Re: [opensuse-gnome] Go Elsewhere?
Hello,
There is indeed an issue of anti-DE at times in #suse, there are times >when it is GNOME that gets it, sometimes it's XFCE that cops a bucket >full of buck shot. On the odd occasion I have seen KDE attract the >swarm of locusts. As people have said, this is slowly increasing; so >much so that I am copying the board and Zonker in to ensure that they >are aware of the issue, and hopefully they can advise and assist us in >how best to educate everyone. At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure >that there is a lot of things in KDE that none of us know.
I agree there is some anti-GNOME behaviour in #suse, but I don't see it increasing at all. In the past, when I joined the community some years ago, it was a lot more evident. At those times it was really happening that systematically all GNOME users were instructed to use KDE. Today it's not that way anymore, even if there still is some tendency to do that. I don't think it is fair, but I think there are some reasons for that, and I will try to explain commenting the following lines. >The issue of openSUSE's GNOME release being inferior to other distros >is certainly a concern, and I think it is up to the GNOME team (both >Novell employees and community militia ;-) ) to rectify with mass >marketing. This is exactly the consideration I expected and I have heard in years of being around the GNOME team and the GNOME channel on IRC, and it is one of the reasons why I gave up in trying to do something for GNOME in openSUSE. Everything is considered a marketing problem, when it is actually, and quite evidently from a user point of view, a software quality problem. First release a state of the art GNOME, then market it. Before it's just premature and counterproductive. You are already experiencing that. I will sum up the main problems I think contributed to this situation about DE's in openSUSE: - GNOME is constantly released in a untested "beta state" in the final release of openSUSE, with evident bugs (read memory leaks, not working apps). Patches to these issues are released after long time, leaving the user with problems. This gives the sensation that the team considers openSUSE simply as a beta product to experiment with, where the last idea and the last application can be pushed, while the KDE team doesn't do that. Examples: yast-gtk, PulseAudio, package-kit, tasque, main-menu (in 10.3 it was a disaster with the memory leak, and people doesn't forget so quickly). - GNOME is bloated in openSUSE, causing major performance issues compared to other distributions (see Fedora). - Problems are patched too slowly compared to other DE's. It takes months or almost a release cycle to have (if ever) the major bugs fixed, while other distributions do this in about one month. One clear example are Fedora and Ubuntu: they released with PulseAudio in a clearly worse state than openSUSE, yet they fixed it quickly. OpenSUSE has some minor problems and are almost all still there. >I think a good spate of education for the diehard users of other DEs >would be a good start, lets try and do something fun and informative >for all of us. Education and information are useful if there is a base to build them upon. And that base has to be a quality release. I saw improvements from 10.3 to 11.0, that's evident, and I'm pleased of that. But we still are not at the level of RH/Fedora, and the reasons are not clear. The GNOME team used all the possible excuses that might justify the difference in quality between GNOME and KDE, and GNOME in openSUSE/GNOME in other distributions. It is time to stop hiding behind the excuse that SuSE was a KDE-centric distribution, and that it takes time (the typical "wait for next release and see!") to have a good GNOME implementation, because the team had a whole release cycle (10.x) to do that. It missed the opportunity because instead of preparing a solid base and then adding features simply skipped the first step, hoping to fix the problems as they come out. It doesn't work that way on the long run. Just my two cents. Alberto -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
Hello,
There is indeed an issue of anti-DE at times in #suse, there are times
>when it is GNOME that gets it, sometimes it's XFCE that cops a bucket >full of buck shot. On the odd occasion I have seen KDE attract the >swarm of locusts. As people have said, this is slowly increasing; so >much so that I am copying the board and Zonker in to ensure that they >are aware of the issue, and hopefully they can advise and assist us in >how best to educate everyone. At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure >that there is a lot of things in KDE that none of us know.
I agree there is some anti-GNOME behaviour in #suse, but I don't see it increasing at all. In the past, when I joined the community some years ago, it was a lot more evident. At those times it was really happening that systematically all GNOME users were instructed to use KDE. Today it's not that way anymore, even if there still is some tendency to do that. I don't think it is fair, but I think there are some reasons for that, and I will try to explain commenting the following lines.
>The issue of openSUSE's GNOME release being inferior to other distros >is certainly a concern, and I think it is up to the GNOME team (both >Novell employees and community militia ;-) ) to rectify with mass >marketing.
This is exactly the consideration I expected and I have heard in years of being around the GNOME team and the GNOME channel on IRC, and it is one of the reasons why I gave up in trying to do something for GNOME in openSUSE. Everything is considered a marketing problem, when it is actually, and quite evidently from a user point of view, a software quality problem. First release a state of the art GNOME, then market it. Before it's just premature and counterproductive. You are already experiencing that.
I will sum up the main problems I think contributed to this situation about DE's in openSUSE:
- GNOME is constantly released in a untested "beta state" in the final release of openSUSE, with evident bugs (read memory leaks, not working apps). Patches to these issues are released after long time, leaving the user with problems. This gives the sensation that the team considers openSUSE simply as a beta product to experiment with, where the last idea and the last application can be pushed, while the KDE team doesn't do that. Examples: yast-gtk, PulseAudio, package-kit, tasque, main-menu (in 10.3 it was a disaster with the memory leak, and people doesn't forget so quickly).
- GNOME is bloated in openSUSE, causing major performance issues compared to other distributions (see Fedora).
- Problems are patched too slowly compared to other DE's. It takes months or almost a release cycle to have (if ever) the major bugs fixed, while other distributions do this in about one month. One clear example are Fedora and Ubuntu: they released with PulseAudio in a clearly worse state than openSUSE, yet they fixed it quickly. OpenSUSE has some minor problems and are almost all still there.
>I think a good spate of education for the diehard users of other DEs >would be a good start, lets try and do something fun and informative >for all of us.
Education and information are useful if there is a base to build them upon. And that base has to be a quality release. I saw improvements from 10.3 to 11.0, that's evident, and I'm pleased of that. But we still are not at the level of RH/Fedora, and the reasons are not clear.
The GNOME team used all the possible excuses that might justify the difference in quality between GNOME and KDE, and GNOME in openSUSE/GNOME in other distributions. It is time to stop hiding behind the excuse that SuSE was a KDE-centric distribution, and that it takes time (the typical "wait for next release and see!") to have a good GNOME implementation, because the team had a whole release cycle (10.x) to do that. It missed the opportunity because instead of preparing a solid base and then adding features simply skipped the first step, hoping to fix the problems as they come out. It doesn't work that way on the long run.
Just my two cents.
Alberto
Heck all I did was reply to this thread, and look what I get hit with once I sit down at the PC (Was I out of line by simply replying to the mailing list stating my observation?): <Chrysantine> jayson_r: You know it would help if you would help regarding those GNOME issues you complain on the ML about. <Chrysantine> jayson_r: Although complaning about things behind peoples backs is, of course, the preferable solution to all issues. <Chrysantine> jayson_r: And the fact is we can't bloody answer everyone. Many of us simply do not use GNOME at all - what do you expect us to do, pull a rabbit out of our tushy? <Chrysantine> jayson_r: And the fact is we can't bloody answer everyone. Many of us simply do not use GNOME at all - what do you expect us to do, pull a rabbit out of our tushy? <Chrysantine> jayson_r: It's starting to get on my nerves seriously - people whine and moan behind our back yet do jack shit themselves. Everyones a critic, eh? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Heck all I did was reply to this thread, and look what I get hit with once I sit down at the PC (Was I out of line by simply replying to the mailing list stating my observation?): <Chrysantine> jayson_r: You know it would help if you would help regarding those GNOME issues you complain on the ML about. <Chrysantine> jayson_r: Although complaning about things behind peoples backs is, of course, the preferable solution to all issues. <Chrysantine> jayson_r: And the fact is we can't bloody answer everyone. Many of us simply do not use GNOME at all - what do you expect us to do, pull a rabbit out of our tushy? <Chrysantine> jayson_r: And the fact is we can't bloody answer everyone. Many of us simply do not use GNOME at all - what do you expect us to do, pull a rabbit out of our tushy? <Chrysantine> jayson_r: It's starting to get on my nerves seriously - people whine and moan behind our back yet do jack shit themselves. Everyones a critic, eh?
I don't understand your point. The real question is: how many guys in #opensuse-gnome, involved in the GNOME development or in the GNOME community at opensuse try to help users on the official support channel? What Chrisantine pointed out is an elementary truth: 80% of openSUSE users use KDE, and almost all of the active members of the support channel (#suse) use KDE. I agree they should not send GNOME users to other distributions, but you can't really expect they learn how to use GNOME to help people. Regards, Alberto -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Alberto, Perhaps you misread the original intent of this thread. My bringing this up was not about KDE vs. GNOME. That exists, and sadly we'll never get around that part. My thread was about people telling newcomers that if they want to use GNOME, they should use another distribution. That's a comment NOT about GNOME itself, but about openSUSE's GNOME. It is an unfair, untruthful implication and ignores the hard work of many people contributing to openSUSE-GNOME. When I confronted one person who said this statement, he admitted to having never used GNOME but felt that if GNOME is the user's desired DE, other distros are better. That is wholly untrue and unfair. Please don't hijack this thread to turn it into one of your usual rants. This was not about the existence of GNOME, it was about GNOME on openSUSE. Bryen On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 16:51 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
Hello,
There is indeed an issue of anti-DE at times in #suse, there are times >when it is GNOME that gets it, sometimes it's XFCE that cops a bucket >full of buck shot. On the odd occasion I have seen KDE attract the >swarm of locusts. As people have said, this is slowly increasing; so >much so that I am copying the board and Zonker in to ensure that they >are aware of the issue, and hopefully they can advise and assist us in >how best to educate everyone. At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure >that there is a lot of things in KDE that none of us know.
I agree there is some anti-GNOME behaviour in #suse, but I don't see it increasing at all. In the past, when I joined the community some years ago, it was a lot more evident. At those times it was really happening that systematically all GNOME users were instructed to use KDE. Today it's not that way anymore, even if there still is some tendency to do that. I don't think it is fair, but I think there are some reasons for that, and I will try to explain commenting the following lines.
>The issue of openSUSE's GNOME release being inferior to other distros >is certainly a concern, and I think it is up to the GNOME team (both >Novell employees and community militia ;-) ) to rectify with mass >marketing.
This is exactly the consideration I expected and I have heard in years of being around the GNOME team and the GNOME channel on IRC, and it is one of the reasons why I gave up in trying to do something for GNOME in openSUSE. Everything is considered a marketing problem, when it is actually, and quite evidently from a user point of view, a software quality problem. First release a state of the art GNOME, then market it. Before it's just premature and counterproductive. You are already experiencing that.
I will sum up the main problems I think contributed to this situation about DE's in openSUSE:
- GNOME is constantly released in a untested "beta state" in the final release of openSUSE, with evident bugs (read memory leaks, not working apps). Patches to these issues are released after long time, leaving the user with problems. This gives the sensation that the team considers openSUSE simply as a beta product to experiment with, where the last idea and the last application can be pushed, while the KDE team doesn't do that. Examples: yast-gtk, PulseAudio, package-kit, tasque, main-menu (in 10.3 it was a disaster with the memory leak, and people doesn't forget so quickly).
- GNOME is bloated in openSUSE, causing major performance issues compared to other distributions (see Fedora).
- Problems are patched too slowly compared to other DE's. It takes months or almost a release cycle to have (if ever) the major bugs fixed, while other distributions do this in about one month. One clear example are Fedora and Ubuntu: they released with PulseAudio in a clearly worse state than openSUSE, yet they fixed it quickly. OpenSUSE has some minor problems and are almost all still there.
>I think a good spate of education for the diehard users of other DEs >would be a good start, lets try and do something fun and informative >for all of us.
Education and information are useful if there is a base to build them upon. And that base has to be a quality release. I saw improvements from 10.3 to 11.0, that's evident, and I'm pleased of that. But we still are not at the level of RH/Fedora, and the reasons are not clear.
The GNOME team used all the possible excuses that might justify the difference in quality between GNOME and KDE, and GNOME in openSUSE/GNOME in other distributions. It is time to stop hiding behind the excuse that SuSE was a KDE-centric distribution, and that it takes time (the typical "wait for next release and see!") to have a good GNOME implementation, because the team had a whole release cycle (10.x) to do that. It missed the opportunity because instead of preparing a solid base and then adding features simply skipped the first step, hoping to fix the problems as they come out. It doesn't work that way on the long run.
Just my two cents.
Alberto
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Dear Bryen,
Perhaps you misread the original intent of this thread. My bringing this up was not about KDE vs. GNOME. That exists, and sadly we'll never get around that part.
My thread was about people telling newcomers that if they want to use GNOME, they should use another distribution. That's a comment NOT about GNOME itself, but about openSUSE's GNOME. It is an unfair, untruthful implication and ignores the hard work of many people contributing to openSUSE-GNOME.
I said that I find that part wrong and unfair myself.
When I confronted one person who said this statement, he admitted to having never used GNOME but felt that if GNOME is the user's desired DE, other distros are better. That is wholly untrue and unfair.
I know some of the users who attack GNOME never actually tried it. It's not my case, as you know.
Please don't hijack this thread to turn it into one of your usual rants.
Thanks for giving me the occasion to point out the typical answer a user receive when he complains about the quality of GNOME in openSUSE. Instead of assuming that who complains is simply ranting, try to understand why he is complaining always on the same topics. After that you will be able to answer with some more authority, and maybe to have a better product to really market.
This was not about the existence of GNOME, it was about GNOME on openSUSE.
All my previous message was in answer to what Andrew wrote, to point out that GNOME has not a marketing problem, but a quality problem at first, like it or not. And I wrote exactly on that: GNOME on openSUSE and its quality compared to GNOME in other distributions, and to KDE on openSUSE. With kind regards, Alberto -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 16:51 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
- Problems are patched too slowly compared to other DE's. It takes months or almost a release cycle to have (if ever) the major bugs fixed, while other distributions do this in about one month. One clear example are Fedora and Ubuntu: they released with PulseAudio in a clearly worse state than openSUSE, yet they fixed it quickly. OpenSUSE has some minor problems and are almost all still there.
the difference between ubuntu and fedora is that they use PA for the whole distro, while we use it only for GNOME, unfortunately. This is the cause of most of the problems (not all of course), that users install alsa/oss/flash-based apps which, by default, are not configured to use PA because they are expected to be used in both KDE and GNOME. Also, the other problems related to PA, most of them are upstream, and are getting fixes upstream, so those problems have shown up also on Fedora and Ubuntu.
>I think a good spate of education for the diehard users of other DEs >would be a good start, lets try and do something fun and informative >for all of us.
Education and information are useful if there is a base to build them upon. And that base has to be a quality release. I saw improvements from 10.3 to 11.0, that's evident, and I'm pleased of that. But we still are not at the level of RH/Fedora, and the reasons are not clear.
The GNOME team used all the possible excuses that might justify the difference in quality between GNOME and KDE,
no harsh intended to the KDE team here, they already got a lot for KDE 4, but the general impression, at least in 11.0, is that KDE quality is worst than GNOME's, because of KDE 4, so I don't think nobody is using that excuse.
and GNOME in openSUSE/GNOME in other distributions. It is time to stop hiding behind the excuse that SuSE was a KDE-centric distribution, and that it takes time (the typical "wait for next release and see!") to have a good GNOME implementation, because the team had a whole release cycle (10.x) to do that. It missed the opportunity because instead of preparing a solid base and then adding features simply skipped the first step, hoping to fix the problems as they come out. It doesn't work that way on the long run.
I don't think we work that way. When we release software, it has been tested. Of course, problems show up (like with PA) when lots of users (much more than testers) start using the software. Maybe we should be quicker in fixing the issues, you might be right there, but please, don't pretend to say we just release buggy software and hope users won't find problems. Apart from our testing, upstream GNOME gets a lot of testing before being released. -- Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo@novell.com> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Hi Rodrigo,
the difference between ubuntu and fedora is that they use PA for the whole distro, while we use it only for GNOME, unfortunately. This is the cause of most of the problems (not all of course), that users install alsa/oss/flash-based apps which, by default, are not configured to use PA because they are expected to be used in both KDE and GNOME.
Also, the other problems related to PA, most of them are upstream, and are getting fixes upstream, so those problems have shown up also on Fedora and Ubuntu.
Apart from the fact that PA was an example to give an idea, I think that you pointed out exactly the problem. In my opinion, if PA was not implemented for the whole distribution, maybe (I guess) someone did not consider it ready, or there was not enough time to do it. As a consequence, why not waiting for the next release to introduce it, giving upstream developers the time to fix the major bugs and in the same time planning a clean and user-transparent integration in the whole distribution? From a user point of view, I'm sure, there was no urge to have PulseAudio.
I don't think we work that way. When we release software, it has been tested. Of course, problems show up (like with PA) when lots of users (much more than testers) start using the software. Maybe we should be quicker in fixing the issues, you might be right there, but please, don't pretend to say we just release buggy software and hope users won't find problems. Apart from our testing, upstream GNOME gets a lot of testing before being released.
Upstream GNOME gets a lot of testing: my point does not discuss that, as I referred to the openSUSE implementation of GNOME, which gained the name of not being good over time, not just in 11.0, where we had very important improvements, recognised by almost everyone without a bias. Of course I'm not referring to small annoying bugs, but to the very evident ones, that clearly show no one (I include the community, of course) paid attention. To make two examples that I think sum it up well, let's reconsider the old dear main-menu and its memory leak of more than 200 MB. This issue affected SLED 10, openSUSE 10.2 and openSUSE 10.3. It was such an evident problem that it made that menu unusable on production workstations in order not to force the user to kill it manually or logout. It is hopefully fixed in 11.0, but it was plainly ignored for a long time (proofs in bugzilla). As a second, more recent, example that comes to my mind is the status of the Yast-gtk printer module, which was completely crashing in 11.0 final. We had other cases of applications not working in the final release and never fixed also, but I think I gave the idea. This had to be added, of course, to the slow process of fixing reported problems. Excluding who is in principle against GNOME, I think issues like these played a big role to create the current rumours about openSUSE GNOME implementation. Regards, A. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 11:07 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
Hi Rodrigo,
the difference between ubuntu and fedora is that they use PA for the whole distro, while we use it only for GNOME, unfortunately. This is the cause of most of the problems (not all of course), that users install alsa/oss/flash-based apps which, by default, are not configured to use PA because they are expected to be used in both KDE and GNOME.
Also, the other problems related to PA, most of them are upstream, and are getting fixes upstream, so those problems have shown up also on Fedora and Ubuntu.
Apart from the fact that PA was an example to give an idea, I think that you pointed out exactly the problem. In my opinion, if PA was not implemented for the whole distribution, maybe (I guess) someone did not consider it ready, or there was not enough time to do it.
well, it was mainly because KDE4 had the new phonon thing, and they didn't see a reason to use PA. For 11.1 this should be fixed I hope.
As a consequence, why not waiting for the next release to introduce it, giving upstream developers the time to fix the major bugs and in the same time planning a clean and user-transparent integration in the whole distribution? From a user point of view, I'm sure, there was no urge to have PulseAudio.
well, PA was being accepted into GNOME for 2.22, to replace esound, so we just helped a bit upstream to move (along with Fedora guys)
I don't think we work that way. When we release software, it has been tested. Of course, problems show up (like with PA) when lots of users (much more than testers) start using the software. Maybe we should be quicker in fixing the issues, you might be right there, but please, don't pretend to say we just release buggy software and hope users won't find problems. Apart from our testing, upstream GNOME gets a lot of testing before being released.
Upstream GNOME gets a lot of testing: my point does not discuss that, as I referred to the openSUSE implementation of GNOME, which gained the name of not being good over time, not just in 11.0, where we had very important improvements, recognised by almost everyone without a bias.
Of course I'm not referring to small annoying bugs, but to the very evident ones, that clearly show no one (I include the community, of course) paid attention.
you're right here partly, because indeed, we didn't test PA in all the possible scenarios. -- Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo@novell.com> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Le lundi 28 juillet 2008, à 16:51 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua a écrit :
I will sum up the main problems I think contributed to this situation about DE's in openSUSE:
- GNOME is constantly released in a untested "beta state" in the final release of openSUSE, with evident bugs (read memory leaks, not working apps). Patches to these issues are released after long time, leaving the user with problems. This gives the sensation that the team considers openSUSE simply as a beta product to experiment with, where the last idea and the last application can be pushed, while the KDE team doesn't do that. Examples: yast-gtk, PulseAudio, package-kit, tasque, main-menu (in 10.3 it was a disaster with the memory leak, and people doesn't forget so quickly).
I'd love to know what's from 10.3 (or earlier) and what's from 11.0 here.
- GNOME is bloated in openSUSE, causing major performance issues compared to other distributions (see Fedora).
I'm sorry, but each time you say that, I wonder why. I see no major performance difference here. And I'm looking at other distros.
- Problems are patched too slowly compared to other DE's. It takes months or almost a release cycle to have (if ever) the major bugs fixed, while other distributions do this in about one month. One clear example are Fedora and Ubuntu: they released with PulseAudio in a clearly worse state than openSUSE, yet they fixed it quickly. OpenSUSE has some minor problems and are almost all still there.
I guess it depends -- maybe we're slower for PA, but maybe we're faster for other things (and I actually think we are in some cases). But point taken. The new bug triage policy should help with that (since we're giving sense to priority). What could make sense too is to send some weekly summary of the urgent things to fix for a stable release so people can easily know what is needed and help. Would you or anybody else want to help with that? Also, one thing which is still surprising for me (keep in mind I'm new here ;-)) is that it's really hard to get updates out for a stable release. Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Hi Vincent,
I'd love to know what's from 10.3 (or earlier) and what's from 11.0 here.
Yast-gtk is from 10.3 and 11.0. PulseAudio/PackageKit/Tasque pushing is from 11.0. Main-menu is from SLE/10.2/10.3, even though I think it should be redesigned from scratch because of the app-browser.
- GNOME is bloated in openSUSE, causing major performance issues compared to other distributions (see Fedora).
I'm sorry, but each time you say that, I wonder why. I see no major performance difference here. And I'm looking at other distros.
Well, I have no scientific test available, clearly. In my experience (on my laptop and workstations), Red Hat and Fedora has a very responsive gnome, with an evidently lower login time (from authentication to desktop), a faster nautilus (opening/listing files/performing operations) and a lower time required to launch gnome applications in general. I don't know the technical reasons of that, I'm simply reporting what happens.
I guess it depends -- maybe we're slower for PA, but maybe we're faster for other things (and I actually think we are in some cases). But point taken. The new bug triage policy should help with that (since we're giving sense to priority). What could make sense too is to send some weekly summary of the urgent things to fix for a stable release so people can easily know what is needed and help. Would you or anybody else want to help with that?
I think GNOME team is already one of the most bureaucratic of the whole distribution, at least from what appears from the ML, so I'm not really convinced that adding meetings, agendas, lists will help much. I think bugzilla is out there for that purpose, bugs have priority assignments (recently updated, btw), so it's somewhat a responsibility of the team to take care of that.
Also, one thing which is still surprising for me (keep in mind I'm new here ;-)) is that it's really hard to get updates out for a stable release.
I agree. That is the updates policy inherited by the SuSE, where "only security updates" were provided. I see the advantages: safer and only required updates, but I also see the disadvantages we are experiencing. I wonder if this approach is the best one for a community distribution, where maybe a little bit more flexibility would be of help. Regards, A. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 11:24 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
I guess it depends -- maybe we're slower for PA, but maybe we're faster for other things (and I actually think we are in some cases). But point taken. The new bug triage policy should help with that (since we're giving sense to priority). What could make sense too is to send some weekly summary of the urgent things to fix for a stable release so people can easily know what is needed and help. Would you or anybody else want to help with that?
I think GNOME team is already one of the most bureaucratic of the whole distribution, at least from what appears from the ML, so I'm not really convinced that adding meetings, agendas, lists will help much. I think bugzilla is out there for that purpose, bugs have priority assignments (recently updated, btw), so it's somewhat a responsibility of the team to take care of that.
This I'm curious about - this is probably an artifact of a) being more open and b) trying to get more community involvement from a development perspective. Frankly I don't know how to do a) and b) at the same time during ramp up without being a little bureaucratic in terms of meetings and stuff because the input and feedback is wanted. -JP -- JP Rosevear <jpr@novell.com> Novell, Inc. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
This I'm curious about - this is probably an artifact of a) being more open and b) trying to get more community involvement from a development perspective. Frankly I don't know how to do a) and b) at the same time during ramp up without being a little bureaucratic in terms of meetings and stuff because the input and feedback is wanted.
Hi JP, I was too general in my last email, sorry. I didn't mean that ALL the meetings and agendas are not useful. I simply wanted to say that I don't see the need of another periodic list/newsletter with the most critical issues, because those information are already available on bugzilla, and the report is assigned to the right people already. Of course if it's considered useful by the team and it might help, that's OK. Regards, Alberto -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Hi all, this is really what I was afraid of, a discussion that leads to nothing but frustration and insecurity for uninitiated users. Why not simply stop this fruitless discussion ( interestingly enough nobody spoke up when suseROCKs brought up the topic in last opensuse-gnome meeting ) and rather add an entry to the WIKI based on Vuntz's reply to this thread and, maybe, some real, hard facts on GNOME and it's differences among distributions. Have a lot of fun... Casual On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 14:33 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
This I'm curious about - this is probably an artifact of a) being more open and b) trying to get more community involvement from a development perspective. Frankly I don't know how to do a) and b) at the same time during ramp up without being a little bureaucratic in terms of meetings and stuff because the input and feedback is wanted.
Hi JP,
I was too general in my last email, sorry. I didn't mean that ALL the meetings and agendas are not useful. I simply wanted to say that I don't see the need of another periodic list/newsletter with the most critical issues, because those information are already available on bugzilla, and the report is assigned to the right people already. Of course if it's considered useful by the team and it might help, that's OK.
Regards, Alberto
Hi Casual,
Why not simply stop this fruitless discussion ( interestingly enough nobody spoke up when suseROCKs brought up the topic in last opensuse-gnome meeting )
I agree on stopping it here. Just don't assume again on the reasons who didn't make people participate to the meetings. You don't really know them. Thanks.
and rather add an entry to the WIKI based on Vuntz's reply to this thread and, maybe, some real, hard facts on GNOME and it's differences among distributions.
It's what I asked since the beginning. Regards, A. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
On Sun, 2008-08-03 at 10:51 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
and rather add an entry to the WIKI based on Vuntz's reply to this thread and, maybe, some real, hard facts on GNOME and it's differences among distributions.
It's what I asked since the beginning.
http://en.opensuse.org/GNOME/Projects/Lived_in_Project We have had the lived in project. If there are more people that have other distro->openSUSE experience (esp. against 11.0), please add there. Please read the "What this is not" on that page :-). -JP -- JP Rosevear <jpr@novell.com> Novell, Inc. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Dear Casual,
this is really what I was afraid of, a discussion that leads to nothing but frustration and insecurity for uninitiated users.
I think this is not true: unexperienced users probably are not even reading this mailing-list, and they don't take part to meetings. So discussions like these are not as harmful as you want us to believe. Regards, A. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 14:33 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
This I'm curious about - this is probably an artifact of a) being more open and b) trying to get more community involvement from a development perspective. Frankly I don't know how to do a) and b) at the same time during ramp up without being a little bureaucratic in terms of meetings and stuff because the input and feedback is wanted.
Hi JP,
I was too general in my last email, sorry. I didn't mean that ALL the meetings and agendas are not useful. I simply wanted to say that I don't see the need of another periodic list/newsletter with the most critical issues, because those information are already available on bugzilla, and the report is assigned to the right people already. Of course if it's considered useful by the team and it might help, that's OK.
the review of most crticial bugs could just be part of the weekly meetings' agenda. -- Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo@novell.com> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
(yay for replies at 4AM... can't sleep :/) Le vendredi 01 août 2008, à 11:24 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua a écrit :
Hi Vincent,
I'd love to know what's from 10.3 (or earlier) and what's from 11.0 here.
Yast-gtk is from 10.3 and 11.0. PulseAudio/PackageKit/Tasque pushing is from 11.0. Main-menu is from SLE/10.2/10.3, even though I think it should be redesigned from scratch because of the app-browser.
Let's ignore things earlier than 11.0, since I can't tell anything about this. Yast-gtk in 11.0: I saw you referenced a crash in the printer stuff. I never heard of this. I'm not saying I would have fixed it, but the fact that I don't know about it probably also means that other people don't know about it, which can help explain why it wasn't fixed in time. (see my reply below about the list of things to fix, btw) PulseAudio: as Rodrigo pointed out, the issues are mostly related to the fact that it's not used by everything in openSUSE. You then reply that it might have meant that it wasn't ready. My perception is that other people didn't think it'd be useful to replace something that work for them because they didn't see an big enough immediate benefit and convincing them was really hard. I believe PA might get used by KDE too in 11.1 (not sure, though), which will tremendously help. Maybe we should have waited, but I would guess that if we had waited, we'd be in the same situation for 11.1, and we'd need to convince people to use it. PackageKit: I'm not aware of major bugs there, but I must admit I mainly use zypper ;-) From what I can tell, though, this is more or less under control, although it was probably ready a bit too late. But then maybe having people help Scott would have helped too. And this means we need more people helping (see below too). Tasque: err. I'd hardly qualify this like a big problem since people have to look for it to use it, don't they? Don't get me wrong: I'm not denying the issues. But I think we disagree on the reasons of those issues. [skipping performance stuff]
I guess it depends -- maybe we're slower for PA, but maybe we're faster for other things (and I actually think we are in some cases). But point taken. The new bug triage policy should help with that (since we're giving sense to priority). What could make sense too is to send some weekly summary of the urgent things to fix for a stable release so people can easily know what is needed and help. Would you or anybody else want to help with that?
I think GNOME team is already one of the most bureaucratic of the whole distribution, at least from what appears from the ML, so I'm not really convinced that adding meetings, agendas, lists will help much. I think bugzilla is out there for that purpose, bugs have priority assignments (recently updated, btw), so it's somewhat a responsibility of the team to take care of that.
I can understand why you see it as bureaucratic but the reason really is that we want to have outside people know what's going on and we also want to enable them to contribute. Maybe not with code or packaging, but with decisions or testing. Having more people can only help us. The bureaucratic look of all this is "only" a side-effect of being proactive in community building. As for my proposal: as a developer, this would *hugely* help me. Yes, I have bugs in bugzilla and they're now prioritized in a good way. But you know what? I don't look at bugs of other people. Having a small mail from time to time would help me know what are the big issues. Maybe I would be able to help with an urgent issue I'm not aware of. Now, I'm talking only about me, but if other people are in the same situation as I am, this means maybe many people could help if they were aware of the issues. And it's also a good way to put a bit more pressure, without annoying the person who's assigned to the bug :-) (maybe it would only help me, though, in which case all this can safely be ignored)
Also, one thing which is still surprising for me (keep in mind I'm new here ;-)) is that it's really hard to get updates out for a stable release.
I agree. That is the updates policy inherited by the SuSE, where "only security updates" were provided. I see the advantages: safer and only required updates, but I also see the disadvantages we are experiencing. I wonder if this approach is the best one for a community distribution, where maybe a little bit more flexibility would be of help.
I would agree, but discussion about this probably belongs to opensuse-project :-) Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Dear Vincent,
Let's ignore things earlier than 11.0, since I can't tell anything about this.
We can do that. But what happened before 11.0 is what led to the current situation of GNOME not being much appreciated in openSUSE.
Yast-gtk in 11.0: I saw you referenced a crash in the printer stuff. I never heard of this. I'm not saying I would have fixed it, but the fact that I don't know about it probably also means that other people don't know about it, which can help explain why it wasn't fixed in time. (see my reply below about the list of things to fix, btw)
It was reported by me immediately after release. My point is that no one tried to configure a printer with that module, because the crash is systematic.
PulseAudio: as Rodrigo pointed out, the issues are mostly related to the fact that it's not used by everything in openSUSE. You then reply that it might have meant that it wasn't ready. My perception is that other people didn't think it'd be useful to replace something that work for them because they didn't see an big enough immediate benefit and convincing them was really hard. I believe PA might get used by KDE too in 11.1 (not sure, though), which will tremendously help. Maybe we should have waited, but I would guess that if we had waited, we'd be in the same situation for 11.1, and we'd need to convince people to use it.
I agree when you say that a lot of people (me included) do not really see the advantage of PulseAudio right now. It just made users life harder, giving them a lot of problems with their audio system and introducing trouble with applications that do not support it. I disagree on the fact that you say now you'll be able to convince the KDE guys to use it more easily, after all the complaints received in #suse. If I were a KDE developer, I would really keep it out of my system, at least until all the third party apps (yes, I'm talking also about commercial stuff, like Skype, because we need it!) do not support it properly or the compatibility layer works out of the box without requiring "magic" solutions.
PackageKit: I'm not aware of major bugs there, but I must admit I mainly use zypper ;-) From what I can tell, though, this is more or less under control, although it was probably ready a bit too late. But then maybe having people help Scott would have helped too. And this means we need more people helping (see below too).
PackageKit is not creating any major issue. It is just an example of something added because it's "cool". The only advantage I see is that now GNOME has a nice updater instead of the ugly opensuse-updater-gnome. But this introduced a sort of inconsistency in the system, with yast on one side, and packagekit interfaces on the other.
Tasque: err. I'd hardly qualify this like a big problem since people have to look for it to use it, don't they?
Tasque is a perfect example of the principle of how things are done, at least for me, because it was introduced to replace the "to do" feature in tomboy, instead of fixing it. This means that who was using that feature, lost it while upgrading (yes, I was using it). Nice policy! Plus, it is not a full replacement for the old feature in tomboy at all, because in the current state it requires a Remember The Milk account. To answer your question, Tasque made it on the box, as one of the key innovations of 11.0. It really seems too much to me for an application that doesn't even recognize that the RTM account was closed, and goes on sending data somewhere over the net (bug in bugzilla).
[skipping performance stuff]
Hehe, I hope someone won't skip it ;-)
I can understand why you see it as bureaucratic but the reason really is that we want to have outside people know what's going on and we also want to enable them to contribute. Maybe not with code or packaging, but with decisions or testing. Having more people can only help us. The bureaucratic look of all this is "only" a side-effect of being proactive in community building.
Yes, I think I explained I was too general in that comment. What I think is that having a lot of different sources of information makes it harder for the user/contributor to follow them and find what he needs. That's all. About the creation of a community, I strongly believe that it is a question of trust before anything else, and creating it requires a lot of time and work. I can say, without any pun intended, that it didn't work for me, because I had too many times the sensation the community is considered something to "use" more than someone to "work with". Of course it is a personal experience, so take it for what it is.
As for my proposal: as a developer, this would *hugely* help me. Yes, I have bugs in bugzilla and they're now prioritized in a good way. But you know what? I don't look at bugs of other people. Having a small mail from time to time would help me know what are the big issues. Maybe I would be able to help with an urgent issue I'm not aware of. Now, I'm talking only about me, but if other people are in the same situation as I am, this means maybe many people could help if they were aware of the issues. And it's also a good way to put a bit more pressure, without annoying the person who's assigned to the bug :-) (maybe it would only help me, though, in which case all this can safely be ignored)
Well, I spent quite a bit of my time preparing bug lists (maybe in the wrong way, and surely of the bugs affecting me) for all the 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3 releases, without much success (read: almost none of the bugs were fixed timely). That's why I answered as I did.
I agree. That is the updates policy inherited by the SuSE, where "only security updates" were provided. I see the advantages: safer and only required updates, but I also see the disadvantages we are experiencing. I wonder if this approach is the best one for a community distribution, where maybe a little bit more flexibility would be of help.
I would agree, but discussion about this probably belongs to opensuse-project :-)
Yes. And I don't think it's a policy that is going to change anytime soon. That's why I think that the quality of the release is so important. Fixing after the final release is harder, and in openSUSE particularly slow, and in all cases, it doesn't really give a good picture. Again 11.0 was a big step forward, but the goal is not achieved, IMHO, until the final release is without bugs like the yast one cited above, or without the calculator hang. You might thing they're details, especially in an open distribution, but details are what makes the difference! Regards, Alberto -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
On Sun, 2008-08-03 at 00:11 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
Plus, it is not a full replacement for the old feature in tomboy at all, because in the current state it requires a Remember The Milk account.
it works also with Evolution tasks, at least the package I have here, as well as local files. -- Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo@novell.com> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
Plus, it is not a full replacement for the old feature in tomboy at all, because in the current state it requires a Remember The Milk account.
it works also with Evolution tasks, at least the package I have here, as well as local files.
Which is _not_ the one shipped with 11.0, but the one provided by the Community repository (Thanks FunkyPenguin!) :-) Regards, A. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 11:24 -0500, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
Hi Vincent,
I'd love to know what's from 10.3 (or earlier) and what's from 11.0 here.
Yast-gtk is from 10.3 and 11.0. PulseAudio/PackageKit/Tasque pushing is from 11.0. Main-menu is from SLE/10.2/10.3, even though I think it should be redesigned from scratch because of the app-browser.
- GNOME is bloated in openSUSE, causing major performance issues compared to other distributions (see Fedora).
I'm sorry, but each time you say that, I wonder why. I see no major performance difference here. And I'm looking at other distros.
Well, I have no scientific test available, clearly. In my experience (on my laptop and workstations), Red Hat and Fedora has a very responsive gnome, with an evidently lower login time (from authentication to desktop), a faster nautilus (opening/listing files/performing operations) and a lower time required to launch gnome applications in general. I don't know the technical reasons of that, I'm simply reporting what happens.
I think this might be beagle not being enabled by default in Fedora. It is what makes, IMO, the desktop slower. If you disable beagle, it should be as fast as in Fedora. It seems to be for me, as Vincent, I don't see any major difference between my opensuse GNOME and the one in Ubuntu -- Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo@novell.com> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2008-08-04 at 12:45 +0200, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
I think this might be beagle not being enabled by default in Fedora. It is what makes, IMO, the desktop slower. If you disable beagle, it should be as fast as in Fedora. It seems to be for me, as Vincent, I don't see any major difference between my opensuse GNOME and the one in Ubuntu
Before disabling beagle, I'd love an strace -ttt of the daemon / process that's being slow - so we can fix that ;-) Also, turning off beagle / mail indexing can be helpful too. HTH, Michael. -- michael.meeks@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-gnome+help@opensuse.org
participants (8)
-
Alberto Passalacqua -
Bryen -
Casual J. Programmer -
Jayson Rowe -
JP Rosevear -
Michael Meeks -
Rodrigo Moya -
Vincent Untz