On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 17:16 -0500, Mike A. Harris wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
snip<
>but with this new fedora approach, that's just not true anymore,
>at least for the first release or two. if one is constantly
>updating against rawhide, then you have to assume that, as some
>things get fixed, others will get broken. which makes it pretty
>much impossible to use such a system for useful work, no? not a
>complaint, just an observation. :-)
That's a fair observation, but you should be aware that this is
absolutely no different than any previous OS release, other than
the fact it is an open process now. We _NEED_ wider testing than
we can do internally alone in order to get things in a more
stable state. That either means we do private beta releases with
a selected team of individuals who 100% accept the deal about the
chances of having a totally broken system for the private betas,
or we make it open, and let people decide for themselves. We
chose the latter. One thing we can _NOT_ do, is guarantee the
stability of the OS, when it is in early development, which is
where things are today.
I fully understood the unstable nature of beta/test releases when I
installed test1, having read the caveats and tried other betas over the
years; however, the rate of package updates via rawhide has been rather
overwhelming and makes me wonder at the value and efficiency of testing
such a fast-moving target. I realize it would be more work, but perhaps
an approach with multiple stability levels like FC1 (updates, testing)
or ATrpms (at-stable, at-good, at-testing, at-bleeding) repository
hierarchy (probably with fewer levels) would provide an opportunity for
better in-depth testing of some of the more stable packages in a
somewhat more stable environment, while allowing the real bleeding edge
fans to drink from the rawhide fire-hose.
My $0.02
Phil
P.S. With the low cost of hard disks, I highly recommend keeping a
multi-bootable copy of a more stable OS (FC1 in my case) installed if
you really need to have something reliable available to get some work
done while still enjoying the rawhide roller-coaster ride.