything in these 2 OS. But, few people questioned me about the comfort level while using these OS. I usually asked them “Whom do you like more, Krishna of Mahabharata or Krishna of Shri Krishna ?”. Even though we knew that Swapnil Joshi was not bad in Shri Krishna but we still imagine Krishna as Nitish Bharadwaj. (I have not talked about Mac OS. It is like Hritik Roshan playing Krishna's role. Full of style and glamour. :)). Sometimes, choices works on first come first serve basis. But at the end it's matter of choice.
I do like Linux and Windows both but since I work in Linux, I have little affection to it (kindly refer to my first line of this article.). I maintain my relationship with my wife and girl friend using Virtual Box. This tool helps me bluffing my wife (Windows) to date my GF (Linux). (My dear married friends, your life is like these OS and so please do not try this Vbox in your real life for it may have strong chances of your life getting crashed. :))
While personally interacting with many Linux users, I have realized few names in Linux that scare users or make them think that Linux is not user friendly. After reading few articles I understood that Linux was not developed keeping general user in mind. It was a result of experiments and test from hard core techies. But, Linux nowadays have changed a lot. Ubuntu is a good example.
The words that scared me the most are “Thallophyta” and “Pteridophyta”. These are the two words from my 8th std. Science-II subject. Have a look at the word “Zygote”. The name itself gives an idea that something strange is going to happen (and in reality it is “you”). I am still wondering how to pronounce “Welwitschiaceae”. (See, even my auto dictionary on laptop is not able to recognize this word. It is suggesting me some name with 'c' as replacement :)) . It is one of the family of plants. I am also thankful to these words for making me realize to stay away from botany/zoology and their mothers and sisters. The names in their family have such amazing combinations of alphabets from A-Z that, when they are pronounced, sounds like these alphabets never existed in those names. These words will make you feel that your efforts to learn A-Z are in vain. I wonder if Shakespeare was studying botany when he said “What's in a name”. Huge spellings always annoyed me. But, when I used Linux for the first time, I was annoyed of small words.
“etc” is the word in English which represents the set of words that are not worth presenting. In Linux, it is important directory which contains configuration files and scripts for most of the stuffs running in Linux. User can hardly get any thing from the name of this directory.
“proc” is something which itself seems to be incomplete after pronouncing. Roughly speaking, it is something that is responsible to communicate between OS and applications.
“mount/unmount” in no way gives user any idea of what to do. They are like verbs in Linux. They mean you to take some action like “Attach/Detach”.
“sda/hda” are the words which scares the masters of Linux. Messing with them may result into Culpable Homicide not amounting to murder (unintentional murder of your OS by you :) ). They represent devices on your machine. (Like “sda1” may be the first partition of your SCSI device or hard disk.)
“usr” actually put user in dilemma (They wonder if it is spelling mistake). It is a directory that can be used by user. It also contains few more directories that is used by OS.
“/” and “root” are routes to difficulty for user. “/” is also called “root” directory which consist of all the other directories, which is different then “root” directory for “root” user (like “admin” user in Windows). :)
“sbin” makes user to think about dustbin. It actually consist of system binaries.
Windows has something contrast to this. It has names with at least 2 words. Like “My Documents”, “My Computer”, “My Pictures”, “Documents and Settings”, “Program Files” etc. ( :) remember etc??). Windows like to put “My” everywhere (even if it's not their's :P). I have observed how OS impacts on the habits of user. I asked one of my friend who use Windows to save some files which were very important. He created a folder with name ”Important Files for training” on Windows. I asked same thing to my friend who use linux, he ended up with “Imp_files_trng” on Linux. I did not realize the passion until I saw Linux guy trying find command line option for opening MS Visual Studio and Windows guy trying to find UI option for ping operation on Linux and then abusing each others GF(OS). I feel that if you replace or remove Windows and Linux from their computers they may start crying. I wonder if they start naming their babies as “Ubuntu”, “Fedora”, “Windows XP Service Pack 3”.
It is possible to drill a mountain with a nail and hammer, but then, you should be aware of what your doing. I believe that every single thing in this world is useless and useful in it's own way. It depends on the user who use it. “What's in a name”, anyways.
