On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 17:16 -0500, Mike A. Harris wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
snip<
but with this new fedora approach, that's just not true anymore, at least for the first release or two. if one is constantly updating against rawhide, then you have to assume that, as some things get fixed, others will get broken. which makes it pretty much impossible to use such a system for useful work, no? not a complaint, just an observation. :-)
That's a fair observation, but you should be aware that this is absolutely no different than any previous OS release, other than the fact it is an open process now. We _NEED_ wider testing than we can do internally alone in order to get things in a more stable state. That either means we do private beta releases with a selected team of individuals who 100% accept the deal about the chances of having a totally broken system for the private betas, or we make it open, and let people decide for themselves. We chose the latter. One thing we can _NOT_ do, is guarantee the stability of the OS, when it is in early development, which is where things are today.
I fully understood the unstable nature of beta/test releases when I installed test1, having read the caveats and tried other betas over the years; however, the rate of package updates via rawhide has been rather overwhelming and makes me wonder at the value and efficiency of testing such a fast-moving target. I realize it would be more work, but perhaps an approach with multiple stability levels like FC1 (updates, testing) or ATrpms (at-stable, at-good, at-testing, at-bleeding) repository hierarchy (probably with fewer levels) would provide an opportunity for better in-depth testing of some of the more stable packages in a somewhat more stable environment, while allowing the real bleeding edge fans to drink from the rawhide fire-hose.
My $0.02
Phil
P.S. With the low cost of hard disks, I highly recommend keeping a multi-bootable copy of a more stable OS (FC1 in my case) installed if you really need to have something reliable available to get some work done while still enjoying the rawhide roller-coaster ride.