Re: Will Gnome _EVER_ be stable?

[Mike Vanecek <mike mjv com>]

Agreed. I've been using Gnome for over three years as my standard 
desk-top both at my computer business and at home. Never have I had it 
totally crater on me - and I beat up on it pretty hard with alpha level 
software, my own pre-pre-way-pre-alpha software and dozens of windows. 
Albiet, much of the stability can be atributed to Linux, the user 
interface has been very tolerant of my explorations and abuse. I've set 
up some of my clients with Gnome on Linux - totally computer illiterate 
clients - and they're still plugging along, making their mistakes and 
learning and Gnome still keeps ticking. The only thing I back up are my 
project files and database dumps - but that's more for catastrophic 
changes like system upgrades or hardware failure - the usual reasons to 
back up.

Like anything else - on any pretty good product, you'll always have 
problem cases. From the Ferrari to FreeBSD, you'll have a few out there 
that are beset with difficulties. But a chronic problem unique to an 
individual needs to be adressed. As far as this one person's seemingly 
chronic problems, a little reflection on circumstances may help. What's 
been consistently the same on each issue? Hint - same person. Evaluate 
how you configure your systems, run over and verify what you believe to 
be true and compare it to what actually is true. Since the problem seems 
to be happening on more than one platform over different versions of 
Gnome, and that this doesn't seem to be a chronic Gnome problem to 
everyone, evaluate what remains the same. Not a personal bash - I've had 
identical problems in several different systems and discovered that I 
was at fault (wanted badly to blame it on Microsoft). It happens. 
Explore the community as a whole - run the archives - if you don't see 
your problem cropping up as a chronic problem, then move on in your 
research to find the culprit. Don't sit around bashing Gnome and 
automatically assuming it's at fault. Only the people with solutions to 
provide have that right anyway... Also examine seemingly unrelated 
settings - examine your CMOS and system settings and potential hardware 
problems or even dirty electricity, etc... It's a puzzle - take the 
challenge and run with it. Gnome isn't perfect. If you still suspect it 
being a problem with Gnome, rather than ranting -dig in and locate that 
problem or partner up with a developer with the skills to do so. Make a 
negative a positive. Gnome is what you make of it - no more and no less.

I for one am extremely thankful for the hard work and late nights/early 
mornings that developers have expended to make Gnome what it is today. 
Millions of dollars in man-hours just given away. It's inspired me to 
learn gui programming. And, it's earned my trust in depending on it for 
my business and personal computing.

Cheers,
Mike

John Fleck wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 06:42:26PM -0500, stan wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 02:02:14PM -0700, John Fleck wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 01:06:08PM -0500, stan wrote:
> > >
> > > > I've seen this failure in various flavors of Gnome for longer that I care
> > > > to remember.
> > > You've seen this before? So I'll assume that you've filed bug reports,
> > > and followed up with the hackers to help diagnose the problem. That's
> > > certainly a key part of the way free software works, with users
> > > serving as a necessary part of the team by carefully reporting their
> > > problems so the hackers can help diagnose and fix them. My experience
> > > in reporting bugs has been phenomenal - these people like to fix 'em
> > > if they know about 'em.
> > The only time I do that, is when I can offer enough details to provide
> > a reproducable problme. Saying "My system broke" is not a useful bug
> > report.
>
> Then what was the point of your original missive? "My system broke"
> pretty much sums up its content. If your intention was to report a
> problem so that it could be fixed, then you've failed.
>
> This is *not* a problem that commonly occurs. If it was a common
> problem, it would have been fixed. The fact that it's an unusual
> problem means the only way it'll get fixed is if you or someone else
> who sees it is methodical about helping track it down.
>
> You make it sound as though the hackers know this regularly happens
> and they're blissfully ignoring it. That's frankly offensive. Are they
> supposed to be mind readers? Or are you supposed to report it?
>
> Best regards,
>
> John
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