ATI video comes out of the closet

[Les Mikesell]

Dave Ihnat wrote:

> The problem is that the only way to get current applications which are 
>> evolving rapidly and have the cool stuff you want is to get them bundled 
>> with a wildly experimental kernel and device drivers that will regularly 
>> die underneath them.
> 
> Ah...well, as has been noted, you can selectively accept or reject updates.
> 
> And remember--*everything* can be built from source.  If there's a particular
> package you want to have the latest'n'greatest, and they're not moving it
> fast enough to suit in the test and repository cycle, you _can_ just build
> that one for yourself.

Is that something you'd suggest that your clients do for their desktops? 
  Or are you recommending Linux at all?

> Because of that, I won't run Fedora as a server; I don't want to have
> to monitor my server closely to make sure wonky updates don't bring it
> down, and I don't want to be forced to upgrade to the next--possibly
> very wonky-- release as they push the older version of Fedora out.
> 
> OTOH, it's on my dual-boot laptop, and I enjoy poking at the new stuff.

Yes, there's a need for experimental things and a sometimes-booted 
partition is a suitable place for them.  But that's not going to replace 
Windows in the mainstream.

>> I realize that fedora isn't the distribution I wish it were, but I think 
>> everyone would be better off it there were a way to have Red Hat style 
>> administration, a stable kernel and device drivers, and up to date apps 
>> all in one distribution.
> 
> Frankly, this was the argument that was held back when RedHat stopped
> their normal distribution and went to Fedora.

Their old model clearly couldn't be sustained - they were backporting 
every critical fix into every previous release in non-behavior changing 
ways.

> They deliberately pushed
> it right to the bleedin' edge, while pulling back and offering "stable"
> business releases.  Unfortunately, their business offerings are too
> expensive for the very small business or hobbyist.  Where simple pricing
> was a differentiator before, the current supported price is so close
> to that of Windows that you have to find some other differentiator,
> such as FOSS applications that meet the client's needs.

And of course, the free clones are also high quality, but that comes 
with the open source territory.  But, I just think there is a product 
missing for desktop use although regardless of the quality I don't think 
I'd want to be in the paid Linux desktop support business.

> I think there's probably a niched for something between Fedora and RHE
> Server or Workstation.  But RedHat already *had* something that fit
> there and clearly decided it didn't fit their business model.  Ok, so
> that means if I need something cheaper than RHE, and more stable than
> Fedora, I go to CentOS, or SuSE, or Ubuntu, or--well, pick your distro.

I think it will be really interesting when distros built on OpenSolaris 
with a userland similar to Linux distros have some traction. 
http://www.nexenta.org looks promising and zfs would be fun to play 
with.  At least maybe they will be able to keep the kernel working.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com