Retro: “How to patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?”

About the iconic question from the “bashorg”, which the presidents answered

In the old days, users were constantly faced with the question “how to patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?” from the corresponding quote on “bashorg”. TJournal recalled where this meme came from and where it managed to manifest itself over the nine years of its existence, and talked with its author.

In 2004, when this meme originated, IRC, an Internet chat system that allowed users to communicate on various topics, was still popular on the RuNet. Chat rooms on IRC are called channels, and their names determine the topics of conversation - #music, #anime or, say, #dating.

But the name of the channel did not always fully reflect its content. Thus, visitors to the Russian-language channel about anime on the RusNet network discussed not only Japanese animation itself and everything connected with it: often the conversations boiled down to purely technical issues and, in particular, to a discussion of operating systems. In response to this, on May 8 , a fictitious dialogue appeared in #anime , ironizing the fact that the channel is dominated by off-topic discussions.

15:53:11 [sashok] -- Hello, is this a channel about anime? -- Yes. -- How can I patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?

The irony is that the phrase has nothing to do with the anime: if expanded, it would sound like “How to configure the KDE2 graphical shell for the Unix-like FreeBSD operating system?” The author of the phrase, Alexander Kosyrin (he is called one of the significant figures of the Russian anime fandom) told TJournal that that day another technical dispute flared up in the channel, so he decided to emphasize: “Guys, some of us are some bad anime people.”

Another notable feature of IRC chats were bots that performed certain tasks. Someone was broadcasting news, someone was reporting the weather. As Kosyrin says, the phrase was noticed by Andrei Lavrov, also a famous anime fan and future creator of the Runet quote book bash.org.ru (now bash.im ). Lavrov added it to the database of his humorous bot, and then, creating a “bashorg”, filled it with the knowledge of his bot. So the phrase about KDE2 and FreeBSD was among the first quotes of the resource, and received the honorable 42nd number.

Without BOR and Andrei [Lavrov], there would be no meme, unlikely circumstances would not have come together. Alexander Kosyrin

As the popularity of “bashorg” grew, Kosyrin’s quote became more and more famous, and for a long time ranked first in popularity of all jokes on the resource. The popularity of the quote is also evidenced by the rapid appearance of a number of meta-jokes that are incomprehensible to an outside observer.

[daemon] gosh
[daemon] on Russian radio there is a program about anime
[daemon] they don’t tell you the truth about how to patch where to fry :( #2202

* dojlid heard on a local channel "today he installs kde, and tomorrow he will join RNE!" Zerg would choke...
[dojlid] the score is 1:1, after a successful answer from the kdeshniki - “today a gnome - tomorrow a gom..” #2224

*** Irra [apache@2af52808.31478372.kharkov.ua] has joined #anime.uteha.ru
[Irra] Is this a channel about onym?
[drdaeman] dadadadad. should you configure KDE?
[Irra] No, KDE has already been set up, someone would help me figure it out with vim... #1831

In 2005, a community appeared on LiveJournal kde2podfreebsd.livejournal.com , whose members engaged in trolling visitors to foreign anime channels with the same question about kde2. Here is an exemplary example : several Russians manage to anger local residents and get banned in exactly 20 minutes.

[22:41 17.10.2005] [ghoul`] ok
[22:41 17.10.2005] [ghoul`] how to patch KDE2 in FreeBSD?
[22:41 17.10.2005] [@kaptah] Install windows
[22:41 17.10.2005] [Robinaxxx] ...
[22:42 17.10.2005] [Pot] interesting. Г.Г
[22:42 17.10.2005] [ghoul`] does anyone know?
[22:43 17.10.2005] [Robinaxxx] no we dont
[22:43 17.10.2005] [ghoul`] kaptah: no, can't install windows
[22:43 17.10.2005] [ghoul`] we are poor russian hackers
[22:43 17.10.2005] [J0ma] omg
[22:43 17.10.2005] [@kaptah] So why ask simple thing like that then
[22:43 17.10.2005] [ghoul`] we don't have money to by licensed windows
[22:43 17.10.2005] [ghoul`] *buy

And a year later, the phrase almost went offline. In the summer of 2006, the website president.yandex.ru hosted a collection of questions for President Vladimir Putin from the Runet. Users could vote for the proposed options, thus selecting the topics that most concerned the Internet public. The phrase about how to patch KDE2 under freebsd took third place in the voting, and the leader was the question proposed by KrosavcheG from Moscow: “PREVED, Vladimir Vladimirovich! How do you feel about BEAR?” Neither question was asked to the president.

A year after Putin, the head of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, decided to hold a similar conference with Internet users. The Kazakhs took the event seriously and brought the issue of KDE2 to the first place in popularity. Nazarbayev also turned out to be not a timid person and responded (in writing). True, like a real politician, he did not speak to the point about the development of the “national software industry.” However, he also outlined his version of the origin of the phrase to which he was responding.

In addition, I consider it appropriate to mention the history of the issue. This question was asked on May 8, 2004 in the #anime chat (anime is a Japanese animation genre), apparently as a joke, partly due to the fact that among anime fans (anime fans) there are many Unix administrators. according to another version, the question was seriously asked by a person who did not know what anime was, but assumed that the chat was dedicated to unix administration issues. Since then, the joke has gained great popularity. Nursultan Nazarbaev

The culmination of the circulation of the phrase among presidents came at the end of 2007. The head of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, also decided to answer questions from Internet users. Those, as you might already guess, voted en masse for a localized version of a question from a channel about anime: “Mr. President? How can I patch KDE2 under FreeBSD? Yushchenko, answering out loud, said that programmers from the Presidential Secretariat would help with patching. True, instead of “operating systems,” he said “operating schemes.”

In 2008, there were also attempts to troll the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan with this phrase (he recommended “not to bother with patches, but to install from ports”) and the head of Microsoft Steve Ballmer, who came to Moscow (the question was never asked). The author of the phrase, however, does not approve of such activities. Kosyrin says that the wave of such trolling only caused him bewilderment.

The joke was used completely for its intended purpose, nothing interesting was achieved, and, it seems, this pampering was quickly abandoned. Alexander Kosyrin

Subsequently, the phrase became “legendary”: it had pages on many Russian and Western Internet encyclopedias and collections of memes, including Know Your Meme and the English-language Wikipedia . An article in the Russian wiki, says Kosyrin, for some time attributed to him deep knowledge of *nix-like operating systems, which he “saw twice, from afar.”

The Russian-language Wikipedia entry is currently unavailable. However, the phrase managed to appear in a children's animated series and in a number of memes and comics that appeared on the RuNet at different times.

It's funny: in the animated series "Masha and the Bear" on Mishka's shelf there is a book "How to patch KDE2" =) pic.twitter.com/MgEdQr6j

— Andrey Yelmanov (@yelmanov) January 12, 2013

#Article #memes #Category_Retro #retro #Bashorg