[OT]Re: PPC Firefox/Thunderbird 1.0 builds

[Eric Dunbar]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 14:54:21 -0500, Jurvis LaSalle <lasalle at bard.edu> wrote:
> 
> On Jan 18, 2005, at 2:28 PM, a monkey wrote:
> 
> > "that distro that shall remain nameless"?
> 
> The list members and moderators have asked Mr. Dunbar to stop
> recommending the Ubuntu distro every time a YDL user asks for help. He
> would frequently recommend switching to Ubuntu for any problem a user
> had on YDL that he hadn't had on Ubuntu.

Since you seem to be ascribing to me things I do not do, I feel
compelled to correct your assertions.

(1) No one has asked me personally to stop recommending the that
nameless distro -- this was a communal decision;
(2) I do NOT, and I repeat NOT recommend that a user switch to that
nameless distro if they run into a problem with YDL. I may suggest
they check it out, but, if they're happy with YDL that's fine too. If
an Ubuntu user requires something that YDL offers "out of the box" I
will recommend they check out YDL (but, given then # of problems 4.0
has(had?) I do add that caveat). You mistake me for something I am not
-- a Linux distro bigot (I can only really be accused of being a Mac
OS X bigot -- it is the best *nix out there!); and,
(3) I certainly was not the only one who discussed said distro.

YDL is attractive to some users because it is a PPC-only distro, and,
thus PPC specific problems receive high priority in the bug fixing
process. Ubuntu is attractive to some users because it's a very new
distribution that works surprisingly well & is cross platform (which
means people can run their U servers on cheap i86 boxes and use a PPC
laptop for their daily tasks, all with the same config files, apps,
etc.). I like playing with both. I use YDL 3.0.1 as my server. I like
Ubuntu "Hoary" for my desktop. If I find the energy, I may upgrade the
server to YDL 4.0 and see how it fares.

> list a little thin as it wasn't a very constructive suggestion.  We all
> recognize that ydl 4.0 was a bit buggy upon release.  Ubuntu was
> probably more polished and easier for n00bs to use, but his suggestions
> were not furthering the raison d'être of this list- to help users use
> and improve *YDL*.

I routinely see people ask questions about problems on other distros
on the YDL lists *and* have seen those questions answered (not Ubuntu
since there are enough users on their lists to figure out problems &
you'll get your head bit off by some users here for even asking). It
seems not everyone is a single-distro bigot.

But, yes, the primary purpose of these two lists are to discuss YDL.
However, since Linux is not a single entity this inevitably results in
other distros being discussed/recommended/dismissed/etc.

> I hope that clarifies the nameless distro for you
> and we can all go back to improving the distro whose list we've
> subscribed to.

It seems you re-opened a can of worms ;P.

Eric.