On Fri, Jul 22, 2005 at 06:44:39PM -0400, Dan wrote:
> I *hate* distros that force me to put stuff where they want.... main
> reason I abandoned Redhat.  (I also hate distros that make me wait for
> their *approved* release when the source has release a security patch
> days ago, YARIAR). I am now trying to update Thunderbird with their
> latest 1.0.6 release.  When I install the tar in /usr/local/thunderbird
> and link the image to /usr/local/bin/thunderbird it works but it doesn't
> see my profile.  It wants me to setup all of my accounts.

(1) Distros don't force you to do anything. You don't _have_ to use the
distro-provided package; you can opt to remove mozilla-* completely (and
deal with the metapackage dependency hell yourself, but that's another
issue altogether) via the package manager and use your friendly command
line utils to extract $whatever to $wherever.

(1a) Did you remember to remove - or at least backup - your user's
profile directories prior to updating the package?

(2) The backporting of security patches deserves a rant all by itself.
No one seems to care that simply dropping in wholesale a new upgraded
version of $package runs a high risk of introducing further bugs. This
is precisely why people have been applying security patches to older
versions.

(2a) Let me once again reiterate that if you feel strongly about the
methodology Ubuntu uses, then by all means talk to us maintainers and
developers on our mailing lists, irc channels, forums, and myriad
communication avenues. We listen to our users, so speak up.

> I don't want to do that.

Keep in mind that going your own way (implying using your own installs
in /usr/local) is, while certainly convenient, certainly not supported
officially. If you expect your program to act the "official" way, then
you have to trust that the package maintainers will do a good job
checking their patches. Can you guarantee that the tarball from which
you extracted 1.0.6 maintains the same profile expectancies?

HTH,
Dan

(No, I'm not a Ubuntu developer, nor does Canonical pay me, but I am a
Ubuntu MOTU [http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU] who has seen many, many years
of policy bickering.)

-- 
Daniel T. Chen          [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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