yum flavors vs/ fc1, fc2, fc3...infinity

Timothy Murphy tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
Sat Jul 17 03:59:06 UTC 2004


Sean Estabrooks wrote:

>> The distribution failed disastrously on fairly common machines.

> That's not my impression at all.  There were some specific problems but
> nothing disasterous.

As I understand it, there was an apparent partition table error
on dual boot machines.
This was potentially disastrous,
since people might well have thought there actually was a partition error,
and taken seriously mistaken remedial action.

>> What I am saying is that more time and energy should be allotted
>> to simplifying the installation and use of Fedora,
>> and in fact of Linux generally.
> 
> Who says it "should"? 

To me it is self-evident that computer systems
should be well-documented,
and should be as simple to run as possible.

> But if there is truly an unfilled niche, the market will take care of it.
> From what I can tell the RedHat products have a lot of effort put into
> making them simpler to install and use.

I agree.
That is why it is a pity Fedora has not kept up the good work in this area.

>> To me it is obvious that there was insufficient testing of FC-2,
>> and therefore it is reasonable to enquire
>> how more people could be involved in testing.
> 
> Insufficient for whose liking?  Yours?  Some other people?   Will be
> interesting to see if more people step up and start testing the FC3
> releases or not.   That will decide how much testing it gets.

You shouldn't wait to "see" if people test FC-3 pre-releases.
You should make it easier for them to do it.
My impression is that only a tiny proportion of Fedora users
actually installed the test distributions.
Maybe you know better.
This was the major cause of the problems
which contrary to your beliefs were fairly widespread.

> You're right things could change, but there is no indication that they
> will.

Who actually decides these matters?
Do Fedora users have any say in the matter?

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland





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