ATI video comes out of the closet

[Les Mikesell]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:

>> Well, what I really want is the ability to have more than one version of
>> an application on my machine at a time so I can test the cutting edge
>> version and take advantage of its features while being able to fall back
>> to the old reliable release as needed, but that seems to be way too much
>> to ask from the rpm/yum school of thought, particularly if they blindly
>> track the FHS committee's arbitrary ideas about where files have to
>> live.   But, an application crash once in a while is easier to tolerate
>> than not booting after an update, and I don't think it is unreasonable
>> to want a stable kernel AND current apps.  Firefox 2.x might still have
>> a few bugs, but it probably won't crash my machine.
>>
> Hmm - "blindly track the FHS committee's arbitrary ideas" - that is
> a strange way to phrase following a standard.

Not that unusual for a standard that changes arbitrarily every time they 
meet and makes it difficult to use the otherwise well designed ability 
of unix/linux to deal with different application and library paths for 
different processes and users at the same time.

> As far as having more then one version of an application installed
> at a time, I can just picture the problems that would cause most
> users.

It wouldn't be a requirement.  And it would make Linux as difficult to 
use as a Mac...

> You can ignore the package manager all together, and install one
> version in the /usr/local or /opt tree after compiling it yourself.

Of course, and I'd wager that virtually every developer does exactly 
that for himself, building and testing multiple versions at the same 
time for anything where it might make sense.  And then they ignore the 
reasons they had for doing that and package it so no one else can.

But, are you really recommending that everyone who wants current apps 
and a stable kernel should install Centos and build all their apps from 
source in /usr/local?  Yes, it works, and yes I do some of that, but I 
don't think for a second that it is the right answer to this problem.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com