On 01/28/2012 01:13 PM, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
In https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1661 there's a
poll running which lists all kinds of important features of a
distribution. Unfortunately until today this poll has not received
enough attention to draw any reasonable and remarkable information
about the topic.
The poll aims at YOU, the users of Mageia. It wants to find out your
top 3 MUST HAVEs of a distribution - not single packages and/or
applications but the 3 features a distribution MUST have to become or
stay YOUR distribution.
If you have missed this poll so far, please have a look, read the
initial posting and give your 3 votes. The poll is about to be closed
next week (Jan 31) and after this I will compile a report with the
results. The more votes are cast, the better it will show what you
need.
Thx for participating.
(Thx claire for reminding me that there is such a thing as a mailing list! :) )
Hi All,
I'm new here (a couple months) but I registered on the forum so I could
vote. However I agree with Antoine in that there are quite a few more
than 3 of those choices that are "deal breakers". My reasons for coming
to Mageia weren't listed specifically, so I thought this might be an
appropriate time and place to tell you why I use Mageia.
I'm a longtime Linux user (Redhat 6.2 was my first boxed set, but I
tried a few before that). Over those years I've used a handful of
distros and demoed a dozen others. I started with Redhat, then SUSE,
Mandrake, openSUSE, Fedora, and now Mageia. That may sound like I'm
fickle or hard to please, but as someone who manages a number of
desktops and servers I assure you there were solid reasons for each
switch. I'm not going to go OT with all the gory details of each change,
but I can sum it up in a couple points that I hope are more valuable to
the community that my vote on the forum.
First, why I leave a distro: This is easy to describe but probably hard
to accomplish. Regressions. When something that worked in the last
release stops working in this one, that's a problem. If it's trivial to
fix, then it's a small issue. If it takes days to fix or can't be fixed
at all it's a deal breaker.
Second, why I chose a distro: This is also easy to describe, but much
harder to accomplish. It needs to install cleanly. Minor things like
changing a checkbox during installation are no big deal. A failed
install or a barebones desktop with no/poor configuration tools is a big
deal. Also, I don't use any unusual or poorly supported software, so the
software that I use must be in an official repo and easy to install.
Third, my humble suggestion: If I were to describe a dev/release policy
that was sure to make me happy it would be this:
1) Zero regression policy - I know this isn't possible, but I think it
should be the highest priority.
2) If there will be a known regression or deprecated feature, it should
be announced one release prior to being effective. This would give users
time to adjust, find other software, or find another distro if need be.
3) Stable. With Linux I consider this a given, but it needs to be listed
so that it doesn't get ignored.
4) Keep the community friendly and vibrant. I listed this as one of my 3
choices on the survey, not because it was a deal breaker, but because I
think it is the strongest feature of Mageia and it would be truly
unfortunate to lose it. This is the most respectful and friendly online
community I've come across and you should all be very proud of what
you've done in a short time. I wish my life were different and I could
contribute.
Good Luck,
Jeff
