Re: LTS and release methodology
On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 09:47:56AM +0200, Krzysztof Lichota wrote: 2008/7/8 Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [package multiple versions of everything] This sounds simple enough, but the implementation gets complex very quickly, as does future maintenance and support. It is a lot of effort, but if we want to compete with Windows, which makes it possible (and easy), it should be done. As far as I'm aware, Windows provides no tools or infrastructure to make this easier. It is completely up to the ISV how their software is installed, and many of them detect an existing installation and upgrade it rather than install in parallel. Every application does it differently. And as it _is_ significant effort, I think it should be done only for key applications of desktop environment: for example office suites, browsers, audio/video players. BTW. It is already done for example for PostgreSQL - Dapper has packages for PostgreSQL 7.4, 8.0 and 8.1. They can coexist and run along each other. User chooses which package to install and then which versions to run. I know Postgres is not desktop package, but it shows it is possible to do. No one would argue that it is impossible, but with the current tools, it is done at a linear increase in developer effort. Ubuntu developers can much more effectively spend their limited time making one version very good than making two versions mediocre. The problem is that Dapper ships PostgreSQL 7.4, 8.0 and 8.1 while Hardy, next LTS release ships 8.2 and 8.3. So there is no way for smooth transition from Dapper to Hardy by upgrading database for example to 8.1, switching to Hardy and upgrading further. This is the functionality overlap I was talking about. It is generally possible to keep obsolete packages installed after an upgrade, so there's no forced upgrade here. However, the packages from 6.06 won't receive maintenance updates on 8.04. Providing 10 years of support for an old version of PostgreSQL to support this use case would not be a wise choice. Which version of Ubuntu are you running? suddenly isn't as useful to the person on the other end of the phone trying to help you, I don't think it is a big deal. You can ask what version of application person is running. Helpdesks all around the world do it all the time. They do, and it works reasonably well because the user generally only has one version of the application. and the question do I have the necessary security updates installed? no longer has a simple answer. Why not? If someone has necessary repositories installed, the answer is very simple. Provided that security fixes go to the same repository as application which is installed. You miss my point. Implicit in your proposal is a need for twice as many security updates. Where do you think these updates would come from? They do not fall from the sky. Which version of OpenOffice should launch when you click on a document in Firefox? The default. The default version should be the default? Simple enough. :-) If only one OpenOffice version is installed, there is no problem. If two, I think it would default to older (or installed last). Which one? The older, or the installed last? Which one does the user consider their preferred version? Which one works best for their purposes? The answer doesn't matter. The point is that this is another choice which needs to be made on the user's behalf, and with each new choice, there is less chance of getting it right. There is already system for handling that - /etc/alternatives/. According to my Dapper installation it already contains 240 commands with alternatives. I am familiar with it. You'll find that about half of those are man pages, not commands. But do you know how users can discover, in the desktop, what those settings are and change them? You can't. Adding a new, opaque, non-discoverable, counter-intuitive dimension to every important desktop application doesn't sound like the right approach to me. The backports repositories attempt to provide this kind of experience, and also demonstrates some of the shortcomings of this approach. What shortcomings are you talking about? The ones I am aware of: 1. Backports do not provide packages which can be run alongside others. It is just newer versions of apps, which replace older ones. This is sometimes OK, but for example for OpenOffice or Firefox, it would be better to have two versions alongside. It provides the user with a choice of old, stable and officially supported or new. The tools do not provide a great deal of flexibility for this case, but the choice is there. 2. Backports are one big bag with newer applications. If someone wants to install only one app, he gets upgrades for others. IMO this is very serious design flaw. The solution would be to create separate repositories for apps (like PPAs) - repository for Firefox 2, for Firefox 3, OpenOffice 2.3, OpenOffice
Re: Feature Request: Better partitioning wizard
On Tue, 2008-07-08 at 14:28 +0300, Steve Goodman wrote: So here's my request: The partitioning wizard that I was presented with during installation gave me two options: automatic and manual. I knew nothing about partitioning or about different Linux file systems when I installed, so I just did automatic. Since then I have read that a good practice is to have a partition for the OS + apps and a separate partition for user data (HOME). So I request that you make the partitioning wizard guide me through that. It doesn't make sense that you only give the options of automatic or full manual without any kind of explanation or guidance unless you make automatic conform to best practices. I think something better would be to add an option that is not full automatic, but provides me with guidance, unlike the manual. Now I'm trying to figure out how to repartition my drive to align with this practice, and I hope I won't have to reinstall everything. (Any guidance on this subject would make me very appreciative.) +1, I agree. When I do it manually I usually do one /boot, one / (root), one /home and a swap that is 2 x installed memory. That would be one more step in the direction of making Ubuntu a good replacement for Windows. Ubuntu is already a far better alternative than any Windows version :) -- Thomas Novin [EMAIL PROTECTED] GPG key: http://xyz.pp.se/~thnov/gpg.asc -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: acpi-support: Lock screen with dbus during resume
I haven't actually tested this, but are you sure it works? You need the environment variable providing the DBus socket address, and that's only available from the user's running session. Also, I'm no longer involved in acpi-support development - patches should probably be sent to either Ubuntu or Debian's bug tracking system. Thanks, -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Feature Request: Better partitioning wizard
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 9:04 AM, Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Creating a separate /home requires a fairly significant piece of knowledge up-front: namely, how do you split the available disk space? It is my belief that inexperienced users will typically not have the information to make an informed decision here, and this problem is compounded by the fact that changing your mind post-installation is extremely difficult - resizing and moving partitions is a pain. Thus we felt it best *not* to offer this option in the installer, in order to avoid encouraging users to dig themselves into a hole from which it will be difficult to recover later. The possibility for error with resizing partitions is why I think LVM would be a good thing; however, from what I hear, LVM is pretty buggy on Ubuntu. Aside from that, I don't think there's any GUI way to configure LVM yet, and that'd sort of be a necessity before we could say look, it's separate, but you can resize it without needing a if you're a command line guru disclaimer. -- Mackenzie Morgan Linux User #432169 ACM Member #3445683 http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com -my blog of Ubuntu stuff apt-get moo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: LTS and release methodology
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 3:47 AM, Krzysztof Lichota [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is a lot of effort, but if we want to compete with Windows, which makes it possible (and easy), it should be done. Er, not really. You can't have FF2 and FF3 or IE6 and IE7 both installed on Windows, or if it is somehow possible, it's certainly not easy. -- Mackenzie Morgan Linux User #432169 ACM Member #3445683 http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com -my blog of Ubuntu stuff apt-get moo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: LTS and release methodology
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 4:43 AM, Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 09:47:56AM +0200, Krzysztof Lichota wrote: There is already system for handling that - /etc/alternatives/. According to my Dapper installation it already contains 240 commands with alternatives. I am familiar with it. You'll find that about half of those are man pages, not commands. But do you know how users can discover, in the desktop, what those settings are and change them? You can't. Galternatives could be included instead of having to use the voodoo sudo update-alternatives --config java (I think...haven't done that one in a while). -- Mackenzie Morgan Linux User #432169 ACM Member #3445683 http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com -my blog of Ubuntu stuff apt-get moo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: acpi-support: Lock screen with dbus during resume
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 8:19 AM, Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I haven't actually tested this, but are you sure it works? You need the environment variable providing the DBus socket address, and that's only available from the user's running session. Bit of background? I don't know what the issue being discussed is exactly (Bug #?), but my screen is locked when I resume from hibernate/suspend on both laptops on which I've tried it, if that helps. -- Mackenzie Morgan Linux User #432169 ACM Member #3445683 http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com -my blog of Ubuntu stuff apt-get moo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: LTS and release methodology
On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 10:19:46AM -0400, Mackenzie Morgan wrote: On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 4:43 AM, Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 09:47:56AM +0200, Krzysztof Lichota wrote: There is already system for handling that - /etc/alternatives/. According to my Dapper installation it already contains 240 commands with alternatives. I am familiar with it. You'll find that about half of those are man pages, not commands. But do you know how users can discover, in the desktop, what those settings are and change them? You can't. Galternatives could be included instead of having to use the voodoo sudo update-alternatives --config java (I think...haven't done that one in a while). In my opinion, nothing as esoteric as alternatives should be exposed in the desktop, any more than should reordering symlinks in /etc/rc?.d. -- - mdz -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: LTS and release methodology
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 10:19:46AM -0400, Mackenzie Morgan wrote: On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 4:43 AM, Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 09:47:56AM +0200, Krzysztof Lichota wrote: There is already system for handling that - /etc/alternatives/. According to my Dapper installation it already contains 240 commands with alternatives. I am familiar with it. You'll find that about half of those are man pages, not commands. But do you know how users can discover, in the desktop, what those settings are and change them? You can't. Galternatives could be included instead of having to use the voodoo sudo update-alternatives --config java (I think...haven't done that one in a while). In my opinion, nothing as esoteric as alternatives should be exposed in the desktop, any more than should reordering symlinks in /etc/rc?.d. Isn't that what System - Administration - Services is? -- Mackenzie Morgan Linux User #432169 ACM Member #3445683 http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com -my blog of Ubuntu stuff apt-get moo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: LTS and release methodology
On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 11:20:06AM -0400, Mackenzie Morgan wrote: On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my opinion, nothing as esoteric as alternatives should be exposed in the desktop, any more than should reordering symlinks in /etc/rc?.d. Isn't that what System - Administration - Services is? It isn't quite as bad, as it only allows things to be enabled and disabled, and only displays a subset of the startup scripts (unlike some similar tools, which allow the user to easily break their system). I wish we didn't need it, though. -- - mdz -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: LTS and release methodology
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 11:27 AM, Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 11:20:06AM -0400, Mackenzie Morgan wrote: On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Matt Zimmerman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my opinion, nothing as esoteric as alternatives should be exposed in the desktop, any more than should reordering symlinks in /etc/rc?.d. Isn't that what System - Administration - Services is? It isn't quite as bad, as it only allows things to be enabled and disabled, and only displays a subset of the startup scripts (unlike some similar tools, which allow the user to easily break their system). I wish we didn't need it, though. I'd rather use that than update-rc.d. I may have Apache installed for practicing PHP, but that doesn't mean I want it to auto-startup, and there's no easier way to stop it. -- Mackenzie Morgan Linux User #432169 ACM Member #3445683 http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com -my blog of Ubuntu stuff apt-get moo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: acpi-support: Lock screen with dbus during resume
Hi Matthew, On 7/9/08, Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I haven't actually tested this, but are you sure it works? Sure does! :) -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
acpi-support: Lock screen with dbus during resume
Hi, what do you think about using dbus to fix the screensaver locking in recent versions of GNOME and KDE. A slightly adapted version of /etc/acpi/resume.d/90-xscreensaver.sh. #!/bin/sh # lock the screen via dbus if pidof dbus-daemon /dev/null; then for x in /tmp/.X11-unix/*; do displaynum=`echo $x | sed s#/tmp/.X11-unix/X##` getXuser; if [ x$XAUTHORITY != x ]; then export DISPLAY=:$displaynum su $user -c dbus-send --session --dest=org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver \ --type=method_call --print-reply /ScreenSaver \ org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver.Lock fi done fi Of course locking might be replaced with e.g. SimulateUserActivity. If you would like any changes for integration let me know. Cheers, Dennis -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: acpi-support: Lock screen with dbus during resume
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 6:54 AM, Dennis Jansen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, 6:54AM? That was 10 hours ago, and it just showed up a minute ago. OK, now I get what's going on. -- Mackenzie Morgan Linux User #432169 ACM Member #3445683 http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com -my blog of Ubuntu stuff apt-get moo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Feature Request: Better partitioning wizard
On Wed, 2008-07-09 at 10:12 -0400, Mackenzie Morgan wrote: The possibility for error with resizing partitions is why I think LVM would be a good thing; however, from what I hear, LVM is pretty buggy on Ubuntu. I strongly disagree on both counts -- LVM still relies on filesystem resizing features, which are still risky. Even with the so-called reliable ext3, I've lost several filesystems due to on-the-fly resizing, either because of the process being interrupted by a freeze / power outage or for other inexplicable reasons. I wouldn't consider LVM a good workaround for fixing partitioning mistakes later -- it only makes it a LITTLE less difficult to work around. This also requires a separate /boot partition, which could land you back at this same problem anyway. Also, I've not experienced any kind of bugginess with LVM. I use LVM on most of my systems. John -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
