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January 10, 2002 |
From: Andreas Tretow <tretow@snafu.de> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Alternative kernel trees will grow in importance Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2002 13:44:27 +0000 In your predictions for 2002 you write that "increasingly, the kernels that people actually run will be produced by somebody else." Wow, what a prediction. Especially since Linus Torvalds now maintains the development kernel 2.5. A kernel that is not designed to be run in production environments. The stable release 2.4.x, which is being maintained by Marcelo Tosatti will obviously be the one that most people will sooner or later run on their systems. As the 2.4.x series matures it is only natural that people will increasingly switch from the 2.2.x kernels and the older 2.4.x (which were maintained by Linus). Andreas | ||
From: "Gregor N. Purdy" <gregor@focusresearch.com> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Kernel version nomenclature Date: 08 Jan 2002 09:07:33 -0500 Friends -- >From the "my $0.02" department... With the proliferation of kernel versions we've seen over the last few years, I'd like to suggest a slight change to the way folks label their kernels. Just yesterday the Daily Updates section of LWN had a news item about Linus' 2.5.2-pre10, with 2.5.1-dg13 also mentioned, but the note says it is caught up as far as 2.5.2-pre9. I would suggest that "the first 'dj' kernel based on 2.5.2-pre9" should be called 2.5.2-pre9-dj1, not 2.5.1-dg13. On a similar note, I'd love to see vendor kernels named similarly. My RedHat 7.2 box is running 2.4.9-13. Of course, that really means 2.4.9-rh13. The 13th build/revision/iteration/whatever of kernel 2.4.9 made by RedHat. As long as we don't end up with derivative chains too many levels deep, this should work fine and be easier to follow. If everyone's leftmost chunks match those of Linus' or Marcelo's official kernels, then its clear from the name alone what code its based on. Regards, -- Gregor ____________________________________________________________________ / Inspiration >> Innovation >> Excellence (TM) \ Gregor N. Purdy gregor@focusresearch.com Focus Research, Inc. http://www.focusresearch.com/ 8080 Beckett Center Drive #203 513-860-3570 vox West Chester, OH 45069 513-860-3579 fax \____________________________________________________________________/ [finest@newyork.ny.us]$ ping osama.taliban.af PING osama.taliban.af (68.69.65.68) from 20.1.9.11 : 56 bytes of data. >From 85.83.77.67: Time to live exceeded | ||
From: Kay Hayen <KayHayen@gmx.de> To: peter.w.lawson@noaa.gov Subject: Installing applications Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 22:31:49 +0100 Cc: letters@lwn.net Regarding setup.exe and Linux for installations, Peter Lawson writes: "Usually it works. Why can't it be that easy in Linux?" It could be and sometimes does. Yet, the "problem" about Linux is that people using their freedom to do things they love. Getting things right for 95% is not one of those. They either make it work for 100% or just themselves and expect others to make it work for themselves. Let me ask rhetorically: If Windows works 95% of the time, why don't people want to use it, what's so bad about 5% of the installs killing your system? You can always reinstall, can't you? I personally love about Linux the make-it-possible or do-it-right attitude. This is why apt-get exists. In my eyes, it's the do-it-right for software installation. Now if Debian was only more easy to install, but probably it never will, since I e.g. don't think I will have to reinstall Debian all that soon. Simply because they solved how to update a running system the right way. Yours, Kay Hayen | ||
From: "Marty Leisner" <mleisner@eng.mc.xerox.com> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: How easy things are with windows...(NOT!!) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 13:38:30 -0500 Cc: peter.w.lawson@noaa.gov, leisner@rochester.rr.com I've installed more than 100 installations since I started using linux. Peter Lawson's letter on 1/3/2002 makes statements which I take issue with. Seems I tinker with whatever machine is in front of me -- and I know if its an open source machine I can reach a favorable conclusion if I spend the time. Otherwise, i often have to give up and accept a status quo. I recently spent hours with a friend who bought a "cutting edge" Dell 2 years ago (nVideo card, DVD player, CD-RW). We needed to reinstall windows 98 -- after many hours of playing around, we finally got the system working (seems the windows distribution CD rom is useless with this combination of hardware) -- we downloaded drivers from the net, used "additional" CDs -- I'm going to write dell an angry letter about how they sell a machine without a "cookbook" way to install which works. I've seen a number of machines where redhat installed painlessly and windows was a pain in the arse!! Also the other way around... Far too many times I click on setup of some application in windows, and it doesn't WANT to setup for (for some reason). At least if I can follow a manual path, I can override the setup which failed -- which is a very rare case in windows. Many times when installing an application is a problem, I regress to a "clean machine". I would recommend to Peter Lawson to take advantage of mailing lists and search engines like google and to take old FAQs with a grain of salt. On second thought, why doesn't Mr. Lawson contribute something by documenting his difficulties and providing a "recipe" to get things working. I've often found installing RPMs for binaries for a redhat system a breeze. marty mleisner@eng.mc.xerox.com Don't confuse education with schooling. Milton Friedman to Yogi Berra | ||
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