On Tuesday 17 July 2007 09:29:38 Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 04:41:39AM -0400, Matthew Harrison wrote:
> > Why in the world are you using 1.1.3 when 2.2.1 is current?
> > 1.1.3 is at least 3 years old. Is Debian providing you with
> > this? I suggest downloading 2.2 and enjoying a working OOo
> > install on Linux.
>
> I installed Debian Sarge on my PC about that time. I've only
> upgraded one program since then, the one I hack myself.
>
> Upgrading software really isn't fun. Downloading it, unpacking
> it, ./configure; make; make install, yes, that can take less than
> an hour. Or sometimes it hits incompatibility bugs ("can't find
> iplv6.h"). Then the fun really starts.
>
> Typically, the new version doesn't find your old config file; it
> has "enhanced" the search path, and finds instead the empty file
> it has itself placed high up in this path; yes, Debian has done
> this to me. Or it has obliterated it with a shiny new version
> (OK, this is rare). Or it can't understand it any more, because
> it now expects it to be in "XML" (yuck!).
>
> It can't find your existing files (because you haven't configured
> your $HOME into it yet). It can't understand your style settings
> (because the format has changed). It can't process a file.rtf
> generated by MS Word because it no longers tolerates certain
> buggy constructions. It automatically tries to convert all your
> files to ODF unless you do something to stop it. (Note: I'm not
> saying this is the case).
>
> It assumes you're running on a 800 x 600 screen (Debian Sarge
> actually set up my Window manager like this). Or, just as bad, a
> 3840 x 2400 one.
>
> Now there's nothing terribly difficult about fixing all these
> hassles. It's just that each one takes between half an hour and
> two hours, sometimes longer, to diagnose and fix. By the time
> you've sorted out the 4 to 8 gotchas which come with the typical
> major upgrade, that's one to two days of wretchedness. Multiply
> that by the number of packages you use, and that's a lot of
> unhappy time.
>
> So I tend not to upgrade software as such. Unless something is
> really badly broken, I don't try to fix it. Being without the
> help file counts as broken here. (BTW, would somebody, please,
> PRETTY PLEASE, tell me the name of the file I need?) Things get
> upgraded when I install a new version of GNU/Linux.
You are a very stubborn person. Upgrade to a much newer system with
all the newer more automated features and all that pita stuff you
talked about will go away. If you really want to find that file,
you probably need to go to a Debian list and ask. Most user around
here have moved on to newer and easier to configure OSs.
--
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