On Thursday 06 March 2003 08:33, Austin wrote: > On 2003.03.06 10:43 Buchan Milne wrote: > > IIRC there were beta ISOs more than two weeks ago ... > > True. But my point was that I'm sure some people download a beta, > report a bug, and then wait for the next beta to see if it's fixed. > They could just as easily (and more efficiently) keep their initial > install up-to-date with urpmi, and track their bugs every few days. > > It just seems to me that people are really stuck in the idea of ISO's > because they've never known otherwise.
And there's not much that Mandrake can do about this. The reality is, Mandrake is ahead of the pack. In fact, a large part of the reason that I chose Mandrake--and a large part of the reason I was and have been happy with my choice--was because I could install 8.0, then immediately start updating packages much more easily than with Redhat, SUSE, etc. In other words, the current system, especially the way Cooker is managed, works better than anyone else's. But, at the same time, because Mandrake does such a good job attracting Windows users--people who are used to getting Microsoft's new release every 3 years, and then only minor patches until the next one--many Mandrake users have long-standing bad habits; they don't understand that when people "release early and release often," the monolithic release that you buy in a store or download as a set of ISOs isn't the whole story. In other words, it's hard to leverage large numbers of Windows converts into a large pool of useful linux bug testers, but certainly the distro (and the company) is better off with them than without them.
