General feedback

[clem]

Thread for general feedback.

[amina]

Hi Clem!
I must say the Update Pack info looks very up-to-date and useful.
I am currently translating your introduction of the new concept into Hungarian for the Hungarian Linux Mint site news.
I am taking a screenshot of the Update Pack info window and am just wondering:
- Keeping track of all the happenings to warn people before they get into trouble already seems like a huge effort
- Is there any plan on how this could be possibly translated to other languages as well within a reasonable time, so that it still remains up-to-date?
This seems very difficult to me, do you think it is possible at all?

Edit: we in the meantime put a link on the Hungarian community page where we translate the Update Pack Info and will try to follow changes:
http://linuxmint.hu/hirek/lmde-update-p ... agyarul-2/

[LifeInTheGrey]

Hey just a heads up (I don't know if this is controllable or not), but I just did a full reinstall from the Jan i386 ISO with the "latest" repos used. It worked beautifully, except for the .39 kernel headers ... they still are not included in the update! Considering how much great work you've put into this, I figure maybe it was impossible to "fill in the gaps" by including it in the mint debian repo, but if it is possible I think it would help out updaters tremendously.

Thanks again for all the hard work, LMDE gets better with every step!

[thx1138]

I had to handle those well known LMDE issues.
No new issues with mintupdate-debian on a new install with the latest iso.

No updates since last week, too. Isn't Incoming the testing repo for us?

[Gerd50]

Hi Clement,

what i think about and with which i can't get a friend is the update cycle of four weeks. I have a damn slow connection,
max dl speed 47kb/s. In Germany there are a lot of white marks like that where i live.

I'm running LMDE since october last year. After squeeze got stable and wheezy is on the run a lot of updates came in.
Normaly i updated about all two weeks. What means having about 130 - 180 Mb to download. It takes a lot of time while
nothing else is possible with internet.

Update all four weeks for me means spending about three to four hours for downloading the packages. Please think of
all the people around the world with slow connections and drop down the cycle to two weeks.

The new mintupdate-debian looks good. I would like to use it.

[mads]

Hi Clem!
I've pointed my sources.list to Latest, and I've installed the new Update Manager (mintupdate-debian 1.0.2) after purging the old one (mintupdate 4.3.2).
So far, everything works smoothly and the new mintupdate is just great. Thanks a lot.

[dbkblk]

I really want to thank you for the new repositories because you've basicallly done what Debian CUT should have done !

I have to say it, i'm not found of some of the choices you've made (all editions are concerned) with some softwares:
- Many video players
- Pulseaudio (arrrrrrrg!)
- Firefox and Thunderbird instead of the debian ones (strange choice ?)
- The search addon integrated to firefox (:/ but i can understand that it bring you some money)
- SUDO (sorry i don't like the concept at all)

I've used the traditionnal Debian base since the last september (stable base with some pinning) and i've found it awesome. However, LMDE have some nice ideas like CUT should have done (testing / sid isn't enough reliable for me)! Since you have switched on the new repositories, i have updated my debian base on your repo and installed mintupdate-debian. Everything work great and i don't have all the software i listed previously !

However, mintupdate-debian NEED sudo to work. I think this a bug, When i click on it, it ask me for a password but none of my passwords are working ! I think you haven't seen this one because you are all using sudo, but i don't. Could you fix that please ? Update-notifier works the way mintupdate should work (on debian without sudo and on ubuntu with sudo). Note that i can use it when i start it from the system > administration menu !

Anyway, thanks you for LMDE, you're in good ways to have the perfect rolling-release debian distro : )

[lmintnewb]

Haven't had the opportunity to try lmde. Wanted to ... even bought some dvd's to use in the dvd burner on this dinosaur. Ran into technical issues and bios on this comp doesn't support boot from usb. Betting Mint Debian stuff is great software. Just didn't feel like having to find a work around to get it installed. When hundreds of distro's fit on a cd.

Not understanding why lmde can't too. Though am not a software dev ... like the talented devs at Mint central. So in the interests of keeping things simple. Just ended up bypassing trying out lmde and looked elsewhere in the nixverse. Think LM is sweet Linux, wish this distro much success, like it and the community you have here.

[Roken]

I was hoping to get an interactive discussion going with selected forum members regarding the direction of updates, but logistically it's not been possible. so I'll offer my thoughts here:

There are three types of user, experienced, intermediate, and new(bie), and each has different needs. The needs of the new user are, for the distribution, mor critical than the needs of the experienced, purely because the experienced user is more likely to be able to fix general issues by themselves. However, the needs of the new user can only be met with the co-operation of the experienced and intermediate users, who will fix and report solutions.

Because of the loop, there is no "one size fits all" solution. Experienced (and experimental) users need updates as they become available. Without this frequency, problems won't be identified, and monthly update packs will inevitably be based upon a very limited testing sample.

On the other side of the coin, new users want the most up to date software that they can get without serious problems, which means a regular update interval. Most new users will come from a Windows environment where "Patch Tuesday" - or monthly updates is the norm, and so that should be the goal. To achieve this, issues need to be reported and resolved 1 -2 weeks before the update pack, which means that the monthly update will always inevitably be week 1 week (maybe 2 weeks) behind current, and for some updates more if their are problems.

If the experienced and intermediate users fall off, the whole system falls down, and so a happy medium has to be found. The "who are you tracking" poll suggests that there almost a 50/50 split between LM incoming and Debian testing, which is ideal at the moment, but a way has to be found to maintain that split. If one or the other starts to get too weighty, then the whole system fails.

My (personal) suggestion is to intorduce a simple, yet annoying feature to Mint (maybe a weekly reminder to do something) that can be disabled easily by someone with experience, but not so easy by someone with no experience (init.d) that would enable helpers to determine the experience level of someone asking for help, and may help prevent potentially dangerous actions by newbies. There may also be merit in dividing #linuxmint-help into two channel (#help and #newbies) to help those who help others.