Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

[dequire]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

• The correct Wi-fi driver for chips needing proprietary drivers, and correct behaviour of such a driver. This too varies among systems and even releases.

This always has been an issue - but far more better than it was previously! I haven't personally had wireless issues in a while now. But they're getting better all the time, as is KNetworkManager. See, for example, http://lamarque-lvs.blogspot.com/201...after-464.html

• A more user-friendly modification of Synaptic running on the PackageKit back-end which in turn should use Apt, with PackageKit being able to add and remove packages at the same time.

Welcome to Muon! It's awesome, and very much like Synaptic. But it doesn't look like an app from 1999. You should try it out. Note that in Kubuntu going forward it will replace KPackagekit in the next release... http://jontheechidna.wordpress.com/

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

@GreyGeek: But if you look through the errors which I have talked about here, you'll see that they are things that should simply not plague any distro, whether you call it perfect or not.

I answered the question you asked in your first sentence.

As far as "things that should simply not plague any distro", your assumption is that because those things plague you or others whom you know or read about, they must plague everyone. That is obviously not the case.

For something as specific as a video driver for a single video chip, say, the Intel Mobile 4 Series Chipset , used by most of the PC OEMs in one or more of their models, the Intel video driver can work perfectly on one PC and not work at all on another, even though both use the exact same Intel chip set. What they don't do, however, is implement that chip set using the same circuit design, or support hardware, or the same version of the same firmware. A PC with firmware version 1.45b can work perfectly with the driver, but the same model PC but with version 1.45c can use the same driver and work poorly or not at all, which is the situation I was in with a Gateway m675prr laptop.

Also, Linux and FOSS operate under the "Release early, release often" paradigm: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathed...r/ar01s04.html. If Linux, or any software for that matter, including Windows, were held back until it was "perfect", it would NEVER be released. But, unlike Windows, Linux has a money back guarantee.

[saurav]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

@GreyGeek: -

I will give an example taking a particular case.

In particular, Ubuntu is notorious in this aspect. Up to Lucid/Maverick, installing the driver for my Broadcom BCM4312 Wi-fi chip using Jockey created no problems. However, in Natty, if I use Jockey to install the driver I get a kernel panic, BUT, if I install the driver manually through Synaptic it works perfectly! Also, there is no problem with Jockey on Kubuntu Natty. It is inconsistencies and errors of this kind that I'm especially desirous of seeing ironed out.

Now, I will tell you the reason this problem occurs with Natty's Jockey. Earlier than Natty, the Broadcom chipset had a driver package called Broadcom STA. In Natty, they changed the driver to another package but also kept the previous STA package in the repo. The new package is actually supported by Canonical. However, they did not update Jockey to make it use the new driver. The old driver doesn't work any more and Jockey tries to install and load it. The download succeeds but while loading it the kernel panics. Kubuntu's Jockey, however, installs the newer package and thus causes no problems. This is not a problem with hardware, this is not a problem with firmware, it is not caused because the driver is proprietary, nothing of that sort. This is just plain programming error caused by negligence. And worse than that, this is a regression because the earlier Jockeys used to work perfectly. How do you justify a regression? My point is simply that such critical errors should not occur in an OS designed for everyday use, or they should at least be fixed soon after release, which too hasn't been done in this case.

[saurav]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

@dequire: Thanks for the note on Muon. I was very eager to know about it. I'll definitely try it out.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

....
How do you justify a regression? My point is simply that such critical errors should not occur in an OS designed for everyday use, or they should at least be fixed soon after release, which too hasn't been done in this case.

Who's justifying it.?

I am merely pointing out that a "Perfect" distro requires perfect developers, perfect hardware and perfect firmware. Those perfections do not exist. Almost all FOSS software is created and maintained by imperfect people with limits to their talents, time and money. Many DONATE their time and talent, and sometimes their hardware. (THIS forum is supported by donations!) Considering all that they have done, are continuing to do, and will do, I find the overall quality of the major distros and software miraculous, especially when you include the hostile attacks by proprietary forces who would like nothing better than to see Linux and FOSS totally collapse, or, become their property.

What are your other choices?
1) Win7 -- notorious for continuing the nearly total lack of security exhibited by previous releases. The TDL-4 rootkit, spread as the payload of a simple email, infected over 4,500,000 computers during the first three months of this year. It infects the MBR and the hidden recovery partition, and even reformatting the HD won't remove it because the MBR and the hidden partition isn't touched. I had a friend whose computer was infected by it, even though his AV was current and active, and he ask me to remove it. To do so it I had to erase the MBR, delete the hidden partition, and then do a low level format. That left him with two options- buy a new copy of Windows, or install Linux. He installed Linux.

2) Apple -- A nice, but expensive option. Not only is the hardware expensive, the software which runs on it is as well. Recently, however, some highly publicized (because it is so rare) intrusions of Apple servers running at Apple, Inc., and Fox New's Twitter Apple Server. But, a hand full of break-ins into Apple computers pales to insignificance compared to a 4,500,000 Windows bot farm.


IF I weren't running Linux I'd be using a 16" or 17" Apple laptop using the FOSS that I use on Linux.

[kubicle]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

How do you justify a regression?

Regressions are unavoidable. When you develop software, you cannot just keep adding code keeping all the old code intact. The code will stop working eventually, and usually becomes unmaintainable long before that. You have to remove, rewrite and change parts constantly to keep up with changes on other projects your software depends on and to keep the code base in a coherent state.

Such changes inevitably lead to regressions every now an then. Developing is not just leaping forward, it's more "three steps forward, one step back" type of a deal. Generally your software keeps improving, but there are those necessary steps backward you have to take.

Of course, if it's only your own project you have to consider, it's easy to time your releases so that your every release is "two steps better" than the previous one. But in the open source world there are literally thousands of developers and projects working in collaboration...and it is impossible to coordinate every project for such "perfect" releases. Once one project has taken it's "three steps forward", another has taken it's "one step back". Again...generally things keep improving, but there are always regressions somewhere.

Like has been said in this thread...a "perfect release" would never be released at all, it would be postponed indefinitely.

[saurav]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

So, the majority vote, it seems, is no, we cannot expect a "perfect" distro. Well, thanks for all the comments, everyone.

[Linkmaster]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

IMO, a 'perfect' OS is what one makes of it. If you want to release a 'perfect' OS, give someone a Linux kernel, and tell them to have at it. Add his own DE, his own fluff and bloat, whatever he wants. To an individual, its only as perfect as he/she wants it. I myself have made my current distro 'perfect' by installing it, cropping out the few things I don't like, tweaking this and that, and being done. Its all in the perspective. Not to mention, with what you're mentioning, the file installation would be...huge, to say the least. Definitely more then 3gigs. And a lot of people still prefer to use CD's for installing things, I know I do. Human error of course, will always keep that perfection at the 'perfect' level.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

So, the majority vote, it seems, is no, we cannot expect a "perfect" distro. Well, thanks for all the comments, everyone.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that order disintegrates into disorder, and that the Entropy of the Universe can only, naturally, spontaneously increase. The bits of code residing on the HD undergo what is called "bit rot". The domains of magnetic polarity undergo spontaneous changes to lowering the quality of information while increasing the Entropy of the Universe. So, EVEN if Joe Coder were able to create a perfect program, just being encoded into the magnetic domains of the HD will, eventually, lead to imperfect code.

The most "perfect" software that I know of is the code which controls the space shuttle from T-31 until it reaches orbit and shuts down the main engine. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html

...
But how much work the software does is not what makes it remarkable. What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors.

This software is the work of 260 women and men based in an anonymous office building across the street from the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake, Texas, southeast of Houston. They work for the "on-board shuttle group," a branch of Lockheed Martin Corps space mission systems division, and their prowess is world renowned: the shuttle software group is one of just four outfits in the world to win the coveted Level 5 ranking of the federal governments Software Engineering Institute (SEI) a measure of the sophistication and reliability of the way they do their work. In fact, the SEI based it standards in part from watching the on-board shuttle group do its work.

The group writes software this good because that's how good it has to be. Every time it fires up the shuttle, their software is controlling a $4 billion piece of equipment, the lives of a half-dozen astronauts, and the dreams of the nation. Even the smallest error in space can have enormous consequences: the orbiting space shuttle travels at 17,500 miles per hour; a bug that causes a timing problem of just two-thirds of a second puts the space shuttle three miles off course.

NASA knows how good the software has to be. Before every flight, Ted Keller, the senior technical manager of the on-board shuttle group, flies to Florida where he signs a document certifying that the software will not endanger the shuttle. If Keller can't go, a formal line of succession dictates who can sign in his place.

Bill Pate, who's worked on the space flight software over the last 22 years, says the group understands the stakes: "If the software isn't perfect, some of the people we go to meetings with might die.

When I am not playing around with code or alien packages, I never have to reboot to regain control or stability of Lucid. Nothing crashes.

It's obvious that the richest software company on the planet does not spend enough money on their code to make it safe from infection, or stable enough to avoid crashes of even some basic operations. However, even if they spent every dime Gates stuffed into his pocket on bullet proofing the code, I doubt $60 Billion would be enough to make Windows as error free as the space shuttle code. Only Uncle Sam can afford to pay for sufficient numbers of the best talented coders that their 420,000 line product would have only ONE ERROR.

I've been running Kubuntu 10.04 on this Sony VAIO VGN-FW140/E since it was Alpha-1. Since it has gone Gold I've never had a kernel panic or a failure of the i915 video driver that powers my Intel Mobile Series 4 chipset. The wifi has always worked. So has the audio, the USB ports, the microphone, and the mechanical buttons on the front bezel. The CDROM is showing a failure mode on the CD burning capability, but that is not Kubuntu or the kernel's fault. My most commonly used software: Kmail, FireFox, Okular, Dolphin, Audacity, Dragon Player, Kdenlive, Google Earth, Stellarium, the printer driver, Skype, etc... All of them work faultlessly. Even though I have to recompile the watcom bamboo driver everytime the Linux kernel is upgraded, it works perfectly when I plug it in.

The amazing thing is I paid absolutely nothing for this Distro its associated software. I would gladly pay what Windows users pay for Windows, because Lucid runs better on this machine that VISTA did, and Sony supposedly made the hardware to conform to VISTA specs, or they wrote the windows drivers for the hardware. I have no objection to paying for software IF its "EULA" doesn't handcuff me or require me to abandon my constitutional rights of fair copy and fair use. In other words, that the software is given under the GPL and the Four Freedoms, is a bonus that proprietary software cannot match.

And, let me say it again. IF the Linux kernel and/or the Qt4 toolkit violates Microsoft's "IP", then Microsoft has to explain why Windows, which supposedly contains that technology, is so crappy and expensive, and Kubuntu is so good and free. Why would they keep their best code on the sideline and market VISTA and then Win7

[woodsmoke]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

I'll respond to GG's question.

Why sell "the good stuff" now...when you can save it for later when push comes to shove and you HAVE to sell it because of competition.

FASCINATING INFO BTW GG!!

woodsmoke

[saurav]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

The thing is, I know that FOSS is that good and besides, because of the freedom issue, I simply can't use anything else. But this is actually the very reason that I get concerned when such problems occur in important FOSS projects. Say, for example, the bug in KDE 4.6 that I linked to in my initial post, which sometimes causes a crash message to appear when restarting or turning off the computer. Imagine that my friend who is a die-hard MS/Apple fan is standing looking over my shoulder when this happens. Proprietary software is definitely buggy, yes. But no one is claiming otherwise (other than the proprietors, of course). But we do claim that FOSS is better than that. More importantly, how long can you go on enduring such a bug that pesters you every now and then? When it's in an important area of the system like that, I can't for too long. My main reason for starting this thread was that I encountered such bugs in more than one distro in the first place. However, the best part of FOSS is that we have choice, hence my search for a better distro. If this were MS/Apple this thread wouldn't even make sense, let alone exist in such a vibrant form.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

....
Imagine that my friend who is a die-hard MS/Apple fan is standing looking over my shoulder
...

The WORLD was standing over Bill Gates shoulder when this BSOD happened at the "Bird's Nest" pavilion at the Chinese Olympic games. :
[img width=400 height=276]http://gizmodo.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/08/bsod_nest_main2.jpg[/img]

and the world shrugged. There there are these examples, and this VISTA example, where the audience even applauded , as if crashing was a good thing. Now, THAT is letting the Kool-Aid take complete control.

Those who happen to see a kernel panic, as rare as that event is for most Linux users, wouldn't even recognize what they've seen unless they were told, because it isn't on a blue screen.

[de_koraco]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

I do like your list of desired features, though. However, I would not have PackageKit as a backend as I like to purge, rather than just remove, packages that I don't use or want. Plus, reading the bug report and the responses, not using PK would take care of the bug you are referring to. I am not using KPackegeKit but Muon and I hafven't had that problem.

Packagekit as a backend has absolutely zero to do with purging packages, that falls on the individual package managers. Also, as a backend, it is much more refined and useful than aptdaemon, and I do hope Canonical will follow the pack and adopt it for real. It will probably fall on the Debian packagers to implement it correctly, though. On Fedora, it works like a charm. Yesterday I tried to unpack a rar archive, which wasn't possible, so I got a pop up saying would I like to download the software to do it, I clicked yes, and voila, the archive was extracted. Now, as for the GPK and KPK frontends, that's another story.

Having Muon rely on packagekit would not be a major problem, because if PK were to be adopted, then dpkg would use it as a backend, and since Muon uses apt directly, and apt handles dpkg, the only difference would be not having root access, but going through PolicyKit, which is a much saner approach.

[saurav]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

@GreyGeek: That is true enough.

@de_koraco: Correct.

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

I had read somewhere that PackageKit did not support apt-style purge, hence my comment. Plus, PackageKit is a front-end, not a back-end, to dpkg, apt, or any other base package management system used in Linux.