A long time ago in a place far far away there was this monopoly operating system who was forcing us to accept things we did not want. So, many of us switched to an alternative operating system called Linux. Many flavors of Linux were available also known as distributions. Now all of these distributions were friends with each other. They helped each other and there was harmony in the Universe. The motto was as long as you were using Linux then it is all good. It was all for one and one for all against the evil monopoly operating system.
But then something happened. A man came out of nowhere with millions of dollars in his pocket. He pledged to bring Linux to the Desktop and to the millions of users who were still using the operating system of the evil monopoly. He created his own Linux distribution. Many people believed in him and switched to his distribution. Many others were happy with the distribution they were using so they stayed with their tribe of friends and family.
After many years and millions of dollars spent, this distribution failed to acquire millions of users of the evil monopoly operating system. Also some users of this distribution became disillusioned with some changes this distribution was making despite protests within their tribe of users. Some contemplated changing to another distribution.
In an effort to stop their users from exploring other distributions in a dual boot setup they changed their boot loader to make it incompatible with just about every other major Linux distribution. This made it difficult for their tribe of users to explore other opportunities but not impossible. They also closed any talk of alternative distributions on their forum. Out of site. Out of mind.
But then they decided if they could not increase their market share with users from the evil monopoly operating system they would attempt to get more users from other tribes. They do this in many ways but most often seen is the forum spam post on another distributions forum. There is a script that is repeated and easily spotted.
1. Mention the name of the distribution you are promoting at least 3 times.
2. List some features of the distribution and why you are currently running it.
3. Ask about some feature you know doesn't work or is not available but does work in the distribution you are promoting.
It goes something like this and has been posted over 100 times here:
Hi I'm new here and I'm considering switching to your distribution. I have been using (insert name of distro) for many years because it has been (list some features here) rock solid and has always worked with my hardware. I started with (insert name of distro + version) and updated to latest ( insert distro name + version). What I want to know is if I can encrypt my home partition with your distribution during installation like I can with (insert name of distro).
Some distributions felt this was dirty pool to try to leech their tribe of users with spam posts on their forum. One distribution decided to have some fun and piss off the spammers so they had their forum software change the name of the promoted distribution to something else when it is typed into a forum message. It has taken a while but someone is finally getting the message which is don't use our forum to promote your distribution to our tribe. While this can be confusing to the innocent, it has become a necessary evil to stop the spamming.
These days it appears to be a dog eat dog world where Linux distributions fight among themselves for the same set of users. Many people hop from one distribution to the next looking for something they will never be able to obtain. What it comes down to is most distributions are all the same inside. So if you are happy with your distribution of choice please continue to use it but don't try to convince us to switch to your distribution. We are happy where we are.
Thanks for listening.
