[Digikam-users] Generic Linux question

[sleepless]

Hi Paul,
Op 29-08-11 22:03, Vlado Plaga schreef:
> On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 23:34:24 -0400
> Paul Verizzo<paulv at paulv.net>  wrote:
>
>> I have spent the last several weeks trying out about ten Linux
>> distros in Virtual Box.
I have been there and I would no one advice to, make a dual boot or 
switch completely, which I admit is not a simple matter.
> [...]
>
>> Closing, the question is about how Linux apps are updated......
> Others have already supplied relatively detailes answers. I just want
> to add: the way software is distributed in Linux simply is quite
> different to the Windows (or Mac OS) way. You may notice that many
> complex applications only require a fraction of the disk space
> comparable applications use on these commercial systems. My e-mail
> program (Claws Mail) for example has an "uncompressed size" of less
> than 4 MBytes, according to the package manager. On Mac OS 10.5 "Mail"
> uses 289 MBytes! One reason free software applications can be so small
> is because they share a lot of "libraries" - but that of course makes
> it difficult to update, because quite often newer versions of
> applications require newer versions of the libraries which are no
> longer compatible to the older versions... thus braking other
> applications that depend on the same library. Of course package
> management software is there to make sure such brakeage does not happen,
> but it's a complex issue nevertheless.
>
> Also free software more often than commercial software follows a
> "release often, release early" philosophy. This of course means that
> released software is not that stable and can have more bugs.
I am 6 months on Ubuntu, found for over 60 applications alternatives. 
Exept for the update service there is no appliction that messed up my 
system in 6 months once.
Never lost any data. In windows I was half of the time busy to keep my 
system going and to restore lost data or many times restore the entire 
system, which took emensely amounts of time. In Ubuntu I have my system 
running again within at most a couple of hours.
In windows I had on dayly basis trouble to keep my internet going. Now, 
with Ubuntu if my pc runs I have connection. Windows I had to restart at 
least 2 times within evry hour, I have now may one reboot in a week. 
Although I worked under windows mostly with free software too, the 
applications that I heavy paid for did not have any exeption related to 
instabillity, and beside that the never could do what you expected, 
always you had to something extra or somthing new. A never ending story. 
Windows became from 95 worse with every new release, I think in the 
Linux world it is the other way around, at least till now I believe that.
I worked with a lot of different photomanagement programs. Digikam is 
the best, the most intuitive and productive I ever used. First time 
since dos I have a stable system.

Regards,
Rinus
> The severe
> bugs in DigiKam 2.0.0 could be one reason it is not yet included in
> Debian "unstable" (a kind of rolling release) which otherwise often is
> quite fast in picking up new versions:
>
> - Face recognition is in the user interface, but according to developer
>    Marcel Wiesweg it does not work yet:
>    http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/2011-August/013766.html
> - The new XMP sidecar support is only half-implemented:
>    http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/2011-August/013996.html
>    https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=220545
> - On many (Debian Linux) platforms digiKam 2.0 does not even compile:
>    https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=279581
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness#Endianness_and_operating_systems_on_architectures
Thats all true, but the list of great features working is huge compared 
to this.
> Regards,
>
> Vlado
>