GNOME, MacOS, and Windows just don't have that kind of room for personality.
That's actually one of the reasons I use Windows. It's plain, has pretty much zero personality, and you can't configure much. I actually like the fact that it doesn't give me much choice, because if I'm given choice, I tend to spend time choosing and re-choosing. Can never really just let it be, and be satisfied.
Don't get me wrong, I like choice for apps themselves. But for the environment, I don't mind being restricted, as bad as that may sound:)
Now that I think of it, I guess that means I should like what they've done with GNOME, but I absolutely loathe GNOME thesedays. I guess the quality just isn't good enough.
Anyway, lack of options can be a good thing for some!
- How many game developers are going to want to give away their source code
- If the above isn't necessary, and closed-source binary-only games are acceptable, how can they be successful anyway? How hard would it be to support 'linux' in so many different forms?
Knoppix may be the catalyst that brings desktop Linux to the masses.
Strange. I just tried Knoppix recently and to me it just highlighted how messy and ugly Linux desktops can be! It had all these weird hacks like different mouse cursors, transparency on some menus but not others, wild & blurry (oh I mean 'smoothed', not 'blurred';-) fonts everywhere, garish colours, and the biggest hodge-podge of different software in varying states of completeness I've ever seen. Argh. I popped that CD out pretty quick.
Sad thing is - 2 or 3 knoppix versions down the track and it'll probably still be much like that.
I know all of that; somebody always comes up with the reasons. The reasons aren't the point, though:-(
Now, can you mention another package in a similar situation?
Nope. I don't even use XFree86. I was just pointing out that IMHO Debian shouldn't get into a situations like that, and that it is to Debian's detriment.
Debian stable is undoubtedly the best distro to put on a server
Not necessarily. There is sometimes a fair amount of work to do in getting timely and relevant versions of software onto Woody. This might involve compiling yourself, or using others' backported debs. In either case, you are bypassing the very advantage you mentioned: "every single package or combination of them has already been tested". You can throw that statement out the window if you need things a little more up to date.
there installer, it simply requires far too much manual tweaking to get from a first install to a useable system, other distro are far better here
Their, not there.
I for one like the Debian installer. My current testing/unstable system was installed from the first Woody CD - I just installed the base, no extra packages. Then I could just pick and choose whatever I liked from there. This is really useful if you just want to put together a small, clean server with nothing superfluous. I'd feel very uncomfortable settling for one of eg. Redhat's predefined installation choices. I would feel less in control, and it really wouldn't save me any time anyway. A few minutes perhaps.
there 'stable' concept, it just doesn't make sense
Their, not there.
Damn right it doesn't make sense! stable really borders on being useless. The release cycle is just too long to be of much relevance. And as you said, older software isn't necessary more stable, and could well be worse.
Unfortunately this filters up to unstable as well. Debian's 'X Strike Force' hasn't got 4.3.0 into unstable yet. 4.3.0 was released in February 2003. It might not even get into unstable before 4.4.0 comes out! Now that's a long time.
IMHO Debian needs to cut back on the number of supported architectures and not be so tolerant of packages with bugs that are 100's of days old marked against them./complaint
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GNOME, MacOS, and Windows just don't have that kind of room for personality.
:)
That's actually one of the reasons I use Windows. It's plain, has pretty much zero personality, and you can't configure much. I actually like the fact that it doesn't give me much choice, because if I'm given choice, I tend to spend time choosing and re-choosing. Can never really just let it be, and be satisfied.
Don't get me wrong, I like choice for apps themselves. But for the environment, I don't mind being restricted, as bad as that may sound
Now that I think of it, I guess that means I should like what they've done with GNOME, but I absolutely loathe GNOME thesedays. I guess the quality just isn't good enough.
Anyway, lack of options can be a good thing for some!
The usual points:
;-) fonts everywhere, garish colours, and the biggest hodge-podge of different software in varying states of completeness I've ever seen. Argh. I popped that CD out pretty quick.
- How many game developers are going to want to give away their source code
- If the above isn't necessary, and closed-source binary-only games are acceptable, how can they be successful anyway? How hard would it be to support 'linux' in so many different forms?
Knoppix may be the catalyst that brings desktop Linux to the masses.
Strange. I just tried Knoppix recently and to me it just highlighted how messy and ugly Linux desktops can be! It had all these weird hacks like different mouse cursors, transparency on some menus but not others, wild & blurry (oh I mean 'smoothed', not 'blurred'
Sad thing is - 2 or 3 knoppix versions down the track and it'll probably still be much like that.
All in all I have a documented 6 pages of steps to get myself a sane installation the way I like it.
;-)
Really? All it took me was a single CD. The CD has Windows 2000 on it
Sigh. System 6! I love you!
I know all of that; somebody always comes up with the reasons. The reasons aren't the point, though :-(
Now, can you mention another package in a similar situation?
Nope. I don't even use XFree86. I was just pointing out that IMHO Debian shouldn't get into a situations like that, and that it is to Debian's detriment.
Debian stable is undoubtedly the best distro to put on a server
Not necessarily. There is sometimes a fair amount of work to do in getting timely and relevant versions of software onto Woody. This might involve compiling yourself, or using others' backported debs. In either case, you are bypassing the very advantage you mentioned: "every single package or combination of them has already been tested". You can throw that statement out the window if you need things a little more up to date.
there installer, it simply requires far too much manual tweaking to get from a first install to a useable system, other distro are far better here
/complaint
Their, not there.
I for one like the Debian installer. My current testing/unstable system was installed from the first Woody CD - I just installed the base, no extra packages. Then I could just pick and choose whatever I liked from there. This is really useful if you just want to put together a small, clean server with nothing superfluous. I'd feel very uncomfortable settling for one of eg. Redhat's predefined installation choices. I would feel less in control, and it really wouldn't save me any time anyway. A few minutes perhaps.
there 'stable' concept, it just doesn't make sense
Their, not there.
Damn right it doesn't make sense! stable really borders on being useless. The release cycle is just too long to be of much relevance. And as you said, older software isn't necessary more stable, and could well be worse.
Unfortunately this filters up to unstable as well. Debian's 'X Strike Force' hasn't got 4.3.0 into unstable yet. 4.3.0 was released in February 2003. It might not even get into unstable before 4.4.0 comes out! Now that's a long time.
IMHO Debian needs to cut back on the number of supported architectures and not be so tolerant of packages with bugs that are 100's of days old marked against them.
So, the choice is yours: Do you use Gnome, or are you American? I think you meant KDE there... :)