On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 01:00:00AM +0200, Onur wrote:
>
> Sa> it's interesting that folks are claiming that 7.1 worked better than 7.2.
> Sa> granted bugs are found...but shouldn't a later release be MORE stable, not
> Sa> LESS? good point about some folks just have to get work DONE. :P
>
There is always a balance to be struck between adding functionality
and gaining stability. One of the features which some find attractive
about Mandrake is a bias in favor of the latest and greatest. That
will come at some cost in reliability.
> Yes, especially about the kernel stuff and rpm thingies... And some
> few lockups during installation, still there are many bugs...It is
> great, yes, but why this many bugs ? Mandrake 6.1 , still seems to me
> so good to be true....
>
The question I keep asking is, "Didn't they test this?" The answer
that's been suggested to me is that they did, but not on your system.
I'm not really satisfied with that answer. It presumes that hardware
incompatibilities are finding their way up through to application
level software. To me, that suggests serious breakage at the level of
software that's supposed to resolve these variations in platforms.
More likely, the answer is that they didn't really test this. And it
suggests that the distributors are rushing out new versions without an
acceptable level of testing.
On the other hand, we should not seek to emulate the example of
Debian's Slink. It took far too long for Debian to release Potato as
"stable."
> (am not saying to much buggy, I tried redhat 7 too, and as for the
> newest distros, I kiss my mandrake cds :P But still, after I put the
> cd in my cdrom, I want my linux install, setup, as fluently and strong
> as possible... Thats the way I show off with my linux box ! :)
>
The Red Hat x.0 releases are infamous. They seem to keep repeating
this pattern:
x.0 - Seriously broken - avoid like the plague
x.1 - Somewhat better
x.2 - Almost acceptable
Red Hat 7.0 has been criticized heavily in many quarters, not least by
Linus Torvalds on the Linux kernel mailing list.
> Sa> i thought that stable versions are even numbered after the decimal, and
> Sa> production was odd numbered after the decimal. i just thought i read that
> Sa> somewhere.
>
> I guess it is only for the kernel, but, yes, why not use this
> method for distros too ? :)
>
That applies strictly to kernel versioning. You should look to
package documentation to determine what form of versioning its
developers have implemented. In general, 0.x releases are initial
releases. The first "stable" release is usually 1.0. Major
improvements (probably signifying substantial chunks of new or
rewritten code) increment the number to the left of the decimal point.
Development "prerelease" versions are often numbered something like
0.9x -- with the kernel, this manifested earliest with the 2.3.99
series.
--
David Benfell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
---
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
-- Benjamin Franklin.
[from fortune]
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