Les Mikesell wrote:
Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> When they want a feature in the new kernel. Features I am
personally looking
> forward to is the removal of the limit of arguments to exec and
dmcrypt
> getting write barrier support back.
>
>> where the next one is only months away? If there is an answer to that
>
> Your assuming that there will be an nVidia driver for the next
Fedora release.
> That isn't necessary going to be the case.
But that's not a big problem until updates stop for the current release.
You can put off installing a new release as long as necessary. A
kernel update within a release that breaks needed drivers is a big
problem.
But, you're ignoring the part that the entity doing the kernel upgrade
and the entity working on the driver are two separate and independent
entities.
No, I'm not ignoring that part. I'm saying that _is_ the problem. If
some other OS regularly made incompatible changes without coordinating
the availability of drivers with releases they'd have been dead long ago.
But some other OS has support of the manufacturers for their drivers in
a big way. This isn't the same so it isn't a fair comparison. I think
nVidia is doing a great job in comparison to AMD/ATI.
Seriously, you don't give Nvidia's devs enough credit, if
their higher ups cared, their drivers would always work.
Oh, I'm amazed they have kept trying this long. They have to be insanely
frustrated by something that claims to be an OS but refuses to define an
interface for drivers.
In a thread way back some time ago, this was discussed. The issue, if I
remember correctly is flexibility to make changes to the API, either for
improvements or security. Of course it could be made easier.
Don't forget fedora's 'other' purpose of evolving to near-verbatim RHEL
releases - which then has the problem of frozen application versions for
the long, long term between those releases. I agree that the current
fedora disto acting as a fast-changing testbed is a necessary evil, but
I wish there were something that used the same packaging and admin
techniques that would make a usable desktop - like an FCx release
usually becomes for a short period near the end of its life.
What are you talking about? My Fedora desktop was always usable.
Did you have firewire drives mid FC5? A good 6 months of downtime might
have changed your mind. The Evolution exchange connector was broken for
about the same interval after a brief glimpse of a working version. Not
sure what you've been using.... Some stuff works most of the time.
Some of the issues are outside Fedora's control. I read the Evolution
list and see enough comments about issues not being dealt with. This
can be compounded by Fedora/RH making changes to their code to meet the
fears of litigation and lawyers big fees. :)
--
Due to the move to M$ Exchange Server,
anything that is a priority, please phone.
Robin Laing
