Re: kitchen

[Heather <star@betelgeuse.starshine.org>]

> > > Huh?  Wine is in main.  Not non-free.
> > > 
> > > BTW, you'll also need the libwine package to install wine.
> > 
> > I believe that he means, wine would usually be most useful to run some
> > -very- non-free programs.
> 
> Yes, that is exactly what I menat sorry for the confusion, wine is 
> Free Software but it is used to run non-free software. This sort of
> thing I do not recommend doing, call me crazy or better yet call me
> a fan of GNU, an admirer of RMS, and most of all a strong supporter
> of the Free Software movement.

<sigh> religion, smidgen, pigeon.  I know RMS and he is a cool dude but
this is *my* system, not his.

> > Nonetheless, I have a *huge* mswin software collection, much of it shareware
> > and freeware, and a few non MS licensed apps that could be useful, but I'm
> > completely chicken about Unstable for the moment.
> 
> Don't be chicken 

Again, it's my system, not yours.  I actually depend on my laptop being in
well behaved order for my work.  I therefore treat it more carefully even than
the desktop system I use for prepping the Linux Gazette work I do... since 
perl will run on anything, and everybody, even the Borg of Redmond, have web
browsers, but what I need from my laptop is (1) reliability while amidst
my consulting clients (2) a good place to keep some of my board meeting notes
(3) a friendly system when all others fail.

Given two out of 3 of these call for stability, I'm being -prudent- not
chicken.  If I need to apply something new to it, I test it on the backup
image eating some of my desktop's disk space first.

> unstable really is rather stable despite its name. 

My husband tracks unstable, and our experience does match yours.  Aren't 
you lucky ;D

> I would recommend it for any developer or hard core geek wanting to live 
> and the bleeding edge, 

There you go.  Developer, kinda.  Hard core geek, se' definite.  Wants to
slash myself on the bleeding edge, no.  I keep bandaids in my purse, too.
Sure, I play with raw stuff - on the desktop system.  But I don't do 
"nightlies" either, unless a specific rev has been recommended to me.

> with a desire to play with all the new toys.

The ones that come with batteries installed, maybe ;P

> You may not fit this category, unstable is not
> for everyone, testing is a good compromise.

In a couple of months I may go there, but for the moment, I'm not running
anything that demands a glibc changeover to the new version.

* Heather Stern * star@ many places...