7.2 RELEASE ? Buggy as hell

[Mel Flynn]

On Thursday 30 July 2009 18:24:54 Andrew Gould wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Mel
>
> Flynn<mel.flynn+fbsd.questions at mailing.thruhere.net> wrote:
> > On Thursday 30 July 2009 12:50:11 Andrew Gould wrote:
> >> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Adam Vande More<amvandemore at gmail.com>
> >
> > wrote:
> >> > On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 2:32 PM, PJ <af.gourmet at videotron.ca> wrote:
> >> >> I have (supposedly, as I am told by my bootup) upgraded to 7.2
> >> >> Wonderful. But how do i make this thing work. I've managed to do it
> >> >> on an amd64 on an ACER Travelmate 4400 running at 1600mhz.
> >> >> This box runs on 3ghz; Xorg comes up and the mouse is dead.
> >> >> Flashplayer9 with linux-emulator f8 and all the tweaks does not work,
> >> >> acroread9 does not either,
> >> >> hal is useless. I've tried turning off the option AllowEmptyInput to
> >> >> off; i've tried starting hal - and when I run startx, the
> >> >> configuration file is the default built-in... I don't understand what
> >> >> the hell is going on... None of the solutions on google seem to work
> >> >> either... oh, but there is some sunlight in neverneverland... I can
> >> >> boot and I can install all kinds of files - funny, I don't want to
> >> >> play with this crap... and I certainly am not going to reinstall
> >> >> after all I have gone through... If I do reinstall, it will be
> >> >> another OS.
> >> >> If it all works on amd64, what's wrong with i386?
> >> >> I think it's time to switch to something more reliable.
> >> >>
> >> >> There's nothing wrong i386, at least in the regard you're suggesting.
> >> >>  Try
> >> >
> >> > searching deeper within yourself for the issue.
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Adam Vande More
> >>
> >> I don't think that answer was helpful.
> >
> > It's the right answer though.
> >
> >> PJ is not alone in frustration regarding 7.2.  For many users, it's
> >> hard to tell whether the balance of difficulties lies in bugs or new
> >> manual configuration requirements of 7.2.
> >>
> >> I think much of the frustration lies in our perception of "STABLE".
> >> When we upgraded from 7.1 (or 7.0), we expected a fairly smooth ride.
> >> I had frustrations related to X (hal), mounting drives (hal), printing
> >> (cups vs applications), and printing (gimp vs hpijs).  Yes, I read the
> >> (uncentralized) documentation.
> >
> > I think release CD's should not contain packages anymore, cause
> > everything you describe here, has absolutely nothing to do with FreeBSD
> > 7.2, but with 3rd party software that happened to be packaged at release
> > time.
> > You should really be using PCBSD if you want a packaged desktop system,
> > for which the developers claim responsibility and for which much (if not
> > all) of the configuration has been done for you.

The paragraph below is a generalized statement, perhaps I should've used 'one' 
instead of 'you'.

> > When using FreeBSD you are expected to understand the handbook, configure
> > things on your own and be able to troubleshoot problems and/or provide
> > the right information in case you need help. If you can't do this, then
> > FreeBSD is not the right tool for you. No harm in that, nobody forces you
> > to use FreeBSD nor will convict you for using an OS that suits you
> > better.
> > --
> > Mel
>
> Your answer is presumptuous.  You've already assumed that my problems
> lie in my inability or lack of willingness to read the documentation
> and perform configuration.  I have been running X on FreeBSD
> successfully since version 4.0 and have been reading documentation and
> configuring my system since 2000.  I'm not just talking about X, I'm
> talking about postfix, postgresql, samba, apache with webdav over ssl,
> etc.
>
> I am having far more trouble with a STABLE release than I had with
> 5.0.

That is very weird, since most of the community regards the 5.x series as the 
worst in FreeBSD's history. They were a transitional release to dismiss the 
GIANT locking in favor of fine grained kernel locks as the main design change. 
I've personally seen significant improvements in both reliability and 
performance since 5.x, with respect to kernel and base. I'm seeing absolutely 
no issues with postfix or postgresql (especially since on 64-bit I can now 
increase kernel memory to satisfy postgresql's SHM requirements), don't have 
critical samba installations so can't comment on that and webdav over ssl I 
don't provide at all. Could you point me to some PR's you've filed? You got me 
curious now.

> It is easy, and technically correct, to separate the core FreeBSD
> system from the ports.  This I grant you.  Beyond the initial
> clarification, however, it is not the least bit useful.  To the world
> of FreeBSD users, even many of the technically advanced users, FreeBSD
> would lose much of its usefulness without the ports.  So, beyond
> saying that it's not your problem, what have you accomplished?

See $subject. As far as I'm concerned, 7.2 is the best release so far. The OP 
makes it sound like FreeBSD is the cause of all his problems, while looking at 
his posts, some can be attributed to himself and the rest to factors beyond 
FreeBSD's control, probably including hardware.

> I'll get off my soap box now.  If I sound overly frustrated or sound
> like I'm ranting, it's because I am accustomed to that sense of
> control that FreeBSD provides.....only, I've lost that feeling on the
> desktop side.

I've learned to work around "GPL software" on the desktop. If something don't 
work, don't use it, report it or fix it. I do share the Xorg frustration, 
primarily because there is no alternative and has degraded into a "linux X11 
server, with some considerations for other operating systems, without any form 
of release engineering or regression testing". While XFree86 was harder to 
configure, it's stability was far less of an issue. But unless I'm willing and 
able to roll my own "X4BSD", the best I can do is stay away from hardware with 
known problems, report issues and provide good debugging information. When I 
have to use hard- or software that does not work satisfactory, I install 
Kubuntu (like for my step daughter's laptop) or as a last resort a windows 
slice (for tax software and some games).
-- 
Mel