Re: update in sid has killed gnome-terminal
Monique,
> I'm a little confused at this point.
I'm always confused--it's when I understand something that confuses me
even more ;-)
> I originally assumed you were the OP, but skimming the archives, it
> appears that you are not.
I wasn't.
> But then you also mention your own troubles, to which I see no
> previous reference in this thread. What am I missing?
When something as catastrophic as what happened gets entered into Sid,
i.e. something really big and well used just goes belly up, I tend to
assume that other people share the same problem.
If it were "the_most_obscure_least_popular_packae.deb" then I'd understand
people getting upset about a statement that went: "I just did an upgrade
in a machine running sid and after that can't star[t] a gnome terminal
anymore."
However, in this case, one of the bigger, more widely used desktops just
suddenly went belly up. Gnome's not an obscure package, and gnome-terminal
strikes me as something that lots of Debian users would notice had just
died.
> The original poster posted a statement, not a question. The statement
> was, "I just did an upgrade in a machine running sid and after that
> can't star a gnome terminal anymore."
:-)
> Now, granted, rudeness was probably uncalled for, but what legitemate
> response would you expect?
If one isn't feeling terribly helpful but really, really, really has to
say something:
"I'm running Sid too and I've noticed that gnome-terminal isn't starting
but I don't have the time to diagnose the problem for you. Could you
please post more information?"
...or if one is feeling slightly more helpful:
"I'm running Sid too and I've noticed this problem. Mine is related to a
problem with the package fontconfig and libbonobo-activation4. You might
try searching bugs.debian.org for these two packages. If you still
can't work it out, then try to tell us more information and then we can
help you out."
> No version numbers or error messages were given.
Look, the problem should have been so OBVIOUS that it wouldn't take a
Doctorate in Computer Science for someone who is running Sid to work out
that there's something wrong with gnome-terminal and such. Admittedly the
question was in bad form but really - I doubt that this bug is an obscure
hard to find one.
> No question was actually asked, so your guess is as good as mine as to
> whether they want a work-around or simply want to know when the package
> will be fixed.
I'm sorry - someone who stated something akin to what was said is
obviously either asking for a work around and/or wanting to know when the
package will be fixed. I wouldn't have asked the question in such a
manner--I've been fried by the Debian community before for asking
perfectly reasonable, well set out, documented questions only to be told:
"Oh, you're running Sid. Ha ha ha! You should know better."
I mean, I'd discovered a legitimate problem and was using the tools
available (man pages, /usr/share/doc/, google and bugs.debian.org) and
summarised what I did AND attempted to kludge a fix for it. And that's
what I got for my troubles?
*grumbles*
> I haven't seen a single message saying, "Neener, neener, I know the
> answer but I won't tell you!" Maybe I haven't been paying enough
> attention?
I think the fix is in "incoming"...
> opposite. What I have found is that people on this list, and every
> technical list in which I've ever participated, expect that you at least
> try the most basic trouble-shooting before you ask a question. If you
> don't understand a command, have you read the man page and the provided
> docs? If you are having a problem with an application, have you at
> least bothered to figure out what version you're running?
The OP (original poster) probably should have done a little more legwork
or at least managed to post exactly went wrong with gnome-terminal. I
grant that. But just how are you going to NOT encourage brain-dead
questions when you won't take a little time thoughtfully prodding the
person asking a valid question [yes, asking a question such as
"gnome-terminal has suddenly come up with some libbonobo-activation4 error
and I don't fully understand the bug report against it" is a valid
question in my opinion]?
An onlist:
"Well, maybe you should tell us BLAH?"
response
"Ah, now I see what's wrong. This is what's wrong [or a link to some site
that says what's wrong]."
Not everybody thinks the same and sometimes seeing an online to and fro
about how particular people diagnosed particular problems can be quite
useful.
Certainly more useful than:
* have you checked bugs.debian.org?
The legitimate answer to that could be "for what?"
> No one wants to encourage brain-dead questions. Even a modicum of
> effort is generally well-rewarded.
So it is :-)
DSL
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