talk about screwing the pooch!

[Orville Bennett]

See now, you go omitting stuff again to suit your argument. I put the 
whole thing back for you.

Martin T. Sandsmark wrote:
> On Wednesday 19. August 2009 03:20:32 Orville Bennett wrote:
So you really do expect users to check what the new version of the 
distro they're installing to: check what new version (if any) will be 
installed, go to the website for each one, hunt down the changelog, and 
then manually select whether or not they're going to install that 
particular package (and don't forget any libraries it pulls in which 
aren't removed when you unselect the parent program)

>> Oh, and they're supposed to do this how when updating kubuntu.
Last I checked you got the option to upgrade or not.

>
> I don't know, open a browser maybe? Or maybe the update manager for (K)Ubuntu
> could display the release notes before starting the upgrade.
> Oh, it does¹?
So the question was "How is the user supposed to a) check what programs 
going to be new b) hunt down the changelog and c) determine if an 
incompatible versions is going to be installed when the only option you 
get when updating".
I.E. You don't even get a list of packages to update, you either do, or 
you don't. And you don't get shown beforehand what is going to be 
installed.

Also we're not talking about only Amarok, there exists far more software 
that people may use. Firefox, Amarok, KMail, Thunderbird, Pidgin, XChat, 
Xine, VLC etc, etc. And then there are the underlying libraries. I mean 
if you're going to be checking release notes for frivolous things like 
an audio player certainly important stuff like Openssh needs looking 
into too. And glibc, oh let's not forget udev. The kernel even!

No. Actually users should just expect that the company putting a distro 
together tests their stuff, and that it works reasonably well.

Now if your target audience is the über geeky, "I recompile my kernel 
cuz I'm h4rdc0r3" set, who'll actually go do the above, do the rest of 
us a favor (as a distro) and tell us to go buy a Mac. But don't until 
Snow Leopard comes out otherwise you'll have to pay the $29 upgrade fee 
from Leopard. Buuuut, That's still better than whatever those poor souls 
using Vista'll have to pay to get Win 7 so it's not all bad.

>
>
>> Last I checked you got the option to upgrade or not.
>
> Yes.
>
>
>> Eh? What's that got to do w/ the price o' tea in China?
>
> With Ubuntu being such a close relative of Debian, I assumed that Ubuntu did
> the same thing.
I forgive you, we all make mistakes.

> Foolish me. They try at least².

Brilliant job on that too.
"Kubuntu 9.04 now comes with the recently-released Amarok 2.0.2, the 
second bugfix/enhancement release in the Amarok 2 series, which includes 
integration of online services such as Last.fm, LibriVox, Jamendo, 
Magnatune and more. Amarok gives you a new way to listen to your music, 
and we highly recommend that you check it out."


>
> But I don't care much for this discussion, as my distro of choice didn't force
> Amarok 2.0 on me, and I don't push KUbuntu to my friends anymore.
>
I concur. It is getting tedious. I win.

>
> ¹: http://images.howtoforge.com/images/upgrade_ubuntu_8.10_to_9.04/big/3.jpg
>     (I'm assuming that KUbuntu still has its own installer which also displays
>     relevant release notes.)
> ²: https://wiki.kubuntu.org/JauntyJackalope/RC/Kubuntu
>
The take home message for the night is "Let's put blame where it's due. 
On markey. He started it!"