Re: Sarge Concerns
I'm forwarding the following message (with permission) so people can
comment on it.
Just some general comments:
- We are well aware that the last stable release is hideously out of
date for desktops and we're working on a new release and on getting
our release process straightened out so we can have more regular
and predictable releases.
- It would be nice if someone could work with Bill to find out what
"Buggy Software" means exactly and to file bug reports on packages.
- Maybe someone can also update the documentation/release notes
regarding things like aptitude.
----- Forwarded message from William Alan Larson <wilarson@netins.net> -----
From: William Alan Larson <wilarson@netins.net>
Subject: Sarge Concerns
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:04:12 -0600
To: leader@debian.org
To whom it may concern:
Concerns I have about Sarge.
Who am I?
First of all, I should mention who I am in regard to Debian.
I am not a developer but someone who I would like to think of
as a normal user, though perhaps there is in actuality no such
thing. I started using Debian with Potato, just before Woody
was released. When Woody was released, I found it to be very
stable and after about a year I bought all the disks for Woody
from Cheapbytes because I was impressed with the stability of
software that I personally use and have been happy to continue
using it--though I have to admit that I finally broke down
last night and got the backport of Mozilla because the map
feature on Google stopped working with the Mozilla on Debian.
Programs I have installed
Perhaps to best explain where I am coming from, I will list the
programs that I have added to the standard install of Debian:
magicfilter
zgv
gpm
cdrecord
x-window-system after which I remove xdm
fetchmail
luxman
sysutils
rdate
screen
tidy
dict
slrn
ircii
leave
pcal
lockvc
groff with groff-x11
bmv
emacs21
w3m
diction
wordnet-dev
timidity including timidity-patches (because My sound card
doesn't work without it.
sox
aumix
mpg321
cdtool
saydate
saytime
vorbis-tools
imagemagick
gnome-card-games
gv
xpdf-reader
xlockmore-gl
msttcorefonts
xplanet
mozilla
tex
blackbox
What I use Debian for
For the most part, I use Debian the way I believe, the typical
unsophisticated user would use Debian: text processing, email,
irc, usenet news and surfing the web. Text processing would
be the main work related thing that I do with Debian.
Concerns about Buggy Software
My first concern is about the apparent bugginess of the
software in Sarge. I will put this concern first because it
is also a concern I had about Woody before it was released
and perhaps all the bugs will be worked through when it is
finally released, but as of now, every time that I have tried
Sarge with the software I have on my list of programs I like
to use on my computer, I have found it to be buggy. Also the
documentation is not too clear either on adding packages with
the new software that is supposed to replace dselect and I had
to fall back on dselect because I was not able to understand
Aptitude. Perhaps to people wiser than I am it is intuitive,
but I found Aptitude impossible to figure out.
Concerns about Modules
My second concern has to do with Modules. Now with Woody I
understand modconf and am able to add modules. I have to
admit that it was and is very difficult to understand all
the modules that I need to add on the various machines that I
have available to me, but gradually, through trial and error,
I learned which modules I need to have on my various machines.
On my current machine, I need to add the ide-scsi and sg module
in order to have my cd writer work. I also learned to add
"hdd=ide-scsi" to lilo and, if I am running the bf24 kernel,
"video=vga16:off" in addition.
My concern with Sarge is that I have not been able to find out
how to add modules that I need when they are not automatically
added. When I tried modconf, it appeared to be broken.
I also have concerns about modules I do not need. For example,
I never add modules for the Universal Serial Bus because I
never use it--I do not have any peripheral devices that use it.
If adding the module does not slow down my machine, I guess
it is unimportant, but why should a module be automatically
added if I do not need it.
Concerns about Unnecessary Software
My third concern is about unnecessary software. On some
machines, I do not put an X Window System on my computer. With
Woody, perhaps due to ignorance on my part, I add magicfilter
in order to be able to print to my printer. For some reason,
magicfilter adds x-window86-common (if I am not mistaken) and
I have always wondered why that is a dependency for printing
if I do not want to have the X Window System on my computer.
Of course, I have learned to live with that particular issue,
and I usually have the X Window System on my computer just
so that I can use Mozilla--though occasionally I get tired
of the bugginess of Mozilla and try to live with lynx or w3m
instead and refuse to put the X Window System on my computer.
With Sarge, though, the last time I tried it, I noticed that
the dictionary for Open Office Org seemed to be put on my
computer. Now why should that dictionary be on my computer
if I do not plan on putting Open Office Org on my computer.
Now, I realize that I have only tried Open Office Org when
I tried Fedora, Suse, Lycoris and Knoppix on my computer,
but the implementations of Open Office Org on those particular
distributions appeared to be very buggy and slow to me and I do
not particularly desire to have it on my computer, so why is it
necessary that I have any part of that program on my computer?
Conclusion
As mentioned above, I consider myself an average,
unsophisticated user of free software. When I have problems,
it takes me quite awhile to find out the answers because the
answers are not obviously available, but gradually by reading
documentation and doing searches on Google, I can come up with
some of the answers to my problems. I thought I would share my
concerns because I realize that for the most part the Debian
community consists of developers rather than naive users and
I thought that airing my concerns would perhaps give some
insight to others as to the needs and concerns of naive users.
Bill Larson
--
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/\ - against microsoft attachments
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Martin Michlmayr
leader@debian.org
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