Open Office upgrade??

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 13 February 2010, Reinhold Rumberger wrote:
>On Sunday 14 February 2010, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Saturday 13 February 2010, Reinhold Rumberger wrote:
>> >On Saturday 13 February 2010, Ric Moore wrote:
>> >> On Sat, 2010-02-13 at 18:44 +0000, Chris Jones wrote:
>> >> > On 13 Feb 2010, at 5:56pm, Ric Moore wrote:
>> >> > > I'm having a couple of problems with OpenOffice. I install
>> >> > > just what is available from the repos. I had my share of
>> >> > > grief, when I used Fedora, with too new beta software so
>> >> > > I'm a tad gun shy to install packages not "official". Yet,
>> >> > > when I try to enter a bug report, the site advises me to
>> >> > > upgrade before it'll accept my bug report. <sighs> I have
>> >> > > Open Office 3.01 installed (1:3.01-9) and am running
>> >> > > Jaunty.
>> >> >
>> >> > OO 3.01 is quite far behind the current release, 3.2,
>> >>
>> >> Ergo the problem. Should this be updated in the repo??
>> >>
>> >> > so I'm not that surprised that the first response is to
>> >> > upgrade to 3.2 and try again ... Of course jaunty won't get
>> >> > an update
>> >>
>> >> Why is that?? Karmic destroys my sound system, which works just
>> >> fine, for now.
>> >
>> >The point is that wildly adding new software versions to the repo
>> >will result in bit rot and eventually render a system unusable.
>> >This way, it will always stay at least close to the quality it
>> >was when it was shipped - be that high or low.
>>
>> I'll argue that point.  The initial release might have its warts,
>> I think going from 10 folks running it last week, to 10,000+ a
>> week after a new one is released _is_ gonna find new bugs those
>> 10 guys didn't.
>
>You're confusing introducing new versions with fixing bugs - there
>are quite a lot of bugs getting fixed especially in the first few
>weeks without integrating a newer upstream version. There will,
>obviously, be a few exceptions where integrating a new upstream
>version is absolutely necessary - but those are very rare.
>
>> But its seem to me that 90 days or so on, those bugs ought to be
>> fixed by the simple expedient of doing regular updates, and the
>> process should continue getting better as the release ages.
>
>There's going to be a point where the bug doesn't affect enough
>people to bother fixing in a given release. It'll usually be fixed in
>the next release, if it's fixed at all.
>Packagers' time's valuable, too, y'know. They'll tend to focus on
>high-priority bugs that don't have a viable workaround...
>
><snipping ramblings about pulse audio>
>
>a) No thread hijacking, please!!
>b) PA is quite easy to remove - just use your favourite package
>   manager.
>c) The PPA link was for OOo, nothing at all to do with PA.
>
>  --Reinhold
>
The point I, Ric, and many others have been trying to make, is the biggest 
single problem linux has right now, and its not just on kubuntu, is a lack of 
audio once PA gets into the mix.  I just rebooted to the latest 64 bit mint, 
which is largely the latest kubuntu, and let it update about 160 packages.  
That took over an hour so I watched the Olympics.  I obviously hadn't 
rebooted to it in a month or more.  When its all done, PA goes through the 
motions at least, but no audio even if I had disabled the rv610 audio on my 
video card as it is not bonded out and functions as an audio /dev/null. None, 
nada, not even a thump in the speakers when udev starts.  In the hour prior 
to that, I was booted to 64 bit mdv 2010, and it updated 3 packages, and I 
specifically had it install about 6 more PA packages.  Can't configure 
anything, 'no server', but at least the speakers thump when udev starts.  One 
stereo channel on my sbo-400 card works, runs wide open, no volume control 
possible via kmix.  I reboot back to FC10, and it all just works as I had 
excised as much of PA as I could to get it disconnected from alsa.

That is my point.  And its meant as a general rant about attitudes.  
Apparently the developers do seem to be able to make it work, or they get 
their cubicle noises from the air conditioning, whatever.  They would appear 
to be oblivious to the problems audio has developed since PA came on the 
scene, because the fixes if there are any, aren't being propagated.
Before PA, we could fix us up a custom modprobe.conf and it all works.  PA 
apparently ignores that even if it does exist, 'it knows better than we do' I 
guess.

Your statement about the packagers time being valuable is rather a slap in 
the face to us.  We put our pants on one leg at a time, exactly as they do.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have
much of anything to do with it.