On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 09:49:21AM -0400, Jim Perrin wrote:
> It actually counts for probably 20-30% of all the support necessary on
> the irc channels with people trying to update php/mysql or similar
> from source.
A large part of that problem is that people are asking for support in the
wrong place, right?
> However recommending that someone else do this isn't always the safe/smart
> play. If they don't have the same grasp you do, and they blow up their
> system because they didn't understand it... YOU, and to a lesser degree
> the mailing list/distro are going to get the blame because you told them
> it was the best way to go.
I get it, it's a "Do as I say, not necessarily as I do" situation because
those committed to providing support through the mailing list (which CentOS
is exemplary on) don't want to have to support stuff that's outside the
scope of CentOS. That scope boundary gets fuzzy if there are too many
references to going beyond the RPM system in list comments. Perhaps each
such reference needs a footnote: "You might do this, but go somewhere else
for support of it."
> It may be ivory tower thinking, but to me it doesn't matter if it's
> debian, ubuntu, centos, fedora, or whatever else. You use the tools
> and package managers specific to your distro. to help keep things sane
> for others.
Sanity here is relative. If you go to the main support channels for stuff
like Apache or PHP or Python or Postfix or whatever, and you're having
trouble because of some bug that they fixed literally years ago, but which
your distro of choice doesn't yet provide packaged, you'll find no patience
for the "I'm not going to compile your current version because then my
distro would be impure" excuse for not upgrading to fix the problem.
So from their POV it's insane that you're staying with what they see as an
obsolete, unsupported version. Yet from a distro-centric POV it's insane
that you're not. I get both POV's. I think the take home is: If you need to
go beyond what your distro provides, you need to take your support questions
beyond your distro's channels too.
Best,
Whit
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