Mostly off topic, Evolution question

[Andrew Kelly]

On Wed, 2006-04-26 at 09:47 -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-04-26 at 12:52 +0200, Andrew Kelly wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > please forgive how off topic this posting is; I have a query for the
> > multi-booters on the list.
> > 
> > Have any of you any experience with sharing data between
distributions
> > with high similarities? The specific scenario I'm after is this:
> > 
> > I have FC5 on a laptop, as well as the newest Ubuntu. I spent the
last
> > half year or so using FC4 exclusively and was pretty much very
pleased
> > with it all. FC5, however, seems nearly a step backwards and I'm not
at
> > all sure I want to use it much longer. But I'd like to keep it
through a
> > fair shakedown phase, maybe see if any coming updates brighten
things
> > up. Parallel, though, I'd like to test drive Ubuntu as a potential
> > replacement. Right, nuff background.
> > 
> > What I'm after is sharing a single evolution instance between FC5
and
> > Ubuntu, so that I won't lose my mind trying to keep track of which
mail
> > might be where. Eventually I'll put up a dovecot server or something
> > somewhere and migrate everything "off site", but for now I'm curious
if
> > I can share data in this way considering Gnome and Evolution are
pretty
> > standard on both sides.
> > 
> > If I were to, say, move my .evolution folder to a separate partition
and
> > mount it in my home dir in both Distros, what are the chances that
> > within a week I'd have munged my mail beyond repair?
> > 
> > Anybody out there done anything like this?
> 
> I have.  While I can't speak to Evolution specifically, it does work
> with Mozilla/Thunderbird and I've not had any issues regarding
> corrupted mailboxes.  Since the data regarding the account is kept in
> the .evolution (or .mozilla or .firefox) directory (logins, mail
paths,
> etc.), it should work fine unless Evolution itself changes the way it
> stores things.  All bets are off then!

Assuming I could then keep the two instances of Evolution in sync, then
even a change in storage methodology should fly on both wings (so to
speak), as long as the both updated before accessing data. Pretty low
probability scenario, though.

> 
> BTW, a standard practice is to create an entirely separate "/home"
> partition for user home directories.  Obviously, this gets mounted as
> "/home" on all of your distros so the users have a consistent home
> directory regardless of which one is booted.  You must synchronize the
> passwd, shadow and group files of course, unless you're using NIS, NIS
+
> or LDAP for authentication.

I thought about that, but it's a laptop we're dealing with and nobody
gets to touch it but me (mine mine mine), so I'm the only user. Still,
it was worth the thought. But in the end I opted not to because it's
possible I'll have distinct settings in certain apps, based on the
distro. I didn't want to risk things like .bashrc getting mooshed back
and forth.

> What specific problems are you having with FC5?  I find it hard to
> believe you consider it a "step backward".  Beyond some upgrade issues
> with the installer, FC5 is pretty good.  There are a lot of inherent
> differences "under the hood" between it and FC4, so perhaps you're
still
> trying to get used to those, but I'd hardly call it a step back.

Well, along with the issues already addressed by Karl, my primary point
of frustration at the moment is the broken session management in Gnome.
I like to boot with certain apps open in certain workspaces and it was
easy in FC4 to set things up, and then save the session at logout.
Subsequent boots gave you what you'd set up and everything was groovy.
FC5 lets me save automatically on logout, or not at all. So I either
have to shut down with exactly what I want to see at next boot, or set
it up from scratch each boot. It's a gnome thing, so I don't know why
it's suddenly broken in 5 when it worked in 4 (and works in Ubuntu).

So far most of my additional complaints are petty and based on the
assumptions that FC makes for me. Bad defaults.
Not many show stoppers, but a lot of annoyances. 

Things like displaying folder contents as large icons rather than in a
proper list, the annoyance of SELinux settings, an updater that still
can't hold a candle to apt. And stupid things that should work without
any thinking involved, but either don't or require effort to set up.

I should be able to hang a monitor on my laptop, and it should bloody
well light up when I push the button, even if only using dumb values
like a resolution of 800x600. Firefox should be able to install a flash
plugin without any special theatrics, an Adobe Reader rpm should pop in
and work instantly, Totem should be pre-loaded with a hand full of
standard codecs, the installer should by now be able to detect and fire
up a centrino wifi, the display should be found at install on a laptop,
etc. and so forth.

I've pulled over a GB of updates in the 3 or 4 weeks I've been test
driving FC5, I find that a little harsh.

You know, I can't really point my finger and say "and that is why I
moved to <insert distro here>", but all in all I'm having to do too much
to be able to carry on with my day as I did before moving to FC5.

Hmm, and I guess that I'm quietly pissed that my RHCE is about to expire
and that I have to vomit up nearly a grand to keep it all from having
been a waste of time, even though the underlying tech is relatively
unchanged.

Andy