On 26/11/14 09:14, Chris Bannister wrote: > On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 02:44:19AM +1100, Scott Ferguson wrote: >> >> Or, perhaps a general rule for default settings - "safest/do no harm"? >> [just a wild guess] > > Wouldn't it make more sense having the default meaning: guarranteed to > work on the majority of systems/setups enabling the admin to later > change the defaults to better suit their own particular needs.
If that "breaks" things - no. How does the current system *not* enable the admin to later reconfigure? Perhaps... apt could post some sort of information message and/or a choice? Oh wait.... :D And *what do we know about the original "customisation"* that was made - which may have 'some' bearing on the "badness" of the upgrade/update "defaults"?? > > I remember when (still is?) the default mutt configuration was having no > colors defined so that at least it was still usable on displays without > colour. Now *that's* clever thinking! > > Now, (I hope I'm not wrong on this.) It seems that the default GNOME > installation required a graphics card with hardware acceleration. How > stupid is that? It goes against the whole concept of a sensible default. I thought a similar thing when planning a web site about the IBM P/S2 series (with the MCA bus). Should I use HTML4, CSS, and Javascript? How much backward compatibility should I support? Then I saw the irony. In the end I realised I wasn't bound by the same limitations that lead to the compromises called PCI, and found a way to gracefully degrade to the lowest denominator. Neither scenarios are useful analogies for DE development - especially using a FOSS model (though elements of both 'might' be useful for understanding the basic problems, given the luxury of Monday morning lunch-room football coaches). As does your question about a DE - though I know nothing about GNOME it doesn't stop me from speculating wildly (when did it ever?). Perhaps (and I really am speculating) the decision was made on the basis of:- ;trying to cater for the largest groups of users? ;wanting to make use of the video card to render icons? Admittedly that's all wild speculations made with a time investment of minute. KDE and Fluxbox don't seem to require the latest video cards - and I don't see why I should care about a DE I don't use (or support) - with no disrespect intended to those that do use GNOME (or did). But mostly:- ;I don't see the relevance between the development of large desktop environments and apt's management of relatively simple package upgrade. ;it's not a subject 'I' would casually consider if I was making the decisions. I've given the subject of this post only minutes of thought - which is at least days short of the research and consideration I "suspect" it deserves. I note that I'm no super-brain and many posters may not labour under the same limitations as I. > > BTW, along the same lines, I'd expect the default *not* to suspend on > lid-close simply because some models have "quirks" when coming out of > suspend. > It should be configurable by the admin whether he¹ wants it that > way. Ideally. I don't pretend to understand all the issues - and 'maybe' more importantly, I'm not willing to second-guess those that do the work. > > > ¹ Yeah yeah or she. They? :) Kind regards -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/547519b4.7080...@gmail.com
