Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4348 mails)
| < Previous | Next > |
Re: [SLE] My patience has run out
- From: KMcLauchlan <kevinmcl@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 02:49:03 +0100
- Message-id: <20021030024903.31d48f7d.kevinmcl@xxxxxxxx>
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 21:52:14 -0400
"Donavan Pantke" <avatar@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tuesday 29 October 2002 20:11, Chris Carlen wrote:
> -- snip
> >
> > Well, I have spent an afternoon wasting time describing the problems,
> > and finding more problems at such a high rate [...]
> <soapbox>
> I'm sure that the KDE and SuSE folks would love to hear these misc. bug
> reports and such. Perhaps the vast majority of us linux users out there spend
> so much troubleshooting time in man pages or google, that many haven't
> properly tested/commented on the SuSE helpcenter. And that, of course, would
> hinder SuSE in it's attempts to improve it. The KDE problems obviously need
> to be looked that, and perhaps with a bug report to SuSE and so forth a
> patched KDEbase will come out that addresses these issues. I agree with the
> OpenOffice rant, it's a pretty good app, but I've run into a good deal of
> issues with how it operates. Perhaps around 1.5 or 2.1 it'll be polished up
> good enough to be a serious competetor to M$ Office.
> My advice would be to snip up your post and the different parts to SuSE, KDE,
> and OpenOffice, and see what comes of it. Most likely updated RPMS in a
> couple of weeks, I'd hope. Rants are fine, but SuSE 8.2 won't be any better
> if the rants aren't given to the people that need them.
<counter-rant>
I'm probably not speaking for ALL the people who
don't write bug reports, but I'm speaking for me,
and I suspect for quite a *bunch* of people.
I don't write bug reports. I'm hoping my 8.1 will
arrive soon, but I still have dozens of things that
are broken from 8.0, and that's been almost a year,
hasn't it?
So why am I such a selfish bastard, and where are
all the bug reports? My complete and well-considered
answer is "How the f*** would I know?"
I've been groping in the dark, off and on, with
Linux (almost all with SuSE) for a few years.
I'm about 10,000% ahead of where I was when I started,
and that only means that I've got "slightly-better-
than-newbie" understanding. So what?.... I'm lazy or
stupid.
Well, the so-what is that when something goes wrong,
I have absolutely zero confidence in ANY guess I
could make about which of 1600 things might be wrong,
but I have about 98% confidence that it must be
operator error, on my part.
I'm never going to write a bug report, because every
system that accepts bug reports has a FAQ that says:
1) make sure that this is a real bug
2) make sure that this is a bug with just/only our
piece of the software jungle, and not one of the
other 1600 things that might be broken
- in the operating system kernel,
- in modules you might have loaded, or modules
you might not have known you should have loaded,
or modules you thought were loaded, but have
since been unloaded by some other software that
you installed, or
- repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the
word "library" for every occurrence of "module" or
- repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the
word "dependency" for every occurrence of
"module" or "library", or
- repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the
word "config file" for every occurrence of
"module" or ...
3) make sure it's not operator error or setup/config
error, all of which is explained somewhere else...
well, actually in 1600 "somewhere elses", most of
which must be approached/edited/configured in a
certain order, which is "we could tell you, but
then we'd have to kill you".
So, I've never reached the point where I think
anything is a bug, until after a bunch of people
have claimed the same "bug" on the mailing list,
and NOT been shouted down as doofuses who should
have RTFM'd a little better. (Never mind that I
don't seem to HAVE the FM or the help working
for most apps...) So, when those people have
already said my problem (if I've actually got
the same problem and am not just indulging in
wishful thinking) is a bug, well the bug has
been reported, and they don't need my tentative
duplicate report to clutter the system.
Hell, if I get an error message that says:
"Segmentation fault, the program is badly
broken, please send the log file to this
URL....", I still figure it's probably
because I didn't configure something correctly,
and not an actual bug.
My experience with Linux is that I load the new
distribution (usually clean, because I've learned to
not trust upgrades...). Then, I set about making
the current X-dressing (KDE or GNOME or some less
integrated flavor-of-the-month) look and work
approximately the way I want, so that it won't
annoy me too much when I begin trying to:
a) fix things that are broken/misconfigured from
the initial installation
b) get some actual work done.
>From that point, I admit to a certain glee when I
can go for three or four days of actual system
usage (i.e., desktop stuff with word processor,
drawing, and other office tools) without anything
ugly or show-stopping happening. However, that
glee is not from accomplishment, since I know that
any success (or failure to fail) is not an
accomplishment. Instead, it is merely a dodging
of the bullet or a case of being temporarily
overlooked by the demons and malevolent spirits
that ARE going to get me as soon as I blink.
Mostly, I don't do any gaming, partly from a
relative lack of interest, and partly because I've
never gotten 3D acceleration to work without breaking
something that I need for work. Sometimes I can get
my Microsoft joystick to work, but usually not at
the same time that 3D video acceleration is working...
I'm not an MP3 user, but I occasionally listen to
audio CDs... when that's working, but I consider
it largely a matter of dumb luck if I plug a CD
in, and sound comes out my speakers. Next week,
it won't happen that way, even though I *think*
that I haven't touched (well, not deliberately)
any configuration files this week.
Every time I install a new distro, either CD audio
or system sounds is broken for a month or three.
The system sounds thing doesn't bother me much,
because the thrill of having my opening and closing
windows make stupid star-treck or jungle sounds,
kinda wore off in the first five minutes.
There was a time that I actually was able to play
a DVD with tolerable sound, and with a picture that
was mostly steady, and mostly synchronized with
that sound... but it's been a while. Maybe I'll
try again, when/if I reach that priority in my
futzing schedule. I'm joking. It's not scheduled.
When I have to budget my "free" time between
fixing broken work tools or fixing broken play
toys, well, the work stuff gets to function
slightly more than the play stuff.
So, anyway, that's why you'll never see a bug
report with my name on it. I wouldn't even begin
to know how to tell that a bug -- if it actually
was a bug -- should be reported to the app
creators, or to the X project, or to the KDE
people... or ... to SuSE.
>From my perspective, it's far better that I
don't clog the system with amateurish/naive
attempts.
Well, nobody read this far, and it's past my
bed-time, so
</counter-rant>
G'night all.
/kevin
OH! wait. I almost forgot... please don't make
excuses for OpenOffice, and how it's the early
release. It isn't. It's the same code that is
in StarOffice 6.x. When people are using tools
for years that have not yet reached release
1.0, then something that is at release 6 is
quite mature.
-
-
"Donavan Pantke" <avatar@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tuesday 29 October 2002 20:11, Chris Carlen wrote:
> -- snip
> >
> > Well, I have spent an afternoon wasting time describing the problems,
> > and finding more problems at such a high rate [...]
> <soapbox>
> I'm sure that the KDE and SuSE folks would love to hear these misc. bug
> reports and such. Perhaps the vast majority of us linux users out there spend
> so much troubleshooting time in man pages or google, that many haven't
> properly tested/commented on the SuSE helpcenter. And that, of course, would
> hinder SuSE in it's attempts to improve it. The KDE problems obviously need
> to be looked that, and perhaps with a bug report to SuSE and so forth a
> patched KDEbase will come out that addresses these issues. I agree with the
> OpenOffice rant, it's a pretty good app, but I've run into a good deal of
> issues with how it operates. Perhaps around 1.5 or 2.1 it'll be polished up
> good enough to be a serious competetor to M$ Office.
> My advice would be to snip up your post and the different parts to SuSE, KDE,
> and OpenOffice, and see what comes of it. Most likely updated RPMS in a
> couple of weeks, I'd hope. Rants are fine, but SuSE 8.2 won't be any better
> if the rants aren't given to the people that need them.
<counter-rant>
I'm probably not speaking for ALL the people who
don't write bug reports, but I'm speaking for me,
and I suspect for quite a *bunch* of people.
I don't write bug reports. I'm hoping my 8.1 will
arrive soon, but I still have dozens of things that
are broken from 8.0, and that's been almost a year,
hasn't it?
So why am I such a selfish bastard, and where are
all the bug reports? My complete and well-considered
answer is "How the f*** would I know?"
I've been groping in the dark, off and on, with
Linux (almost all with SuSE) for a few years.
I'm about 10,000% ahead of where I was when I started,
and that only means that I've got "slightly-better-
than-newbie" understanding. So what?.... I'm lazy or
stupid.
Well, the so-what is that when something goes wrong,
I have absolutely zero confidence in ANY guess I
could make about which of 1600 things might be wrong,
but I have about 98% confidence that it must be
operator error, on my part.
I'm never going to write a bug report, because every
system that accepts bug reports has a FAQ that says:
1) make sure that this is a real bug
2) make sure that this is a bug with just/only our
piece of the software jungle, and not one of the
other 1600 things that might be broken
- in the operating system kernel,
- in modules you might have loaded, or modules
you might not have known you should have loaded,
or modules you thought were loaded, but have
since been unloaded by some other software that
you installed, or
- repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the
word "library" for every occurrence of "module" or
- repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the
word "dependency" for every occurrence of
"module" or "library", or
- repeat the above paragraph, but substitute the
word "config file" for every occurrence of
"module" or ...
3) make sure it's not operator error or setup/config
error, all of which is explained somewhere else...
well, actually in 1600 "somewhere elses", most of
which must be approached/edited/configured in a
certain order, which is "we could tell you, but
then we'd have to kill you".
So, I've never reached the point where I think
anything is a bug, until after a bunch of people
have claimed the same "bug" on the mailing list,
and NOT been shouted down as doofuses who should
have RTFM'd a little better. (Never mind that I
don't seem to HAVE the FM or the help working
for most apps...) So, when those people have
already said my problem (if I've actually got
the same problem and am not just indulging in
wishful thinking) is a bug, well the bug has
been reported, and they don't need my tentative
duplicate report to clutter the system.
Hell, if I get an error message that says:
"Segmentation fault, the program is badly
broken, please send the log file to this
URL....", I still figure it's probably
because I didn't configure something correctly,
and not an actual bug.
My experience with Linux is that I load the new
distribution (usually clean, because I've learned to
not trust upgrades...). Then, I set about making
the current X-dressing (KDE or GNOME or some less
integrated flavor-of-the-month) look and work
approximately the way I want, so that it won't
annoy me too much when I begin trying to:
a) fix things that are broken/misconfigured from
the initial installation
b) get some actual work done.
>From that point, I admit to a certain glee when I
can go for three or four days of actual system
usage (i.e., desktop stuff with word processor,
drawing, and other office tools) without anything
ugly or show-stopping happening. However, that
glee is not from accomplishment, since I know that
any success (or failure to fail) is not an
accomplishment. Instead, it is merely a dodging
of the bullet or a case of being temporarily
overlooked by the demons and malevolent spirits
that ARE going to get me as soon as I blink.
Mostly, I don't do any gaming, partly from a
relative lack of interest, and partly because I've
never gotten 3D acceleration to work without breaking
something that I need for work. Sometimes I can get
my Microsoft joystick to work, but usually not at
the same time that 3D video acceleration is working...
I'm not an MP3 user, but I occasionally listen to
audio CDs... when that's working, but I consider
it largely a matter of dumb luck if I plug a CD
in, and sound comes out my speakers. Next week,
it won't happen that way, even though I *think*
that I haven't touched (well, not deliberately)
any configuration files this week.
Every time I install a new distro, either CD audio
or system sounds is broken for a month or three.
The system sounds thing doesn't bother me much,
because the thrill of having my opening and closing
windows make stupid star-treck or jungle sounds,
kinda wore off in the first five minutes.
There was a time that I actually was able to play
a DVD with tolerable sound, and with a picture that
was mostly steady, and mostly synchronized with
that sound... but it's been a while. Maybe I'll
try again, when/if I reach that priority in my
futzing schedule. I'm joking. It's not scheduled.
When I have to budget my "free" time between
fixing broken work tools or fixing broken play
toys, well, the work stuff gets to function
slightly more than the play stuff.
So, anyway, that's why you'll never see a bug
report with my name on it. I wouldn't even begin
to know how to tell that a bug -- if it actually
was a bug -- should be reported to the app
creators, or to the X project, or to the KDE
people... or ... to SuSE.
>From my perspective, it's far better that I
don't clog the system with amateurish/naive
attempts.
Well, nobody read this far, and it's past my
bed-time, so
</counter-rant>
G'night all.
/kevin
OH! wait. I almost forgot... please don't make
excuses for OpenOffice, and how it's the early
release. It isn't. It's the same code that is
in StarOffice 6.x. When people are using tools
for years that have not yet reached release
1.0, then something that is at release 6 is
quite mature.
-
-
| < Previous | Next > |