Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools

Wed May 13 18:07:31 UTC 2009

Hi all,

I hope this will not sound like a complaint. However, I really do not
see solutions to the following problems except for reverting versions of
programs in jaunty. Which is not going to be done, no need to say this.
So this may just sound like a complaint. Instead, I write this e-mail
because perhaps some of you will have alternative solutions. The problem
is there, and it's grave. I fiddled all the afternoon to find a decent
tex editor and then I surrended and installed kile from intrepid. 

In my opinion, the switch to recent versions of some programs has been
done without the needed testing, (or, like in the case of the intel
driver, without taking seriously the response from testers) and results
in a completely broken or very badly usable system for many. In the
latest release of ubuntu, I mean.

I found lots of webpage explaining how to get previous versions of
programs from the intrepid repositories or from ppas. Apart from the
fact that, once upon a time, I recall having to hack to try the *latest*
versions of programs, not the *older* ones :) people needs to fiddle
with the default distribution in a fully unsupported way, to make it
usable.

THIS IS BAD FOR UBUNTU!   THIS IS BAD FOR UBUNTU!   THIS IS BAD FOR
UBUNTU!  THIS IS BAD FOR UBUNTU! THIS IS BAD FOR UBUNTU! THIS IS BAD 

Sorry for the caps. I really wanted to attract your attention there. 

Problem 1: lack of decent latex support in jaunty
===================================================

there is no decent latex environment, except for the classic emacs+xdvi
mode. Windows has miktex. We should be competitive with windows at least
on classic fronts such as latex. Instead, and I hereby state it loudly,
if it was just for latex, and I did not know how to remedy, I would be
using windows and perhaps laughing at GNU/linux/whatever users, too. 

Part 1: lack of a decent latex editor
The problem is as follows: for big latex documents, a TOC navigation
mode, citation/user-defined-macros completion, and forward/backward
search capabilities are a must. They just make you productive. They are
present in mikex and they used to work well in kile in intrepid. We
should not loose points right now as we are doing.

In ubuntu, there is no such thing as an usable environment with these
features. Texmaker is incredibly slow while navigating/editing (googling
seems to show it is a known issue), and kile is extremely, yes I said
extremely, buggy and crashy. It is extremely slow too, especially when
using the TOC. The new GUI is a real PITA with its changing actions in
response to the same shortcuts (yes it is true). I messed up my ph.d.
thesis with it today, then in complete frustration reinstalled kile
2.0.1 from intrepid, which works like a charm.

Part 2: lack of a decent dvi viewer
Okular will become great, but for now it is slow, really slow especially
in loading documents. If you recompile a document often, it will be a
pain. And it does not support forward searches. Again, the only solution
is to install kdvi from intrepid. Which works like a charm.

Problem 2: lack of a decent "amarok"
====================================
I personally prefer to use a gnome-based player (currently banshee),
even if I have to say that there is no such a good music player as
amarok around. The new amarok is said by many to be completely unusable.
I wanted to try it before posting. I started this post disgusted by some
persons I know asking me how to revert to previous amarok. I installed
jaunty to them. I feel responsible for that. I started amarok. More than
30 seconds to launch. This excludes it from my tastes. Then it is
playing music for me right now. However see this post, and read the
comments:

http://nomad.ca/blog/2009/apr/3/amarok-14-jaunty-ubuntu-904/

Actually my girlfriend just told me that she has downgraded amarok on
her eeepc because it just didn't emit any noise (whereas, it should play
songs :)).

What is it doing there in a stable release? This program has not been
tested. It is not stable. People does not like it yet. I know it will be
fixed, but why shipping a broken program in a stable distribution?
Please don't hate or kill or whatever me for this sentence. I loved
amarok in the past and as I see things, people should use good software,
in order to support it. The new amarok is broken. The old one is good.
When the new one is ready people will love it. What's wrong in waiting 6
months? Why not making an external repository for those who want to test
the new kde applications?

Please try kile for yourself. The new amarok. Okular for dvi previewing.
Then you'll really say "we have done something wrong, and it's too late
to remedy". And perhaps in the future this race to the latest version of
untested software will be closed.

ScottK: I hope you'll not killfile me right now. You removed kdvi from
the archives in a hurry some day before the release. I have been testing
jaunty since alphas and had no time to tell you "hey, okular lacks
forward search". Now this can't be my fault. Nor yours: you wanted to
get rid of unsupported applications and that's good. But it was way too
quick as a move. Next time a bit more testing will help.

I am just pointing out the fact that people is starting to "hack and
fiddle with ubuntu". This is not what YOU want. So please consider these
happenings in the future. If an application is really not ready, nobody
is constrained to ship it. It seems to me that while ubuntu was a good
escape to the "we will not change that for 3 years" debian policy, it is
turning in the exact opposite: let's change everything in the name of
progress. 

As another example, my ubuntu deadlocks three times a day and I had to
fiddle with xorg.conf to get a decent speed. Because of problems with
intel drivers that were signalled months ago. I was told _here_ that it
was way too early to worry, and that if problems would not have been
solved forward porting would have been considered. Obviously, then,
problems become ordinary bugs and forward porting makes developers smile
and perhaps path on someone's back. Come on. The new intel driver was
and is broken. Upgrading has been a grave mistake and users are seeing
an ubuntu that deadlocks. LIKE WINDOWS 10 YEARS AGO! It should NOT have
been upgraded, or at least a blacklist of systems and chipsets that
needed the old driver should have been made. Bryce Harrington: I know
that you are affected by the problem in first person, and you are likely
one of the persons involved in the decision procedure. However: a month
before jaunty release, did you expect that it would have been shipped
broken? It seems to me that too much trust was put in the fact that it'd
have been fixed.

Again, this is not a complaint. As we (you, much more often) fix bugs,
we can also fix procedures. The ubuntu procedure for testing, in jaunty,
seems not to have worked in some points. Next release can be better also
from this point of view. Perhaps by just listening a bit more to
regressions (it seems my favourite topic?). 

Vincenzo

-- 
It is also important to note that hedgehogs do not actually hurt each 
other when they get close to one another. Actually, when living in 
groups, hedgehogs often sleep close to each other. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog%27s_dilemma