Mike Wright wrote:
Hi all,
Rant or feedback? You decide. This is all IMHO.
I'm becoming concerned about the end of life for fc6. It has been
stable for me and is the first of the fedoras that gave me a
more-or-less useable multimedia experience. (vlc is awesome!) I'd like
to continue using fc6 but am guessing I need to create my own repository
before fc6 disappears from the public repos.
The reason I'm so concerned is f7 blows chunks. I've been running RH
and its ilk since 5.2 (never got 4 running because I couldn't afford a
Matrox video adapter way back then) and have to say this release is
buggier than my vegetable garden.
I'll start by logging into a Gnome session.
First mess is the "Package Updater". 1) That's not the !@#$%ing
program's name. Its toolbar icon has no properties associated with it
so I can't even tell what it launches. The app itself has no "About"
button. In fact, one must perform command line forensics to even find
out that the program's name is "pup". (I prefer the spanish
pronunciation.) Why, oh why, is every package preselected? Why is the
"update list" window not resizeable? Absolutely one of the worst user
interfaces I have ever used. Actually, it's hard to call it a UI since
there is no interaction allowed except "click the mouse several hundred
times", quit, or apply, and it provides no user feedback except when it
barfs on itself. Is it hanging? Is it running? Is it stalled?
Absolutely no way to tell. Oh, a dependency issue. Option of ignore or
continue? No way, those choices are not available. Error out.
Second, where did the Applications->Run Program option go?
Third, why does the bottom toolbar show up about two inches below the
top one? Right clicking on its far left edge gives me some options:
click "expand" twice and it returns to its position at the bottom.
Why are the toolbar widgets now locked to the toolbar? What, don't like
us rearranging things according to our own tastes? OK fine, just right
click, Unlock. Right click, Move. Swell. I get the plus sign shaped
move cursor but it doesn't work! I can't rearrange the toolbars.
Well, maybe it's got its panties in a bunch. I'll just logout and try
again. Oh my! Isn't this sweet. Where are the toolbars? Why doesn't
right click do anything? Fortunately, I shortcut keyed an xterm.
Enter the shortcut key combo and I get an xterm window with borders and
no prompt, no cursor, zippadeedoodah!
OK. Ctrl-Alt-F1 gives me a mingetty. "useradd nextvictim; passwd
nextvictim; init 3; init 5". Login as nextvictim and logout. Login
again as nextvictim and ecco! Where are the toolbars? Desktop void of
everything except the background image, no right click response, just
another dead session.
As a side note, this box has been around for a while and has lots of
distros scattered throughout its drives, and all of them are rock solid
so this definitely points to f7 and not the hardware.
Q: if it's really to be known as f7 why are the kernels named
"something.fc7"? I think the decision to change the naming scheme
wasn't wise. Google on f7 and you'll get lots of hits on the function
key but very little on fedora.
Q: why was it decided to put marketing names on the applications and
remove their properties? How are we supposed to help debug, etc, if the
program identities are hidden from us? This decision forces users back
into CLI mode. Kind of defeats the whole GUI approach, doesn't it?
Apologies to all who have put in so much hard work but this release
looks like it was done by speed freaks with a mouse compulsion who love
python, not because it's polymorphic, but because they don't have to pay
attention to types, and since they don't have to pay attention to types
then, what the hey, why pay attention to the differences between lists
and dictionaries? (definitely a rant!)
Enough for now. I have to figure out why I have two different versions
of dbus with mangled dependencies (which cause pup to bomb). I'll also
take a look at KDE to see if I have better luck there.
I would be curious to hear from early adopters what their f(c)8
experiences have been like.
Thanks for listening to my $0.02,
Mike Wright :m)
Hi Mike, if you want to stay with your known problems then do so. I
am not so sure the lack of updates will matter. You have a FC6 you put
together and know! It should run for years, until your hard drive quits.
I went from FC4 for about 4 years to F7 that was new and had many
bugs and then went to FC6 and later back to F7 where I am now. I plan to
upgrade to F8 when it comes available next month. This time I expect it
will be bad but get good as the updates come. I hope I can get nvidia to
work :-)
--
Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
Linux User
#450462 http://counter.li.org.
