Oliver Wong wrote:
>
> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:5065187.GCm6LyeI5H@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Goodbye, Fedora
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | * From: esr thyrsus com (Eric S. Raymond)
>> | * To: fedora-devel-list redhat com
>> | * Cc: lwn lwn net, editors newsforge com, sjvn vna1 com, editors
>> | linuxtoday com
>> | * Subject: Goodbye, Fedora
>> | * Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 03:03:50 -0500 (EST)
>> |
>> | [...]
>> |
>> | This afternoon, I installed Edgy Eft on my main development machine --
>> | from one CD, not five. In less than three hours' work I was able to
>> | recreate the key features of my day-to-day toolkit. The
>> | after-installation mass upgrade to current packages, always a
>> | frightening prospect under Fedora, went off without a hitch.
>> `----
>>
>>
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-February/msg01006.html
>
> I don't think anyone would argue against the claim that ESR is a Linux
> advocate, and probably a very experienced Linux user. But if even ESR is
> afraid to perform an upgrade of his Fedora distribution... This simply
> shouldn't be the way a user perceives his own software, nevermind a
> power-user!
>
> He writes about Fedora:
>
> <quote>
> The proximate causes of this failure were (1) incompetent repository
> maintenance, making any nontrivial upgrade certain to founder on a
> failed dependency, and (2) the fact that rpm is not statically linked
> -- so it's possible to inadvertently remove a shared library it
> depends on and be unrecoverably screwed. But the underlying problems
> run much deeper.
> </quote>
>
> This was my experience with Redhat oh-so-many years ago, and I was
> told
> that things have changed since then, but I was very hesitant to try Redhat
> (now Fedora) again, and now that I've discovered Ubuntu (as ESR has),
> there's almost no reason for me to bother trying Fedora again.
>
> Now I bring this up, because sometimes someone will claim that Linux
> is
> difficult to use (by which they mean, of course, that they've had
> difficulties in using Linux). Assertions that Linux is no more difficult
> than Windows, or that the "someone" is obviously a WinTroll, etc. aside,
> sometimes a Linux advocate will ask "What exactly is it that's so
> difficult about Linux?" and this isn't an attack, but they genuinely want
> to know. Well, here's an example of something which makes Linux difficult.
> If ESR has trouble installing or removing software via the built in
> repository manager, how do you expect a non-technical, casual Window user
> to figure it out?
>
> Now this problem is (probably) exclusive to Fedora. I've never had
> problems with Ubuntu, for example. Even when I accidentally interrupted
> the install (basically, a power failure in the middle of an install),
> rather than simply telling me something went wrong (e.g. "Error:
> Repository database corrupt.") it actually went above and beyond my
> expectations and told me how to fix it (it was something like "Broken
> packages. Run 'apt-get --configure all' to repair"). This made a huge
> difference in end-user experience, and I'm very grateful and impressed
> with Ubuntu for providing me with this information. While some
> distributions are not-so-good (Fedora), some distributions are really
> great (Ubuntu). I know that. You know that. But the clueless Window user
> doesn't know that. He has one bad experience with Linux, and he assumes
> that all of Linux is like that. He may be incorrect, but it seems that
> it's simply human nature to make assumptions like this.
>
> So this user has a bad experience and complains about it. What happens
> then? Well, if you start calling him an Widiot or a troll or something
> like that, he'll have two bad experiences, and be further driven away from
> Linux. Keep in mind the next time that someone says they found Linux
> difficult to use, they may not be trying to deliberately offend you, but
> may simply be overgeneralizing their experiences without realizing it.
>
> - Oliver
However, if someone suggests a different distro (in this case, it would have
made a difference), they would be accused of playing the distro shuffle.
Sorry, Oliver, with Wintrolls, you cannot be ever right. They will latch on
to something else to complain about.
I have used Debian for years, and used to be a loyal Redhat user before
then. Now, I cannot imagine why anyone would even want to use an rpm based
distro, but each to his poison. Nice to see a prominent Fedora / Redhat
user coming to his senses and joining the Debian world.
For a few things, the distro makes a huge difference. The most prominent of
this is the package manager. If our ideas about evolution are right, rpm
will go the way of tgz as a package management idea and major distros today
like Microvell Desktop, OpenSuSe, Redhat, Mandriva are living on borrowed
time.
Redhat will probably stick around for the longest among these because it has
a massive presence on servers, and server updates generally do not involve
frequent changes like desktop / laptops / palmtops do, so their largely
boxed set based model will survive (since rpm updating is such a hell, even
now), but the average consumer is going the apt-get way. Ubuntu, Mepis,
Debian, DSL, Knoppix, ........ take your pick.
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