Re: Debug output etc, cluttering the terminal

[Peter Miller <pmiller@opensource.org.au>]

On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 13:38 +0200, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> those are not stupid debug output, but real problems, and should
> be fixed. We're not going to hide them.

So have gtk_assert (or whatever it is) actually call abort() and make
the offending applications crash, so the offending developers *have* to
fix them.  But until you do that, give me a way to Shut Them Off, and
without silencing *real* error messages, either.

You can't have it both ways, they are either dire imminent bugs, or they
are noise.  As a user, from where I sit, they are noise.

On the logs issue, have you ever had .xsession-errors fill your /home
disk?  I have.  It was a very painful experience.  I turns out that
Evolution will utterly trash your email storage when it runs out of disk
space.  Why are you forcing me to restore from backup because my disk
filled up with (something indistinguishable from) noise from GUI
applications?

A simple "silence unless asked for debug" aka "the unix golden rule"
official Policy seems like (a) a great idea, (b) simple to explain, and
(c) simple to implement.

-- 
Peter Miller <pmiller@opensource.org.au>