> > Then I got tired of it and started to build a new system, what is
> > becoming better and better and still keeps every changes I made in
> > the configuration files, upgrades etc. I am still going for the
> > greatest and latest to try. But I have now two identical system, and
Good advice Victor, if you want to learn Linux but I think you missed
the point of Mark's rant. He's not trying to run beta this or that,
he's trying to run what shakes out of the box of VERSION 7.2 of Linux
Mandrake. By version 7 of anything things like print services should
be stable, period. This is especially true if the features have been
stable through the previous few versions and no increased facility is
being provided by the change.
Learning about Linux is fun, playing with bleeding edge software is
nice. But at some point most people have to get work done. If you're
going to convince your buddies to try it (remember the World
Domination theme of the Linux movement) and they're not computer geeks
you have to have something that they can use without going through
what you're talking about. How does it sound to say
"Well, I'll give you version 7.1 of LM as it's pretty stable. You
won't be able to use the nice stuff I've mentioned in the new version
of GIMP and you won't have any of these nice windows I have in
KDE2.1. I'm sorry, no, we'll have to update your Netscape so that
4.73 doesn't bleed memory all over the place and no, pppoe isn't built
into 7.1 but we can easily get what you need and install it. Oh sure,
once Mandrake gets its 7.2 installer sorted out, all this other stuff
stabilized, and I figure out how to get CUPS to reliably print we
might be able to make a run at installing this newer stuff on your
system."
Kinda takes the wind out of the sails of "Linux is more stable than
Windows" doesn't it? How do you answer these people when they say
"But 7.2 is available in a store; can it really be that bad?"
I don't envy the job that companies like Mandrake have but they're
making these decisions based on short term marketing, not in order to
stabilize their products. The CUPS change wasn't positive and I've
yet to read anything to suggest that anyone thinks it was, except for
maybe the author and Mandrake. Why was it done in the midst of
struggling to deal with a major leap in the KDE interface, with
KOffice being dumped into the mix and a changing file system? Mark's
point, and mine, is that some of Linux above the kernel level needs to
remain stable for some period of time and change for change sake might
fit a geek-development mindset but it doesn't create commercial
products.
There's an interesting thing about the Linux dynamic. Linus Torvalds
and others talk about how the open source concept causes rapid change
and that approval for features come from the users. If something is
popular in one distro it becomes part of all of them very quickly is
the chant. What seems to be missing from the equation presented is
that the distros are adders and changers; they rarely subtract or
stabilize.
Once everyone in the community proclaims that this or that application
doesn't work worth a darn, where is the compulsion to remove it from
the system. Once the world proclaims that they like their Linux "like
this" and all the distros become the same, what do the distro people
do to set themselves apart and provide the box art people with fodder
for selling their product? They change it, that's what and this is
the dilemma we have right now. Red Hat has just done this with their
v7.0 upgrade. They provided some improved functionality but most of
what got added/changed makes 6.2 worse as 6.2 was very stable, the
tools that came with it worked, and Red Hat hasn't yet made the KDE2.0
plunge. In short, as long as distro people are driven by marketing
(and what else would drive them?) they will be adders/changers, not
subtracters/stabilizers that's a fundamental problem in my view.
BTW, the only thing that has allowed me to run v7.2 of Mandrake was
climbing out a bit on that bleeding edge and getting a stable version
of KDE. Do you really think Walmart operating system purchasers
will/should_have_to do this?
Cheers --- Larry
