G2D in unstable: a user's perspective

[peloy@debian.org]

Hi guys,

First of all, I wanted to thank all the Debian maintainers of Gnome
packages. You are doing a terrific job, keep it up!

I have been following the discussions on this list regarding whether it
is a good idea to upload G2D to unstable replacing G1D, and I wanted to
provide feedback from a user's point of view: on my computer at work
I have been running the G2D packages through a unstable/experimental
combination. I must say that I haven't had any problems at all with
G2D, and I like it much better than G1D. Improvements like the ones in
Nautilus and AA fonts made the switch really worth it.

Of course, I am using some Gnome1 applications like Galeon, XChat,
GnuCash, GHex, but they work fine with mixed Gnome1/Gnome2 libraries.

Now, on my home computer I follow unstable, and there I didn't want
to add "experimental" to my sources.list, so I put all the Gnome2
packages in unstable on hold (gnome-terminal, gnomemeeting, gnome-gv,
etc.), but I will be migrating to Gnome2 once it is uploaded to
unstable. The reason I have waited is that I don't want to use a mix
of unstable/experimental packages on my home machine. This issue will
disappear once G2D is in unstable.

Regarding preferences, I couldn't care less about them. When I migrated
at work from G1D to G2D I deleted the key directories (.gnome, .sawfish,
.gconf, etc.) and started from scratch. I personally don't understand
what the big deal with migrating user preferences is: it didn't take
long to bring my new G2D environment to the way I had it in G1D. But
that's just me, I understand other users might think different.

Finally, I personally like the idea of having the Gnome2 packages
replace the Gnome1 packages in unstable, i.e. no *2 packages. My reasons
are: 1) Debian is already huge and bloating the archive more does no
good. 2) unstable is where all this stuff should be happening. Want
Gnome 1? Use testing, or better yet, Woody. If you follow unstable
you must accept certain risks. We uploaded a CVS version of Samba
pre-3.0 to unstable and lots of things broke, but if someone comes to
me complaining I will tell him/her that we maintain the packages and we
make the decisions (as Joe said), and that if they are not confortable
with the breakage that happens from time to time in unstable they
should *not* follow unstable, because it is, well, as the name implies,
_unstable_.

Just my .02 cents.

Cheers,

Eloy.-