A dream of a Red hat linux for desktop PC ?

[James Wilkinson]

Phil Meyer wrote:
> yes, there is a company behind Fedora that has a very fixed motive for
> what it wants out of Fedora.  When there is a conflict of interest
> between RedHat and the Fedora community, the community CAN win, but
> seldom does.  That can be both good and bad.

I wrote a fairly long response saying, in essence:
> I'm not sure that in any area Red Hat "wins" except that there are some
> things it doesn't want to fund, and other areas where Red Hat funding is
> limited. It's difficult to argue with that.
>
> But the community *certainly* wins -- we've got Fedora!

Wong Kwok-hon wrote:

> I think application in Fedora Core is freezing in some place for
> example Firefox, openoffice and desktop environment gnome,KDE version.
> There are not depended on kernel version and when some version
> released. They just stopped in testing period and no update present.

Your English is usually good, but it's a bit confusing here. "Freezing"
usually means that the program stops responding to keypresses or mouse
clicks. You seem to be complaining that they aren't updated the minute
there is a new version.

This is basically because Fedora *does* have engineers, a QA team, and
testers who look after these programs and ensure that they're correctly
integrated into the operating system. This takes time.

It also isn't necessarily a good idea to have major updates of system
components during the life of a distribution -- if the new versions come
with a new version of Fedora, then users and administrators can plan
when they want to upgrade and check that they are comfortable with the
new versions.

In any case, Fedora releases do come fairly soon after new Gnome
versions. New KDE minor releases are often made available through Fedora
updates to existing versions of Fedora. Firefox is a special case, where
the developer believes Firefox 2.0 gives no benefits and would mean
updating a lot of the system.

If you want new versions as they come out, you may want to look at
running Fedora Development ("rawhide"). Be aware that sometimes the new
versions are buggy, and there is a chance that your computer may not
always be bootable or you may lose data -- and that's why Fedora Core is
the way it is; it shields you from possibly-buggy new programs.

> Fedora Legacy is a good idea so far but it is not shut down... Who
> knows it re-open or not.

It looks very unlikely -- it promised security upgrades, and wasn't
providing them. It became apparent that it needed the equivalent of
several full-time engineers to monitor security issues and apply
suitable patches. No-one is prepared to pay these engineers, and the
volunteers weren't coming forward. 

> I remember that when I use Fedora Core 2 it has a bug in installation
> and Fedora Core 3 also has a bug in hardware recognize. Now kernel 586
> was installed when some user used Pentium 2 higher CPU.
>
> Although kernel maintainer is a good and kindly people and did a great
> contribution. but I think there can be more better and not cause user
> need to re-install in every version.

Bugs happen. This wasn't Dave Jones' fault, though -- it was an
installer bug. I don't see what your point is.

> And I felt Fedora Core become kernel minded. No one knows what will
> have a new version of applications for normal(for desktop word
> processor,internet use) user.

I don't quite follow this. Fedora development is open. When there's a
new version of OpenOffice out, it will certainly get into the next
version of Fedora (if it is really stable in time), and may get into
existing releases -- but this usually isn't decided until it can be seen
whether this can be done safely. Kernel development is the same --
there's a new set of drivers for IDE adapters, which can't safely be
delivered as an update to FC6, but will be provided for Fedora 7 (where
people know there's a chance that they'll have to make a few changes to
make their install fit their preferences).

> You also said that it is related to fund...But I think Debian also has
> a same problem but why they did a great job ? What's difference ?

No difference. Debian doesn't do everything that people think it should
do, either, or as fast as some people would like. (For example, if
Debian had extra resources, it might speed up the process of making
stable releases).

Red Hat won't fund some things -- other people do. Fedora Extras is one
case in point. Livna and ATrpms are another -- if they wanted, they
could easily provide a whole "Livna Linux" based on Fedora. The reason
they remain an add-on repository is basically (a) it's easier for them,
and (b) no-one's funding the extra repositories.

> And I think Red Hat 9 as a last and stable product. Community should
> or can provide more support it because it can provide to normal user.
> We should upgrade there libraries or application.

I'm getting confused here -- you want old Fedora or Red Hat releases,
with new software. That *is* a contradiction in terms.

James.
-- 
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