On 02/04/10 18:18, mike cloaked wrote: > Occasionally there are long threads in the Fedora forums which start > with flame baiting by one or other poster and quite often run for ages > without reaching a sensible conclusion but generate bad feeling and > not much else. > > As a long standing fedora user and tester (since FC1) I have to say > that I have had the pleasure of being able to run an operating system > at no cost on not only my own machines, but also those of relatives, > and at work, which in general run both more securely as well as more > efficiently than the alternative (at cost) operating systems. > > Sure there have been occasions when one or other package has failed to > work as expected, and on occasion one or other machine has had some > serious problems with graphics, but overall machines have run without > issue over generations of Fedora releases, and other colleagues and > friends who are hooked on proprietary OSes have expressed their > admiration for how much more efficient workflow seems possible on my > machines than their own. > > What kind of response do you get when running XP if you come across a > problem - where do you go to get a bug fixed within a matter of days > or perhaps even a few weeks when running XP or Vista? Is it even > possible to get fast turn around and a response direct from a > developer or packager (if the latter exists for those OSes)? > > Here we have forums where problems can be openly discussed and more > often than not are fixed within a reasonable time frame (and with the > vast army of people using Fedora in many and novel ways there will > certainly be bugs found!). We have Bugzilla where responses are > (mostly) open and interactive - sure some bugs are harder to fix than > others - but in general the system does work - and we have many > hundreds of excellent packages available to install almost > instantaneously - no need to go and get a CD every time a new printer > is added to the system (mostly!) - no need to run CD when you buy a > new camera to install specialist picture processing software - no need > to run a CD to install graphics drivers - they are all just part of > the system. Yes we do need to spend a little time looking up what to > do with a new package, or to work around some problem or other - and > occasionally quite a bit of time - but the hints and tips are public > and shared around everyone. > > I recently installed F13 on an old laptop - and updated it this > afternoon - in general it works very well indeed and we are still only > just at the freeze stage with some bugs to be worked through before > release -but hey, it works, and I could probably almost use it for > production already even though it is in a pre-release phase. Could > this be said of proprietary OSes at a similar stage of development? > > I think all of us who use Fedora need to be aware of the fantastic > service that so many people provide, often voluntarily, to package > code, and develop code, and then fix code that we all download at no > cost but our time. I for one am extremely grateful for the existence > of Fedora and despite past issues with KDE major changes, Intel and > Nvidia and ATI graphics support, major upgrades to Gnome and > Openoffice, as well as to other packages, I am very pleased to have > the privilege of running Fedora on all of my machines. Yes I still > have a need for a few of them to dual boot XP - For example I can only > update my satnav/GPS unit via proprietary packages in Windows, and > often syncing/backup of mobile phone data (cellphones) can only be > done in Windows - but progress is being made. I recently received a > .docx encrypted file that could not be opened under Fedora - but even > that problem will be resolved with F13 as Openoffice 3.2 supports > encrypted .docx files. > > I hope that the long whingeing threads do not make those who > contribute so positively to the Fedora project feel negative - but > remember the silent majority who are very happy with its progress. > > So all in all I am happy to thank all the fine people who make Fedora > what it is - and hopefully it will continue to be both cutting edge > and highly usable through F14 and beyond. > > Happy Easter > > +100 well said mike! -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
