Convincing so-called "nerds" our OSes aren't Linux?

[Bender]

Hi,
I have recently got into an argument with a so-called "nerd" (as I see it.), basically he claims that klange's ToaruOS is a GNU/Linux reskin and calls it a POS. Until now it seems impossible to convince him/her about the fact that this isn't GNU/Linux (I had failed to convince that "Sortix" is also written from scratch, maybe I'm bad at arguments or I don't lose my temper like others do.). Let's leave that aside, I just realized that this is a large problem, there are a lot of people who claim to be OS Developers but their OS is just a "full-screen" 10-minute shell coded in Visual Basic or a 5-minute Linux distribution created with OpenSUSE or a "Hello-World(TM)" Cosmos C# OS. And there goes our reputation, the ones those dig around tonnes of machines, work on their OS for days and nights, and then people (who've no idea of what we're doing) start to speak non-sense, I recently got a comment like this:

Random Person: Yeah, seems like a good Linux distribution, I don't see a GUI though. What do you call it??

My OS is half written in assembler with a mix of C++ (and runs on nothing more than __x86__), Linux is mostly in C.
Anyone else in the same situation?
EDIT: Fixed Header.

[Bender]

Ah, didn't expect this:

Kill yourself please.

I couldn't take it anymore so gave up the argument. lol. Maybe move it Auto-Delete Forum?
This'll seem funny to all of you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssEiNhD_5Dk
....
Notice the comments.
EDIT: I added a nice ending to it, i felt it may be too offensive to just remove your posts and troll around with someone, after all he/she is a human and doesn't know everything in the world......

[sortie]

I find it extra humerous how they took the time to credit GNU with a GNU/ prefix.

[bluemoon]

Is there a point to convince a layman that you have done some rocket science? Like they would pull a billion to invest on you

Anyway, for promotion purpose, you would need some "expert" to make statement clarifying that is not a Linux clone. Most people just can't read facts but blogs.

[hometue]

@bluemoon: I think to some extent there is. You don't want to be doing some tough math question and end up some guy who thinks he knows it all tells you its a question for kids. Similarly, you put in lots of effort doing osdev and don't want to be told you copied the work of other people (and thus the effort you put in is very little as compared to doing from scratch)

[bluemoon]

Isaac Newton once said it's a waste of effort to explain his mathematics to one that can't even evaluate the simplest equations.
You just have the wrong target to talk to.

[Bender]

Isaac Newton once said it's a waste of effort to explain his mathematics to one that can't even evaluate the simplest equations.
You just have the wrong target to talk to.

Agreed.
This world consists of 6 types of target audience:
1) Those who don't know and don't want to know. (Most common)
2) Those who don't know but want to know
3) Those who don't know but claim to know (Dangerous)
4) Those who know
5) Those who know but don't claim to know
6) Those who know but don't know it completely. (Dangerous)
Target 1) for most of us is unachievable, you can't tell a normal person (who uses MS Word to write his/her documents, MS Excel for their spreadsheets containing their data, browses email with Chrome) about how awesome your scheduler or your new VGA Driver is, I have had such experiences myself where people simply nod their heads and walk away.
Target 2) is achievable, this includes people like hobbyists (who play with Arduino boards etc.), or people who are decent in computers (maybe shell script coders etc.), may get interested into any one of our OS Projects. The neat way of attracting such people is by providing documentation, having a nice website, a small place for discussions and that should be enough to get the started.
Target 3) is the most annoying, and that's where I fail. Target 3) doesn't really know anything but will make you feel that he/she is the most experienced in a specific field. Has the potential of converting itself to a "TROLL".
Target 4) & 5). Welcome to OSDev.org
Target 6) Same as target 2) except that you may expect something sensible.
By "know" I mean knowledge about Operating System Development
Conclusion? bluemoon came with a perfect one.

Anyway, for promotion purpose, you would need some "expert" to make statement clarifying that is not a Linux clone. Most people just can't read facts but blogs.

For our OSes to be on blogs, it must have something interesting, easy example is SirCmpWn's(idk the spelling) KnightOS, that would be something what normal people would find interesting, since it can run on something as small as a calculator. (You usually don't expect your calculator to do stuff like managing your files, displaying 3D cubes, multitasking.....)

[iansjack]

Who cares? (Not that I have dealings with too many "nerds".) I play around with these things because it's fun, not to convince anyone how clever I may be.

[Bender]

Who cares? (Not that I have dealings with too many "nerds".) I play around with these things because it's fun, not to convince anyone how clever I may be.

[Brendan]

Hi,

I have recently got into an argument with a so-called "nerd" (as I see it.), basically he claims that klange's ToaruOS is a GNU/Linux reskin and calls it a POS.

This person was wrong (I suspect trolling). However...

An OS is more than just a kernel - it's a large number of things combined. When the amount of code that was written from scratch is a small fraction of the entire OS because a significant amount of the OS is third-party software ported from various places (grub, libpng, zlib, freetype, cairo, pixman, ncurses, Mesa, Vim, Lua, MuPDF, SDL, Python, GCC, GNU binutils, etc); is it fair to be surprised when people can't see the differences among all the commonality?

To put this in perspective; let's think about Linux. Is Linux a new OS; or is Linux a new implementation of an old kernel design, for an old OS?


Cheers,

Brendan

[hometue]

Talking about so-called nerds, I might have a video that can be of quite similar circumstances, maybe? (and funny). Enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

[Antti]

you can't tell a normal person (who uses MS Word to write his/her documents, MS Excel for their spreadsheets containing their data, browses email with Chrome) about how awesome your scheduler or your new VGA Driver is

That would be pointless to tell them about implementation details. You should tell them what they could do with your OS, like writing letters, listening to music, writing applications, playing games, etc. You could also tell them about an interesting feature, not an implementation detail, that is unique and your OS is the only one having it.

[Pancakes]

I agree. I generally just do not tell anyone what I know because no one really cares, LOL. It does not bother me because I do it for fun, but sometimes I find it frustrating when I am treated like I do not know anything about computers, but I just smile and play along. All the better I am not bombarded with requests to fix computers and questions!

It is natural for the end-user to not care what makes your OS different. To them it really is a Linux clone. If it acts like a duck and walks like a duck most people assume it to be a duck. Which is not to say your OS is worthless or it did not take you years to make it, or spend massive amounts of time doing it. It also does not mean your OS/kernel is 99% different. It just means they are not your target audience.

You know a lot of people in the world are money oriented. If it does not make money they do not care about it. And, your OS/kernel is subject to that. If your selling it and making money then people are going to listen to you because in their mind your doing something right. For some people, including me, money is not all important and I enjoy seeing and reading about how someone's OS works.

You will always find it hard to get recognition from people unless you can wrap their head around what you actually did. But, that is part of the problem where people are not able to understand or do not have the time to understand what you did.

If you want people to see more than X then they have to see more than their idea of X.

But, luckily here at these forums most people will listen to you and enjoy hearing about what you did and how you did it.

[VolTeK]

Hi,
I have recently got into an argument with a so-called "nerd" (as I see it.), basically he claims that klange's ToaruOS is a GNU/Linux reskin and calls it a POS. Until now it seems impossible to convince him/her about the fact that this isn't GNU/Linux (I had failed to convince that "Sortix" is also written from scratch, maybe I'm bad at arguments or I don't lose my temper like others do.). Let's leave that aside, I just realized that this is a large problem, there are a lot of people who claim to be OS Developers but their OS is just a "full-screen" 10-minute shell coded in Visual Basic or a 5-minute Linux distribution created with OpenSUSE or a "Hello-World(TM)" Cosmos C# OS. And there goes our reputation, the ones those dig around tonnes of machines, work on their OS for days and nights, and then people (who've no idea of what we're doing) start to speak non-sense, I recently got a comment like this:

That's when you be the better man and:

Give verbal abuse
Punch them in the eye hole
Tell a "your mom" joke about their mother
And leave.

But seriously, why do you care? That's one guy. In reality anyone who says something like that has nothing of the sort themselves, and probably couldn't get a linux distro going anyway.

Its called Pure Jealousy. It won't get them a job, a big home, and 3 Jaguar vehicles anyway.

[Rusky]

They're probably trolling, but show them the source?