Re: I've tested the PGI installer
On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 16:53:27 -0500
Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
> Okay, fine; file a grave bug against PGI, watch it get pulled from
> Debian compeltely, and then everybody can be happy because they'll
> never have to use PGI again.
>
> That'll show those lusers who can't be troubled to buy NVidia cards.
I don't consider myself a luser, but I've bought an NVidia card anyway,
believe me, there might be reasons, and there have been: in october 2001
it was the only cheap 3d card wich was both sold in stores and working
under linux. I built my pc in that month. It took some week to be sure
that every single f*cking piece of hardware would have run on my pc with
debian, even thermal sensors, BEFORE buying the components. The hardware
resellers of my town still consider me a bit crazy for this.
Also, in many apple systems there are nvidia cards. I don't want debian
uninstallable on apple machines, hope I am not the only one.
Believe me, I am not happy with NVidia policy in respect to the open
source community, but can't stand being considered a luser and being
considered outside of the debian project just because I bougth an
NVidia. There's no need to get to flames, maybe I am the only user
owning an NVidia and willing to help :)
I am writing a complicated e-mail. Please understand that I am not
english and not so skilled in english, so I can only HOPE this is at
least readable.
What should I do, in your opinion? I see three possibilities, there
might be others
1. File a grave bug report.
PRO:
- It's not completely an NVidia fault: there are many older video
cards that don't respect DDC. And the hang is caused by get-edid. Sure,
it's not my video card hanging, just the detection program. kudzu-vesa
works fine, correctly detecting that the card doesn't support ddc. - I
think that it's correct to consider a package marked by a grave bug if
it can't completely work on some hardware. This is what is always done
in debian, and, besides, the fact the bug involves an NVidia card, wich
is not appreciated by many people, doesn't lower the importance of the
bug, if - I REPEAT - it is a software bug, and it could happen also on
other video cards.
CONS:
- It would pull away pgi from debian until the bug is solved. If I
report the bug I should consider working to solve it.
2. File an "important" bug report.
PRO:
- The package wouldn't be pulled away.
- It might be correct (so I am asking what to do), because the bug
shows up only in some hardware configurations. CONS:
- This really has no cons, so could be the right answer.
3. Don't file a bug report at all until I can fix it.
PRO:
- The pgi installer would work then
- The pgi installer wouldn't get pulled away from debian.
CONS:
- It could take a lot of time, and in the meantime every people owning
an nvidia and willing to try the new installer would only experience
100mb of unuseful download (with a 56k modem, it's too much). - It's
not in the free-software philosophy to hide bugs.
What do you consider better?
Thanks for attention
Vincenzo
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