[clue-tech] Ubuntu experiences good and bad

[Nate Duehr]

Collins Richey wrote:

>Although an upgrade path is provided, its not very well tested, and
>even the experts at the Well Known North American Vendor (read: Red
>Hat) and CentOS recommend a clean install, They imply that you get to
>keep both halves if it breaks. Not that I am in favor of this
>approach.
>
>  
>
Amen.  I just had to say I agree with this.  Not being able to support 
upgrades is lazy.

>Here would be an opportunity for Linux to shine. Windows upgrades
>(almost) always break everything. You'd think the clever developers of
>FOSS would have found a better approach, but no, every major software
>product starting with the kernel (seems to) firmly believe in changing
>the base structure and the APIs from one release to the next such that
>upgrades are problematic at best..
>
>  
>
Agreed.  Although it's not always the distro vendor. 

Sometimes it's simply the general mayhem and insanity of OSS developers, 
especially new ones who think they "know it all" so they just change 
things without asking "Why was it this way?  How should we handle the 
transition?".

>I happen to have a highly customized system and thus lot of
>"configuration issues," so I'm not really thrilled by the prospect of
>breakage every 6 months. I've passed my complaints on to Ubuntu in the
>forums. They've done so many good things (bringing Debian out of the
>anceint world into at least the most recent past not being the least);
>so maybe they can come up with an upgrade procedure that works.
>  
>
"Bringing Debian out of the ancient world" - that's laughable.  Ubuntu 
is just compiling a very real and very available set of Debian packages 
available in what Debian would call "testing" or "unstable".  Ubuntu 
isn't anything "different" and isn't even truly innovative, it's just 
got a goal to release more often.  (Politics and economics aside, of 
course.  Having a multimillionaire supporting Linux is a new innovative 
thing, as well as that multimillionaire being beneficial and benign 
about it all.)  They add some value with changes to the installer, and a 
more open attitude toward binary drivers, in the eyes of most end-users 
anyway.  People struggling with getting hardware vendors to stop that 
silliness aren't helped by Ubuntu at all.

>Sigh. How are you going to teach an army of Window refugees to do a
>fresh install every 6 months when many of us old hands can barely cope
>with it? This (at least) is a perfectly good reason why Linux has not
>caught on with the masses.
>  
>
They're used to it, it's called mmm... "Windows Update" methinks.  :-)

Heh.

Nate
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