[OT] Editing menus revisited

[Joseph E. Sacco, Ph.D.]

Clint,

I believe this particular problem is a GNOME-2.6 issue. Some email
exchanges with folks on the garnome development list indicate that there
are some known issues with the gnome virtual file system that are moving
targets that are being addressed. I will know for certain when I hear
back from the GNOME folks. 

The folks at RedHat appear to have known about the menu problem in 2.6
and made a sane decision to  "lock down" the menus from editing, which
would rarely impact an end user. Check out the GNOME documentation and
the contents of /etc/gnome-vfs-2.0/modules to see what's going on.

As to your rhetorical question of how could FC2 be releases with some
many show stopping issues... 

The simple answers are:
(1) it's open source [what do you want for nothing???]
(2) it has to run on N platforms, where N >> 1
(3) statistically, the percentage of problems within a 1400+ package
release is rather small.
(4) How many testers do you need to exhaustively test 1400+ packages?

These answers certainly won't make you or me very happy when we get
bitten by that statistic. But..., it's the nature of the beast.

Part of the "charm" of open source is there is a community of people out
there with varied skill sets who can and do address these deficiencies
in relatively short order. 

By contrast, I would focus your attention on the bug fixing, release
patterns of companies like Microsoft, IBM, HP, or SUN. These giants have
many more full time resources to resolve issues that occur within a much
smaller problem space. Each of these companies constrain the "release
quality" problem by limiting the number of platforms on which their
"base" software runs and the number of "new" features released with in a
year. They don't worry too much about large numbers of applications
because most application development is done by third parties.

What to do???  Depends upon your needs and your expectations.  If your
Linux box is used to run a few desktop applications, there is nothing
that needs changing. It works well enough. If your linux box does a bit
more or even a lot more than run a few desktop applications, it's still
OK. Maybe your are running a database server, or a department web
server, or an application server, or print server, or a fax server, a
compute cluster, or whatever... Your linux platforms work well enough.
If your Linux box is your bleeding edge development environment, then
FC2 is already much too old to take you where you want to be.

So... If want to use open source and enjoy the technical challenges of
using open source, take a walk on the wild side...


-Joseph

=============================================================================
On Tue, 2005-02-15 at 18:51, Clinton MacDonald wrote:
> Dr. Sacco:
> 
> (This rambles off topic, and risks being flame bait, so move along if it 
> offends you.)
> 
> Joseph E. Sacco, Ph.D. wrote:
> > Question: 
> >   How do you unlock the Gnome-2.6 menus for editing???
> > 
> > Answer: 
> >   Not easily. There may be a way, but menu editing in GNOME-2.6
> >   is generally broken.
> > [...]
> 
> Do you think that is a Gnome problem or a Fedora (and therefore Yellow 
> Dog 4.0.x) problem?
> 
> It seems to me from reading this list (I do not have a machine on which 
> to run YDL 4.0) that YDL 4.0 was plagued with a large number of 
> obviously "broken" parts (sound support, Gnome menus, etc.). However, it 
> also seems that the majority of these broken parts were previously 
> broken in Fedora Core 2 from which YDL 4.0 was derived. If so, how did 
> such an important Linux distribution as Fedora Core 2 ship with so many 
> "showstopping" issues?
> 
> Why do I ask? I tried Fedora Core 2 on my sacrificial PC at home, and I 
> detested it. Many things did not work (including sound), few of my 
> favorite applications were included (xmms anyone?), I could not install 
> successfully any additional applications, and choosing to update 
> automatically with the latest security updates and fixes hosed my 
> installation royally (I had to turn off the "update me" indicator in the 
> kicker, because updating killed Gnome). It was not a happy experience 
> (keep in mind that I was a Fedora/Red Hat virgin coming to it from 
> Mandrake, so I may have had emotional issues).
> 
> Was my experience unusual, or is that the current state of Fedora?
> 
> > Answer:
> >   "Hey, Joe. Walk on the wild side..."
> 
> Best wishes,
> Clint
> (who is "Looking for soul food, and a bite to eat.")
-- 
joseph_sacco[at]comcast[dot]net