On Sun, 2008-03-09 at 17:41 -0400, David Boles wrote: > Callum Lerwick wrote: > > On Fri, 2008-03-07 at 11:15 -0500, Jarod Wilson wrote: > >> On Friday 07 March 2008 10:51:25 am Benjamin Kreuter wrote: > >>> On Thursday 06 March 2008 19:29:23 Chuck Ebbert wrote: > >>>> Sorry, we had to release with known bugs. A new kernel will be in > >>>> updates-testing very shortly. > >>> Why did you have to release with known bugs? Why not just wait until the > >>> bugs are fixed? The last three kernel updates broke suspend for me... > >> Uh... If we waited until all the known bugs were fixed, we'd never release > >> *any* kernel... :) > >> > >> Despite this kernel making my own iwl4965 unusable, I was fully in favor of > >> releasing it. In theory, we fixed more problems than we caused, and you're > >> always welcome to keep running the prior kernel. (I'm actually running a > >> slightly modified 2.6.24.2-7.fc8 now). > > > > Yes, the real issue here is not all bugs, but regressions. Regressions > > are a major problem for Aunt Tillie. Kernel regressions can result in an > > unbootable, unusable system. I can't imagine ever deploying Fedora on > > Aunt Tillie's machine for exactly this reason, kernel regressions. > > > > Use case: Aunt Tillie diligently keeps her Fedora machine up to date. A > > new kernel results in a regression with her hardware. Maybe it doesn't > > even boot. What does she do? Can we really expect her to know how to > > boot the previous kernel? How is she to even know it is the kernel that > > broke? Does she even know what a kernel is? How does she fix it? Booting > > the old kernel in GRUB is a one time deal. How does she make it stick? > > How does she blacklist the broken kernel? What does she do when 6 more > > broken kernels come through the update pipe? > > > > What do *I* do to prevent this? Tell her to not update, and risk > > security issues? Should I have blacklisted updating the kernel before > > leaving her alone with the machine? Which still leaves the kernel > > potentially vulnerable. > > > > This is not theoretical, I ran into this very kind of problem in F7. F7 > > ran perfectly, initially. A kernel update (a bump from 2.6.21 to 2.6.22, > > mind you...) resulted in a reboot loop on my wife's eMachines m6805 > > (x86_64) laptop. I even bugzilled it right away, though bugzilla's > > wonderous search functionality is refusing to find it right now. Many > > months and many kernel updates went by, all of them broken. It finally > > got fixed when the bug was discovered in the rawhide kernel and ended up > > on the F8 release blocker list. > > > > This is a terrible user experience for *me*, let alone Aunt Tillie. I > > can't imagine subjecting Aunt Tillie to this without help. > > > > Now, I'm not saying I have the solution to this, and I'm not saying the > > solution is easy. But IMHO this really needs to be addressed, somehow, > > if Fedora is to ever truly be "ready for the desktop". > > > > > I don't think that "Aunt Tillie" should be using a bleeding edge Linux > distribution such as Fedora provides. And if "Nephew Johnie" installs it > for her and she has problems with it that she can not deal with herself I > think it is "Nephew Johny's" fault for installing it for her. What do you > think? > > No distribution names mentioned here but there are several others that I > can think of that are much better suited for Newbies like your "Aunt Tillie". This is one of the big reasons why I'm now intalling centos on machines (while I continue to use fedora). The other is that I don't have time to upgrade multiple fedora installs when they are no longer supported. R -- "It's a fine line between denial and faith. It's much better on my side" -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
