Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling
Hi again, Russ:
On Thursday 22 July 2010 14:21:09 Russ Allbery wrote:
> "Jesús M. Navarro" <jesus.navarro@undominio.net> writes:
[...]
> I don't agree; I think it's very hard to say the same thing about testing.
I already told you that's about perceptions and that each one has his own so
I'll try this once more, after that I'll leave.
> Yes, sid sometimes breaks hard,
It's more than that: Sid is *intended* to break hard; it's not a undesired
side effect.
> although I think if you've been running
> Linux for a few years the degree to which sid really breaks is somewhat
> exaggerated.
Just currently: it won't boot on some archs (the lilo/grub/grub2 issue). Even
if it boots, it won't start X on some systems (the Nvidia problems). Even if
it runs and it's able to run X you'll find it cumbersome on your desktop
environment (the KDE problems).
> I've never had something happen in sid that risked real data
> loss, for instance; I know we've had cases, but I think they've been
> really rare. I've had an unbootable system where I needed to boot from a
> rescue CD I think once, and a few cases where X didn't start until I
> rolled back some package upgrades. For breakage, that's not bad.
Not. For *Sid* that's not bad. For a "bleeding edge end user usable ala
Fedora" that's awful.
> But on testing, it's been rock-solid for me for years.
Again, Testing has been rock solid... considering it is Testing, nothing more,
nothing else.
> It's not just
> somewhat less breakage. I think it's almost no breakage. Occasionally
> packages get stranded for a long time at back revs because of various
> migration problems, and once or twice I've had to pin something (usually
> because of non-free drivers like fglrx or nvidia that aren't really part
> of Debian), but it's an experience that I can comfortably recommend.
If that's your recommend for an "end user usable quite bleeding edge
distribution", sorry I can't support your opinion.
> > If anything Sid/Testing could be compared to a "rolling release"
> > distribution ala Gentoo or Arch but not to any "fast releasing" like
> > Fedora or Ubuntu.
>
> No, having run both, I honestly think Debian testing is a superior
> experience to Ubuntu
No, having run both, I honestly think Debian Testing is not superior for a
plain end user to Ubuntu. I have about 75 end users that support my opinion
with facts.
> Packages in Ubuntu
> universe break all the time, and worse, they release broken, and it can be
> harder with Ubuntu to temporarily install just that package from a newer
> release than it usually is with testing to temporarily install something
> from sid.
I sorrily have to say that if that's really your opinion you live in a
different Universe than myself.
> *boggle*. Something breaking almost daily is *completely* alien to my
> experience even with running Debian unstable.
*boggle* Something potentially or even in fact breaking on Debian Unstable
daily is my very day to day experience with Sid as it seems to be that of
members of debian-users and debian-devel lists. The fact that I'm able to
workaround the worst breakages (i.e.: by avoiding upgrading package groups I
know by the devel list that are in active development) or manage them (by
forcing upgrades, pinning, reinstalls, etc.) doesn't make any less true that
Sid is breaking daily -and I wouldn't expect anything else.
Cheers.
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