FC4 good new tech, bad legacy support

[Rahul Sundaram]

Richard Kelsch wrote:

> Ok people, I'm not trying to be a bummer here, so please read this as 
> if it was meant to entertain, not insult.  Think of me as a whining 
> comic.  However, there is a seriousness to the root of this message:
>
> After installing FC4 I was impressed with all of the new features, 
> speed and such.  As a stand alone OS, it is superb.  For me, 
> everything "stock" worked "out of the box."  All hail Fedora Core 4!  
> I was singing praises, people were on the streets in awe.  Life was 
> good.  The installation went well, it operated well, everything that 
> was installed from the "core" or "extras" binary rpms worked superb...
>
> However, I noticed after I started installing software I needed 
> (gzipped sourcem CPAN modules etc.), it's not very compatible with 
> older "legacy" software.  In fact, as a rule, getting software not in 
> the "core", "extras", or "freshrpms" trees to work is a royal pain in 
> the fanny.  Nothing compiles without errors.  In fact, luck is a big 
> factor getting anything to work once you think you've got it 
> compiled.  This isn't an issue with only one piece of software, 
> otherwise I'd consider myself ranting.  No, I'm not going to file 
> numerous bug reports for things I'm not exactly sure where the bug 
> is.  Yes, I had tried the gcc32 trick as well, and nothing works like 
> it should. 

If the software doesnt work with either gcc 3.2 or gcc 4.x then its 
probably broken. GCC 4.x is there as the primary compiler. compat-gcc-32 
for legacy support. I am not sure what else could be done better here. 
any ideas?

regards
Rahul