move to rawhide update

Peter Robinson pbrobinson at gmail.com
Tue Apr 7 15:43:57 EDT 2009


>  > >  II. - What for me is an inhibitor is the bugzilla section "tell us how to
>  > > reproduce the problem".  I have no desire whatsoever to try to describe how
>  > > to obtain the Fluendo mp3 codec for an XO, nor how to follow its
>  > > instructions for seeing if it works.  I have even less desire to describe
>  > > where I obtained a static-linked Mplayer, nor how I have set up my XO for
>  > > playing movies.  [Both the mp3 codec and the Mplayer application work fine
>  > > in 8.2.1.]  What good would it do for me to enter a bugzilla report?  A
>  > > dozen people would ask me for more information, and for more "try this and
>  > > try that".  I have better things to do with my time.
>  >
>  > Well, firstly if they're statically compiled applications that aren't
>  > shipped in Fedora there's no point filing bugs in Fedora about them as
>  > they aren't supported.
>
> but surely the APIs that they use _are_ supported, no?

Yes.

>  > But if your going to have an attitude of its a
>  > waste of your time, I won't waste my time trying to get them to work
>  > for you.
>
> if mikus is having these problems, children with laptops will
> too.  i'm sorry to hear someone who has done a _lot_ of very
> patient bug reporting and testing (and documentation, i believe)
> being dismissed like this.

I'm not dismissing him. I'm quite prepared to help him if he'll
provide the information. I'm someone who has done a _lot_ of very
patient bug testing and trying to get all the OLPC changes to Fedora
upstream so that we have the best release possible.

As for children having these problems, most children will use the
built in video player (totem, not sure of the sugar application), and
then from there there will be local support teams and it will then
move upstream (I believe). I doubt they will be reporting the bugs
direct to the olpc-devel mailing lists.

> "no point in filing bugs"?  let's all pack it in and go home.
> send the bug reports straight to nicholas.

By no point filing bugs I meant that 80% of fedora package maintainers
will close the bug straight up because its not a package in Fedora and
will ask a bug to be filed with the upstream. Those that don't close
the bug will expect details and ask questions which mikus clearly
stated he couldn't be bothered providing. There's not a lot that can
be done unless he at least states what application it is. He original
stated "'sound' and 'moving pictures'", how am I or anyone else
suppose to work out what that means without asking for details such as
the application, what version/build it is and if its not in Fedora
where he got it from. Even Microsoft don't support 3rd party
applications. That's why Fedora refuses to ship binary drivers for
graphics chips and binary applications, it causes alot of
problems..... go and search the ubuntu forums or google about video
driver problems.

> that being said, as a developer, i understand that a bug report
> with missing background information is difficult to deal with.
> mikus -- even attaching the static mplayer binary to the bug
> report, with an explanation that it used to work on 8.2, and now
> it doesn't, would be better than nothing.

its not difficult, its impossible.

>  > >> What do you mean by 'moving
>  > >> pictures', do you mean recording video or playing video?
>  > >
>  > > I don't try to record video - so I have no idea if it works or not (see what
>  > > I mean about being asked questions which I don't know how to answer?).  The
>  > > 'Record' activity does not show me a picture of what the XO camera is
>  > > supposed to be seeing.  The 'watch&listen' activity gives me neither 'sound'
>  > > nor 'moving pictures'.  [IIRC, it can close prematurely.]  Mplayer runs, but
>  > > gives me neither 'sound' nor anything except a blank screen.
>  >
>  > I can check the record activity but as mentioned before issues with
>  > mplayer and mp3 codecs will need  to be reported to where ever you get
>  > them from.
>
> as mikus said, his applications all worked before.  this is a
> regression, plain an simple, *with respect to the previous XO releases*.
> now, to the extent that fedora doesn't really care about any
> specific piece of hardware, especially one which wasn't running
> fedora when these things last worked, then i suppose it's
> appropriate to ignore the issues.

Yes, it may well be a regression but if he's using rpms or binary
tarballs compiled against older versions of Fedora that could be the
issue. It could be as simple as directing him to a repository that
contains the best version of mplayer to use on F11 but he's provided
nothing. I'm trying to help but I'm not god, I'm one person and if the
person that wants help isn't prepared to do some legwork why should I.
I do this in my free time and I due to the lack of people on the
project I could spend every spare second of waking time on it and
still not have every done.

> i think this, and the fact that no one is sure what's broken in
> the current fedora-on-XO releases, points to huge holes in the
> OLPC plan of record for ongoing support of this product.  unless
> some energetic entity is willing to own the actual XO
> distribution(s), and be responsible for maintaining a bug list,
> and issuing even minimal release notes, i fear for the project.
> (or, rather, i fear that the project will be running 8.2 until
> the laptops die.  which wouldn't be the worst possible outcome, i
> suppose...  :-/ )

I'm trying to be an energetic entity to help move forward the Fedora
XO distro, but I am just one person. We need to aim to support the
core distro because of the lack of people to work on it. If in the
process I can help with codecs and applications that aren't part of
the core OLPC distro I will when I can, but if someone has the
attitude of 'sound' and 'moving pictures' are broken fix them and not
prepared to report any more than that I don't have the time to do any
more.

Peter



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