[KLUG Members] OK, I just have to ask . . .

[Robert G. Brown]

On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:01:10 -0500, "Mark Kowitz" <mkowitz at gmail.com> wrote:

>And I wasn't refering to "updates", security or otherwise, I was more
>speaking of a major upgrade to a distro (which, in my experience, is
>better done as a clean-install vs. an in-place upgrade).
I would tend to agree (maybe for different reasons). The lifetime of Linux 
systems is so long that I not only prefer to do new installs rather than
upgrades (backup up the data, install, restore, test), but I actually do
major hardware upgrades at the same time. This is called "replace the whole
system", and it allows complete parellel testing in most cases, and/or
fallback in case of problems.

>This wasn't intended to start any kind of argument or flame war. . .I
>was just curious of how more experienced users than myself view
>version updates.
I understand, no flame war started, at least not from here.

>Oh, and I do thank you for your insights given so far.
You're welcome.

>PS: And another thought I have had bouncing around in my head . . .
>Who leads whom, as far as the desktop conveniences go (no, I'm not
>speaking of KDE vs. Gnome).  But between Linux and MS?
I do not beleive this question is properly posed. "MS" is a corporation,
while "Linux" is a loosely coupled group of groups of developers going
in many directions at once. MS has (at least per OS) a single desktop,
whose behavior (withing the limits of a few registry hacks and the poerty
sheets) is not really very configurable. Linux has a rather large number 
of desktops (over 75 last time I looked) to choose from, with a really
broad range of configurability and diverse sets of behaviors. Which of
these are "ahead" or "behind" something else isn't really clear at any
given moment (unless you give up your real job and keep up).

Some of these desktops have been "ahead" (whatever that means, there's a
large element of taste here) of MS for a very long time. Others have 
either lagged behind or simply not contended. I don't think a lot of these
developers are using "MS" as a benchmark for features and functionality (one
can always find exceptions, I do know of at least one desktop that looks
more like Win98SE than Win98SE!).

Perhaps a more suitable way to think about these things is whether the 
various Linux desktops have reached their design goals; perhaps asking
the developers is a good idea, and reading about them will give you a
number of hints. Another way to go about this is to take a look at several
of them and try a few. You might be surprised at what you find out there.

>It seems some new thing comes out on one, say USB auto mount, then is
>incorporated in the other. Am I right in thinking it's somewhat of a wash?
>MS leads in some, and is then incorporated into the Linux desktop, and
>others visa-versa?
well again, this is not a question framed with the rather diverse development 
whose results are available in the Linux community. Some desktops incorporate 
a feature like this, others don't bother, and still others may support this 
feature to the extent that the underlying distribution does. I think it took 
some time before the Linux community responded well to USB in general; this
had to be handled by the kernel people before any desktops really got going on 
it. MS was one of the founding members of the USB consotium, so they had 
inside track on the proprietary development of that stuff. It's not clear that 
this matters anymore. There are USB devices that don't have good support 
in Linux, and that will always be so (especially for low-demand products),
as long as vendors do not see advantages to opening up their products to this 
form of development and support.

							Regards,
							---> RGB <---