F8 kernel-2.6.24.3-12.fc8

[Rodd Clarkson]

On Sun, 2008-03-09 at 17:41 -0400, David Boles wrote:
> Callum Lerwick wrote:
> > On Fri, 2008-03-07 at 11:15 -0500, Jarod Wilson wrote:
> >> On Friday 07 March 2008 10:51:25 am Benjamin Kreuter wrote:
> >>> On Thursday 06 March 2008 19:29:23 Chuck Ebbert wrote:
> >>>> Sorry, we had to release with known bugs. A new kernel will be in
> >>>> updates-testing very shortly.
> >>> Why did you have to release with known bugs?  Why not just wait until the
> >>> bugs are fixed?  The last three kernel updates broke suspend for me...
> >> Uh... If we waited until all the known bugs were fixed, we'd never release 
> >> *any* kernel... :)
> >>
> >> Despite this kernel making my own iwl4965 unusable, I was fully in favor of 
> >> releasing it. In theory, we fixed more problems than we caused, and you're 
> >> always welcome to keep running the prior kernel. (I'm actually running a 
> >> slightly modified 2.6.24.2-7.fc8 now).
> > 
> > Yes, the real issue here is not all bugs, but regressions. Regressions
> > are a major problem for Aunt Tillie. Kernel regressions can result in an
> > unbootable, unusable system. I can't imagine ever deploying Fedora on
> > Aunt Tillie's machine for exactly this reason, kernel regressions.
> > 
> > Use case: Aunt Tillie diligently keeps her Fedora machine up to date. A
> > new kernel results in a regression with her hardware. Maybe it doesn't
> > even boot. What does she do? Can we really expect her to know how to
> > boot the previous kernel? How is she to even know it is the kernel that
> > broke? Does she even know what a kernel is? How does she fix it? Booting
> > the old kernel in GRUB is a one time deal. How does she make it stick?
> > How does she blacklist the broken kernel? What does she do when 6 more
> > broken kernels come through the update pipe?
> > 
> > What do *I* do to prevent this? Tell her to not update, and risk
> > security issues? Should I have blacklisted updating the kernel before
> > leaving her alone with the machine? Which still leaves the kernel
> > potentially vulnerable.
> > 
> > This is not theoretical, I ran into this very kind of problem in F7. F7
> > ran perfectly, initially. A kernel update (a bump from 2.6.21 to 2.6.22,
> > mind you...) resulted in a reboot loop on my wife's eMachines m6805
> > (x86_64) laptop. I even bugzilled it right away, though bugzilla's
> > wonderous search functionality is refusing to find it right now. Many
> > months and many kernel updates went by, all of them broken. It finally
> > got fixed when the bug was discovered in the rawhide kernel and ended up
> > on the F8 release blocker list.
> > 
> > This is a terrible user experience for *me*, let alone Aunt Tillie. I
> > can't imagine subjecting Aunt Tillie to this without help.
> > 
> > Now, I'm not saying I have the solution to this, and I'm not saying the
> > solution is easy. But IMHO this really needs to be addressed, somehow,
> > if Fedora is to ever truly be "ready for the desktop".
> > 
> 
> 
> I don't think that "Aunt Tillie" should be using a bleeding edge Linux
> distribution such as Fedora provides. And if "Nephew Johnie" installs it
> for her and she has problems with it that she can not deal with herself I
> think it is "Nephew Johny's" fault for installing it for her. What do you
> think?
> 
> No distribution names mentioned here but there are several others that I
> can think of that are much better suited for Newbies like your "Aunt Tillie".

This is one of the big reasons why I'm now intalling centos on machines
(while I continue to use fedora).

The other is that I don't have time to upgrade multiple fedora installs
when they are no longer supported.


R

-- 
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
 It's much better on my side"