lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Phillip Whiteside <phillw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

we seem to have lost where lubuntu 10.04 actually got up to.

Stable == Not crashing every 5 minutes.
Beta == Not a finished product.

As it was not even launched as 'RC' (Release Candidate) The reason you say
it behaves as a 'beta' is because that is exactly what it is.

IMHO, considering the 'fun' that was caused by Service Pack 2 for Windoze XP
(I also spell it the same way, but we get told off for that on the forums,
M$ is not allowed either) which was a full release that people paid good
money for, says a lot for the team being completely honest and open about
the state of development when April arrived.

As for regressions, I hope you are on the mailing list for Meerkat, I
thoroughly enjoyed the Lynx one even though most of the stuff was way beyond
my technical expertise. You get to see 'old' bugs resurfacing and patches
being removed as people have time to re-write sections of code more fully.

An example to me of how the very small team for lubuntu operates is easily
shown when the author of pcmanfm basically tore up all the code and started
again. It takes a 'big man' to appreciate they're boxing themselves into a
corner & re-hashing the lot.

As a further example of how bugs re-surface, go take a look at
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/529794?comments=allI'm
still wondering how they broke it, not only in the testing cycle for
10.04, but managed to break it, retrospectively in 9.10.

But, we can do with our computers what we wish, we can use what ever
'flavour' of linux we choose - and we get to do all of that for free, unlike
some other operating systems that are 'out there'. It would be a very bad
day when there was only one version of linux out there.

You may want to have a read of
http://forum.phillw.net/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=61 which is my take on the
*buntu family, I also do recommend people who are arguing the finer things
in life take a read of
http://www.jonobacon.org/2008/12/19/the-ubuntu-ethos/just so as you do
not loose sight of things we take for granted.

May the many discussions about linux carry on, for we only need worry when
there are no discussions. So far, so good - pop over to
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=385 and hear the testers putting
the ubuntu world to right ;-)

Regards,

Phill.

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 11:06 PM, CAD Outsourcing <CADout@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> hi Chow,
> I understand what you are saying, and you are perfectly correct in a
> theoretical world. You can be arrogant all you want, but that is not going
> to change the fact that we livein an imperfect world, where all the planets
> and starts are NOT in alignment to make everything work perfectly as you
> mention, when recompiling for 64bit. In the real world we live in,
> applications are not perfect, many things aren't done perfectly, especially
> when you have programmer contributors with various backgrounds,
> philosophies, and skill levels.
> The proof is in the bugs.  The proof is all the other 64 bit Ubuntus out
> there that are reputed to be less stable than their 32bit counterparts...
> even by their developers own admission, as you can often see the mention on
> the download pages "64bit is generally less stable. If you want a stable
> version, download the 32bit" can often be read.
> Saying the opposite is either ignorant pretentiousness, or just a big
> battle of egos going on.  None of which is productve in any way to the
> bettering of the project.
> Some of the points you brought up as an attempt in displaying
> contradictions, were made to demonstrate the contradictions made by the
> Lubuntu team: trying to make a faster distro that will run better on old
> hardware, and sacrificing stability, for a no-benefits-64bit version for the
> computers this is going onto.
> ANYONE with a very very very fast computer will NOT be able to perceive the
> SLIGHTEST performance difference on their computer, brought about by this
> distro in 64bit. BUT what they WILL see, what will stick out like a sore
> thumb, is the elements of the distro that were neglected and are still
> buggy.
> Don't be naïve: 64bit DOES require extra human resources - there is a lot
> of debugging and fixing to do, because once it is recompiled in 64, strange
> things happen... and when you run those 32 bit apps on a 64 bit OS, you'll
> slow down anything that is not the new generation intels of this year (not
> exactly the crowd that would want lubuntu anyways).
> (It's the same problem as we had with .com versus .exe program files in DOS
> and Windoze (I just like to call it windoze) - many were not compiled so
> they still need an interpreter, because after compilation they may not have
> been as stable.  Otherwise everything would have been compiled on that
> platform.)
> And btw, all the apps we need are not all available in 64 bit. Skype for
> one, Gimp, and many others as well.
> If we had to choose, we would rather see a bug-free 32 bit version, and
> only 32 bit available, than having both maintained but some elements or
> features missing or not working properly because human resources were
> diverted away just to make another flavor.  Heck, some of the bugs were
> found in other ubuntus versions ago, and are resurfacing!  I'm too
> frustrated at playing this game of participating in getting things fixed
> that were already fixed long ago but are resurfacing as problems in this
> distro at this time.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 16:23, Chow Loong Jin <hyperair@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 4 Jun 2010 11:40:19 -0400
>> CAD Outsourcing <CADout@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> > Your question opens a higher-level debate, and this is why I'm
>> > answering. I'd be curious to know why you "need to know" this. Did
>> > one of your friends argue "it's not a "true" 64bit..."?
>> >
>> > 64bit OS adds 2 main benefits:
>> > * memory addressing that is much much larger (so large in fact that
>> > your computer isn't high peformance enough to handle it),
>> > * and allowing 64bit applications to run - where it makes a
>> > difference is CAD, especially 3D solid modeling.
>> > *with the exception of the new intel multicore i3 i5 i7 processors,
>> > your computer will be SLOWER running a mix of 32bit and 64 bit
>> > applications (meaning, if you run 32bit Office, or ANY 32bit stuff,
>> > it will be slower, and you'll never get 100% 64bit apps and utils
>> > going - not in a free OS anyways).
>>
>> I think it's very much more likely that you get a 100% 64-bit system
>> using a free OS, than a proprietary one, considering  Exactly what is
>> your point here? If you run OpenOffice.org from the Ubuntu archives, as
>> you should be doing if you're running Lubuntu, then that's 64-bit. The
>> same goes for almost every other application packaged in the
>> Ubuntu archive and PPAs alike. This is vastly different from a
>> proprietary system where you download and install software from various
>> vendors who don't provide 32-bit versions.
>>
>> >
>> > So, are you running a server or server farm perhaps?  You wouldn't
>> > select Lubuntu for that anyways.  In fact, I don't even know why they
>> > BOTHER allocating resources to maintaining a 64 bit version, when
>> > there is lots of bugs to iron out in the 32 bit edition.
>> > IMHO distros should be labeled differently, to make it clearer to
>> > users that your computer will probably run faster with the 32-bit
>> > optimised version, and that you install the 64bit only if you have
>> > 64bit specific applications, like a $5000 Autodesk Inventor
>> > software... which incidentally, DOESN'T run under Linux anyways!
>> > What are we left with, in 64bit under Linux?  Maybe some multi-media
>> > editing stuff... well, there IS a 64bit Ubuntu that does just that,
>> > already out there.
>>
>> I believe you are mistaken. All packages in the Ubuntu archive
>> is uploaded in source code form, and built on i386, and amd64, among
>> various other architectures. There is no need to BOTHER allocating
>> resources to maintaining a 64-bit version, because it *already* exists.
>> Perhaps there isn't a 64-bit ISO, but you can always install a minimal
>> 64-bit Ubuntu base and apt-get install the rest, and voila, 64-bit
>> Lubuntu installation.
>>
>> Also, there are many CPU-intensive applications out there that can
>> benefit from a 64-bit architecture. The rule of thumb is: if your CPU
>> can run 64-bit code, it's already not functioning at its full potential
>> if you run a 32-bit OS on it. You probably won't see any difference
>> though.
>>
>> >
>> > Lubuntu's very reason of existence is because people don't like the
>> > fact that Linux has gotten bloated and is starting to slow down 3
>> > year old machines.
>> > Because on a Core2Duo and higher (like the new i3 i5 i7 multi-core
>> > processors), you don't feel a difference in the slightest... BUT the
>> > current state of this OS does make itself felt!  And with a fast
>> > machine, after much frustration and working really hard to make it
>> > work, you find yourself scrambling to go back to Mint-Ubuntu,
>> > Ubuntu... or Xubuntu which has been around longer and does pretty
>> > well on slower hardware, and allows owners of faster machines that
>> > satisfaction of knowing their OS has less bloat.
>> >
>> > Before we devote programmer time to develop a 64bit version, which is
>> > in contradiction to the need this OS wants to fullfill, maybe we
>> > should iron out the bugs in the standard 32bit edition first.  Just
>> > my opinion... because right now, Lubuntu is BETA at best!  And I'm
>> > really pissed that they label it final release, and waste valuable
>> > resources for stuff no one needs.  After all, if you have a slower
>> > PC, netbook, whatever, that requires Lubuntu, WHY oh WHY would you
>> > need, and WHAT would you do with, a 64bit version in the first place?
>>
>> Because you're an owner of a faster machine and want to have the
>> satisfaction of knowing that your OS has less bloat? There, I just
>> plucked out a reason you just posted two paragraphs ago.
>>
>> > Wanting to maintain too many versions before you get one version
>> > straight, is only bad for the distro.  Hence the harsh words, because
>> > the Lubuntu team is really shooting themselves in the foot here...
>> > especially if they want canonical to endorse them one day.  Get it
>> > right, and then see if you want to branch out in to other versions
>> > (especially if they go contrary to the distro's mission).
>>
>> Again, I'd like to stress that Lubuntu shares Ubuntu's archives, and
>> uploads are made in source code form, and built *automatically* on
>> buildds for at least i386 and amd64 architectures (lpia is also
>> included in PPAs, and several other architectures are also built for,
>> but not all of them succeed all the time). This is not a "branch" out,
>> it is already there.
>>
>> In fact, if you're writing code that can't be compiled on amd64 but can
>> be compiled on i386, then you're usually doing something wrong
>> somewhere in the first place. Something stupid like casting pointers
>> into integers and back. (Hey, I saw that kind of stupidity in the source
>> code of nachos, a small OS simulator made for educational purposes.)
>>
>> In a nutshell: If your CPU does 64-bit, then go 64-bit. But don't
>> expect any great leaps in performance. Any gain in performance is
>> likely to be small for anything that's not CPU-intensive.
>>
>> The only drawbacks you might get from 64-bit Lubuntu is.. say..
>> Adobe Flash, and Skype. But these two are really easy to install these
>> days, since there's the flashplugin-installer package in the archive,
>> and skype in Canonical's partner repository. And mind, these are both
>> proprietary software. So much for 100% 64-bit being unachievable for a
>> free OS.
>>
>> --
>> Kind regards,
>> Chow Loong Jin
>>
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