Matthew Palmer wrote:
On Sun, Dec 05, 2004 at 10:55:48AM +1100, Rick Welykochy wrote:
john gibbons wrote:
I would like to raise the goal post for Linux software interface
developers from 'intuitional' to 'bloody obvious'. I am getting some
frustration off my chest after trying to download some Linux software
for the first time and get it up and running. According to the
directions it was easy. My question is : for whom?
Welcome to a world where there is no QA, where there is no standard
installation process and where your very mettle will be tested to the
limit when you install FOSS.
What the *hell* are you talking about? Plenty of F/OSS projects take their
Quality Assurance very seriously, with regression testing, bug tracking,
pre-release testing, and release planning. I think the GNOME project, for
instance, would be very startled to hear that there is not QA in their
development process. As for standard installation process, I can apt-get
install most anything I want, and it'll do the same things every time. I
can't even get MSIs to play that nicely. Mettle testing is in no way
specific to F/OSS -- computers in general are what does it to you.
My apologies, Matthew. Allow me to rephrase what upon second reading appears
to be a rather sweeping generalisation.
Welcome to a world where there are varying levels of QA in relation to
installation procedures, ... etc.
It would appear that john gibbons has run into an installation with very
low or non-existent QA.
Standard installation? Well, if you use deb, you can enjoy one form of standard
installation. If you run RH, enjoy another standard. I've been through RPM
hell enough times to know how "wild west" the installation process can
become. And I've read of apt-get hell from others. Then we get into Configure;
make; make install and the variations therein ... most times it works, sometimes
it really don't. And finally, there is the misery of downloading a binary
only to find it doesn't quite "fit" into your lib scheme.
I think we are in agreement that this is by no means exclusive to FOSS,
and that proprietary software has its share of installation fsckups.
cheers
rickw
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Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services
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