On Wednesday 24 December 2008 05:13:16 am Vincent Untz wrote:
Le mercredi 24 décembre 2008, à 01:04 +0100, Carlos E. R. a écrit :
I think it would be better to delay the box and add the first month or two of patches. They usually are a lot patches, and some of the bugs discovered and solved in the first month or two after release are important.
This part of the thread seems to be trying to solve the wrong issue (IMHO). Instead of waiting one month after the release to get patches for major bugs in the release, why not have those bugs identified and fixed before the release?
It is possible. It "only" involves having more people testing Factory. If Factory is difficult to test, then that's the issue we have to focus on.
It is attempt to find the way around basic problem how to get more testers involved and have something that is very usable, and needs fewer patches during lifetime. Creating patches is developer time. From openSUSE/Novell perspective there is very small difference between that time used before release, and after, but user experience is very different. Well, here is what I see. Problems in development release that scare 99% of todays users: 1) boot configuration setup is black box, there is no list of supported (to that moment tested) boot configurations. Actually there is no public specification what should go in this list: partitions, file system, permanent storage, (anything else) 2) kernel will not boot on certain hardware, how to debug this. Reporting this requires a lot of text to be copied, once you make to the usable configuration. Some simple numeric indicator like line number, or breakpoint number will help much more. It is easy to note on the paper, and easy to post. Splash screen during first phase of development that can have kernel crashes, should be forbidden. 3) X crashes, and nothing tells that Failsafe option offers a GUI (it should be named "Failsafe Graphic Mode") 4) will not log in default desktop, or desktop crashes, but alternative to change desktop is in the login screen at the bottom left corner, but how many will click on barely visible text (kdm). This is good for release. Please make life of a tester easier, and provide list, not drop down menu, 6) ... Uaesrs need fallback options to usable alternatives, example is what Knoppix and derivatives offer on a boot screen. Press function key and get list of cheat codes, or other kernels that can be used to boot a system. Later, when all seems to work OK, that can be removed. Development should be focused as much as it is possible. Today we test new kernel, tomorrow X, or libc, or whatever, and so on. Having to debug interaction between change in libc and the rest of the system can mean a lot of work, but it is easier then what we have now. It is nice to have many new kernel features included, but if that means broken result, what is use of those features? Probably some testing of skills provided by openSUSE will help to get a picture what can be tested by community and what methods and tools have to be provided as a help. Reliance on unknown number of testers, with unknown skills will not move us from current status where number of hidden errors grows. Then slow down a bit whole process, please. I barely had time to download and install some releases and it already was time for a new one, before I had setup to test with. I don't think that I'm special in this respect. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org