F10 beta: No xorg.conf, where to tweak Synaptics pad?

[Scott Robbins]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 12:23:40AM +0200, Matej Cepl wrote:
> On 2008-10-09, 21:08 GMT, Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> > In other words you are saying: "If something does not work then 
> > this is your fault and screw you"?  That is nice to know.
> 
> No, he isn't (or at least I am not) -- the world where we are 
> coming from is not that bright either. The only difference 
> between now and (near) future is that now still people google for 
> the small lines of text to put into /etc/X11/xorg.conf to make 
> work their particular piece of turd. In the future hopefully all 
> these tidbits of information could be collected, packaged, and 
> served with the Xorg so that people wouldn't have to apply it 
> themselves (or even know, that some hints are used).


I think that a great deal of the trouble is (and I fear I don't have a
good solution) the lack of notification of such changes.  For example,
FreeBSD tries to operate on the POLA system, Principle Of Least
Astonishment.  When major changes take place, there is a HEADSUP to the
mailing list, as well as their /usr/src/UPDATING for system changes and
/usr/ports/UPDATING for 3rd party program changes. 

I don't think that's practical with Fedora because of its very nature
as, more or less, a test bed.  However, things that are relatively
drastic changes, such as a removal of xorg.conf, could probably be
better announced.  

Things like the Anaconda issue seem more of a bug. I haven't been
following that one closely, but I was under the impression that it's
going to be fixed quickly.   

Just a small example--at some point or another, rather than being able
to type linux <whatever> at installation, that option was gone.  People
had to google to find out the new way to reach the boot prompt.
Something like that, which would affect a lot of people, could have
probably been more widely announced and documented. 

We, the users, really do, (though we often complain) appreciate the work
you developers do for us, though we get upset when things break.  On the
other hand, I think most of us realize that with Fedora, especiall with
Rawhide, things will break. 

What would be great, I think, though I have no idea if it is at all
feasible, would be with things like this, to have a line of text appear
perhaps, saying, there is no longer a default xorg--if this doesn't work
for you, please file a bug with your hardware information. blah blah.
Also please note that you can construct an xorg with xorconfig (if
that's still available, I haven't checked--I have been fortunate enough
so that I didn't even realize it had been removed.) 

I think that a lot of the anger users sometimes feel is because these
things take them by surprise.  Yes, there are lists of changes--they
aren't always complete, and I suspect many of us just skim through them
anyway.  However, major changes could perhaps, merit a headsup.  

I do want to reiterate that we users really do appreciate the efforts
the developers make on our behalf. 

-- 
Scott Robbins
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