Re: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On 25/05/09 21:01, Andrew Sayers wrote: > Jan Claeys wrote: > >> A lot of people run unstable during alpha & beta, but many do it in a VM >> or on an old spare system. That doesn't help find regressions that are >> hardware-related, of course, and in general those systems might not see >> the same sort of use that people's "main" computers see. >> >> And to be honest, I don't see how we can make more people use alpha >> versions on their "I need this for work" system... >> > > Recycling my chroot idea from before, how about encouraging people to > install Alpha versions in a chroot? You could use localfs to graft your > real /home in if you wanted. A bit of grub trickery would even let you > boot right into the chroot, with the alpha kernel, when you had enough > free time to give it a go. > > - Andrew > The challenge I see is that there appears to be a mind-set disconnect between workstation and server users. A half competent server administrator is expected to understand that there are going to be unhappy users breaking down the front door if something happens to their data, so there is a self-regulating conservatism within the upgrade cycle - less upgrades means less heartache. I don't see the same attitude within the desktop community. There seems to be this notion - evidence to the contrary - that a desktop user will protect their own data and backup before they upgrade. Not only that, a glaring hole appears if you consider the example notion of a snap-shot before an Evolution upgrade, so you can downgrade. "What happens to the email that is sent and received between the snap-shot and the down-grade?" As I've said earlier in this thread, I'm contemplating an all virtual desktop. I'm also looking at abstracting data storage as much as possible, that is, store documents in a virtual SAN, store email on an IMAP server, store development code within xyz repository and use my virtual desktop as client to my virtual server(s). This may well seem overkill, but I've been bitten too many times by clients being upgraded that I am beginning to suspect that the decrease in overall actual speed will be well surpassed by the increase in data security. We talk over and over again about application/data separation, but until applications do that for real - we have a long way to go. Data is important and I have to say that I see little evidence within individual applications that it is taken seriously - almost like not willing to accept that their little program is used by real people for real purposes. -- Onno Benschop Connected via Bigpond NextG at S31°54'06" - E115°50'39" (Yokine, WA) -- ()/)/)()..ASCII for Onno.. |>>?..EBCDIC for Onno.. --- -. -. --- ..Morse for Onno.. ITmaze - ABN: 56 178 057 063 - ph: 04 1219 - o...@itmaze.com.au -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 13:24 +0200, Remco wrote: ... > Downgrade > conversion is probably not feasible for any but the most popular > packages. I completely agree with your message. Of course, expecting every package to provide a downgrade converter is unrealistic. On the other hand, how often do projects upgrade to a new, incompatible format? In the large majority of cases, you will be able to just downgrade the software and keep working as if nothing had happened. For those cases where downgrades really represent possible data loses, providing a warning so that people know that they'll lose data if they decide to downgrade is probably enough. We should not forget that a downgrade option wouldn't be aimed at the casual Ubuntu user, but at those people wanting to leave in the bleeding edge in order to test the latest and greatest. These people should be table to take care of their data and to deal with the temporary breakage caused by a bad upgrade (as long as that upgrade is reversible with reasonable effort, that is). For this reason, there's no need to overengineer the solution. A relatively simple "keep older package versions in the repository for a longer time and make dpkg/apt more amenable to downgrades" should do. Cheers, M. S. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Jan Claeys wrote: > A lot of people run unstable during alpha & beta, but many do it in a VM > or on an old spare system. That doesn't help find regressions that are > hardware-related, of course, and in general those systems might not see > the same sort of use that people's "main" computers see. > > And to be honest, I don't see how we can make more people use alpha > versions on their "I need this for work" system... Recycling my chroot idea from before, how about encouraging people to install Alpha versions in a chroot? You could use localfs to graft your real /home in if you wanted. A bit of grub trickery would even let you boot right into the chroot, with the alpha kernel, when you had enough free time to give it a go. - Andrew -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
>> Alternatively, replace Evolution with MySQL or such. >> >> This is what I understand to be the hard problem in *supporting* package >> downgrades. >> >> >> >> > > > Ah, but this is no longer 'roll back' relevant. No fancy zapped file > system will help there. > > /me thinking of fresh new install scenario and then say an Evolution downgrade... -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Christopher James Halse Rogers wrote: > On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 11:12 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote: > >>> That is not the case with OpenSolaris based ZFS root capable >>> installations. While the whole disk maybe taken up by a zfs pool, the >>> installation will create three at least zfs filesystems. ROOT/, >>> ROOT/opt, export, and export/home all exist on my OpenSolaris >>> installation. So all data is stored in the user's home directory is not >>> at all affected by upgrades or downgrades. >>> >>> >>> >> ...I need more sleep and to get out of Hong Kong...my command of English >> has gone down the drain. >> >> Allow me to retype that: >> >> That is not the case with OpenSolaris based ZFS root capable >> installations. While the whole disk maybe taken up by a zfs pool, the >> installation will create at least three zfs filesystems. ROOT/, >> ROOT/opt, export, and export/home all exist on my OpenSolaris >> installation. So all data is stored in the user's home directory and is not >> at all affected by upgrades or downgrades. >> >> > So, what happens when, say, I upgrade to a new version of Evolution and > it decides to convert all its existing mailboxes to the new database > format on first run, and I later want to revert because of new bugs? It > doesn't matter that I can roll back everything but /home to the previous > Evolution version - that mail is now essentially gone as far as the old > Evolution is concerned. > Heh. Like they say: BACKUP BEFORE YOU UPGRADE. So I could have simply made a snapshot of export/home and then upgraded if I was worried about the new packages messing up my data. So /export/home is covered too although that is not part of the process of upgrading. If one did not read the release notes and what not...well...tough eh? > Alternatively, replace Evolution with MySQL or such. > > This is what I understand to be the hard problem in *supporting* package > downgrades. > > > Ah, but this is no longer 'roll back' relevant. No fancy zapped file system will help there. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Christopher James Halse Rogers wrote: > On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 11:12 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote: >> That is not the case with OpenSolaris based ZFS root capable >> installations. While the whole disk maybe taken up by a zfs pool, the >> installation will create at least three zfs filesystems. ROOT/, >> ROOT/opt, export, and export/home all exist on my OpenSolaris >> installation. So all data is stored in the user's home directory and is not >> at all affected by upgrades or downgrades. >> > So, what happens when, say, I upgrade to a new version of Evolution and > it decides to convert all its existing mailboxes to the new database > format on first run, and I later want to revert because of new bugs? It > doesn't matter that I can roll back everything but /home to the previous > Evolution version - that mail is now essentially gone as far as the old > Evolution is concerned. > > Alternatively, replace Evolution with MySQL or such. > > This is what I understand to be the hard problem in *supporting* package > downgrades. The first step would be to make it an unsupported option, like universe packages. After that, every package must be tested for downgrading. Just like the new notifications, it will suck a little until it gets better. A copy of the original settings in case of incompatible changes is a relatively simple solution. Downgrade conversion is probably not feasible for any but the most popular packages. Remco -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 07:58 +0200, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > Il giorno lun, 25/05/2009 alle 02.09 +0200, Markus Hitter ha scritto: > > > > Craft a system where people can switch back and forth between > > different package versions. "This update broke foo?" -> Report a bug > > and switch foo back to the previous version -> Damage gone, user > > happy. > > Using alpha (which I do very often, and this reminds me I have to > download karmic) may lead to data loss. I recall a bug in the gnome > control center (which was in ubuntu for a short while), where you'd > loose your entire home directory in a single shot for a bug. I often > synchronise data with a portable disk but I do not version it, so if I > loose a directory and then synchronise without checking, I'm **. > Yes, I should start using a different method. > > Crafting a safe testing environment ideally would mean to use a > filesystem with snapshots. I do not know how difficult would be to > implement snapshots in ubuntu but it seems that if it was easy we would > already have those. > We do already have those - you want to look up LVM. It's not as fancy as ZFS, but it does copy-on-write snapshots just fine, if a little less efficiently than you'd get with filesystem-level snapshots. It also lacks any form of swanky UI. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 11:12 +0800, Christopher Chan wrote: > > That is not the case with OpenSolaris based ZFS root capable > > installations. While the whole disk maybe taken up by a zfs pool, the > > installation will create three at least zfs filesystems. ROOT/, > > ROOT/opt, export, and export/home all exist on my OpenSolaris > > installation. So all data is stored in the user's home directory is not > > at all affected by upgrades or downgrades. > > > > > > ...I need more sleep and to get out of Hong Kong...my command of English > has gone down the drain. > > Allow me to retype that: > > That is not the case with OpenSolaris based ZFS root capable > installations. While the whole disk maybe taken up by a zfs pool, the > installation will create at least three zfs filesystems. ROOT/, > ROOT/opt, export, and export/home all exist on my OpenSolaris > installation. So all data is stored in the user's home directory and is not > at all affected by upgrades or downgrades. > So, what happens when, say, I upgrade to a new version of Evolution and it decides to convert all its existing mailboxes to the new database format on first run, and I later want to revert because of new bugs? It doesn't matter that I can roll back everything but /home to the previous Evolution version - that mail is now essentially gone as far as the old Evolution is concerned. Alternatively, replace Evolution with MySQL or such. This is what I understand to be the hard problem in *supporting* package downgrades. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Am 25.05.2009 um 03:46 schrieb Christopher James Halse Rogers: > Supporting package downgrades means > supporting package downgrades in general, and this would require that > package maintainers write back-conversion utilities where necessary. ... or to make a copy of the original settings just before doing the conversion. To get started, simply allowing downgrades (= keeping the older version in the list of available versions) without making a headache about configs would likely solve many more problems than it creates. For Alpha & Beta, where people are expected to know how apt-get & friends work, of course. Markus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter http://www.jump-ing.de/ -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno lun, 25/05/2009 alle 02.09 +0200, Markus Hitter ha scritto: > > Craft a system where people can switch back and forth between > different package versions. "This update broke foo?" -> Report a bug > and switch foo back to the previous version -> Damage gone, user > happy. Using alpha (which I do very often, and this reminds me I have to download karmic) may lead to data loss. I recall a bug in the gnome control center (which was in ubuntu for a short while), where you'd loose your entire home directory in a single shot for a bug. I often synchronise data with a portable disk but I do not version it, so if I loose a directory and then synchronise without checking, I'm **. Yes, I should start using a different method. Crafting a safe testing environment ideally would mean to use a filesystem with snapshots. I do not know how difficult would be to implement snapshots in ubuntu but it seems that if it was easy we would already have those. Vincenzo -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
> That is not the case with OpenSolaris based ZFS root capable > installations. While the whole disk maybe taken up by a zfs pool, the > installation will create three at least zfs filesystems. ROOT/, > ROOT/opt, export, and export/home all exist on my OpenSolaris > installation. So all data is stored in the user's home directory is not > at all affected by upgrades or downgrades. > > ...I need more sleep and to get out of Hong Kong...my command of English has gone down the drain. Allow me to retype that: That is not the case with OpenSolaris based ZFS root capable installations. While the whole disk maybe taken up by a zfs pool, the installation will create at least three zfs filesystems. ROOT/, ROOT/opt, export, and export/home all exist on my OpenSolaris installation. So all data is stored in the user's home directory and is not at all affected by upgrades or downgrades. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Christopher James Halse Rogers wrote: > On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 03:03 +0100, Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote: > >> 2009/5/25 Christopher James Halse Rogers : >> >>> Having some sort of "roll back to previous package version" button might >>> be a nice idea, though it would need to be designed in such a way that >>> made it clear there was no guarantee that it'd work. I'm not sure >>> whether we'd be doing users a favour here. >>> >>> >> There is a technology to do this but it's not GPL... >> >> OpenSolaris and Nexetra use ZFS which supports snapshots. Before each >> package installation transaction (i.e. one upgrade of N packages) they >> take a snapshot of a system, do the upgrade. If the user doesn't like >> it, they can rollback to any of the previous snapshots because they >> are available. >> > > Won't that only be an acceptable solution if the user is willing to > throw away all the work they've done since the package upgrade? ZFS is > cool and all, but this doesn't seem to address any of the hard parts of > why downgrades aren't supported now. > > > Huh? Why? Ah, maybe this is the reason you thought of that. The default Ubuntu (or any other distro) will just make one filesystem and stuff everything there. That is not the case with OpenSolaris based ZFS root capable installations. While the whole disk maybe taken up by a zfs pool, the installation will create three at least zfs filesystems. ROOT/, ROOT/opt, export, and export/home all exist on my OpenSolaris installation. So all data is stored in the user's home directory is not at all affected by upgrades or downgrades. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 03:03 +0100, Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote: > 2009/5/25 Christopher James Halse Rogers : > > Having some sort of "roll back to previous package version" button might > > be a nice idea, though it would need to be designed in such a way that > > made it clear there was no guarantee that it'd work. I'm not sure > > whether we'd be doing users a favour here. > > > > There is a technology to do this but it's not GPL... > > OpenSolaris and Nexetra use ZFS which supports snapshots. Before each > package installation transaction (i.e. one upgrade of N packages) they > take a snapshot of a system, do the upgrade. If the user doesn't like > it, they can rollback to any of the previous snapshots because they > are available. Won't that only be an acceptable solution if the user is willing to throw away all the work they've done since the package upgrade? ZFS is cool and all, but this doesn't seem to address any of the hard parts of why downgrades aren't supported now. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote: > 2009/5/25 Christopher James Halse Rogers : > > Having some sort of "roll back to previous package version" button might > > be a nice idea, though it would need to be designed in such a way that > > made it clear there was no guarantee that it'd work. I'm not sure > > whether we'd be doing users a favour here. > > > > There is a technology to do this but it's not GPL... > > OpenSolaris and Nexetra use ZFS which supports snapshots. Before each > package installation transaction (i.e. one upgrade of N packages) they > take a snapshot of a system, do the upgrade. If the user doesn't like > it, they can rollback to any of the previous snapshots because they > are available. > > Nexetra for that wrote apt-clone (I think) to actually do it. > > Unfortunatly there isn't a GPL filesystem which supports continous > snapshots. Will Btrfs do this when it is stable? -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
2009/5/25 Christopher James Halse Rogers : > Having some sort of "roll back to previous package version" button might > be a nice idea, though it would need to be designed in such a way that > made it clear there was no guarantee that it'd work. I'm not sure > whether we'd be doing users a favour here. > There is a technology to do this but it's not GPL... OpenSolaris and Nexetra use ZFS which supports snapshots. Before each package installation transaction (i.e. one upgrade of N packages) they take a snapshot of a system, do the upgrade. If the user doesn't like it, they can rollback to any of the previous snapshots because they are available. Nexetra for that wrote apt-clone (I think) to actually do it. Unfortunatly there isn't a GPL filesystem which supports continous snapshots. -- With best regards Dmitrijs Ledkovs (for short Dima), Ледков Дмитрий Юрьевич -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 02:22 +0100, Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote: > 2009/5/25 Markus Hitter : > > > > Am 25.05.2009 um 00:01 schrieb Jan Claeys: > > > >> And to be honest, I don't see how we can make more people use alpha > >> versions on their "I need this for work" system... > > > > Craft a system where people can switch back and forth between > > different package versions. "This update broke foo?" -> Report a bug > > and switch foo back to the previous version -> Damage gone, user happy. > > > > Programmers do something similar with their source code already, why > > not with binary packages? > > > > > > Markus > > > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter > > http://www.jump-ing.de/ > > Dowgrades are not supported. it's the basics behind apt and dpkg. That's not really a particularly good answer. *Why* aren't downgrades supported is what I interpret Markus to be asking. The immediate reason is because of the *policy* that downgrades aren't supported - thus, they aren't tested, and little or no effort is made to ensure that they work. For most packages, most of the time, downgrading should work just fine because the situations where downgrades fail aren't the common case - most package upgrades won't involve config file changes, won't require maintainer scripts to do funky things, and won't convert the user's data into an incompatible format. I think the rationale behind this policy is that the general case *cannot* be handled reasonably - in particular, package updates *can* trigger the program to migrate the user's data into a format that previous versions can't read. Supporting package downgrades means supporting package downgrades in general, and this would require that package maintainers write back-conversion utilities where necessary. Having some sort of "roll back to previous package version" button might be a nice idea, though it would need to be designed in such a way that made it clear there was no guarantee that it'd work. I'm not sure whether we'd be doing users a favour here. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
2009/5/25 Markus Hitter : > > Am 25.05.2009 um 00:01 schrieb Jan Claeys: > >> And to be honest, I don't see how we can make more people use alpha >> versions on their "I need this for work" system... > > Craft a system where people can switch back and forth between > different package versions. "This update broke foo?" -> Report a bug > and switch foo back to the previous version -> Damage gone, user happy. > > Programmers do something similar with their source code already, why > not with binary packages? > > > Markus > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter > http://www.jump-ing.de/ Dowgrades are not supported. it's the basics behind apt and dpkg. -- With best regards Dmitrijs Ledkovs (for short Dima), Ледков Дмитрий Юрьевич -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Am 25.05.2009 um 00:01 schrieb Jan Claeys: > And to be honest, I don't see how we can make more people use alpha > versions on their "I need this for work" system... Craft a system where people can switch back and forth between different package versions. "This update broke foo?" -> Report a bug and switch foo back to the previous version -> Damage gone, user happy. Programmers do something similar with their source code already, why not with binary packages? Markus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter http://www.jump-ing.de/ -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Op donderdag 14-05-2009 om 09:46 uur [tijdzone -0400], schreef Mackenzie Morgan: > I wonder what percent of Ubuntu users run unstable during alpha. I > recall hearing that something like 70% of Debian users run Sid. I'm > sure it's not that high, but is there any way we can find out what it > is? Maybe unique IPs accessing Dapper/Hardy/Intrepid/Jaunty versus > Karmic repos? A lot of people run unstable during alpha & beta, but many do it in a VM or on an old spare system. That doesn't help find regressions that are hardware-related, of course, and in general those systems might not see the same sort of use that people's "main" computers see. And to be honest, I don't see how we can make more people use alpha versions on their "I need this for work" system... -- Jan Claeys -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On 15/05/09 23:27, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > Il giorno ven, 15/05/2009 alle 16.34 +0200, Markus Hitter ha scritto: > >> As popularity increases, more vendors will attempt to provide >> drivers >> at launch dates of new hardware. For now it's a reasonable strategy >> to buy hardware which is at least half a year old or which is binary >> compatible with such older hardware. >> >> > > Unfortunately, this is sometimes the worst advice to give. It seems to > me that in some cases both ubuntu and upstream silently, unconsciously, > collectively agree that old hardware should just die. Let me explain it > better: it is frequently the case that such hardware gets broken across > a release and remains broken for the whole release; in next release > something gets adjusted and something else typically gets broken. The > living proof is my laptop (toshiba tablet m400) whose entire hardware is > claimed to be supported since at least 3 years. And it is, in fact, once > you fiddle with the software. > > Since Dapper I NEVER saw an ubuntu release into which everything worked > out of the box on this laptop. In EVERY release something was repaired, > but something else regressed to broken. I reported all the regressions > during alphas or sometimes betas, but in some cases there is just no > need to get either ubuntu's or upstream's attention on certain > regressions. > This too has been my experience. I stayed with Gutsy as long as I could for that reason. My ThinkPad had a working [Access IBM] key, which for some untraceable reason stopped working, ditto for the PCMCIA reader. The Intel video card used to support independent desktops, but no longer. On the positive side, one day WiFi magically started working after an update - it still drops out, but I've all but given up after countless hours of debugging my own hardware. I think part of the problem is that no-one can be an expert on everything. I'm a software developer, have been for 30 years. I make income by solving problems for my clients. When I buy new hardware, it's in my interest to get it right - less headaches, less support, more time to fix actual business-level problems, rather than crawl under the desk problems. Regressions seem to be hard to track and hard to pin-point. For example, I don't use my PCMCIA reader regularly. I tested it when I first installed and when I next needed it, about four months later, it wasn't working and no amount of trouble shooting would make it so. Problems like that don't show up immediately. On the other hand, I used the [Access IBM] key to lock my screen. When I walked away from my desk one day, it didn't lock. Four hours later I was no closer to figuring out why it wasn't working and the amount of lost income related to the single broken key far outweighs it's benefit. I still press Ctrl-Alt-L, and only the left Ctrl-Alt because it costs too much energy to figure out why something just stopped. What I'm saying is that I understand that finding hardware problems is hard and supporting the vast array of hardware is nigh-on impossible, I think that unless we find a way to become more disciplined about regressions, this problem will only get larger. -- Onno Benschop Connected via Bigpond NextG at S31°54'06" - E115°50'39" (Yokine, WA) -- ()/)/)()..ASCII for Onno.. |>>?..EBCDIC for Onno.. --- -. -. --- ..Morse for Onno.. ITmaze - ABN: 56 178 057 063 - ph: 04 1219 - o...@itmaze.com.au -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno ven, 15/05/2009 alle 12.56 -0400, Mackenzie Morgan ha scritto: > > It became incompatible with the router? I didn't think that was > possiblethough it is true that iwl3945 had some growing pains. I > found > that a Broadcom-based laptop I had had about double the range the > iwl3945 did > in Hardy. Meanwhile, ipw3945 had a very good range (and worked well > for > hacking tools, unlike iwl3945 at the time). I think it's in pretty > good shape > now though... > There is a known (for years, also upstream, who never *cared* to reply) about extremely slow transfer rate and disconnections on 802.11b networks (like the cheap router I bought at home years ago). It may be "cheap", but it is serving me perfectly with other laptops and also with the external card. It also works with the windows xp that came preinstalled with my laptop. It used to work very well with the older driver. Yes, the situation is that nobody cared about that even if I signalled it several times. Vincenzo -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Friday 15 May 2009 11:27:27 am Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > I have an external network card, > bought upon frustration after iwl3945 _replaced_ ipw3945, breaking it > with my home router, and nobody in ubuntu cared to consider forward port > of the drivers. It became incompatible with the router? I didn't think that was possiblethough it is true that iwl3945 had some growing pains. I found that a Broadcom-based laptop I had had about double the range the iwl3945 did in Hardy. Meanwhile, ipw3945 had a very good range (and worked well for hacking tools, unlike iwl3945 at the time). I think it's in pretty good shape now though... -- Mackenzie Morgan http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com apt-get moo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:42 AM, Andrew wrote: > If its developers really think that users should stick with 1.4 they > aren't doing a good job promoting that. > > [1] http://amarok.kde.org/ > [2] http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Download:Kubuntu > [3] http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Download:Source > > - Andrew Starr-Bochicchio Well this part of the announcement of Amarok 2.0 at least made it clear there were a number of regressions: "It is important to note that Amarok 2.0 is a beginning, not an end. Because of the major changes required, not all features from the 1.4 are in Amarok 2. Many of these missing features, like queueing and filtering in the playlist, will return within a few releases. Other features, such as visualizations and support for portable media players, require improvements in the underlying KDE infrastructure. They will return as KDE4's support improves." -- http://amarok.kde.org/en/releases/2.0 This was noted on http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/16533/ "do not remove Amarok 1.x.x from jaunty or from other future releases." However not many people voted and it did not attract the attention of the developers. Would the developers feel that having upstream mark releases that are stable but have many outstanding regressions as "Early Adopter Releases" would make their lives easier? Would it have made a difference in this case? And would having a version clearly marked as an "EAR" release help you decide whether you'd download, compile and install it for personal use? As a (technical) user if I noticed that a distribution had switched to an EAR release of something I cared about this might help me understand whether I wanted to upgrade. It may also help upstream avoid "should KDE 4.0 have been released" style flamewars. -- John C. McCabe-Dansted -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 9:30 PM, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > Il giorno gio, 14/05/2009 alle 19.55 +0800, John McCabe-Dansted ha > scritto: >> Quite. I haven't noticed any problems with LaTeX. This may be because >> I use LyX+xdvi. LyX+Okular seems to be fine too, although Okular is >> rather sluggish compared to xdvi, it is usable unlike e.g. Acroread >> (on either Linux or Windows). Forward and backward search "works for >> me" in Okular. > > AFAIK okular does not implement forward search :) If it does then tell > us how because I want to close the bug. For backward search I think you > refer to emacs or other tex editors, because lyx does not implement it. > If it did, lyx would be the perfect creation of the Tex God :) If it > does, then I have to light a candle for the aforementioned God. By backwards search I presume you mean what I call an inverse search, which is supported in LyX although it is not configured by default. I've managed to get it to work in 9.04 here. The best documentation appears to be a mailing list post: http://www.mail-archive.com/lyx-de...@lists.lyx.org/msg150367.html AFAICT lyx does not support clicking in the LyX document to jump to the equivalent in the DVI viewer, which I think is what you call forwards search. LyX, Okular and everything else under the sun supports searching forwards and backwards through text, which is also commonly called "forward search" and "backwards search", and that what I first thought you meant. >> AFAICT Amarok didn't just have a couple of annoying bugs, it was never >> really ready for widespread use. According to Jeff Mitchel "We've >> maintained that until 2.1, most users should stick with 1.4. >> Unfortunately, just as Intrepid shipped with the >> it's-not-meant-to-be-a-user-release KDE 4.1, Jaunty shipped with >> Amarok 2.0." > > Could you provide a link to this? Here is your link back http://nomad.ca/blog/2009/apr/3/amarok-14-jaunty-ubuntu-904/ -- John C. McCabe-Dansted PhD Student University of Western Australia -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno ven, 15/05/2009 alle 16.34 +0200, Markus Hitter ha scritto: > > As popularity increases, more vendors will attempt to provide > drivers > at launch dates of new hardware. For now it's a reasonable strategy > to buy hardware which is at least half a year old or which is binary > compatible with such older hardware. > Unfortunately, this is sometimes the worst advice to give. It seems to me that in some cases both ubuntu and upstream silently, unconsciously, collectively agree that old hardware should just die. Let me explain it better: it is frequently the case that such hardware gets broken across a release and remains broken for the whole release; in next release something gets adjusted and something else typically gets broken. The living proof is my laptop (toshiba tablet m400) whose entire hardware is claimed to be supported since at least 3 years. And it is, in fact, once you fiddle with the software. Since Dapper I NEVER saw an ubuntu release into which everything worked out of the box on this laptop. In EVERY release something was repaired, but something else regressed to broken. I reported all the regressions during alphas or sometimes betas, but in some cases there is just no need to get either ubuntu's or upstream's attention on certain regressions. This also holds for external hardware. I have an external network card, bought upon frustration after iwl3945 _replaced_ ipw3945, breaking it with my home router, and nobody in ubuntu cared to consider forward port of the drivers. Well, in hardy upgrades at some point it stopped working and the situation on the bts is some strange open->duplicate->fix released loop. I still have to find time to understand what happened (but from intrepid on the card works). Vincenzo -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Am 15.05.2009 um 11:17 schrieb Onno Benschop: > There are days when I wonder if Linux will ever get ahead of the > curve. > As popularity increases, expectations mount, bug reports increase, > noise > level goes up, work-load goes up, dissatisfaction goes up, morale > drops, > momentum stalls, and then - fubar. As popularity increases, more vendors will attempt to provide drivers at launch dates of new hardware. For now it's a reasonable strategy to buy hardware which is at least half a year old or which is binary compatible with such older hardware. Markus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter http://www.jump-ing.de/ -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On 14/05/09 19:57, Markus Hitter wrote: > Am 14.05.2009 um 13:16 schrieb Vincenzo Ciancia: > >> If every case can be argued to be uncommon, why worrying at all with >> fixing bugs? No bug affects all users. >> > > Good point. Having no common case means bugs have to be taken > seriously independent of how many users are affected. If each bug > affects only one percent of the users, there likely won't be any > users left with a smooth experience, after all. > This exact point has me currently attempting to solve the problem of "hardware incompatibility" in another way. I'm looking at buying a Powerbook, and running my desktop as a virtual machine under OSX. I have no desire to become an OSX user, but the pot-luck user experience I've personally experienced with Debian and Ubuntu over the past decade with incompatible hardware has me often pulling my hair out. Buying pre-installed Ubuntu machines or Linux "Compatible" hardware has also not been a pleasant experience. I've personally had incompatibilities over the years with: wifi, sata, raid, ethernet, sleep, keyboards, video drivers, mice, scsi, pcmcia, palm, nokia, ipod, ptp, usb modems, ups, cd, dvd and bluetooth headphones, to name the ones that readily come to mind. There are days when I wonder if Linux will ever get ahead of the curve. As popularity increases, expectations mount, bug reports increase, noise level goes up, work-load goes up, dissatisfaction goes up, morale drops, momentum stalls, and then - fubar. -- Onno Benschop Connected via Bigpond NextG at S31°54'06" - E115°50'39" (Yokine, WA) -- ()/)/)()..ASCII for Onno.. |>>?..EBCDIC for Onno.. --- -. -. --- ..Morse for Onno.. ITmaze - ABN: 56 178 057 063 - ph: 04 1219 - o...@itmaze.com.au -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 7:55 AM, John McCabe-Dansted wrote: > AFAICT Amarok didn't just have a couple of annoying bugs, it was never > really ready for widespread use. According to Jeff Mitchel "We've > maintained that until 2.1, most users should stick with 1.4. > Unfortunately, just as Intrepid shipped with the > it's-not-meant-to-be-a-user-release KDE 4.1, Jaunty shipped with > Amarok 2.0." I don't use Amarok and only pop into KDE every once and awhile in order to track how it's shaping up, but I found this assertion a bit strange due to all the hype I heard around Amarok2. I thought maybe it's because I mainly read developer blogs that were targeted at other developers. So I went and checked out Amarok's homepage [1], and see no mention of the Amarok 1.X series on the front page. Their download pages are no different. The Kubuntu [2] page offers "Stable version: Amarok 2.0.x" and "Development version: Amarok 2.1" The same is true of the source download page. [3] If its developers really think that users should stick with 1.4 they aren't doing a good job promoting that. [1] http://amarok.kde.org/ [2] http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Download:Kubuntu [3] http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Download:Source - Andrew Starr-Bochicchio -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno gio, 14/05/2009 alle 09.54 -0400, Mackenzie Morgan ha scritto: > > > I became involved with the developement and then gave up, when I > > recognised that ubuntu needed manpower. > > "More volunteers are needed, so I'll stop volunteering"...what? > Just a badly constructed sentence: I volunteered when I realised that it was both needed and worth to contribute. I stopped trying to provide patches when I realised that I had not enough time, especially due to my ignorance on ubuntu-specific issues. Putting (and then gave up) in parenthesis translates the sentences. > There is a forward port of it in a PPA.. Great news. I found it. So it really is as I say, that ubuntu does _not_ want the old driver in the release and that's all even if testing clearly indicated that it was too early to get rid of it. V. -- It is also important to note that hedgehogs do not actually hurt each other when they get close to one another. Actually, when living in groups, hedgehogs often sleep close to each other. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog%27s_dilemma -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Thursday 14 May 2009 9:07:25 am Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > I became involved with the developement and then gave up, when I > recognised that ubuntu needed manpower. "More volunteers are needed, so I'll stop volunteering"...what? > I may decide to get back to contributing patches at least in the near > future. But e.g. if I provide a forward port of the intel driver, be > honest, do you think that anybody in ubuntu will care? I expect to waste > my time. > > If I could at least have a warranty that the need for a forward port is > appreciated, I might do my best to do that. There is a forward port of it in a PPA.. -- Mackenzie Morgan http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com apt-get moo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- 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
Put other releases in a chroot (was Re: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools)
Regressions occur in Ubuntu releases. As mentioned elsewhere, this is to be expected, and may be for the best. But if you've spent 6 months getting Intrepid just how you like it, starting over again with Jaunty can be a pain. So how about we offer the user the opportunity to `cp -l /bin /etc /usr /lib* /sbin /usr /var /chroots/jaunty` when they upgrade to Karmic? Then with a bit of shell trickery, they can run their old version of amarok just by running "jaunty amarok". It wouldn't take up that much space on a modern hard drive, especially using hard links, and would solve a lot of these headaches. Similarly, how about we offer the user the opportunity to `debootstrap jaunty /chroots/intrepid --include=ubuntu-desktop` if they install Karmic from scratch? That gives new users similar access to Jaunty. Finally, how about upgrading debootstrap in Jaunty when Karmic is released, so that people can install it in a chroot, and try before they buy? - Andrew -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Thursday 14 May 2009 8:26:13 am Emmet Hikory wrote: > Of course, there's lots of people who don't do this: this will > always be true. And sometimes it's tempting to be amoung that number, > because it's a lot less effort, I wonder what percent of Ubuntu users run unstable during alpha. I recall hearing that something like 70% of Debian users run Sid. I'm sure it's not that high, but is there any way we can find out what it is? Maybe unique IPs accessing Dapper/Hardy/Intrepid/Jaunty versus Karmic repos? -- Mackenzie Morgan http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com apt-get moo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno gio, 14/05/2009 alle 19.55 +0800, John McCabe-Dansted ha scritto: > On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 2:39 AM, Daniel Chen wrote: > > > > Grave for whom? For you? For what common use cases? These are things > > that are factors to consider when affecting an entire release. > > Quite. I haven't noticed any problems with LaTeX. This may be because > I use LyX+xdvi. LyX+Okular seems to be fine too, although Okular is > rather sluggish compared to xdvi, it is usable unlike e.g. Acroread > (on either Linux or Windows). Forward and backward search "works for > me" in Okular. AFAIK okular does not implement forward search :) If it does then tell us how because I want to close the bug. For backward search I think you refer to emacs or other tex editors, because lyx does not implement it. If it did, lyx would be the perfect creation of the Tex God :) If it does, then I have to light a candle for the aforementioned God. > LyX also has all the features the OP mentioned, though it is more of a > GUI than an text editor > Lyx can't be used in environments where other people use pure tex. It may work with some effort, but the point is that you constantly have to convert between lyx and tex. And unfortunately in research I can't just go to my professor and tell him to use lyx. He is a busy scientist and is productive with his own tools. > AFAICT Amarok didn't just have a couple of annoying bugs, it was never > really ready for widespread use. According to Jeff Mitchel "We've > maintained that until 2.1, most users should stick with 1.4. > Unfortunately, just as Intrepid shipped with the > it's-not-meant-to-be-a-user-release KDE 4.1, Jaunty shipped with > Amarok 2.0." > Could you provide a link to this? > Ubuntu introduces regressions far faster than any mortal could be > expect to fix them. More unpaid bug fixers would help slightly, but we > can't solve the problem without limiting the number of regressions and > severity of regressions. Here are some ways this could be achieved: > > 1) Clear communication with upstream. If we could agree on a way of > clearly marking (e.g. Early Adopter Release) releases that are not > meant for widespread consumption, then Ubuntu could made a policy of > not making EAR releases the default except in exceptional > circumstances. > I personally would love this. Also the opposite: if upstream clearly recommends a release ubuntu should prioritise adopting that release. If upstream recommends NOT to use a certain switch, ubuntu should not use it. In normal circumstances, and "cum grano salis" indeed, not like in front of a court of mathematicians :). E.g., I had to struggle quite a bit to remove the "enable assertions" option from lyx in ubuntu. Upstream did not recommend it and it made lyx as slow as a snail. But the debian maintainer was mistakenly convinced that it was very useful. Better communication with upstream would have saved me and the persons who sponsored my upload some time, and would have saved users from switching to other distributions or recompiling lyx in the meantime. Perhaps freedesktop.org could be a place where to discuss a standard way to publish links to information about releases in a machine readable format, together with the source code of a program. Don't know. It would be a big innovation, hence a long path. > Windows has the advantage in this case that it is up to the user which > versions of applications they install, thus a regression in an > application is rarely a regression in windows. There are a number of > avenues to reduce the impact of application regressions on Ubuntu. > That's a disadvantage in windows. Letting the computer choose the right version of a thing for me is very comfortable. So we should do this better. > 2) Make it easier to chose the version of the application you want. > This has become easier, with PPAs and multiple versions of > contraversial applications packaged. There is still some way to go in > making these options more easily available to the user. Perhaps there > should be a standard and easy way to "revert this application", and > the user could be informed of this option during upgrade. > You can already add the intrepid repository and then block a version of a package. You don't get intrepid's upgrades, though; if you don't block it, it gets reverted to jaunty with next upgrade. Adding priorities to synaptic and perhaps adding the old repository by default would be nice, but it is a big change and I bet it has many drawbacks. > 3) Make it easier to revert to an old version of Ubuntu. There is some > work on this using aufs, but currently you can't reboot into the new > version so you can't really tell how well it works, all you know is > whether the upgrade itself is smooth. If you could keep the old > version of Ubuntu around in the same way you can keep old kernels > around this would really help. Btrfs may help here, and the > reflink/cowlink systcalls they are proposing for ext4 may also help.
Re: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno gio, 14/05/2009 alle 21.26 +0900, Emmet Hikory ha scritto: > Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > (and sometimes different > priorities for the same package: seeking new features until personal use > cases are addressed, and then wanting the package to be stable from that > point forward). > Very good observation. That probably includes most ubuntu users :) However, in some cases, it may be worth to maintain the old thing while the new one is already available. This is done in many existing packages. Kile, kdvi, amarok, and the intel driver should be in that list given the balance of bugs w.r.t. new features. And selecting the right packages can even be done in some cases by whitelisting/blacklisting. We can't expect the users to chose the right version of each package by hand. That's one of the main purposes of a distribution. > I do know that the only way we can make sure that Ubuntu works for > our use cases is to be involved. I became involved with development > because my joystick didn't work with a game, and would encourage anyone > else who finds a problem to do the same. I became involved with the developement and then gave up, when I recognised that ubuntu needed manpower. So I understand what you say. However we can't expect all users to be developers. And in any case, also testing is necessary and the effort of tester shouldn't be wasted. > we need to be involved in the testing of that release, and we need to > make sure that we are involved in discussions of the solution. I was! Especially for the kdvi issue. But that does not count. When kdvi was removed again some day before release, the opinion of NO tester was seeked. I think this will upset somebody (at least if the person is not killfiling me already as promised) but it is just true. If I take the time to come here personally and get involved, and then am cut off in the near future, why should I bother to come back again. And no, it's not better for all of you if I go away. The problem is not that I write an e-mail every three or four months, that sounds injurious to somebody. Getting rid of this kind of e-mails will not get you rid of the problem, which is, you released jaunty badly broken for a lot of persons. And you don't even know how many. In any case I won't stop writing this kind of e-mails because honestly I think that something must be changed. I can't bear this fact that in every release good code is thrown away without too much questioning, and then even if testing reports regressions, the decision CANNOT be reverted. This WRONG. It may take two years to get a decent texing environment (xdvi is in Xaw, and I don't think I need to say anything else); God knows how long it will take to get the intel driver in good shape. And Hell knows when my vga out will get BACK to work as it USED TO in feisty (or was it edgy). As usual, I am tired of this. I want to do my part and see a side effect on that. That's all. > The best > way to make sure that someone looks at your bug is to help make all the > other bugs go away (help mark duplicates or non-bugs, help make sure the > bugs have the right information, help provide workarounds or patches to > fix the bugs, etc.). For those that have the time, doing a lot of this > will result in being a developer, but that's almost a side effect in the > goal of making sure that one's own bugs are solved. (note that this is > but one of many reasons people become Ubuntu developers). > I may decide to get back to contributing patches at least in the near future. But e.g. if I provide a forward port of the intel driver, be honest, do you think that anybody in ubuntu will care? I expect to waste my time. If I could at least have a warranty that the need for a forward port is appreciated, I might do my best to do that. But if I have to waste my time and then wait for a decision if my work is needed or not, frankly, I have better things to do. NOTE THAT I AM NOT SAYING that if I ever do the port, it HAS to be accepted as is, or that I won't do just an unacceptable mess. It's different: I am saying that even if I do a good job, it does not seem to me that ubuntu is really willing to keep a forward port of the driver; it seems to me that doing such a thing would be so easy for an xorg ubuntu developer that they'd already done that if they wanted it. And this is exactly the problem. If someone can prove me wrong please DO; I'll be happier. > It's also very useful to track the development releases. Yes, this > *will* cause your system to have issues as large things change, but by > doing so, one can verify that one's critical use cases are all supported > in each release. It's the only way to do it, really. Emmet: do you know that I DID that? That I wrote here to point out the already known bugs? That I was responded in one case "we have time" in the other case "ok we for-port kdvi" and in the first case, time did not suffice, in the second case, the forward port was removed
Re: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno gio, 14/05/2009 alle 02.47 +0100, Dmitrijs Ledkovs ha scritto: > > User-defined commands - Tick; > RefTex - bibliography completion - Tick > > preview-latex - Why do I need it when I have auto-refresh of Xdvi > But ok =D Please let us stop this. I know emacs. 10 years ago I was a university student having fun in coding in lisp. Point here is that unless you're willing to learn the specifics of it, you are lost in emacs. Now please let's not start a discussion about how useful is to learn. Learning is my profession, plus, I know how to dissect my ubuntu and my computer until the bare hardware. I am talking of a different thing: the concept of usability introduced by both graphic improvements such as completion pop-ups, and by automation, (e.g. no need to discover what "reftex" is, because the system just completes citations) *does* matter. We can't just say "hey emacs will be better" because this won't equate the offer on the market. I can install emacs under windows if I really want. NOT that I ever used windows since when I was a slave of a microsoft slave. That's not the point. V. -- It is also important to note that hedgehogs do not actually hurt each other when they get close to one another. Actually, when living in groups, hedgehogs often sleep close to each other. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog%27s_dilemma -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: <...> > I see that when bad things about ubuntu are pointed out, typically you > only get defensive answers by users. They all seem not to understand > that, at least in my case, I usually *do* defend ubuntu against too easy > critics, just like you. But if the problem exists, I'd like to see some > developers just admit it. No, I am not asking for a public "apologise" > as someone might imagine. I am asking a policy on regressions. I will > probably ask for it in every release until the end of the world, but I > still am not convinced that things are going well on that side. I'm an Ubuntu Developer, and I'm happy to admit that many packages in Ubuntu are broken, and that there are regressions with every release. There's even some policies that discourage brokenness and regressions. Some of these policies are enforced strongly enough to cause complaints from users who have some desire for a feature that was blocked in the attempt to reduce regressions. I don't know the right balance between feature enhancements and regression protection. I'm not convinced there exists a correct balance: each user has different priorities, and many of us have different priorities for different packages (and sometimes different priorities for the same package: seeking new features until personal use cases are addressed, and then wanting the package to be stable from that point forward). I also believe that regardless of what policies are set, they are only as effective as the enforcement, and can only be enforced as long as there is common consent amoung all those affected by the policies. In the case of Ubuntu, where most involved in the process (whether as bugsquad, or testers, or developers, or whatever) are volunteers, it becomes a matter of providing a strong enough incentive that it's not worth violating the policies. Given the general thirst for new features (else why bother ever upgrading), attempting to ensure no regressions can significantly raise the effort required to do anything, which reduces the self-perceived impact of the time spent by an individual, which may result in reduced incentive to contribute. Further, given the wide range of environments in which Ubuntu is run, it's exceedingly unlikely that any one person is able to fully test the implications of any change (although we can try to get close): if the policy is strong enough, it may even become impossible for someone to upload something while remaining in compliance, which either means that everyone ignores the policy, or that Ubuntu doesn't change. I do know that the only way we can make sure that Ubuntu works for our use cases is to be involved. I became involved with development because my joystick didn't work with a game, and would encourage anyone else who finds a problem to do the same. I don't play that game much now, but the vast majority of the things I do with Ubuntu happen to work for me, simply because I spend time every cycle doing them with the development releases. I've forgotten to do some things some releases, and sometimes I get regressions (e.g. in Intrepid, my joystick didn't work with that game again), but that's a failure on my part, not on the part of my fellow developers (only one has that joystick, and he doesn't play that game). So for any of us, whether developers or not, if we use some software, and want to be sure we can upgrade safely to the next release, we need to be involved in the testing of that release, and we need to make sure that we are involved in discussions of the solution. Yes, there are too many bugs, and yes, sometimes bugs get ignored. The best way to make sure that someone looks at your bug is to help make all the other bugs go away (help mark duplicates or non-bugs, help make sure the bugs have the right information, help provide workarounds or patches to fix the bugs, etc.). For those that have the time, doing a lot of this will result in being a developer, but that's almost a side effect in the goal of making sure that one's own bugs are solved. (note that this is but one of many reasons people become Ubuntu developers). It's also very useful to track the development releases. Yes, this *will* cause your system to have issues as large things change, but by doing so, one can verify that one's critical use cases are all supported in each release. It's the only way to do it, really. For those with a critical need for their system to work, there are live images released every few weeks during each development cycle that can be used for testing most use cases (there are exceptions, like testing the impact of the realtime kernel, where one must perform an install, but most use cases can be tested from the live environment). Of course, there's lots of people who don't do this: this will always be true. And sometimes it's tempting to be amoung that number, because it's a lot less effort, often for exactly the same results, but it's onl
Re: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Am 14.05.2009 um 13:16 schrieb Vincenzo Ciancia: > If every case can be argued to be uncommon, why worrying at all with > fixing bugs? No bug affects all users. Good point. Having no common case means bugs have to be taken seriously independent of how many users are affected. If each bug affects only one percent of the users, there likely won't be any users left with a smooth experience, after all. Markus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter http://www.jump-ing.de/ -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 2:39 AM, Daniel Chen wrote: > > Grave for whom? For you? For what common use cases? These are things > that are factors to consider when affecting an entire release. Quite. I haven't noticed any problems with LaTeX. This may be because I use LyX+xdvi. LyX+Okular seems to be fine too, although Okular is rather sluggish compared to xdvi, it is usable unlike e.g. Acroread (on either Linux or Windows). Forward and backward search "works for me" in Okular. LyX also has all the features the OP mentioned, though it is more of a GUI than an text editor For me the biggest problem with LaTeX is printing. Creating the dvi, pdf is fine. When I go to print, half the time nothing happens, with no indication of why. I have come across a number of causes: It could be that I am out of paper; that the paper is the wrong size; that cupsd has crashed; that the printer has a hardware failure and needs to be restarted; or that AppArmor has decided that printing is dangerous and shouldn't be allowed. In none of these cases has Ubuntu ever given me any GUI notification of what was wrong. I agree with Vincenzo Ciancia. We really need a survey. Without statistics all we really know is that it works for some people and not for others. With 8 million users this doesn't really tell us much. > > I messed up my ph.d. > > thesis with it today, then in complete frustration reinstalled kile > > 2.0.1 from intrepid, which works like a charm. > > I understand your frustration. I, too, have a day job. Are you > spending your free time fixing kile (and/or kdvi)? AFAICT Amarok didn't just have a couple of annoying bugs, it was never really ready for widespread use. According to Jeff Mitchel "We've maintained that until 2.1, most users should stick with 1.4. Unfortunately, just as Intrepid shipped with the it's-not-meant-to-be-a-user-release KDE 4.1, Jaunty shipped with Amarok 2.0." Ubuntu introduces regressions far faster than any mortal could be expect to fix them. More unpaid bug fixers would help slightly, but we can't solve the problem without limiting the number of regressions and severity of regressions. Here are some ways this could be achieved: 1) Clear communication with upstream. If we could agree on a way of clearly marking (e.g. Early Adopter Release) releases that are not meant for widespread consumption, then Ubuntu could made a policy of not making EAR releases the default except in exceptional circumstances. Windows has the advantage in this case that it is up to the user which versions of applications they install, thus a regression in an application is rarely a regression in windows. There are a number of avenues to reduce the impact of application regressions on Ubuntu. 2) Make it easier to chose the version of the application you want. This has become easier, with PPAs and multiple versions of contraversial applications packaged. There is still some way to go in making these options more easily available to the user. Perhaps there should be a standard and easy way to "revert this application", and the user could be informed of this option during upgrade. 3) Make it easier to revert to an old version of Ubuntu. There is some work on this using aufs, but currently you can't reboot into the new version so you can't really tell how well it works, all you know is whether the upgrade itself is smooth. If you could keep the old version of Ubuntu around in the same way you can keep old kernels around this would really help. Btrfs may help here, and the reflink/cowlink systcalls they are proposing for ext4 may also help. -- John C. McCabe-Dansted PhD Student University of Western Australia -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno mer, 13/05/2009 alle 22.20 -0400, Daniel Chen ha scritto: > > > So: There is no common case. > > Which was my point precisely. > Oh come on; please be reasonable. I955 and similar chipsets have not one, but so many different bugs on jaunty that the common case is under your eyes. Go out, find ten laptops with this chipset, start the livecd and see for yourself if you can work with such a slow thing. Then report the numbers. If 10 is not sufficient try 100. If you can't, try setting up a website for just testing regressions. Or since we already have launchpad you can take a look for yourself: [BTW, where is the data from the ubuntu hardware test?] https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel?field.searchtext=jaunty&orderby=-importance&search=Search&field.status%3Alist=NEW&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITH_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=INCOMPLETE_WITHOUT_RESPONSE&field.status%3Alist=CONFIRMED&field.status%3Alist=TRIAGED&field.status%3Alist=INPROGRESS&field.status%3Alist=FIXCOMMITTED&field.assignee=&field.bug_reporter=&field.omit_dupes=on&field.has_patch=&field.has_no_package= Please if you want to insist that the case is not common bring numbers. The latex case is common indeed. If you don't believe me set up a survey. If _I_ do that, it will be possible to argue that the poll is biased or whatever. You won't get users switch from windows (I wonder how it is even possible that tex users landed there, btw) if kile is broken and okular is in the current state. Fixing problems requires time. People is working on fixing the intel driver, or okular but jaunty is released broken. I am tired of having to argue that things are broken vs. things are broken just for me. If you prefer, instead of solving the problem locally for every person who asks me, I will encourage them to write e-mails here. (no, not really). If every case can be argued to be uncommon, why worrying at all with fixing bugs? No bug affects all users. I see that when bad things about ubuntu are pointed out, typically you only get defensive answers by users. They all seem not to understand that, at least in my case, I usually *do* defend ubuntu against too easy critics, just like you. But if the problem exists, I'd like to see some developers just admit it. No, I am not asking for a public "apologise" as someone might imagine. I am asking a policy on regressions. I will probably ask for it in every release until the end of the world, but I still am not convinced that things are going well on that side. V. -- It is also important to note that hedgehogs do not actually hurt each other when they get close to one another. Actually, when living in groups, hedgehogs often sleep close to each other. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog%27s_dilemma -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Markus Hitter wrote: > This gives an impression like "The Ubuntu Team" (whoever this is) is totally > overwhelmed with the sheer number of reports - wich isn't neccessarily a bad > thing, but isn't encouraging more reports either. Yes, the firehose of bug reports is not going to cease to a trickle. That's why "ordinary users" such as you and me need to find the time to fix the software bugs. > So: There is no common case. Which was my point precisely. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
2009/5/14 Vincenzo Ciancia : > Il giorno gio, 14/05/2009 alle 00.11 +0100, Dmitrijs Ledkovs ha scritto: >> Lack of Decent Latex Support? >> >> I've switched to ubuntu because of it. I was sick of realising that >> I'm missing this or that latex package. in ubuntu I did default >> average (a little bit of extra math fonts) and everytime I'm offline I >> manage to compile anything my collegues give me. >> >> About editors have you tried AucTeX with Speedbar and code >> folding? It rocks better than anything else. > > I know the power of emacs and use it for many things (btw you should > also mention preview-latex when advocating it ;) and where did x-symbol > end?) but when I compile documents it seems a pain to go to the next > error and similar. I _know_ that I can learn it because I use it for > coding, but it's not your tipical user interface. Kile is very good in > covering the needs of ex-texnic-center users and has very comfortable > facilities (e.g. the completion for user-defined commands and for > bibliography). > User-defined commands - Tick; RefTex - bibliography completion - Tick preview-latex - Why do I need it when I have auto-refresh of Xdvi But ok =D >> >> Xdvi true is the current way for dvi workflow. just wait for a >> SyncTex and everyone will be off to Pdf. >> > > Synctex changes the pagination of the document AFAIK, and apart from Wrong =D PdfSync did. Synctex doesn't it's new in TexLive 2008 didn't land in Debian yet. Synctex is better and it's becoming standard on linux viewer is Texmaker on Mac Os X - Skim and there is on for Windows but cant' remmeber how it's called. All normal editors support synctex already. > that, my post is about... what to do while we wait! I have NO doubts > that both okular and evince will one day be perfect for texing. Evince > is for pdfs right now. Just it still can't reliably print a pdf (since > years). The patch is in gnome so it will hopefully be in karmic BTW. > How long have you waited for XP? And how long have you waited for Xp to get good??? I think Ubuntu/Debian and Foss are much better on the timescales =D -- With best regards Dmitrijs Ledkovs (for short Dima), Ледков Дмитрий Юрьевич -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Wednesday 13 May 2009 7:11:16 pm Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote: > Lack of Decent Latex Support? > > About editors have you tried AucTeX with Speedbar and code > folding? It rocks better than anything else. I use vim with the vim-latexsuite package installed, and it does code-folding. I assume that this would carry over to GVim and thus Cream as well. -- Mackenzie Morgan http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com apt-get moo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Am 13.05.2009 um 20:39 schrieb Daniel Chen: > There has been no lack of calls for testing. Some of these calls have > resulted in timely and effective bug reports. Others, not so much. I > doubt testers' responses have been blithely ignored. I hope they aren't, of course. Yet, of the about 8 bugs I reported over the last two years, only one was fixed - about nine months after reporting. If you want to review: at Launchpad I'm "Traumflug". This gives an impression like "The Ubuntu Team" (whoever this is) is totally overwhelmed with the sheer number of reports - wich isn't neccessarily a bad thing, but isn't encouraging more reports either. I admit I didn't participate in Jaunty testing. Running the alpha Live-CD showed me it wouldn't support my preferred monitor resoluton. In Intrepid, this resolution worked perfectly. This was reported (I think), but this part of Jaunty worked as designed (allow resolutions the monitor hardware suggests, only), and I had to find a workaround. I did this after the release, of course. Later Daniel wrote: > But is your hardware indicative of the common case? IMHO, the only common case on the i386/AMD64 platform is: there is no common case. Seriously: there are millions of combinations of hardware components out there and even if some 0.13% of the computers worldwide happen to have the exactly same hardware, each of the hardware's users will have a different perference on how the box should work. So: There is no common case. Markus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter http://www.jump-ing.de/ -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno mer, 13/05/2009 alle 17.47 -0400, Daniel T Chen ha scritto: > > Ubuntu is a community-driven distribution. Help make it as good as it > can > be. There is no "I cannot", only "I will not". > I tried for a while (can brag about a couple of xournal and lyx uploads) but for me the consumed time was too much especially because not doing those things every day means to forget them. At least I can provide feedback on testing for now. In the future things may change. For now, I I can't even take care of the few free software I wrote myself. V. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno gio, 14/05/2009 alle 00.11 +0100, Dmitrijs Ledkovs ha scritto: > Lack of Decent Latex Support? > > I've switched to ubuntu because of it. I was sick of realising that > I'm missing this or that latex package. in ubuntu I did default > average (a little bit of extra math fonts) and everytime I'm offline I > manage to compile anything my collegues give me. > > About editors have you tried AucTeX with Speedbar and code > folding? It rocks better than anything else. I know the power of emacs and use it for many things (btw you should also mention preview-latex when advocating it ;) and where did x-symbol end?) but when I compile documents it seems a pain to go to the next error and similar. I _know_ that I can learn it because I use it for coding, but it's not your tipical user interface. Kile is very good in covering the needs of ex-texnic-center users and has very comfortable facilities (e.g. the completion for user-defined commands and for bibliography). > > Xdvi true is the current way for dvi workflow. just wait for a > SyncTex and everyone will be off to Pdf. > Synctex changes the pagination of the document AFAIK, and apart from that, my post is about... what to do while we wait! I have NO doubts that both okular and evince will one day be perfect for texing. Evince is for pdfs right now. Just it still can't reliably print a pdf (since years). The patch is in gnome so it will hopefully be in karmic BTW. V. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Lack of Decent Latex Support? I've switched to ubuntu because of it. I was sick of realising that I'm missing this or that latex package. in ubuntu I did default average (a little bit of extra math fonts) and everytime I'm offline I manage to compile anything my collegues give me. About editors have you tried AucTeX with Speedbar and code folding? It rocks better than anything else. Xdvi true is the current way for dvi workflow. just wait for a SyncTex and everyone will be off to Pdf. Amrok I use banshee never tried amrok. -- With best regards Dmitrijs Ledkovs (for short Dima), Ледков Дмитрий Юрьевич -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: RIPEMD160 On Wed, 13 May 2009, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > I can't become an ubuntu developer > because I lack time for that. You have requirements about developers and > that's very good. I can't meet those requirements therefore I limit > myself to a literate tester. Of course you can become an Ubuntu developer. Time is a resource - if you care seriously about Ubuntu (as I do about audio), then it's a matter of reprioritising. There are plenty of avenues to become involved. You can expand beyond reporting bugs and testing proposed fixes. As long as you're willing to invest resources, you _can_ fix the problems. Ubuntu is a community-driven distribution. Help make it as good as it can be. There is no "I cannot", only "I will not". Dan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFKCz/ye9GwFciKvaMRA+d7AJ0cfGaguPkdEwOp36jwLMSWOZL0gACgka0m pYPiLNSvu3uOpBiI3/9rsgM= =GqDk -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Wednesday 13 May 2009 3:22:56 pm Daniel Chen wrote: > On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Mackenzie Morgan wrote: > I wrote: > >> Again, for which users on what hardware? Do those users constitute the > >> majority of people using Ubuntu? > > You replied: > > Actually, Daniel, it is rather poor. You saw what happened on my computer. > > If I didn't turn on greedy, it would lock constantly. And seeing as it worked > > without greedy not a month before release, that was a very late regression. > > But is your hardware indicative of the common case? Regarding the lockups, probably not. But there have been complaints about the intel driver from quite a lot of folks, and I rather doubt all were using the same hardware. Part of what you snipped included a list of workarounds that were being used to cover the range of regressions people have been experiencing. -- Mackenzie Morgan http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com apt-get moo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
Il giorno mer, 13/05/2009 alle 15.22 -0400, Daniel Chen ha scritto: > > > You replied: > > Actually, Daniel, it is rather poor. You saw what happened on my > computer. > > If I didn't turn on greedy, it would lock constantly. And seeing as > it worked > > without greedy not a month before release, that was a very late > regression. > > But is your hardware indicative of the common case? Daniel: you don't know me and you are not supposed to. I sometimes point out facts on this list, that we all (including me) commonly tend to underestimate because of our belief that ubuntu is Good. It is. No doubt. However, I DO file bug reports in time and DO reply to developers. I consider that a duty. I can't become an ubuntu developer because I lack time for that. You have requirements about developers and that's very good. I can't meet those requirements therefore I limit myself to a literate tester. I came on this list during alpha to signal that intel's driver was extremely slow by default and this IS the common case on integrated intel cards sold on a huge amount of laptops. I was responded ON this list that it was known, and there was time. One of the most active persons in the xorg/ubuntu community, Bryce Harrington, has this bug and he is actively working with the community to solve the problem. But "there was time" do you remember? A forward port of the old driver should have been done, instead of saying that there was time. Then, in time for release, seeing that the grave bug was not solved, ubuntu could have shipped the old driver by default and the new driver for testers. In the future I would be happy to see more attention not to break things in such a heavy way. Latex stack is broken. The common use case WAS kdvi+kile for all the "gui-friendly texers" that I know. Regarding cooperation with upstream, I wasted hours in reporting all the debug information on the intel BTS for the infamous "VGA-OUT broken" bug. I just don't use my laptop for presentations. I wasted hours, but when the intel developers had enough information, they stopped taking care of the bug. Here it is. ubuntu https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/137234 intel https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16702 Daniel: sounds like a rant, behaves like a rant, then it is a rant?? No. I think that if I waste my time testing and reporting (and I may not be the better, but am not the only one) prompt reaction to regression is a payback. If I don't see it, I stop testing. Because my free time, exactly as yours, is not for free. I don't ask for stopping the progress. Just keep the working stuff enough time. When kdvi was added back to jaunty, it was in response to a request here. There was a request open on the BTS but someone (me) needed to come here and point out reasons. Then when kdvi was removed from the archive, nobody needed to ask me or the bug reporter or other users, if okular was working. There was no time for that, the release was pressing. It did not cost ANY * THING to keep kdvi there. It costs ubuntu its image as a good texing platform, not having a good latex stack. Why not just taking care of regression by forward port by default? Not for everything of course, but would it really cost so much? Users can already tag regressions. Just let's introduce a procedure that avoids regressions not to be cared of. I mean: it is disgusting: we have the source code, it works, but we ship the broken version. Why on earth? Let's ship both as it is already done for so many packages and libraries. Let us do that in response to regression tags, after verifying the use case, of course. Vincenzo -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Mackenzie Morgan wrote: > Amarok works, but it *is* a feature regression over previous versions. It > used to play CDs, for example. It does not now. Upstream's working on it, but > they didn't consider it a priority for releasing Amarok2, thinking most people > download their music, and ripping a CD doesn't take too long anyway. Which is a perfectly valid, if misled, assumption. It still does not remove the fact that Amarok was tested regardless whether there are feature regressions. I wrote: >> Again, for which users on what hardware? Do those users constitute the >> majority of people using Ubuntu? You replied: > Actually, Daniel, it is rather poor. You saw what happened on my computer. > If I didn't turn on greedy, it would lock constantly. And seeing as it worked > without greedy not a month before release, that was a very late regression. But is your hardware indicative of the common case? -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Wednesday 13 May 2009 2:39:16 pm Daniel Chen wrote: > On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > > What is it doing there in a stable release? This program has not been > > tested. It is not stable. People does not like it yet. > > Are you seriously saying that Amarok has not been tested? Amarok works, but it *is* a feature regression over previous versions. It used to play CDs, for example. It does not now. Upstream's working on it, but they didn't consider it a priority for releasing Amarok2, thinking most people download their music, and ripping a CD doesn't take too long anyway. > > The new intel driver was > > and is broken. Upgrading has been a grave mistake and users are seeing > > an ubuntu that deadlocks. > > Again, for which users on what hardware? Do those users constitute the > majority of people using Ubuntu? Actually, Daniel, it is rather poor. You saw what happened on my computer. If I didn't turn on greedy, it would lock constantly. And seeing as it worked without greedy not a month before release, that was a very late regression. That the intel driver is slower than on Intrepid is a common complaint, but there are many different reasons depending on the hardware. For some people, greedy is the fix, others need to move forward to UXA (if that even works on their chip, which it does not necessarily do), and others have taken to installing the old drivers or to installing very new drivers from the X Swat PPA. > > It seems to me that too much trust was put in the fact that it'd > > have been fixed. > > How much of this complaining would be moot if you had contributed upstream? Seeing as my sound card only works right because Daniel here taught me how to fix ityup, "if you want it done right, do it yourself" seems fitting. -- Mackenzie Morgan http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com apt-get moo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- 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: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools
On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > I hope this will not sound like a complaint. It does. > The problem > is there, and it's grave. Grave for whom? For you? For what common use cases? These are things that are factors to consider when affecting an entire release. > In my opinion, the switch to recent versions of some programs has been > done without the needed testing, (or, like in the case of the intel > driver, without taking seriously the response from testers) and results > in a completely broken or very badly usable system for many. In the > latest release of ubuntu, I mean. There has been no lack of calls for testing. Some of these calls have resulted in timely and effective bug reports. Others, not so much. I doubt testers' responses have been blithely ignored. I know I certainly didn't regarding the audio stack (woe tho' it is). Some regressions are more serious than others, and like most bugs, there are sometimes quick workarounds. (Sometimes the entire audio stack has to be ripped apart, but that's irrelevant.) One pivot is "how many users will regress if we do X instead of Y?" It is not useful to base a decision solely on popular outcry. There are far too many hardware combinations. People whose Ubuntu installs seem to work rarely pipe up and complain. How do you account for them? > THIS IS BAD FOR UBUNTU! THIS IS BAD FOR UBUNTU! THIS IS BAD FOR > UBUNTU! THIS IS BAD FOR UBUNTU! THIS IS BAD FOR UBUNTU! THIS IS BAD It's a very thin line between complaining and fixing the bugs, but motivation may distort one's vision. > I messed up my ph.d. > thesis with it today, then in complete frustration reinstalled kile > 2.0.1 from intrepid, which works like a charm. I understand your frustration. I, too, have a day job. Are you spending your free time fixing kile (and/or kdvi)? > What is it doing there in a stable release? This program has not been > tested. It is not stable. People does not like it yet. Are you seriously saying that Amarok has not been tested? Also, I'm unsure what part of "liking" (which is subjective, regardless) an application actually goes into bundling it into a release. As far as I know, Amarok has existed in some form for most, if not all, Kubuntu releases. To remove it would constitute a regression. To bundle an older version would result in complaints regarding an outdated version. etc. > fixed, but why shipping a broken program in a stable distribution? > Now this can't be my fault. Nor yours: you wanted to > get rid of unsupported applications and that's good. But it was way too > quick as a move. Next time a bit more testing will help. Or...you could step and take responsibility for some part of the distribution/release process. The line between complaining and fixing bugs really becomes thinner, then. > The new intel driver was > and is broken. Upgrading has been a grave mistake and users are seeing > an ubuntu that deadlocks. Again, for which users on what hardware? Do those users constitute the majority of people using Ubuntu? > It seems to me that too much trust was put in the fact that it'd > have been fixed. How much of this complaining would be moot if you had contributed upstream? > The ubuntu procedure for testing, in jaunty, > seems not to have worked in some points. Next release can be better also > from this point of view. Perhaps by just listening a bit more to > regressions (it seems my favourite topic?). What constitutes a regression for you may not be a regression on someone else's install. Are you more important than that someone else? Whose install should break? "Neither" is an ideal but impractical answer. Dan -- 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
