** Lyvim Xaphir (Montag, 2. Juni 2003 21:30) > > Look, I'm in a real tough position here. First, I am and always have > been a supporter of Mandrake. I think they (as an entity) have more > potential than any other distro company I've seen; in general, > history has shown that the features of the Mandrake distro are just > ahead of the game, in nearly all respects.
Looks like we all agree on this. :) > I don't want to say this, but I have to say it because it is the > truth. For users of 8.2 or maybe even 9.0 there is no cogent reason > to upgrade to 9.1, if you are seeking a stable production system. This is a subjective opinion. There are some reasons why someone who is using Mandrake as a desktop system should upgrade (err - not upgrade, I'll come to that later). > The reasons I say this are myriad, but I'll cut it down to three or > four. One, there was not enough manpower focused on 9.1 to release > it as an improved distro over 9.0 or 8.2. This is demonstrable (at > least on my system, which *has not changed* since LM82) because LM91 > crashes and/or locks up, probably about an average of once per day. Hmm, I'm using 9.1 on 2 systems and I have not experienced one single crash since I use it. And if you look through all the postings in the newsgroup, there are problems, yes, but crashing reports are rare if not not existant. > (It is also slower.) 30 minutes ago I was examining email, with no > unusual activity going on, and XFree vaporized for no reason that I > could discern, taking several smaller apps with it to their doom. > That's just today. I won't say that LM82 never failed me at all, but > I will say that I have a very strong memory of LM82 being about as > stable as the crust of the planet Mars. Plus, it was faster. This is also an opinion, based on your individual expereince. I have just the opposite experience. To me 9.1 compared to 8.2 is sleek and fast (run on the same hardware so I can compare). I've started to use Mandrake Linux with version 5.3 and I see a straight line of improvement, well, if you scratch 7.0 which was a piece of crap IMHO. > Second, it's been noted that there does not seem to be a formally > presented system for production distro bugs or problems. Prior to > the advent of 9.1 this was not a major issue, primarily because (IMO) > the releases were so pristine that there was not a major need for > one. The fact that there has been extensive discussion lately for a > report route for production bug reports should be telling. How do you come to that? What about bugzilla? What about the errata pages? > Third, (mostly) because of the rpmdrake user interface (NOT the urpmi > improvements at the CLI level, which *are* good), I consider LM82 to > be better than either 9.0 or 9.1. User interfaces should be agreed > on and voted on by the users, and they should not be unilateral > elitist decisions handed down by somebody who is not listening to > you. In the case of both 9.0 and 9.1, the new rpmdrake UI was VOTED > DOWN by the users and the old interface was *specifically asked* to > be reinstituted. Would you agree that this is a very small issue? Most users got used to the new system - well, those users who use the GUI. The issue was discussed for some time and now nobody cares anymore - at least from the postings I read in the newsgroup and the mailing lists. > structure/engine, just the UI, or user presentation.) Their pleas > and concerns were ignored. In fact, in the months just prior to Dr > Denis Havlik's departure from Mandrake corporate, the rpmdrake vote > for 9.1 was *taken off* the voting forums in order to silence the > voices that were calling for it's return. The fact that this aspect > of the voting process is basically ignored by the developers is not > an issue that I am willing to let go; ever. Not until it is > addressed. The issue was discussed to it's due extent and was closed. So what? The voting system is and always was a system to give the developpers a hint on what the club members would like to see in the next distribution. It was never a system to tell the developpers what *has* to be in the next distro. > 1) There should not be a cooker release labeled for production until > it matches or exceeds the production performance of a satisfactory > prior release. This would be the ideal world of distros. If you want that way go to Debian. It is something no commercial orientated company can go. > 2) There should be a formal production bug report system (utilizing > Anthill preferably) that takes care of problems with supposedly > stable production release bugs. In addition this should be priority > over cooker, since your customer's work and productivity should be > your first priority above all else. There is one with Bugzilla. You ever took a trip over there? > 3) If the voices of the paying members of Mandrakeclub are not heard > within the Club voting system, then it calls into question the entire > purpose of the voting system to begin with as well as the propaganda > that idealizes it. See above. Maybe you misunderstood the concept a little bit. Repeat, the voting system was never a roadmap forced on to the developpers, it was a guideline. Read the articles about it. OK, so these more individually formed opinions out of the way, I'd like to address the OP's issue: Upgrading is an option and it may all go well. IMHO upgrading is an option if you want to stay up-to-date between releases. Starting out with 5.3 I always did a clean install and just saved my data partition and my /home directory. In fact I came to the way Anne described (installing on a spare partition and straighten out everything before making it the production system). One major point for fresh installation comes from my experience during the last 2 years: I never experienced most of the problems users reported after an upgrade. The users who did upgrades faced much more problems than those who did fresh installs and very often the problems vanished when the user did a fresh installation after he messed up his formerly unstable upgrade. Lyvim, did you upgrade or do a fresh install? I very rarely read about someone having such serious problems like you describe. There must be reasons. Just sitting there and saying that 9.1 is unstable and produced in a very unprofessional way is not a solution. wobo -- Public GnuPG key available at http://www.wolf-b.de/misc
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