On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 14:19:53 -0700 George Garvey <tmwg-fedorau@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Perhaps true there, but not true here. Almost every system I've > installed FC2 on has been a source of problems so far. I believe that > "almost" means 6 out of 7 have problems. One of my personal favorites is > ext3 journal errors on about 4 out of 7 systems. (Un)luck of the draw. 4 out of 4 systems here work without a glitch. You've found another problem with the 2.6 kernel. > Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make sense out of the symptoms > enough to even say what is wrong so it can be filed in bugzilla and > possibly fixed. > I'm really not complaining: as far as I'm concerned, this is my problem > to deal with. If I can get to the point where I can make a meaningful bug > report, I will. Bravo. It's so much easier to talk with someone who starts with this attitude. > I'm just saying that for some people, apparently, FC2 has been a near > disaster. Claiming that it isn't true, because it isn't true for everyone, > or anyone you know, won't change the fact. It looks like the some of the > people who are having problems are having huge problems, from reading this > list. There are some problems.. but "disaster" seems a little hysteric. More often than not the real issue is one of people trying to use FC2 in situations where it is not an appropriate choice. At least not today. It may be easier to get away with it once the 2.6 kernel stabilizes some more. > I do personally believe that the development process, which was to > include user testing, didn't work very well. I know I tried to be a part of > it, and failed. I only realized that one of the problems that was in the > release had started in test 2 or test 3 (can't remember which), but the > symptoms weren't clear enough to me to say that it was software rather than > hardware until way too late. I only realized it was software when it > started failing the same way on multiple computers for a particular > configuration (LVM on top of RAID1) during the release installation. The testing phase is very short and might be a little more fruitful if it was a bit longer. Again it's a question of trade-offs. > ncurses isn't even working right. That was certainly noted early in > development. It was said that the problem was in users of ncurses, as I > understood it. That's nice. But I still can't use a bunch of keys on the > keyboard any more in Mutt, because I haven't had time to fix it myself. Just as a tip, you can upgrade to the rawhide ncurses and things seem to be restored. > I hope someone is evaluating the process that is being used to produce > Fedora. It looks like it needs some changes before it can be considered > workable. That is one of the frustrations, though: the "community" does not > seem to be very involved in that evaluation, if it is happening. In fact, > "we" don't even know if it is happening or not. People have had their head down trying to get FC2 out the door. It seems likely that such evaluations are being made all the time. Clearly the current process does not meet the needs of everyone who is using Fedora. The question is, should the process be changed or should the userbase be changed? There is of course no correct answer to that, just a choice for RedHat. I'm guessing the answer will be the latter, but perhaps some changes will be made to the process. It might just be that this process is less effective for major kernel upgrades and will be great for average upgrades. > I didn't know when I installed FC1 that the switch to an early version of > Linux 2.6 was going to happen. Linux has a history of servious problems > with a newly released kernel. This one seems to be better than some of the > previous ones, but it looks like it has some problems that make it hard for > some configurations, as usual. to use. If anyone had asked me what I > thought (I know, big deal), I would have recommended against it, Linus > personally requesting it or not. It was revealed very early that 2.6 would be a target for inclusion. Fedora being an obvious platform to adopt it earlier rather than later. > Making all this stuff work together is hard. I installed FC1 because I > was tired of doing it myself. Up until then, all our systems were entirely > home brew, without a distribution, based on my personal efforts. I ran out > of time for this "hobby," and finally admitted it was just that: a hobby I > didn't have time for any more. I don't want to complain or yell. I just > hope that someone is taking the time to look at the process and make sure > it is working, based on feedback. Yes, it's tough. Having somewhat more issues with a release with such lofty goals is clearly understandable. Fedora will be well positioned after things settle down. > I get a very strong impression that a lot of the people involved are > saying it is working, and not paying a lot of attention to feedback that > there is some part of it is that is not working. This impression may be > entirely wrong. But it does bring up how well the "community" is being > communicated with, since I'm not the only one with this impression. No. I think everyone hears the complaints and understands that some people are having issues. But there hasn't been anything too bad has there? In fact, yours is the first i've heard of ext3 journal errors and it sounds about the worst. I see there are some fixes in the upcoming 2.6.7 kernel that might address your issue. Would be great if you could determine if a vanilla 2.6.7-rc3 kernel resolved the issue for you. > By the way: taking the statement "if it's not in bugzilla it doesn't > exist" too far is ridiculous. I can understand it meaning that complaining > that it isn't getting attention because it wasn't put into an automated > system is stupid. > But it is just as stupid to actually believe that it doesn't therefore > exist. > Some users of our software often don't tell us about bugs. When we find > out, we don't tell them the bug doesn't exist. We just ask them to tell us > about it next time, and not just "grin and bear it." We don't want them to > grin and bear it. We want to fix it. I assume the attitude is the same > around here. But it is hard to tell that from that very self-righteous > statement. I do understand that the duties of a user of not paid for > software is different from software that is purchased with money. > Our experience with users is that they really aren't very good at > providing descriptions of what happened when they found a bug. I've > certainly found that difficult with some of the problems I've had with FC2. Yes it can be taken a little too far, but really all it means is that the only effective way to communicate with the developers is via bugzilla, not via the mailing lists. > I hope this is useful. Perhaps not. Seems useful. Cheers, Sean
