Re: Non-security updates between stable releases?
I am not advocating being hostile to novice users; I am saying that we should not cater solely to that segment of our user base; especially at the expense experienced users who have been long using Debian as the basis of productive work. Some considerations and improvements seem at first glance as for novice users, but they often make sense for proffesionals too. For example, if Debian Linux makes some choice without bothering the end user, and if he does it in logical manner, then not only novice user is glad he shouldn't make some cryptic geeky choice that scares him, but also the professional often appreciates that he is not wasting his time and can concentrate at real work. Similar if something improves end user comfort somehow, etc. Sysadmins are slow to explore such improvements and to appreciate them. BFU's are much more flexible in this manner :-) However at the end, the admins are able to absorb it too. So, I think the wisdom is in those improvements, that bless BROAD end user base. What is good for BFU is not neccessarily bad for admin! Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Non-security updates between stable releases?
Tim, I couldn't write it better. 3 months ago, there has been a thread with similar topics: Debian desktop -situation... Peter Tim Hull wrote / napísal(a): Just to follow up, I do appreciate that Debian wishes to cover so many architectures - I even installed Debian on quite possibly the most obscure architecture in the past, m68k (an old Quadra 700). Would have been funny to attempt a full-blown X install. Honestly, only NetBSD rivals Debian in that department. However, I will agree that it seems a bit absurd to hold up security fixes for a browser for all architectures based on breakage on a few obscure ones. Getting back to my original question, it still seems like there is a problem (at least for end users on the desktop) with the current release cycle. Lenny is not slated for release until September 2008, yet Etch will be spectacularly outdated before then (for some, it already is - just ask Gnome users, who are two releases behind *now*). Testing is not a viable desktop choice (observe the aforementioned security issues), and unstable is really OK only if you are a Linux expert. It seems to me that something has to be done - whether this be some official backports (especially of popular components like KDE, Gnome, the kernel, etc) or a faster release cycle. Personally, I prefer the former idea - I don't see a need to update my glibc and gcc every 6 months and like the stable Debian base, though I do like to have the latest Gnome. I think many users are in the same boat. Anyway, if any work is done in this regard, please let me know. Tim -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepoužívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ČSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Steve, The problem is that your history doesn't match the experience of any one else participating in this thread. You keep making assertions about testing being broken, sometimes with hundreds of broken dependencies. Since one of the key criterion of packages entering testing is dependencies are correct and fulfillable, this strikes most of us as unlikely. Yes, and security upgrades never change behaviour of software and never break things. That's the way it OUGHT to be. The reality has its own turbulences. I won't claim testing has never had a broken depends, but it's very rare, and never hundreds of packages. Well, I might have been out of luck. Maybe it hasn't been hudreds, just a full screen of (didn't count them and wouldn't remember anyway). That changes nothing on assertion, that using the testing routinely is not official, nor advisable way for ordinary users. It's a basic point of science that the person making the unusual claims needs to provide the data to back it up. My original intention was not, and still is not, to discuss capabilities of testing. I want to discuss possibilities, how could the stable be more attractive for ordinary user, how to make it usable on hardware newer-than-3-years-old, how could the user be blessed with fresh software rather than 2-years old, how to allow him to easily and effectively participate on bug reporting, and how to avoid the work of backporting security fixes to ancient software. If You and several people claim they haven't met such problems with testing, I can live with that. I also heard people whose experience was different, and my personal one is closer to them. That's all. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Steve, And as others have pointed out, the purpose of stable is to minimize disruptions. For many users, living with known bugs with known workarounds is a *lot* better than identifying new bugs. Yeas. Let the choice to the user. Don't dictate him. Whoever wants to use the old software w/o change, let be it. Whoever wants the new one, noticed about the risks, let's give him an official and supported way to do it. For one thing, it's not just Iceweasel, it's all the plugins and extensions that might be in use, *and* any external software or libraries that those extensions use. AFAIK, all Mozilla's programs take care about plugins their own way and offer upgrades automatically. I don't have enough technical background to opose You at the Debian packages level however, You're knowledge could be better than mine. Not to mention all the other software that uses iceweasel libraries. Is there any? Additionally, any internal webapps have to be validated against the new iceweasel. Internal macros need to be validated against the new OO.org.It's a lot of work. Yes, for the admins that are willing to deploy the software. Repeat, I just want the _official_and_supported_way_ to do it. Let the users choose, whether they want to upgrade. Repeat, let there be easy downgrade option for the case things don't work as expected. Now, that may be of little relevance to the home user. But I know some such users who also *don't* like upgrades, because they're happy with what they have and don't need to change. For example, my father-in-law just this year went from Mac OS9 to OSX, mostly because his hardware was dying. So he hadn't upgraded in 6 *years*, and didn't feel he was missing anything. There's quite a few of those people out there. Not to upgrade, that's perfectely legitimate choice. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Steve, I see main problem with testing that broad platform changes are going there. That's why things break sometimes there. That's why I think, that the Stable platform with new desktop software might be the choice -the new software versions with no platform dependecies breakage risk. This is closest to backports and volatile idea. I wouldn't call it backports however, because that reminds porting some very new software to some very old platform, and this is not the case. The stable's basic platform should stay LSB-compliant and moderately-aged (supported by all main software vendors) for the whole length of release cycle. Thus the new versions of desktop software wouldn't be backported; just compiled against ordinary, stable platform. I don't know how real the vision is, however it shouldn't be completely impossible I hope ;-) Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Stanislav, I see Your point, however this is far from user-friendliness. First solution -use other distro. Wow, what a great idea. Looking at statistics and Linux users in neighborhood, You can be _sure_ they discovered that way already :-) Be also sure, that unwilling to do more for desktop users, Debian will not be less, but increasingly more server-oriented distro (I like Debian on server!). I like Debian either. Friendly, Peter Stanislav Maslovski wrote / napísal(a): On Thu, May 17, 2007 at 08:20:50AM +0200, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: Steve, And as others have pointed out, the purpose of stable is to minimize disruptions. For many users, living with known bugs with known workarounds is a *lot* better than identifying new bugs. Yeas. Let the choice to the user. Don't dictate him. Well, I really cannot see your point. If you do not like how stable is done at the moment in Debian, but do like how it is done in whatever other distro - use that distro. Nobody forces anything on you. This is all about choice. Whoever wants to use the old software w/o change, let be it. Whoever wants the new one, noticed about the risks, let's give him an official and supported way to do it. Fist of all, there is such a way: use testing, most of the time it is fairly safe to use. Learn how to put packages on hold and how to get back if something goes wrong. [ skipped ] Let the users choose, whether they want to upgrade. =) OMG, I do not think that somebody really forces me when to run apt-get upgrade and what packages to install and from what repository. Repeat, let there be easy downgrade option for the case things don't work as expected. man sources.list man apt_preferences http://snapshot.debian.net/ If you maintain more than one machine - setup a local repository and fill it with the versions of the packages you like. Including backported ones, learn how to backport. -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepou¾ívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ÈSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Hi, Don recent? current? upstream? fresh? :-) Why the need for volatile then? I admire I'm confused a bit. Whatever, there should be one supported, official, and acknowledged repository for the purpose, I think. Not necessarry ALL desktop software should be upgraded this way, however at least the most demanded mainstream.. The stable cycle should reflect the mainstream course, so that not much additional work should be necessarry to do that. Maybe the cycle should copy the LSB's one somehow. Peter Don Armstrong wrote / napísal(a): On Thu, 17 May 2007, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: This is closest to backports and volatile idea. I wouldn't call it backports however, because that reminds porting some very new software to some very old platform, and this is not the case. The stable's basic platform should stay LSB-compliant and moderately-aged (supported by all main software vendors) for the whole length of release cycle. Thus the new versions of desktop software wouldn't be backported; just compiled against ordinary, stable platform. That's precisely what a backport is. New versions of a Debian package compiled against stable with whatever changes are required to get them to compile. If the root of the concern is because the term backport is scary or otherwise unpalatable, then suggest an alternative term. Don Armstrong -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepou¾ívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ÈSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Ben, this is the most constructive advice on the topic I think :-) Thank You. Peter The user has that choice, to the extent that can be reasonably expected. Consider: The Debian project is run by volunteers: all the work done is done because someone sees value to themselves in doing it. Therefore, any official support can only be provided when a sufficient body of volunteers decide to provide it on a continuing basis. We have the Debian security team providing official support for released stable versions of Debian, according to a policy they voluntarily adhere to. Any other official support can only come about by a similar means: a sufficient body of people voluntarily organise themselves and put in the ongoing work to commit to and enact a support policy. You are welcome to help bring this about by any means you see fit, but harping on in this forum about lack of support is unlikely to have that result. This does not leave our users without other options. Anyone who wants support for Debian, beyond what official support is provided by volunteer efforts, need only speak with the many consultants who have listed themselves as providing support services for Debian. They can then negotiate an unofficial, customised support arrangement. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Don, Volatile is for software which is known to be time critical, like virus and spam catching rules. Almost all Debian initiatives start as unofficial measures to demonstrate their efficacy. Eventually if they work and there is sufficient demand for them, they become official. Okay. It currently takes us a somewhere on the order of 100 person-years to release every single version of Debian. Woww. Just waving your hands and saing that not much additional work should be necessary isn't good enough. Right. Are there any real movements to synchronise Debian's cycle with LSB's one slightly? Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Hi, Jose What about maintainer/developer-friendly thing? That'd be great. I think, the more recent is the supported software, and the more LSB-compliant is the base, the less extraordinary work for developers and less concern for end users. This dosen't conflict with either philosophy here. I mean, you want that us change all our infrastructure I think the LSB-compliance and reasonably short (or reasonably long) release cycle are inevitable goals. The sooner achieved (naturally), the better. We discussed here, that backports is the best thing to start with in order to deliver recent desktop software to the end user, so it just needs an official approval and support. Those are the direct infrastructure changes that it is being spoken about. This is not anything that would ruin Debian into chaos ;-) Next thing, quite utopistic one but inevitable in long terms, should be the common infrastructure for bug reporting, so that users would report bugs easily, and the developers would not need to interchange the bug data between users and upstream, but upstream would get them directly instead. This is just an idea, however some beginning of that is being worked on there in Canonical, AFAIK. , but then he gives you as solution to change one line and exec one command and you think that's not user-friendly? There's no magical ways to do this If the option was only obvious, advertised and easily found and done by ordinary end user, without risk of breaking deps.. Friendly, Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Look Greg, in the original post, I referred the security patch introduced breakage jut to point out the existence of such risk, in order to make weighting the risks more realistic. Just like this: There is some degree of risk of breaking functionality connected to upgrading to recent upstream version. There is also some degree of risk connected to backpatching the old version, that is increasing with the age of software. Both are real, both can cause severe damage. The probability of each one, _that_ is the matter of question. That should be changed anyway, since security upgrades occasionally break things too. You keep saying this, That's just because people keep asking for proof and questioning the bare existence of the risk of security patch introduced breakage. I haven't seen this in Sarge at all. Sarge has had HOW MANY security updates that broke things? Etch's security updates including the Kernel upgrade had no noticeable problems... but of course the two *OBSCURE* issues reported affect you, right? Should there be more appropriate word that ocassionally, please suggest one. My english is not perfect. Of course I listed only those issues that affected me. If You want more, go, ask someone else. You keep trying to HIT these things home, but the more you do this, the more you look foolish. These problems are mainly Woody and before, except for the LONG release time for Sarge. The Woody security updates for Mozilla was REALLY HARD. I stated before, bugs are inevitable, either in tested stable software, or upstream stable, or in security upgrades. There is no intention to harm anybody. Just name the facts. I'd say that Mozilla's backpatching was insanity from the start, the software was developing rapidly during the Woody's life. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Raphael Hertzog wrote / napísal(a): On Tue, 15 May 2007, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: Yes, bugs are unavoidable. However, testing is often in situation whole system broken or nearly useless. I see difference here; occassional bug in desktop app is acceptable. Whole system unreliable is not acceptable. Have you facts to assert this? Just a personal experience. I've been an happy user of testing. It happens that some packages are not upgradable during a timeframe however the installed packages are not broken and thus the system is perfectly reliable. You can't just get the latest version and hope that it won't break anything. That should be verified in light of broad experience (I don't have any). Does it happen often that GNOME version change breaks many things? The only my try was to put GNOME 2.0 to Debian Woody (ugly GNOME 1.2), and I was succesful. You can't generalize based on a single experience like that. Yes, I admired that openly. Your restricted yourself to software published by the Gnome project. Check how many applications depend on Gnome and yet are not developed following Gnome's schedule. Those are the applications which have not been tested by upstream with the new Gnome and which are the more likely to break. Could we put more pressure on them to follow some rules? Make it compliant or be not released at all? I'd expect that enterprise is already making pressure on this.. You can't rely on upstream to do this testing for you. We have a purpose, we don't stabilize our distribution just because it sounds nice, it's really needed in many cases. Don't get me wrong however, I'm all in favor of having backports integrated in Debian and make it a viable alternative for many users. But you simply can't drop newer upstream version in what we call stable like you suggest. I respect Your opinion and probably You know what You're speaking about, however the interests should come to some balance (stability vs available labour force vs usability vs bug reporting vs security). Maybe, there could be these levels in release cycle: -stable (security fixes are backported, depending on popularity and demand the packages have) -recent (tested, functional fresh packages, that could stable be upgraded by, w/o breaking deps, officially supported) -testing (stabilisation playground for next libraries platform) -unstable (new software packages) Peter We don't really need more discussion on that topic. We need improvements to make that a realistic goal. Cheers, -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Steve Greenland wrote / napísal(a): On 14-May-07, 07:55 (CDT), Mgr. Peter Tuharsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ask somebody, what distro would he install at desktop for novice or M$ refugee? Why many are choosing Ubuntu instead of Debian, and even worse, abandon Debian in favor of Ubuntu? Why is this worse? I wrote worse because for Debian, this is worse. Not that it is damaging it somehow. Of course there naturally will be other distros, cooperating hopefully. It's worse because it implies, that Debian is not as good desktop as it ought to be. Why isn't there room for two similar distributions, with one aimed at being more up-to-date for a limited set of packages and hardware, while the other aims at being rock-solid on a wide variety of hardware for extended periods of time? As I illustreted, rock solid is not automatically guaranteed by oldness of software or by length of pre-release testing. And for the end _desktop_ user, usability matters too. Sometimes even more than the age (I wouldn't tell stability because, again, this is not always the same). That's the first thing I think Debian is doing wrong, if it tries to be desktop distro too. The optimum is somewhere in between. There are certainly ways that Debian can improve, but I'm not convinced that become more like Ubuntu is one of them. Why not let Ubuntu fulfill the desires of that group of users? More like Ubuntu -by some means, we could learn much from them. However I don't suggest to become another Ubuntu. There are partial approaches possible that could itself benefit Debian dekstop much. And in the Debian, other ways of applying changes than step-by-step I don't see even possible, does anybody? ;-) We could start with programs that don't other programs depend on much. For example, what is the purpose of using 2 years old Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org and other such stand-alone programs? They could be flawlessly upgraded during stable release life cycle. If extra stability or whatever is the mean, then let them be tested for a while (however, preferrably during _their_ testing phase). Next, the bug reporting is completely flawed for desktop user, and in order to make it functional, the balance must be moved closer to the recent software versions. I don't see other way to do it. Does somebody? There is no choice but keeping Debian desktop user out-of-software-community for next years. Third, bug reporting systems really needs some consolidation, and probably negotiations between distros and software vendors. It took too long to have LSB, and convergention of the bug reporting systems I see as the next step necessarry. And who could offer bigger authority than Debian, the greatest community-driven distro? Peter Steve -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepou¾ívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ÈSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
In several mails you claimed testing as broken. This is completely orthognal to my experience. I'm using testing since its existence on most of my boxes. I use it on some boxes too, however, mostly the snapshots from the half-year before-stable period of time. Attempts to use much sooner snapshots were not too successfull for me. Only production servers are running stable and I keep my fingers from running unstable (except of chroots). So were is the proof for you statement. What are the numbers of the bugs you might have reported against packages in testing? Don't remember, not too much. However, if hundred of packages had broken deps, where would You report the bug? I'm not too experienced with apt and I hate hacking around it. Another hand, many problems were well-known by the time I met them, there wasn't need to report them again. I'd say, half of problems with testing were connected to bugs in installer. I know the guys are doing though work around it, however I think installer should get stabilised a while before the testing gets into feature freeze. Etch has been quite better by this means than Sarge btw. Could you please a bit more verbose about your problems in testing because nobody else made it to my radar that testing is that unusable. Perhaps I missed something ... I heared many people on mailing lists saying they would never suggest running testing for other than testing purposes, and they often added typical problems one coan get in with testing.. However, problems with testing are matter of other topic, an't they? ;-) Best regards Peter Kind regards Andreas (writing from a laptop that runs testing. ;-)) -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepou¾ívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ÈSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Hi, Greg You took it quite actively. As many see, all of them are different in server and in desktop world, and many times Debian chooses to dictate the users we know the best what You need instead of listening to them. Why then are there 28000+ packages in Debian? If Debian only dictates, why then are there *FAR* more packages available for install than in *ANY* other Distribution? How many Window Managers? How many alternative packages to do the same thing, like word processing, editors, music clients, rss feed readers, web-browsers? I could go on for days, but I hope you get my point. Come on, we know the answer, you can say it. Yes, no single other distro offers such a vast choice possibility, if we're speaking about software. The dictate I feel on other levels. Diff the end user approach of Ubuntu and end user approach of Debian and You see a part of it. It's complex to discuss undercover, however with Ubuntu, user get's an _impression_ that this is created especially for _him_ and that Ubuntu _cares_ about what he might need. We could call it marketing, however it's only partially about marketing. Whatever quality the Debian offers, it's harder for user to _interact_ with the community, and harder to get the impression that he actually can have any impact on what's going on. One easily gets impression, that he can move the mountain more easily than affect Debian's course. b, Stable without (too many) crashes Do you realize Debian's stable is classified as this: Stable means stable package list. No changes in API and ABI names or versions. This means no newer versions will ever make it into stable. It is in maintenance mode. This makes a very good setup for those wishing for Rock Solid machines. Doesn't crash. too many comes from the Windows World, does not typically apply to Debian's Linux. No changes, no newer versions = dosen't crash? It's simply not true. For example, the Debian Woody used an ancient version of Mozilla. _Very_ crashy one, compared with newer versions that came few months later. Noone could call that stable one. Generally speaking, there _are_ stability issues in any software. Should they eventually get fixed upstream, then newer version _objectively_ is _more_stable_ than older, providing no new stability bug has been introduced since the old has been fixed. Yes, it's perfectly possible that newer version of software is more stable (less crashy) than old one. (Should it be reversely, then software is more and more crashy and will not be usefull at the end ;-) As I said, old is not automatically equal to stable. c, Applications should work generally Okay, what specifically does not work in Debian? I just listed criteria, didn't blame Debian at this point. d, Applications should work together well Again, if you are using a Desktop environment, they just DO. By the means of usability, not always. For example, Abiword dosen't exchange files ideally with other office suits (Koffice, OpenOffice.org etc) found in Sarge due to different import/export filters. With Etch, it's been improved (due to upstream's work, of course). However, they and other apps are being under development that leads to ODF support. New version will work _much_better_ with each other. Openoffice.org hve had problems with importing it's own files, that have been fixed. Thus newer version is more interoperable with itself than older. Other example is SVG support. We'll (hopefully) get soon new version of OpenOffice.org with SVG support, Firefox with improved SVG support, etc. Applications mature in course of interoperability in FOSS world. Newer almost always meens better. In fact, I use XFCE. If I click on a link in my e-mail client (Evolution) it opens up my preferred Web-browser (Iceweasel). If I open a Word Document in Iceweasel, it opens the doc in OpenOffice.org writer. If I make a mailto link in Writer and click on it, it opens an Evolution new mail interface. So, once again, I don't see your problem here. Well, if You have chosen to use Thunderbird (Icedove) instead of Evolution, You must have installed gnome-support manually, otherwise it dosen't interact with other apps well. In Sarge, I've had many problems regarding file associations with Thunderbird. I just say, that newer versions usually interact better with each other, and thus the oldness is decreasing the usability, not increasing, by means of interoperability. e, The serious security problems should get fixed ASAP Again, just pointing the need, not blaming anyone. Debian's Stable cannot introduce new versions. This complicates things. It makes it tough, the security team has to backport the fixes from the new versions and force the changes to not bump the ABI numbers. This may seem trivial to you, but it is NOT. In fact, Im saying that it is too complicated (if even possible) to put new patch to old
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
I'm glad it works for You. Peter Greg Folkert wrote / napísal(a): On Tue, 2007-05-15 at 21:43 +0200, Andreas Tille wrote: On Tue, 15 May 2007, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: We're going OT, however my experience based on last two Debian releases: testing becomes quite stable in means of usability somewhere half year before it's released as stable. The sooner before the stable, the rapidly increasing is the chance that the snapshot that You have will not be installable at all, will have dependencies severely broken, etc. In several mails you claimed testing as broken. This is completely orthognal to my experience. I'm using testing since its existence on most of my boxes. To that, I run Sid/unstable on 90% of everything I have. Stable on those machines that cannot have problems. Only production servers are running stable and I keep my fingers from running unstable (except of chroots). I haven't seen an unstable problem that was a problem for more than a couple of days... and mostly had workarounds in any case. So were is the proof for you statement. What are the numbers of the bugs you might have reported against packages in testing? Could you please a bit more verbose about your problems in testing because nobody else made it to my radar that testing is that unusable. Perhaps I missed something ... I've asked for specific examples. Kind regards Andreas (writing from a laptop that runs testing. ;-)) Cheers from a Sid+Experimental machine. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
I don't have enough knowledge to do that. Peter David Nusinow wrote / napísal(a): On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 09:41:17AM +0200, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: The kernel, the X.org So are you volunteering to join the kernel and XSF teams to make this happen? - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Haven't heard how libtruetype security upgrade caused OpenOffice.org, Sorry, should be libfreetype Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Hi, Andreas Another hand, many problems were well-known by the time I met them, there wasn't need to report them again. So if there are really well-known many problems can you do me a favour and list one or two here? It's been in context, meant as many of those problems -a relative part of problems, not absolute number of them. No, it's not worth the time. It's a history. If you want to get a running testing system why not installing stable and then switch to testing? You are right, the installer for testing might become usable for the masses from the RC candidates and thus about half a year before a release. This would perhaps clarify your statements, but this is not a problem of the testing system but a problem of the installer. Perhaps we should document a reasonable way how to get a reasonable testing system setup flawlessly. Yes, that could be nice. Upgrading from stable to testing works usually, however I have met problems this way too. If it worked, it worked well. If it didn't work well, then it usually stopped to work completely :-) This is history too, Woody to Sarge. However, problems with testing are matter of other topic, an't they? ;-) Yes, I do not want to disturb from your main point of your initial mail. But please do not blur it yourself with statements that are just not true if you want that people take you honest (and I really wish they would do). I wish too. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Hi, Daniel When you talk about desktop users, I think you really mean novice consumers. Is that a fair assessment? In my experience, Debian can work just fine on the desktop in some situations, just not for novice home users. (think, e.g., about desktops for office workers) We have had 50 Debian desktop installations in our organisation, and the users have had some legitimate needs, and were not happy with some usability shortages or bugs in some basic software found in Debian Sarge (OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, and so on). Since we use these applications massively, and have to communicate with outside word, and those installations have been pilot project to whole organisation's migration to Linux, it has been important for us to make the work environment as flawless as possible. The issues have beed reported upstream and fixed, however the only way to get the fixes to end user was to abandon distributional versions completely and install generic upstream packages. Thus, I assume that not only novice consumers have the need for improving desktop software and bugs seen fixed. However, Debian dosen't officially support and embrace any way to do this. Watching for new version, You're on Your own. Why would you want this? In a setting where you have people doing productive work using a piece of software, unnecessary changes to the software are *worse* in the short term than a fixed and unchangable set of bugs: not only are changes likely to break the software, but they may require users to retrain or disrupt the processes of your organization. This is true even if the new software is an unqualified improvement (either in terms of bug count or usability) over the old software; look at the backlash over the new Ribbon interface in Microsoft office, for instance. Yes, if software works well, then changes are not wellcome. That's why I suggest the desktop softwares upgrades to be non-mandatory, however officially supported. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
I install regulary NEW kernels where Debian had only 2.4.27 I used 2.4.32/33 and thats NOT the same as pushing a NEW Xorg into stable. The Kernels can be installed without any problems parallel, and if one is not working, you boot the last working one. Yes, I have written it there too. Kernel is, IMO, the best thing to upgrade few times during release cycle, with quite little risk. Right and upgrading fro, xfree86 to xorg had pushed 280 new packages on my test system and every new package can contain potential new bugs. Yes, Debian was the last distro using Xfree86 I know. Of course the transition was complex! You forger that DOWNGRADING is officialy NOT SUPPORTED by Debian. That should be changed anyway, since security upgrades occasionally break things too. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Hi, Ad backports importance, I know there is backports.org -however this, and the testing, unstable, stable, volatile, experimental.. So many package versions, so much duplicate work.. Other hand, there's nothing official and recommended excepting the stable. Using anything else, You're on Your own.. I think, any new stable version of the desktop software should be automaticaly added to security updates and distributed to end user. There's no need to test the tested and stabilise the stable software. Should the new stable version be broken, let's give the user easy way to downgrade, and help upstream to fix it fast. I can agree with You in some point -Yes, compiling against the, let's call it stable base, as I suggested before, could also mean real backporting work, especially if the upstream moved to higher libraries versions in the middle of Debian's release cycle. That's why i think the backport's people are _very_important_ in the proposed scheme. Moreover, I could suggest the backporting work to be moved closer to upstream and further from Debian itself. Other distros do lot of backport work too, so working together somewhere in the upstream's playground could bless all together. PS. I know the text is long. I can work on bulleted version. Is there any interest? Peter Petter Reinholdtsen wrote / napísal(a): [Peter Tuharsky] Ask somebody, what distro would he install at desktop for novice or M$ refugee? Why many are choosing Ubuntu instead of Debian, and even worse, abandon Debian in favor of Ubuntu? Why do most people consider Debian to be user-unfriendly and server-oriented distro? Interesting analysis, with several good points on keeping the stable release working with newer hardware and keeping the software selection relevant. But my first impression after reading your long text is that you are ignoring the work going on at backports.org, and the ideas that has been floating around on making a Debian release based on the stable version for the base packages, and include upgraded packages like the kernel, X, Gnome, KDE and other hardware- and user-interacting packages from backports.org. You might want to have a look into those ideas. I've also seen ideas on making releases based on testing, now that we have security fixes for the packages in testing. It could give a snapshot of internally consistent packages (as opposed to unstable). Friendly, -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepou¾ívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ÈSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
The kernel, the X.org I realise, that the kernel and X.org are somewhat delicate things, because they affect both desktop and server. Changing them in the middle of release life, might not sound too well. However, at least by the means of the kernel, the server world also needs new hardware support. Putting Debian on the server could get hard in the second half of release cycle. Fortunately, upgrading the kernel dosen't break anything usually, as long as there is not some nasty bug in there. I suggest the kernel to follow the stable tree at kernel.org, with caution of course. If the kernel version upgrade was available eq 2 times inside stable release life, those willing to upgrade could use it, and those unvilling can stay with old version. The kernel upgrade could fit the volatile philosophy IMO. As of X, it's quite complex, however it's less the server and more the desktop thing, that could also get upgraded with some caution. Might also be the concern of volatile. Some server software occasionaly need an upgrade too. However the ordinary desktop packages, environments and so on could get upgraded routinely IMO, with easy downgrade option. No need to do the whole stabilisation scrutiny. If some developer wishes to test the package before putting it to the repositories, he can join the upstream's beta testing to help catch the bugs before the software is stabilised upstram. Peter Petter Reinholdtsen wrote / napísal(a): [Peter Tuharsky] Ask somebody, what distro would he install at desktop for novice or M$ refugee? Why many are choosing Ubuntu instead of Debian, and even worse, abandon Debian in favor of Ubuntu? Why do most people consider Debian to be user-unfriendly and server-oriented distro? Interesting analysis, with several good points on keeping the stable release working with newer hardware and keeping the software selection relevant. But my first impression after reading your long text is that you are ignoring the work going on at backports.org, and the ideas that has been floating around on making a Debian release based on the stable version for the base packages, and include upgraded packages like the kernel, X, Gnome, KDE and other hardware- and user-interacting packages from backports.org. You might want to have a look into those ideas. I've also seen ideas on making releases based on testing, now that we have security fixes for the packages in testing. It could give a snapshot of internally consistent packages (as opposed to unstable). Friendly, -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepou¾ívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ÈSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Hi, Raphael Testing is usable. I used it through the whole development cycle of etch. Bugs are unavoidable, you said it yourself. It's a matter of how many problems you can accept. Yes, bugs are unavoidable. However, testing is often in situation whole system broken or nearly useless. I see difference here; occassional bug in desktop app is acceptable. Whole system unreliable is not acceptable. In the Debian context, Gnome is a platform. It's not only software that runs on top of libc6. Gnome represent dozens of libraries that are used by hundreds of applications. That's true. You can't just get the latest version and hope that it won't break anything. That should be verified in light of broad experience (I don't have any). Does it happen often that GNOME version change breaks many things? The only my try was to put GNOME 2.0 to Debian Woody (ugly GNOME 1.2), and I was succesful. If You mean to use the software from testing -You must first make it run on stable without need for library upgrades. That is more similar to backports job, than to testing. You can't backport everything if you don't want to upgrade libraries. It's simply not doable without rewriting the application. I think majority of software _should_ build w/o problem with ordinary libraries of maximum 2 years age. In my experience, apps are generally happy if libraries are not older than that. Of course, shorter release cycle could remove remaining problems in this order. Next stable release of Debian will of course upgrade the whole platform, including the versions, thus software would be happy for next 18 months. Testing should simply be the place where _platform_ changes are shaken out, not the input buffer for the new software. Actually sid is where the platform changes are done. And once they're OK, they get moved to testing in a coherent manner. So testing should stay usable. This is just a wish, not a common experience. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
We're going OT, however my experience based on last two Debian releases: testing becomes quite stable in means of usability somewhere half year before it's released as stable. The sooner before the stable, the rapidly increasing is the chance that the snapshot that You have will not be installable at all, will have dependencies severely broken, etc. That's why I suggest: focus on base platform, stabilise it, polish the dependencies. Then compile software against it and release it, compile newer version and release it, etc.. Desktop software itself shouldn't break dependencies. Peter Frans Pop wrote / napísal(a): On Tuesday 15 May 2007 14:44, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: Yes, bugs are unavoidable. However, testing is often in situation whole system broken or nearly useless. I see difference here; occassional bug in desktop app is acceptable. Whole system unreliable is not acceptable. Can you substantiate that? In my experience it is not true. And even unstable is almost always usable if you know how to avoid temporary uninstability of packages and how to downgrade a package occasionally. Though I'd not advice running unstable to end users, I would happily suggest testing. Cheers, FJP -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Ask somebody, what distro would he install at desktop for novice or M$ refugee? Why many are choosing Ubuntu instead of Debian, and even worse, abandon Debian in favor of Ubuntu? Why do most people consider Debian to be user-unfriendly and server-oriented distro? Debian developers often see Ubuntu the enemy and are mocking it as inferior technology. However, they fail to see, what does the Debian really offer to desktop users eventually. They fail to understand, why are they using Ubuntu happily and reference it to novices. It seems, that desktop users don't see Debian fitting their needs. What are the means? The answers: 1, needs 2, release cycle philosophy 3, community 4, priorities As many see, all of them are different in server and in desktop world, and many times Debian chooses to dictate the users we know the best what You need instead of listening to them. Let's think a while about the current situation. First define, what I need from my _desktop_, being an ordinary power user: a, The system must work well with available hardware, automatically and naturally b, Stable without (too many) crashes c, Applications should work generally d, Applications should work together well e, The serious security problems should get fixed ASAP f, Usability problems, wishes and bugs should get fixed too. I should be able to report a problem, participate on it's solution and see fruits of that. g, I _need_ the new features of some applications -for example improved import/export filters and so on, and I need them now, because yesterday it has been already late h, I wish to profit from Linux desktop progress -improvements on usability, features, design, performance and so on. I wish to show the Linux to friends with pride. We must make clear that: 1, Any distro is only as good as the software it offers. 2, Any software does, and will have, bugs. * How does the Debian reallity look like *** a, Hardware support It depends mostly on version of kernel, X.org and some specialised libraries and programs (wpasupplicant, libgphoto, and so on). Generally, the newer is the said software, the better support. Some installation and autodetection tools are necesarry too -for example, if notebook is detected, then the desktop should automatically reflect that in order of power management, battery and sensor monitoring etc. In fact, the basic power management and sensor monitoring is getting traction on ordinary PC's and servers too, so there is no real need to separate the ntbk/pc/server platforms. Just the battery management is a special case. Debian is poor in both directions. The versions are old at start and ancient at the end of release cycle. The fast evolving hardware don't make much use of 2+ years old drivers (even if 3+ years old hardware is considered). b, Stability It simply depends on, well, luck on choosing the particulary good version of software. With stable upstream versions of software, there should not be major stability issues anyhow. Debian proclaims to offer excellent stability. However, if some application does have stability issues, users must wait at least 2 years for next stable version of Debian to see the fix. The stability is not automatically guaranteed by oldness of software and lack of upgrades in Debian. c, Software should work generaly. As the software is kept in repositories for loong time, it should have been tested thoroughly when it gets in to stable. Then it remains at the same version for years. However, the security upgrades repeatedly caused software to stop working well in Debian, so the software version's rigidity dosen't really help much. It simply dosen't prevent software from breaking. Current stable upstream versions of any software should not have major usability issues anyhow. However, if there are major usability issues in software in Debian, should they have been fixed upstream, user must wait for next stable anyhow to see the fix. d, Software should work together As the software is kept in repositories for loong time, it should have been tested thoroughly when it gets in to stable. However, if the newer version of software offers new features that increase the interoperability with other software, user must wait for next stable to see it working. e, Security issues They are, and will be, found in any piece of software. Debian does endless work with backporting the patches to the software that is old and often unsupported upstream already. Patch is sometimes impossible to apply to such an old piece of software. Rumors say (accordingly to common sense), that some security bugs are never fixed inside release cycle of Debian because of that, even if the fix is available in newer upstream version of software. Any security patch can affect the usability of software, either by backpatching an ancient stable version, or by installing the new fixed upstream version. I personally would
Debian desktop -situation, proposals for discussion and change. Users point of view.
Ask somebody, what distro would he install at desktop for novice or M$ refugee? Why many are choosing Ubuntu instead of Debian, and even worse, abandon Debian in favor of Ubuntu? Why do most people consider Debian to be user-unfriendly and server-oriented distro? Debian developers often see Ubuntu the enemy and are mocking it as inferior technology. However, they fail to see, what does the Debian really offer to desktop users eventually. They fail to understand, why are they using Ubuntu happily and reference it to novices. It seems, that desktop users don't see Debian fitting their needs. What are the means? The answers: 1, needs 2, release cycle philosophy 3, community 4, priorities As many see, all of them are different in server and in desktop world, and many times Debian chooses to dictate the users we know the best what You need instead of listening to them. Let's think a while about the current situation. First define, what I need from my _desktop_, being an ordinary power user: a, The system must work well with available hardware, automatically and naturally b, Stable without (too many) crashes c, Applications should work generally d, Applications should work together well e, The serious security problems should get fixed ASAP f, Usability problems, wishes and bugs should get fixed too. I should be able to report a problem, participate on it's solution and see fruits of that. g, I _need_ the new features of some applications -for example improved import/export filters and so on, and I need them now, because yesterday it has been already late h, I wish to profit from Linux desktop progress -improvements on usability, features, design, performance and so on. I wish to show the Linux to friends with pride. We must make clear that: 1, Any distro is only as good as the software it offers. 2, Any software does, and will have, bugs. * How does the Debian reallity look like *** a, Hardware support It depends mostly on version of kernel, X.org and some specialised libraries and programs (wpasupplicant, libgphoto, and so on). Generally, the newer is the said software, the better support. Some installation and autodetection tools are necesarry too -for example, if notebook is detected, then the desktop should automatically reflect that in order of power management, battery and sensor monitoring etc. In fact, the basic power management and sensor monitoring is getting traction on ordinary PC's and servers too, so there is no real need to separate the ntbk/pc/server platforms. Just the battery management is a special case. Debian is poor in both directions. The versions are old at start and ancient at the end of release cycle. The fast evolving hardware don't make much use of 2+ years old drivers (even if 3+ years old hardware is considered). b, Stability It simply depends on, well, luck on choosing the particulary good version of software. With stable upstream versions of software, there should not be major stability issues anyhow. Debian proclaims to offer excellent stability. However, if some application does have stability issues, users must wait at least 2 years for next stable version of Debian to see the fix. The stability is not automatically guaranteed by oldness of software and lack of upgrades in Debian. c, Software should work generaly. As the software is kept in repositories for loong time, it should have been tested thoroughly when it gets in to stable. Then it remains at the same version for years. However, the security upgrades repeatedly caused software to stop working well in Debian, so the software version's rigidity dosen't really help much. It simply dosen't prevent software from breaking. Current stable upstream versions of any software should not have major usability issues anyhow. However, if there are major usability issues in software in Debian, should they have been fixed upstream, user must wait for next stable anyhow to see the fix. d, Software should work together As the software is kept in repositories for loong time, it should have been tested thoroughly when it gets in to stable. However, if the newer version of software offers new features that increase the interoperability with other software, user must wait for next stable to see it working. e, Security issues They are, and will be, found in any piece of software. Debian does endless work with backporting the patches to the software that is old and often unsupported upstream already. Patch is sometimes impossible to apply to such an old piece of software. Rumors say (accordingly to common sense), that some security bugs are never fixed inside release cycle of Debian because of that, even if the fix is available in newer upstream version of software. Any security patch can affect the usability of software, either by backpatching an ancient stable version, or by installing the new fixed upstream version. I personally would
Re: RC class bug, dataloss grade, No 398373
FWIW, fixing this bug requires changes in the kernel. I'm not sure. I compiled 2.6.18.3 myself and problem persists. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Possibly RC bug 399980
Hallo, there is another bug that I feel might be classified as RC. See 399980. Seems that it is impossible to switch keyboard properly on X level (without GNOME applet). The bug is quite new, encountered some month ago. Thus it is impossible to properly use any other window manager. Debian stable has never met such problem for last 5 years at least. Best regards Peter Tuharsky -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Possibly RC bug 399980
Okay. I just have considered important to _mention_ the bugs that COULD POSSIBLY be important to fix before stable release. Nothing more. I don't intend to discuss severities here. I didn't, and don't want to argue on this list (even if I consider keyboard switching to be such a basic thing that _should_ work without glitches in the 21st century, moreover if it worked in past already). Consider the thread closed. Peter Guus Sliepen wrote / napísal(a): On Wed, Nov 29, 2006 at 09:01:01AM +0100, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: there is another bug that I feel might be classified as RC. See 399980. This bug is in no way release-critical. Seems that it is impossible to switch keyboard properly on X level (without GNOME applet). The bug is quite new, encountered some month ago. Thus it is impossible to properly use any other window manager. There are a number of tools that can switch keyboard layouts, as mentioned by Lionel Elie Mamane. Debian stable has never met such problem for last 5 years at least. That does not make it release-critical. Also, if you feel the severity of a bug is incorrect, you should mention that in a follow-up to the bugreport, or indicate the severity in your initial bugreport. This list is not meant to discuss bug severities. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RC class bug, dataloss grade, No 398373
Hallo, I don't intend to do any advocacy. I just wish to politely point Your attention to the bug 398373 that IMO is critical to be resolved before Etch reach stable statute (that is every day closer and many people are happy because that, including myself :-) Best regards Peter Tuharsky -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
More accurate package classification
Hi all Sometimes I spend hours just reading Debian's package repository, and everytime I found interesting packages. The Debian is extremely large and juicy, but in contrary, it is really difficult sometimes to just find the right tool when needed. More and more, I miss some more accurate system for package classification. For example, just the cathegories X11 and GNOME both contain bunch of excellent software of many kinds. The same goes for other cathegories too -sound, video,... New sub-cathegories should be created, such as: video_editing, video_players, sound_editing, sound_players, sound_conversion, sound_tools, mp3_tools, cd_creation, digital_camera, image_viewers, image_editors (possibly with bitmap and vector subcathegories), laptop, electronics, chemistry, astronomy, math, physics, junior, school.. Independently, packages should also bear some flag, whether they are commandline-based, or X11, or GNOME, or KDE. So that I could for example find package for video editing, for GNOME. Even other package flags could be independent, so that search would not be just tree-oriended, but multi-dimensional instead. For example, if I need sound editing program for kids that runs under GNOME. Sometimes I'd like to give Debian a try for a new user, and such a system would help greatly to find the proper applications for him. Sometimes I need a commandline tool for server. Again, would help much. I think, it shouldn't be too hard to implement that. Just create the structure in apt and let the package maintainers to set the few new flags for the packages. I'm sure something like that has already been discussed. I'm just adding, that such kind of structure is NECESSARRY for such a great software collection as Debian is. Sincerely Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Why not only support Sid and Testing?
Josselin Mouette wrote / napísal(a): Le mardi 12 septembre 2006 à 07:23 -0600, Joseph Smidt a écrit : At the risk of repeating myself, Desktop Users: For most non-server minded people who still want a stable OS, Debian takes too long to release. On top of that,many of them want a As easy aw Windows distro. I don't know that Debian will provide that as well as Ubuntu, unless we want to alter many aspects of the project, like how often we release. Oh well. I wonder how Microsoft could manage to provide as easy as Windows OSes given the length of their release cycle. Easily. They have around 95% market share and strong established monopoly. -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepoužívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ČSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
Personally I think the DS team have enough work making sure security updates are a smooth process for packages *in the OS*: being expected to test random-external-package-x on top of that is asking too much. Well, might be. I dont really know if the Sarge's OOo 2.0 beta crashes too, however, since I don't think many people are actually using it. The question however is, why should it take over 2 months to fix such a cruel bug after it has been discovered. Peter -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepoužívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ČSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
Bruce, Uhm, Debian's target audience is not Joe User, never has been AFAICT. Joe isn't usually capable of determining which MTA, web server, proxy server, etc., specific implementation is best for them, assuming they are even aware of the architecture underlying the UI they see... Debian assumes all of that of its users. Then You must let them go to Ubuntu, because many simply don't want to know that either, just use the computer for their daily tasks. In that case, we can close that Debian is at least as good as Ubuntu dispute immediately, being false. Instead, we can say Debian is at least as good as Ubuntu FOR TECHNICAL USERS safely. Why old software is commonplace. Slow and lazy with the packaging... or does it just take time to get all the pieces functioning well enough to be an easily derivable basis, and one which changes every six months would be a poor choice for that use. I'd say neither of that. Just unable to recognize a few pieces of software that needs to be upgraded more frequently, and (so far) unable to make that happen. Ideas are coming however, maybe one day we'll see it happening. The way I see it: distros tailored to specific types of users which are based on Debian are not making up for Debian's failings, they are the most natural and may even be the actual intended use of what Debian provides. Yes, I see it natural too. Debian is doing the great task of gathering free software and making it work together as-much-as-possible. Making the universal and useful distribution for everyone might be beyond it's ability, and there the place for Ubuntu and friends emerges.. Some Debianists don't like it, however let's celebrate that at least Ubuntu is making the user-friendly distro that people like. Peter HTH - Bruce -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
Rudy: There is so much to say about that, that I hardly can remember the very concrete cases, so please don't attack me on that basis. I wasn't attacking you, If you had that impression I'm sorry. No, I really hadn't. I mentioned that just preventively, not targeted at You -because I feel it is quite common in wider audience to attack on this basis. 1, Ubuntu places the care about the average-Joe-user at first place at worst. Debian dosen't. Yes, but Debian has a broader user-base, maybe that's an issue to resolve. Sounds dangerously :-) I think the issues you point out is the feeback what we need, and discuss about them. I encourage you to also post to the mailing list. I'm trying to figure out how we can listen more our users needs, and then make decissions based on real information and not only what we feel. I want to reach those average-joe users and get their feedback. Yeah, that's not easy. Howabout some form -user could be navigated to some basic webpage where he could answer some simple questions? Not too many questions (optimally 5-8?), preferably pre-answered (by some selection box), of course with possibility to add non-default answer for us to be able to extend the possible answers cathegories.. If user wished to add more feedback, he could have an option, at the end of the basic form, of some more feedback, if U wish extended form. Sample questions: What have been the most difficult part of installation for You (disk partitioning, language selection,...), What have caused it (unsufficient help, nonintuitive, too technical questions). User should be asked, if he will participate on some short survey-after-week-of-using-Debian. If he agreed, he will be asked automatically after week, by opening some simple and polite application or applet on his desktop, about his impression of Debian. Again, what pleases him now (amount of software, ease of setup, everything just works, desktop design, etc...) and what he dislikes (cannot connect my cellular phone, Infra not working, Xsane demands root privilegues but complains if he is given them, etc) These questions could be structured in the way, that user could pair them. For example, he has a question. In left selection rollup-button he could select WHAT and in second he could select WHY. Example: What is the worst problem for You with Debian? left button options Internet applications Instant messaging Multimedia ... right button options Insufficient helper Lack of applications Lack of functionality ... And so on. Is something like that being worked on? As I look at this concept, I feel one half of problems should be identified even in the very process of creating questions and possible answers for the initial and after-week survey :-) Well, I'm starting to like the idea so I try to open a new thread ;o) Rudy, from Your next answers it seems that we understand each other. God bless You, have a nice day Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
User feedback -post installation and after-week survey?
This has emerged from Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas thread. Rudy: I think the issues you point out is the feeback what we need, and discuss about them. I encourage you to also post to the mailing list. I'm trying to figure out how we can listen more our users needs, and then make decissions based on real information and not only what we feel. I want to reach those average-joe users and get their feedback. Yeah, that's not easy. Howabout some form -user could be navigated to some basic webpage where he could answer some simple questions? Not too many questions (optimally 5-8?), preferably pre-answered (by some selection box), of course with possibility to add non-default answer for us to be able to extend the possible answers cathegories.. If user wished to add more feedback, he could have an option, at the end of the basic form, of some more feedback, if U wish extended form. Sample questions: What have been the most difficult part of installation for You (disk partitioning, language selection,...), What have caused it (unsufficient help, nonintuitive, too technical questions). User should be asked, whether will he participate on some short survey-after-week-of-using-Debian. If he agreed (let's joke: agreed or not ;oD he will be asked automatically after week, by opening some simple and polite application or applet on his desktop, about his impression of Debian. If proceed, again could open some web form or so. Again, what pleases him now (amount of software, ease of setup, everything just works, desktop design, etc...) and what he dislikes (cannot connect my cellular phone, Infra not working, Xsane demands root privilegues but complains if he is given them, etc) These questions could be structured in the way, that user could pair them. For example, he has a question. In left selection rollup-button he could select WHAT and in second he could select WHY. Example: What is the worst problem for You with Debian? left button options Printer setup Localisation Removable devices support Instant messaging Multimedia ... right button options Insufficient helper Lack of applications Lack of functionality ... And so on. Is something like that being worked on? As I look at this concept, I feel one half of problems should be identified even in the very process of creating questions and possible answers for the initial and after-week survey :-) Well, I'm starting to like the idea so I try to open a new thread ;o) Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
Wouter: 1, Ubuntu places the care about the average-Joe-user at first place at worst. Debian dosen't. That's true, but this is improving. Hope I could see it soon. Really. I don't tell the ideology is not valid; I just tell that often this is in the state Users, wait until we solve this ideologically, it may take some years. Well, user dosen't have the years and need things working, so he either does it himself (if he is sortof admin) by downloading, compiling etc, or says Things don't work in Debian and it's too difficult to solve it. I'll better stick with XYZ. Can you give a concrete and extensive example of this? It's hard to discuss such things with hypothetical scenarios. Well, this is exactly the case why I have asked at the very beginning everyone not to try to play the catch-me this way. I have given handful of examples, and if You really care, You'll find even more. Hint: video, graphics, acceleration.. Mplayer can be installed easily by adding the right line to your sources.list. It's all over the internet. Same goes for codecs. Yes, I'll try to replicate that sentence to my aunt or cousin. It will be of great help for sure. Besides, if it is that easy, why Debian just dosen't do it itself? Besides, mplayer is starting to get increasingly obsolete. There are less and less things that cannot be played by either gstreamer or xine. Which both have a *much* saner design, too. This is out of scope, however I also have much stuff that I cannot play on neither of these, but can on Mplayer. And I don't mean Windows Media by that. True type fonts and flash have nice installer packages that will download and install the stuff for you. What's the problem? Did You try it in real? It dosen't work here. Seems that the server it tryes to access dosen't exist. Or it depends on some network configuration, that installer also haven't taken care of. In case you missed it, there is now a java package in non-free for unstable. Once etch releases, it will be in stable. Obviously we cannot go ahead and change stable after the fact; but installing Java on a Debian stable system is no harder than it is on a RedHat or Ubuntu or Fedora or whatnot system. In fact, because of java-package, it's actually easier to manage and uninstall if that ever becomes necessary. I _really_ don't understand what your problem is here. We're speaking about distributions that are intended for daily use, not for experiments. To make it clear, Debian 3.1 Sarge and Ubuntu 6.06. If the Etch has it, that's great. However that dosen't matter answering the Debian is at least as good as Ubuntu, just needs more advertising. Would You advertise Etch? It is clearly advertised for Etch, that it is in TESTING state. Would You recommend it everyone for daily usage? I hope You'ld not. Do you actually have a real and founded gripe, or are you just trolling? Anyone that is in contact with average-joe-users, that are not skilled enough for using root console, will make the image himself. 1b, If things don't work, it's sometimes hard to get them working either. Example: Bug 372719. The OOo 2.0 keeps crashing for 2 months thank to KNOWN bug in security upgrade. Now tell somebody, that Debian is as good _for_average_Joe_user_ as Ubuntu. Or that Debian cares about average_Joe_user at least as much as Ubuntu does. I can't comment on this; I'm writing this on the train, so have no Internet access currently. However, I will add that I haven't seen this bug on the stable systems that I run; even though that of course doesn't have to mean anything, it is at least an indication that the bug is not everywhere, and that it may be a problem to track it down. Not every stable system runs security updates, and even less desktop systems do. That might be a reason why everyone complains is not the case. And might even becouse there are just too few desktop installations of Debian, even less those that run security upgrades, and even less the enterprise installations, that could possibly complain. Average-Joe-user would never complain loudly. And the enterprices, that WOULD complain, often don't run security upgrades either, exactly in fear of such bugs that sneak inside the security upgrades. So there's not much voice to hear. There is an infrastructure to support a fully i18n'ed environment upon installation. It uses language-based tasks, and the installer will install the task of the language you've used in the installer upon completion of the installation. If you chose to install the desktop task, it will also install the desktop-$language task (or was it $language-desktop? not sure, doesn't really matter). Do You speak of Debian Sarge? If true, than either the language-based tasks are incomplete, or don't work. k3b actually has a suggests header for k3b-i18n. This means that if you install k3b using a frontend such as apt-get or aptitude, it will tell you up-front that there is a k3b-i18n
Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas? Debian official update sub-release
To make the picture more complete, not only desktop needs current software. The Debian on server lacks sometimes too. Few examples: PHP5, bunch of Clamav-related packages for proxy and mail interaction, Squid3. They're in Etch, however if released as official update of Debian, should do. If update release of Debian has taken place only in half of the regular update cycle (after 9 months), it would be of great help sometimes. Of course, some more recent kernel should take place there too. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
At the beginning of my comments, there has been a statement from Rudy: We have no easy-way-to-get-it to tell people why they would want to use Debian. Ubuntu, on the other hand, has achieved to do so, and what they tell that we can't? nothing. and as his message continues (25.08.2006 00:51) I have objected, that if viewed from angle of average-Joe-user, Debian lacks many things to compare with Ubuntu. That's why I'm speaking entirely about the official Debian release, the Debian 3.1 Sarge. Besides, ordinary user, or enterprise, would not choose some testing distribution, and Etch is for the moment not intended for daily work; it is still in beta state and therefore intended only for testers that don't mind losing their data or so. Whoever wants to use computer, not do hacking and testing, will reach for stable system. Comparing latest *stable* release of Debian with latest *stable* release of Ubuntu is therefore appropriate, like it or not. It's not fault of Ubuntu if the results are not too attractive for Sarge (note: Sarge! I don't compare Woody.) If Etch was claimed stable at the time, I would compare him, however he has some half year to go from now. Peter Martijn van Oosterhout wrote / napísal(a): On 8/28/06, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We're speaking about distributions that are intended for daily use, not for experiments. To make it clear, Debian 3.1 Sarge and Ubuntu 6.06. If the Etch has it, that's great. However that dosen't matter answering the Debian is at least as good as Ubuntu, just needs more advertising. Would You advertise Etch? It is clearly advertised for Etch, that it is in TESTING state. Would You recommend it everyone for daily usage? I hope You'ld not. Hmm, to me this sounds like this is just another way of saying that Debian doesn't release fast enough. The fact is, sarge has been released, whatever your complaining about is never going to be fixed in sarge, so yes, you need to be comparing with Etch. If you can say that there are problems with Etch, then we can address those. complaining about Sarge is not terribly useful. And yes, lots of people are running etch for daily usage. I don't recommend anything to anyone, I just use what works... A little paraphrase: stable means, that feature bugs are kept for the whole release circle; don't expect them to get fixed. Well, ofcourse. Otherwise it wouldn't be stable... Certain types of bugs are fixed, but by and large, you're stuck with the bugs it was released with... Have a nice day, -- Odchádzajúca správa neobsahuje vírusy, nepoužívam Windows. === Mgr. Peter Tuhársky Referát informatiky Mesto Banská Bystrica ČSA 26 975 39 Banská Bystrica Tel: +421 48 4330 118 Fax: +421 48 411 3575 === -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
Wouter, it seems You don't understand my point of view. I don't question development results in Debian. I, too, couldn't, because so far I haven't met any Etch installation. I read Weekly news and watch the progress. I see there's quite a development inside of Debian. As of release cycle being shortened to 18 months, I wouldn't that call just an improvement -that decision has probably been one of those that has saved Debian from falling behind the scene. So let's clarify the points of view. There has been an idea opened, that could be interpreted in the way, that Debian can fully compare with Ubuntu. I objected, that current official (stable) release of Debian, yes, Sarge, lacks ease of use (because of bunch of reasons) for average-Joe-user if compared with official (stable) Ubuntu. Some people have no problem accepting this. There are many details in UI and basic administration that can be improved in future (Etch?) to make Debian more attractive for ordinary computer users. I'm happy that You point me to cases that are solved with Etch. If some others get fixed, Etch will probably be much better for ordinary users than Sarge is now. Let's hope it will bear the comparison with stable version of Ubuntu 18 months later. That said, mid-way partial-update release could make it a bit bearable I think. Peter Verhelst wrote / napísal(a): On Mon, Aug 28, 2006 at 11:33:00AM +0200, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: Wouter: I don't tell the ideology is not valid; I just tell that often this is in the state Users, wait until we solve this ideologically, it may take some years. Well, user dosen't have the years and need things working, so he either does it himself (if he is sortof admin) by downloading, compiling etc, or says Things don't work in Debian and it's too difficult to solve it. I'll better stick with XYZ. Can you give a concrete and extensive example of this? It's hard to discuss such things with hypothetical scenarios. Well, this is exactly the case why I have asked at the very beginning everyone not to try to play the catch-me this way. It is not useful to discuss hypothetical scenarios, sorry. I refuse to do that. I have given handful of examples, and if You really care, You'll find even more. Hint: video, graphics, acceleration.. Yes, but most of them were not valid. Mplayer can be installed easily by adding the right line to your sources.list. It's all over the internet. Same goes for codecs. Yes, I'll try to replicate that sentence to my aunt or cousin. It will be of great help for sure. Besides, if it is that easy, why Debian just dosen't do it itself? Because the mplayer people refuse to think about licenses, which means that it is illegal software in many countries. We cannot take that risk. Besides, mplayer is starting to get increasingly obsolete. There are less and less things that cannot be played by either gstreamer or xine. Which both have a *much* saner design, too. This is out of scope, however I also have much stuff that I cannot play on neither of these, but can on Mplayer. And I don't mean Windows Media by that. I didn't say it is obsolete yet, but that it is getting there. True type fonts and flash have nice installer packages that will download and install the stuff for you. What's the problem? Did You try it in real? [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ LC_ALL=C dpkg -l msttcorefonts Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed |/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name VersionDescription +++-==-==- ii msttcorefonts 1.2Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts [...] In case you missed it, there is now a java package in non-free for unstable. Once etch releases, it will be in stable. Obviously we cannot go ahead and change stable after the fact; but installing Java on a Debian stable system is no harder than it is on a RedHat or Ubuntu or Fedora or whatnot system. In fact, because of java-package, it's actually easier to manage and uninstall if that ever becomes necessary. I _really_ don't understand what your problem is here. We're speaking about distributions that are intended for daily use, not for experiments. To make it clear, Debian 3.1 Sarge and Ubuntu 6.06. If the Etch has it, that's great. java-package has existed since way before sarge, and is part of that distribution. The regular java package is not, but we obviously cannot just go ahead and destabilize stable just for the sake of a java package. When I said it is in unstable, that was because we are working on getting better integration with java in the *next* stable release. It was not a suggestion that you should start using unstable. However that dosen't matter answering the Debian is at least as good as Ubuntu, just needs more advertising. Would You
Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
I cannot 100% agree with You, althought Your point is for sure partially valid. I really don't believe that Debian can equal itself with Ubuntu in terms of user friendliness. There is so much to say about that, that I hardly can remember the very concrete cases, so please don't attack me on that basis. I use Debian for 4 years now and my impression about it is valid, because is based on facing and (if lucky) fixing problems. Many of them I have happily forgotten right after fixing, but the allround impression about Debian's user friendliness remains. 1, Ubuntu places the care about the average-Joe-user at first place at worst. Debian dosen't. 1a, Often it seems that ideological problems put anything else aside. I don't tell the ideology is not valid; I just tell that often this is in the state Users, wait until we solve this ideologically, it may take some years. Well, user dosen't have the years and need things working, so he either does it himself (if he is sortof admin) by downloading, compiling etc, or says Things don't work in Debian and it's too difficult to solve it. I'll better stick with XYZ. Others care about ideology too, but by the time MAKE THE THINGS WORK SOMEHOW as painless as possible for the end user, until the ideologists say their last word. Simple examples: Mplayer, codecs, M$ True Type fonts, Java, flash. 1b, If things don't work, it's sometimes hard to get them working either. Example: Bug 372719. The OOo 2.0 keeps crashing for 2 months thank to KNOWN bug in security upgrade. Now tell somebody, that Debian is as good _for_average_Joe_user_ as Ubuntu. Or that Debian cares about average_Joe_user at least as much as Ubuntu does. Of course that there always will be bugs. It's normal in evoluting project; We are mankind and always do mistakes. However, facing them and solving (or not solving) makes a picture about our priorities and goals. In case of Debian, average-Joe-user for sure is not a priority; jokes aside. 1c, Other cases are when something CAN be done in Debian, and even documentation exists, but it is quite complicated and time consuming, and truly should be much easier. Mostly the installer's playground to make life easier and set up things. For example, to automatically install national fonts and translation packages if the user already entered his location and national data. I use K3B and has been ready to contribute the Slovak translation. Only on K3B's site I realised that translation exists. Then I have found the k3b-l18n package, and whoila, K3B is localised. And so on. 2, The current software gets into main distribution too slowly, too too slowly. Yes, of course, stability, security.. Think about, say, Mozilla Firefox. We keep in repository some 1.0.3 version? (I don't really know, I prefer using current stable release, this time 1.5.0.6) I doubt that mozilla.org supports either way that ancient version. Is it even possible to keep track with _all_ security and stability updates and backport them to that version? I really doubt. I can imagine, that the Debian's 1.0.3 version is no way more secure nor stable than standard 1.5.0.6. We should, for certain kinds of software, shorten the release cycle to, say, 6 months. Debian can afford the luxury of keeping the basic system infrastructure for 18 months, however the desktop software grows very fast, user's often depend on its functionality (OpenOffice.org import capabilities to mention some), and it's nearly impossible to maintain that old software in meaningful way. And who will ever use that ancient versions at the end.. Especially painful in the end time of release's lifecycle. 3, Desktop functionality Just try to compare, what do we offer with standard Debian desktop and how much of that really works at the end, and how much does Ubuntu offer. Try to do some real-world testing; ask the average-Joe-user. Just put him in front of standard Debian 3.1 Sarge desktop after installation, and Ubuntu 6.06 desktop right after installation, without any admin's actions. Let him perform his routine tasks: setting up the mailbox, Internet, printer, browse, play a flash game, write a document and print it, play a video or music. Try it Yourself and try to avoid any non-straightforward actions. Avoid cheating by using administrator's skills. Try to use only what the desktop offers, don't even open the console. You will be surprised. Conclusion: Debian lacks in the means of propagation, yes. Debian much more lacks the focus on average desktop user. Maybe, Etch will bring some fresh air in here. However, we cannot compare the testing versions: First, many things can change until it becomes stable. Remember the Vista and advertised features in the past :o) Second, Etch is hardly installable for average-Joe-user and I doubt it is useful enough in its current state. To be more polite, let's say, that Joe should have been very lucky if he was able
Re: Debian ISOs
If that's intended, then it needs to be done in such a way that even low-to-moderately-skilled user can set it up with ease. I know it's silly to even mention that, but unfortunatelly, user friendliness and good documentation (good for users, not only for developers!) are still, ehm, not a matter of course. I'm not being a geek, however, aren't there some better protocols than bittorent? Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian ISOs
First of all, please use a MUA that doesn't break threads. I'm using Thunderbird and don't intend to switch. Bittorrent is by far the most efficient protocol when it comes to large file distribution. OK Josselin Mouette wrote / napísal(a): First of all, please use a MUA that doesn't break threads. Le mercredi 23 août 2006 à 08:10 +0200, Mgr. Peter Tuharsky a écrit : If that's intended, then it needs to be done in such a way that even low-to-moderately-skilled user can set it up with ease. I know it's silly to even mention that, but unfortunatelly, user friendliness and good documentation (good for users, not only for developers!) are still, ehm, not a matter of course. With proper software installed on the system (whatever the system is), downloading with bittorrent is just a matter of clicking on the link. I'm not being a geek, however, aren't there some better protocols than bittorent? Bittorrent is by far the most efficient protocol when it comes to large file distribution. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Problems with security updates
I just encountered another crash upon saving .sxw Lucky that I don't use OpenOffice.org daily... Peter Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote / napísal(a): Ralph, it's interesting, but now it works for me too, versions are the same. Just few days ago it crashed happily. Well, seems it would be harder to abandon Debian than it seemed :o) In fact, very hard for me.. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Problems with security updates -apologize
Charles, I agree that my message has been very emotional. I'm sorry for that and I apologize to all I have hurt. I really lost my nerves. You can imagine that from the fact, that I'm active member of some 15+ GNU bug/mailing lists and really don't need more. For 4 years with Debian, nothing has ever provoked me so much (and there has been much that easily could, especially in era of Woody :-) You're right by all means. I must only point out that the problem has been reported and traced in all the right places -both debian bugtacker and ooo issuezilla. It's been the lack of any further action, and strong powerless feeling, that provoked me to such a miserable action as the message I sent. I couldn't use the OOo2.0 for nearly 2 months, and however I am able to search bug tracker and to apply workarounds, I can imagine people that lack the technical skills to do that. The blame I bringed up here, You can consider partially theirs voice, that is hard to hear otherwise. I think it's better to take blame here in developement mailing list, than take it from the ordinary users, because they're usually silent, and if they spoke ever, it'd be already late. I know that Debian is a large project and the fact that it works the way it does, is kind of miracle. However, the bad problem on bad place can override this all.. Peter Charles Plessy wrote / napsal(a): Now, I have awaken because of bug 372719. Wine crashes, OpenOffice.org 2.0 crashes upon saving a document. The bug was introduced in "security update" of libfreetype. Identification of problem was quick in OpenOffice.org community, and also in Debian. Just apply the next security update that will fix the bug. Not that easy. It's 2 months now and bug still there. Dear Mgr Tuharsky, The Debian bug tracking system contains pseudo-packages to report such problems to the relevant persons. For your case, the pseudo-package is "security.debian.org". http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=security.debian.org By sending your message directly to a wider audience, you give the impression that its purpose is to ashame the responsible persons, not to inform them, especially as you added remarks about abandonning Debian because of you are not satisfied of the quality of their work. In the meantime before the breakage is resolved, please note the workaround published in the bug you cited. Best regards,
Problems with security updates
Ralph, it's interesting, but now it works for me too, versions are the same. Just few days ago it crashed happily. Well, seems it would be harder to abandon Debian than it seemed :o) In fact, very hard for me.. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Surpassing Microsoft quality
Hi I've been using Debian for 4 years because I felt confident about it's quality. I've swallowed the ancient software in the name of stability. I've been proud of security updates. I learned how to make the desktop useful for human beings. Now, I have awaken because of bug 372719. Wine crashes, OpenOffice.org 2.0 crashes upon saving a document. The bug was introduced in security update of libfreetype. Identification of problem was quick in OpenOffice.org community, and also in Debian. Just apply the next security update that will fix the bug. Not that easy. It's 2 months now and bug still there. Why should anyone care about Wine and OpenOffice.org users... If it is so easy for comunity to simply ignore or doom Wine and OpenOffice.org users and nobody gets hurt, then who could rely on such community? How to keep confidence in Debian? Such behaviour is truly surpassing even the Microsoft. Not that the bug was my first problem with security updates. Not even that it was my first problem with Debian in my 4-year server and desktop experience. However, I feel like Debian quality is quickly vanishing last year. The ignorance of the damage caused by security update is the last, bitter drop in bucket. After 4 years of Debian, maybe it's time to give Ubuntu a try. Peter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Surpassing Microsoft quality
If the bug, that You call *feature*, has been introduced by *security updates*, how do they get fixed then? Does it get fixed ever? Ron Johnson wrote / napísal(a): -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Mgr. Peter Tuharsky wrote: Hi I've been using Debian for 4 years because I felt confident about it's quality. I've swallowed the ancient software in the name of stability. I've been proud of security updates. I learned how to make the desktop useful for human beings. Now, I have awaken because of bug 372719. Wine crashes, OpenOffice.org 2.0 crashes upon saving a document. The bug was introduced in "security update" of libfreetype. Identification of problem was quick in OpenOffice.org community, and also in Debian. Just apply the next security update that will fix the bug. IIRC, "security updates" do just (and *only*) that: fix *security* bugs, not *feature* bugs. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFE447HS9HxQb37XmcRArZdAKCMI6WXvTp6I97fvbf07QhkAZRhlACgg89G o2p228cqYcBxKlaiHN7+XHo= =Zj7B -END PGP SIGNATURE-
