Bug-list & Wish-list
Hi all,
Quite a while back (around 3.5 months back) I had converted my
machine to Debian 2.1 from Red Hat 5.2. I had noted down some bugs and
things at the time. I have since installed Slink in quite a few
places. I really like Debian and congratulate you folks on a great
job. Here are some minor bugs. (Warning - this mail is long)
1. X not configured when installing. Earlier (in hamm) somehow
XF86Setup would be run after an xserver was installed, however slink
never asks one if one wants to configure X at all one has to do it
manually.
2. Sound related devices were missing (/dev/{dsp,mixer,audio} etc.) -
the docs (in kernel-2.2.1) mentioned a file
(/usr/src/linux/drivers/sound/Readme.linux - where Linux points to the
current source tree) that was supposed to contain a script that
created the devices but there was no such file so I had to use a
backed up script that I used loooong ago. However recently I
discovered that I could use the MAKEDEV script - by doing MAKEDEV
audio. so...
3. xmgr - for older data files xmgr expects grconvert to be in
/usr/doc/xmgr/bin/grconvert and doesn't use the grconvert in /usr/bin.
I had to manually link it.
4. wwwoffle - in /etc/ppp/ip-up.d/ the script has wwwoffle -online but
doesnt have wwwoffle -fetch. I had to add this myself.
5. xdm and wdm can both be installed. It is true that both can be used
on different displays etc. but maybe one can mention a conflict and if
one desperately needs both one can override it with Q in dselect?
Just a suggestion.
6. python-plplot - this package is mentioned in some of the plplot
descriptions (the output that I get when I do a dpkg --print-avail
plplot) but the package doesnt exist on the CD's. I subsequently made
a search at the debian.org and there appears to be no such package.
The search revealed an unstable package and pointed me to several ftp
sites that had the package but when I tried downloading from any of
the links the file didn't exist. I even went to the correct directory
at the ftp site but the package was not to be seen anywhere.
7. pppconfig - when configuring for a provider the pppconfig script asked me
for the nameservers (primary and secondary) but never asked for a domain
i.e. a domain name corresponding to the search entry in /etc/resolv.conf.
Since I connect to college via ppp and need to telnet around quite a bit I
find this feature useful (since I don't have to type out the entire name of
the remote host I connect to) and so had to add the search entry manually in
my resolv.conf. Would appreciate if this were automated in the pppconfig
script.
8. While updating the packages in dselect on needs to put in the
second CD first (multi-cd). This information is in the README.multicd
(I guess) but wouldnt it be nicer if the user was told to put in the
second CD during some point of the install rather than expect the user
to have read all the README's? Fortunately for me my friend Arun
helped me during the install and told me of this "insert the second CD
first" deal.
9. The plotmtv package documentation has a file called
DataFormat.ps.Z which contains the data format. You could save some
space by saving the file gzipped rather than compressed. There is a
bug in that file as well - one cannot use page numbers in the PS file
(read it to see what I mean). To fix this merely replace the first
line from
%! to %!PS-Adobe-2.0
this is a hack that works. I am no Post Script expert so...
10. Where are the LDP docs? install-guide, Linux users guide, etc. Are
there no deb packages of these docs??
11. Why are'nt infodock, oo-browser, hyperbole and the like packaged??
Sure Xemacs rocks but some folks prefer preconfigured setups, besides
the oo-browser is really useful.
There are several things I liked about Debian. Here they are
some (not in any particular order)
1. The number of packages and the way they all gel together.
2. Tons of docs. All the text documentation is nicely gzipped - neat
idea that.
3. Stability!
4. Everything is in a specific place and invariably there is a readme
in the right place that tells you what goes on, this kind of
organisation is really nice.
5. Ease of configurability - for instance compare RH's default window
manager config (Anotherlevel etc.) which is real hard to adapt from,
to debian's approach to fvwm2 configuration that handles user defined
config options beautifully.
6. Site specific directories are made properly and so one can easily
add stuff in /usr/local and everything works fine.
7. Before trying out debian I feared dselect but come to think of it
dselect is pretty nice and powerful. Maybe initially it is a little
daunting but it sure is not some thing to be feared.
8. The database for dpkg is text based!
That is it for now. Sorry for the long mail but I hope this
is useful. I am not on debian-devel so please cc me your replies if
you have any comments to make.
prabhu
--
Humans do claim a great deal for that particular emotion (love).
-- Spock, "The Lights of Zetar", stardate 5725.6
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