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Thread: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

  1. #21
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    Well guys (and girls) there really is no solution. Linux by design is set up for you to break the hell out of it (not recommended but source code is available) if you please... All MS software is so closed source it's not even funny, look at Paul Allen's yacht. Thus, preventing you from actually fixing problems (or causing them I guess) in an MS product. It's inconsequential, though, really, the only people who will end up purchasing those products (Dell PCs w/ Linux) are those vehemently against MS. Until there is a serious price point or some great marketing ploy that's showed during the next Superbowl I'm not seeing it.

    I think APT is pretty darn good for what it is. I'm not going to plead ignorant, there is a steep learning curve from migrating from Windows to a Linux-based distro but that's just stating the obvious.

    Registered Linux User #419773, Ubuntu User #8473 ("It Is What It Is")

    If you type rm -Rf / as root at command line you will get herpes... then die... (okay, it'll erase ALL your data)

  2. #22
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    Quote Originally Posted by H.E. Pennypacker View Post
    I can understand where developers are coming from, but one must also understand the other side. Users like myself have to do some serious tweaking in order to get certain things working. That means the configuration files are altered.

    This should not throw developers off, though. There are so many Broadcom wireless card users, it is fair to assume these people will be changing certain configuration files. Now, don't get me wrong. I'd rather not alter anything, but this is how it works.

    Developers could take into account the number of people like me, and prepare for the configurations that we change. The same goes for others (e.g. Nvidia people, but I don't know much about Nvidia to say much).

    My problem is not APT so much. I have a bigger problem with upgrades erasing or changing all the hard work that I've put into an installation. A backup is a great way of dealing with this, but you can't possibly know everything an upgrade is going to change (I've backed up everything the upgrade tool told me it was going to replace, but this did not help). Backing up everything is not an option either.

    My opinion: make upgrades more smooth.
    Why would you need to tweak anything on a preinstalled system to get it working?

    Couple of counter points:
    1) Dell is selling to business customers not your grandmother. Business customers for one have IT departments that test their own systems to make sure everything works for two are likely to use LTS releases only making upgrades few and far between. Business customers are also highly unlikely to require new versions of packages as long as what is necessary works. Not to mention that if the IT people have any kind of sense they will not give their users sudo abilities making upgrades pretty much non-issue.

    2) One of the major reasons for breaking in Linux is hardware. Either you had to recompile your kernel to work with something or tweak the hell out of something else to make your hardware work. On a preinstalled system that is a non-issue things WILL work 100% and all the drivers and kernels will be available. Moreover all preinstalled systems have known configurations and can be tested for (same as Mac in this case). Dell can also step in with testing.

    3) If Dell has any kind of technical ability they will set up their systems for easy recovery. Meaning that the home directory will be a separate partition and the recovery CD will not attempt to delete it.

    4) If we talk about eventual home user adoption, they are unlikely to ever bother going outside of the repos to get software. I know a huge number of people who will be as content with AmaroK/Rhythmbox as they would be with iTunes/Winamp/WMP/anything else.
    Since I get asked alot, I am originally from Ukraine but am Russian by nationality. My nick means specter in Russian.

  3. #23
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    5) If Dell and Ubuntu are announcing this together, you can bet your good eye that Ubuntu will do extensive testing on those three or four Dell Ubuntu systems.

    They can't test every single hardware configuration out there. But they can test the handful of systems that come preloaded with Ubuntu.

  4. #24
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    for me apt is the best package manager that I've ever used. I've upgraded from edgy to feisty without problems
    The limits of my language mean the limits of my world

  5. #25
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    Quote Originally Posted by cptnapalm View Post
    The one thing which I do have a concern about, though, is upgrading Ubuntu releases.
    IMO normal computer users do not upgrade their OS themselves, they either pay someone or go buy a new system....
    Aye, fight and you may fail, sellout, and you may live, a while. And dying in your MScash beds, you'll be willin' to trade ALL the cash, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may FUD our customers, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!"

  6. #26
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    Quote Originally Posted by PriceChild View Post
    Apt doesn't break break distribution upgrades, users do.

    There is a LOT of testing that goes into the upgrade paths, even with the universe repository enabled. The problem comes when users change their configurations in ways the developers can't expect/plan for. If you _ONLY_ used software from the main/restricted/universe/multiverse repositories and didn't make changes that you didn't understand to your system's configuration then distribution upgrades would (99.999% of the time) still work.
    Not true. Just one example: Every laptop user that upgraded from Edgy to Feisty lost their sound in the process. I use a plain-vanilla install, with an all-intel laptop. And I lost sound when I upgraded.

    This isn't rare.

  7. #27
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    Quote Originally Posted by deanlinkous View Post
    IMO normal computer users do not upgrade their OS themselves, they either pay someone or go buy a new system....
    That is true only because of the infrequency of Microsoft upgrades and people having to go to a store to buy it. Ubuntu pops up an invitation to download and install the new version. This is drastically different.

  8. #28
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    Quote Originally Posted by cptnapalm View Post
    That is true only because of the infrequency of Microsoft upgrades and people having to go to a store to buy it. Ubuntu pops up an invitation to download and install the new version. This is drastically different.
    I'll have to agree with you here when the upgrade is that easy even "normal" users will be doing it.
    Since I get asked alot, I am originally from Ukraine but am Russian by nationality. My nick means specter in Russian.

  9. #29
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    Quote Originally Posted by cptnapalm View Post
    That is true only because of the infrequency of Microsoft upgrades and people having to go to a store to buy it. Ubuntu pops up an invitation to download and install the new version. This is drastically different.
    And will drastically send granny into a heart attack and broken hip when it breaks her system. The Ubuntu will have a reputation of being more *broke* than vista.

    Of course Kevin Carmony the President and CEO thinks that dell wont sell many Ubuntu systems and that Linspire will rule the market later. Sounds like he has Dell exactly where he wants them.
    Interesting Linspire Letter
    http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter.php
    and here is a quote from
    http://forum.freespire.org/showpost....4&postcount=18
    When told by a user that it was too bad Linspire didn't have the right product Mr Carmony replied
    It will only be "too bad," if Dell goes on to sell hundreds of thousands of these. They won't.
    Aye, fight and you may fail, sellout, and you may live, a while. And dying in your MScash beds, you'll be willin' to trade ALL the cash, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may FUD our customers, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!"

  10. #30
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    Re: With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

    Quote Originally Posted by Kevin Carmony
    The current enthusiast market is just too small, and many prefer to build their own PC from white box baselines.
    That may be true of desktops, but not as much for laptops. A lot of enthusiasts would be more than happy to buy a prebuilt laptop.

    By the way, is it any surprise that Carmony would spin it this way? What Linspire CEO is going to say "Yeah, they obviously chose the better distribution. I guess Linspire should just pack up its bags"?

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