Re: [orca-list] openSUSE, Tumbleweed, GNOME, and Orca

[Robert Cole <rkcole72984 gmail com>]

Hello, Jason.

Thank you for your response.

Your input on this list has always been very insightful, and I 
appreciate your advice in this. I have dealt with some breakages in the 
past, but I had the aid of forums and Google in fixing them. I do 
understand and accept that things will break (I even had that problem in 
Windows...probably more often than I do in Linux); I just really need to 
learn how to properly diagnose problems which occur under Linux and how 
to solve them.

I am definitely going to take your response into consideration. I really 
appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Take care.

On 11/19/2013 11:45 PM, Jason White wrote:
> Robert Cole <rkcole72984 gmail com> wrote:
> > I guess if I could generalize my question even
> > further, I would phrase it like this: If one wants to keep up with
> > accessibility improvements (e.g. Orca and the GNOME Shell Magnifier
> > in my case), but one wants to avoid the six-month upgrade rutine, is
> > a rollign release distribution a safe, efficient, and effective way
> > to go?
> That depends very much on how prepared you are to fix problems as they arise
> on a system which is updated continuously rather than dealing with them all at
> once in a single, regular upgrade procedure.
>
> If you want high reliability/stability, you need to choose Debian stable or
> one of the so-called "enterprise" distributions. This won't give you regular
> updates and it won't meet your goal of tracking the latest GNOME and
> accessibility-related changes.
>
> The "six-month" upgrade cycles are in between.
>
> Then there are the continuously upgraded distributions, in which you need to
> be prepared to deal with problems that may occur as components of the system
> are upgraded.
>
> What I'm suggesting, in effect, is that your two goals (high reliability and
> absence of breakage, and regular updates to the latest GNOME and accessibility
> tools) are incompatible. Either you get continuous upgrades with a constant
> risk that something will break, or you compromise with a six-month release
> cycle, or you opt for greater stability with an "enterprise" distribution.
>
> There are people who run continuously upgraded systems comfortably and who are
> well placed to fix occasional problems that occur; but you really do have to
> be prepared to deal with those, including the possibility of a system that
> won't boot until you enter a rescue environment and fix it. If you're worried
> about having only one machine and not being in a position to fix problems,
> then I don't think you should be looking at the continuously upgraded
> distributions that you've discussed here. If you're prepared to fix the
> problems, though, and you're aware that (distributors being subject to human
> failings) they will happen at various points along the way, then go ahead and
> choose a "rolling" distribution.
>
> The perfect world in which we can all upgrade continuously to the latest
> software without experiencing problems (of varying degrees of severity) along
> the way simply doesn't exist.
>
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