PROPOSAL: Fedora user survey
Terry Barnaby
terry1 at beam.ltd.uk
Tue Mar 9 15:30:37 UTC 2010
On 03/09/2010 02:57 PM, Al Dunsmuir wrote:
> Hello Seth,
>
> Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 9:37:26 AM, you wrote:
>
>
>
>> On Tue, 9 Mar 2010, Al Dunsmuir wrote:
>
>>> Hello Seth,
>>>
>>> Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 9:23:00 AM, you wrote:
>>>
>>>> Your primary server runs fedora? May I ask why?
>>>> -sv
>>>
>>> I have limited time to do system installs and maintenance. Sticking
>>> with one distribution helps keep that sane. I have a dual boot XP +
>>> Ubuntu machine that I do some play with, but I find it strange, having
>>> used Fedora since FC3.
>>>
>>> If Fedora isn't up to the task of handling the basic services that my
>>> server provides (dns, dhcp, samba, ftp and http) for my home office
>>> with multiple PCs, what good is it?
>
>> Handle the tasks? Sure fedora can - but it doesn't have the updates
>> lifespan for a server.
>> -sv
>
> Until F8, I had no problems with the 6 month release cycle. I'd
> update my desktop, then update my server once I was confident that
> everything was stable. I don't mind if it works.
>
> I prefer to work on the server in X. The massive X changes over the
> last few releases introduced problems were for a good cause (but at
> the time were painful). I expect that to be fairly settled down, as I
> don't run any applications that require 3d.
>
> Bind seems to messy by nature. Starting in F10, configuration changes
> were required each release. These were not necessarily all documented
> (selinux, chroot not working/recommended). Opening problem reports in
> Bugzilla helped to get those addressed.
>
> I'd like to get back to where Fedora "just works", so I could have
> some time to do development work in areas that would help move Fedora
> ahead.
>
> Al
>
I totally agree. The 6 month Fedora cycle with to much emphasis very
latest and in a lot of cases superficially tested packages is turning
me and I am sure more users off Fedora by the day. If there are not
enough "real users" then very little "real testing" will get done and Fedora
will not even be useful as a RedHat test platform.
There appear to be few major changes happening to the core Linux kernel
API and the system library API's etc (Graphics may be an exception
although this is a mess at the moment). So why do we really need a new
full release this often ? Why not try and keep the base system for at
least 12 months with 12.1,12.2 etc releases ?
To get stable, usable systems thought and stability at the various API
levels are essential. The quick release cycle where a lot of API's can
change I think is detrimental to this and to getting third party
software available.
There should be no problem having a multilevel package repositories
effectively allowing Fedora spins for experimenting with and testing
advances in particular directions (like rawhide we could have
graphics-testing etc).
There has to be a balance between speed of new releases and usability.
I personally thought the old 12 month RedHat Linux release cycle was about
right.
Terry
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