OT: A note to the person in the next cubicle
William Case
billlinux at rogers.com
Fri Jul 3 17:06:40 UTC 2009
Hi;
I know -- a too cutesy subject line.
But I wanted to make the point that the following subjects are not
critical to me; just things I am wondering about as I get ready to
install Fedora 11. I work at home alone. Most of the points are of the
type I might bring up over coffee with the guy in the next cubicle, if I
had a guy in the next cubicle. If you are doing something important
(like earning money) and don't need a break just ignore this post.
#1 Upgrade vs LiveCD fresh install
I am trying to make up my mind whether I should do a fresh install from
the LiveCD or upgrade. I have always done a full .iso download and new
installation in the past. I thought I would try something new i.e.
LiveCD or upgrade.
My hesitation on choosing to upgrade is that by just upgrading I might
not get some of the fixes I am hoping for. In particular, in F10 to get
my TV tuner working I had to install new firmware and modprobe the
'tuner' module. I never did get the sound working. From this list and
others, I have come to understand that the kernel in F11 has all the
modules I need compiled in and that PulseAudio can now handle the sound.
I will leave further details for a separate post if the TV is still not
working.
I just want reassurance that by upgrading I will get the same fixes as
by a virgin install.
#2 A Bug vs a Nitpick
With each new release there are an expected number of bugs that show up.
I am not complaining, that is part of the deal when using Fedora and I
am happy to file a bug report whenever I can. But sometimes there are
things that are wrong that are, to me, more of a Nitpick than a bug. I
am often reticent to use bugzilla for something that is minor and has
more to do with look and feel or smooth operation or a manuals
usefulness than being broken. I don't want to be a PIA by constantly
nitpicking, but on the other hand I would think that developers would
like help in getting it exactly right. Any thoughts?
#3 Finding bug citations
I have noticed that when experienced users respond to a question/problem
on the users list their response often contains a link to the
appropriate bug. When I google to find a solution to something google
never (seldom) returns a bug link. Are people doing something (using
special search criteria) to search the bug database at the same time as
a general google search or are they doing a separate search in RedHat
bugzilla or do they just recognize the problem and give the link to the
bug covering it?
#4 Giving back help on the users list
I have been using Linux/RedHat/Fedora for over four years. I have
received a lot of constructive help from users mailing lists.
(In fact, as hard as it may be to believe, I have become the computer
guru amongst my small group of retired friends. Although most of the
problems are M$ related, we manage to get most people going again.)
I often recognize problems brought up on the Fedora users mailing list,
and have the sure-fire solution while others respond with solutions that
are terribly wrong. However, I am often reticent to help because too
often I have seen that my 'sure-fire solutions' are wrong or
unprofessional and too many of the 'terribly wrong' answers have, of
course, been right.
I would like to give back. So ... what kind of mind query or problem
analysis do effective responders use before giving info to other users?
#5 Fedora 11 LAN installation
I have a two computer (sometimes three computer) LAN in my house. Both
are F10 to be F11. In the past, to keep it simple, I have installed the
newest Fedora version on each machine by burning the .iso to disk(s) and
then doing two separate installs. I was thinking that this time -- just
for the hell of it -- I would do something fancier like install F11 on
the second machine using the LAN.
The problem is: I have never used the LAN for anything real before. I
got the LAN connection up and working and that was about it.
I am not looking for details -- I can read. But a quick perusal of the
Installation Guide has left me a bit confused with too many options. A
quick (short) list of what I should be looking at would really shrink
the learning curve.
--
Regards Bill
Fedora 10, Gnome 2.24.3
Evo.2.24.5, Emacs 22.3.1
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