Very real bugs in Raring

[lisati]

Some are actually programs supposed to help the user, but are real bugs.

Let's have a think about things for a moment. The technology used by most of the Ubuntu forums regulars, both software and hardware, represents a number of influences and developments over the years. On the hardware side, one of the influences was the original IBM PC introduced in the 1980s. If we look back at some of the computers of that era, we will find that punched card readers were a kind of device that was still in use.

These days, we're more likely to find a keyboard and mouse or touchpad hooked up; punched card readers are as rare as hen's teeth on the typical hoome user's setup.

The reality is technology and the needs of computer users changes, together with the focus of those responsible for maintaining software: if we filed a bug report about absence of support for punched card readers, it would be most liekly be closed quickly and otherwise ignored, even if we had a need for transferring a company's 30-year-old archives to our HDD.

(And yes, like a handful of other users of this forum, I have been round long enough to have actually used punched cards.)

[Chdslv]

I am not arguing with you. If I were, you would know it and I would have long ago been kicked off this forum as I have been on many others. I have been at this techie gig for a long time. I simply think you appear to be expressing a rather naive understanding of how this all works and you appear to have also made personal value judgements about those who develop the code. What you have identified may indeed be troublesome, but many things in life are.

We are not arguing, but discussing, and I like it. I made a mistake in using words, I should've written the code is in the mind of the developer, rather than in the head. I was in a hurry and that slipped in. So, sorry for that. The mind is not in the head, but that's another story.

Absolutely no naive. Think about the new guy, who comes in from whatever he'd been using. He'd get mad in an hour with all that crash reports, never ending, hard to get rid for the new guy, and sometimes for the old guy too.

Taking Compiz for example, Ubuntu shouldn't use what's considered as unstable by the Compiz devs, to release a stable distro, Quantal. Or they should take it and make it stable, and then release it. Unity is engined by Compiz, and take it away, there is no Unity. So, an unstable Compiz, an unstable Unity.
Is that a bug, or downright carelessness?

It always takes one person to think about something new, so Compiz is also an idea of one person. You can pick his brains, but you can't pick his mind. You can muddle his code, but you can't muddle his mind. He stays away, his ideas, which are born in his mind stay away.

Code must be maintained as the world changes around it. That some things continue to work for a long time does not mean that everything will. Furthermore, just because something is stable and works exactly as it did 10 years ago is not necessarily a good thing. There is a context. If the context changes and the software, application or system does not, then it may continue doing what it did, but it will have lost its value. In the new context, it does not work well.

If no one messes up with the code of excellent application, it would work all the time, as far as we are using 32 and 64 bit machines. What is good 10 years ago, is still good, like someone's mother. Mac guys are earning massive money by using pretty old applications. Have look inside a Mac.{/quote]

No. Things get removed for any number of reasons. In the industry there are many reasons to deprecate the use of old things or remove them entirely. Again: the term "bug" has a specific meaning and this is not it.

Many times, some good things are taken off by foolish decisions at the Board table. All, foolish or not decisions taken thinking only of one thing, profit.
What is code? Lines of words, half words, etc, but a lot of mind work. Guys sitting around a Board table, considering money matters most times get another coder to muddle it. So, we have strange results, like the apport matter.

PS: Ubuntu is leading edge. Not bleeding edge, but it is leading edge and sometimes even cutting edge.

Ubuntu is Wheezy-edge, rather than cutting edge.

In the case of Compiz, which is so tightly married to the graphical interface, leaving it alone would be the worst thing to do. As the IU is improved, as things like X Server change, Compiz plugins must be actively maintained to ensure that they work with the new state.

Again, no Compiz, no Unity, so using the unstable Compiz is not good.

Plugins need to be maintained and brought along to keep up. In the example of 3D Windows, there were simply not enough resources to do that. The fact that it was taken from the code stack is a pretty good indication that there was work that needed to be done on it to keep it up, or it simply would not have been removed. That wasn't a whim. That was a decision based on what was most likely to be useful to the greatest number of users and what could be left behind with the least disruption to users.

The resources are there. Cannonical has them. No Compiz, no Unity, so they are bound to keep everything in very good working order. You click 3D windows, the sides of the cube in Unity goes black. Something lacking with the Unity UI, and as someone cannot get around it, sort of kills it.

It is also extremely expensive to maintain several code stacks that have to be maintained independently, so in my industry it is simply necessary to cut dead weight to be able to keep up. You can't always maintain the old and be able to move forward with the new.

What's there to maintain? A simple 100-300 kb file doesn't have to be watered,

It IS frustrating and disappointing when things you like disappear and you certainly have every right to be frustrated and disappointed. But that does not constitute a bug, nor does it mean the developers are not doing their jobs.

The devs are anonymous. They get paid, so they listen, or lose the job. If you take SolusOS, we know who does the coding, who keeps them in the server, Ikey. We know, who keeps the files in a server in Mint, Clem. In Ubuntu, the devs are anonymous, just like in Redhat.

It means that decisions was made in consideration of what resources were available and what product features were most likely to be important to preserve.

I've sat in many board meetings and its always about profit and nothing else.

Good day!
Ch

[Chdslv]

Let's have a think about things for a moment. The technology used by most of the Ubuntu forums regulars, both software and hardware, represents a number of influences and developments over the years. On the hardware side, one of the influences was the original IBM PC introduced in the 1980s. If we look back at some of the computers of that era, we will find that punched card readers were a kind of device that was still in use.

My first uni computer took half the block and I had punched cards. My first personal computer was an Atari. My first IBM 286 and it had only 20Mb memory, but I had all kinds of applications in it, from a word processor to graphics, and all inside a 20MB! We even played in Basic. Lovely times!

[Chdslv]

So you're saying that the Ubuntu devs could have put in some non-existent plugins that works with the latest Compiz but chose not to? It's not their job that some Compiz plugins don't work with the latest version, it's the Compiz devs' job. Same goes with GNOME and Nautilus. Canonical does not own GNOME, so they can't tell the GNOME folks to put back the missing features. They can't keep the old GNOME either, if so they'll be giving their users outdated softwares.

You're basically blaming Ubuntu for all the upstream "bugs". I do agree with you that these are genuine problems, but complaining here won't help.

No Compiz, no Unity!
Ubuntu wants Unity, then it must keep Compiz in good shape, in an excellent shape.

GNOME Session]
Name=Ubuntu
RequiredComponents=gnome-settings-daemon;
RequiredProviders=windowmanager;panel;
DefaultProvider-windowmanager=compiz
DefaultProvider-panel=compiz
DesktopName=Unity

Did you notice, the default provider of the panel is Compiz?
And, what panel this could be?
Who cannot live without the other, Compiz or Unity?
Any instability of Compiz directly hits Unity.
So, who should look after Compiz?

[grahammechanical]

Ok. I will admit it. I have not been following this thread. I have opinions. And one of them is that the definition of what is a 'bug' is too broad to be useful.

And while we are discussing Compiz I think that this blog post would give useful insight into the situation.

http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2012/...phics-drivers/

It is a later post from the one linked to earlier.

The existence of different and proprietary implementations of OpenGL promote a culture whereby we don’t engage with problems directly, but we corner case particular drivers, hack around others and create a sub-par system for everyone.

If you’ve ever written code with me you’ll understand one thing – I hate writing hacks. Hacks are a short term solution which make a long term problem worse. Hacks demonstrate that you haven’t given the problem your full attention because you don’t understand what the problem is. Hacks are like trying to shove the incorrect puzzle piece into the puzzle. If you build your reality based on that, you’ll end up with something that’s very fuzzy, not rigid and crumbles very easily.

Writing against proprietary drivers requires writing hacks, simply because there is a point where you can research no further into what the problem really is.

I stopped using the Nvidia driver during the Quantal cycle because I simply could not get a working installation with it except by putting in a hack. Which I am not confident enough to try. Why should I need that skill level anyway?

It is common policy on this forum to recommend the proprietary video driver. That was good advice in the past. But when an update to the latest video driver breaks the install, then something is wrong.

I my opinion, and I have expressed this view before, too much trust is put into upstream code. Canonical code is tested. That is part of the motivation for the 'skunkworks' project. But who tests the upstream code? Who tests proprietary drivers? The user. That is who.

Regards.

[Chdslv]

Out who tests the upstream code? Who tests proprietary drivers? The user. That is who. Regards.

That's the gist of it.
The one, who tests is the user.
The devs usually live in clouds, and most of them are anonymous.

Now, take your Precise install and go to /usr/bin and you'd find unity, unity-2d-panel, unity-2d-shell, unity-2d-spread.
Click on unity-2d-shell and see what happens. I am in the Gnome-classic session. Look at the first screenshot. Gnome-panel, Unity launcher, dash.

In the 2nd screenshot, I had clicked unity-2d-panel, and I am still in the Gnome classic session with full blown Compiz effects. You can see the gnome-panel underneath.

Try that with a Quantal installation and a gnome-classic session. The unity-2d-panel or unity-2d-shell won't work. Delete those two and copy and paste the same named one from a Precise installation, and click on them and see what you get.

Do you see, why Unity 2D was deleted from Quantal?

From the 1st screenshot, you'd notice that, you can have the Gnom-classic session with the Unity launcher, and Dash. Someone had found this out, so the Unity 2D was taken off from Quantal. Are the devs with us or against us?

In other words, we can have that Unity launcher and the Dash with any panel, Lxde, Xfce or even on Tint2.
So, for the next 5 years, Gnome-Classic session could have the usefulness of the search ability of Dash, and if someone wants the launcher too!

[mc4man]

The idea is not to break excellent applications, but keep them, don't touch them, don't develop them, don't even read the code. Just leave it and it'd continue to work. But, develop the other stuff, which needs developing, and adapt it to whatever you make.

Every wheel is round, at least on this Earth, and there no square wheels. If the number 3.4.2 is working very well, there is no need for 3.6.2 with some subtractions. If Compiz 0.8x is working well, don't touch it and don't update it, and don't even maintain it, just leave it in the repos for downloading. If 0.9.x is not that good, scrap it.

The last Ubuntu release to use compiz 0.8.x was Lucid.
0.9.x is being actively developed as is Ubuntu, whether that leads to a 'stable', efficient compiz remains to be seen, it is certainly much improved over 0.9.4 in Natty.

As far as 'missing' plugins they fall into 3 types. Some have been removed from the code, likely never to return.
Some others build but don't work with GLES, others don't even build.

When or if these plugins are fixed/re-written then they'll come back, if not they won't. Their absence (ie. inability to work or even build) can be considered a bug but of extremely low current importance.

[Chdslv]

The last Ubuntu release to use compiz 0.8.x was Lucid.
0.9.x is being actively developed as is Ubuntu, whether that leads to a 'stable', efficient compiz remains to be seen, it is certainly much improved over 0.9.4 in Natty.

As far as 'missing' plugins they fall into 3 types. Some have been removed from the code, likely never to return.
Some others build but don't work with GLES, others don't even build.

When or if these plugins are fixed/re-written then they'll come back, if not they won't. Their absence (ie. inability to work or even build) can be considered a bug but of extremely low current importance.

Read my earlier post with screenshots to feel the "current."

If Compiz 0.9.x is unstable, Unity would be unstable all the time. So, should the Ubuntu devs, take care of Compiz?

They appear to take away good stuff, like the Unity 2D, not because it cannot be maintained, but because it troubles them. The screenshots would show why.

As far as 'missing' plugins they fall into 3 types. Some have been removed from the code, likely never to return.
Some others build but don't work with GLES, others don't even build.

When or if these plugins are fixed/re-written then they'll come back, if not they won't. Their absence (ie. inability to work or even build) can be considered a bug but of extremely low current importance.

Compiz plugins would work very well with any other OS, like Arch, Debian, Sabayon, Fedora, OpenSuse, etc, but won't work with Quantal, Raring, whether it is 0.9.x or older. Bug? Or not!

Unity can't run on Gnome-wm, Metacity or whatever, but only on compiz. So, if Compiz cranks, Unity would crank.
But, Unity 2D would work with Gnome-wm, Metacity, etc, so it had to be killed.

[mc4man]

Read my earlier post with screenshots to feel the "current."

No idea what you mean

If Compiz 0.9.x is unstable, Unity would be unstable all the time. So, should the Ubuntu devs, take care of Compiz?

That's what they are doing, the use of 'unstable' just means in dev (to me

They appear to take away good stuff, like the Unity 2D, not because it cannot be maintained, but because it troubles them. The screenshots would show why.

Don't know or care what all the reason were, but no, "they" weren't able to properly maintain unity-2d

Compiz plugins would work very well with any other OS, like Arch, Sabayon, Fedora, OpenSuse, etc, but won't work with Quantal, Raring, whether it is 0.9.x or older. Bug? Or not!

I don't think they use compiz-0.9, if so certainly not with GLES support.
I already said that the 'in code but not working or built plugins' can be considered a bug(s) of no real current importance

[exploder]

Kind of silly to me to be in a development forum complaining about bugs. At this stage of development I just expect them. People have to understand that different things are developed at different rates, so you can not expect all the bugs to be fixed overnight.