Question about packages updating in Lenny

Telemachos · 05-17-2008, 06:07 AM

See here for a discussion of getting the resolution you want with the newer xorg: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=26577

angryfirelord · 05-17-2008, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telemachos

That's a pretty silly argument. You assume that upstream development is perfect, and that's obviously not so. Do you have lots of other examples of Debian patches harming an otherwise ideal upstream app?

What happened to the openssh seeding was a big fuck up, but if you read around more, you will see that (1) the Debian maintainer was trying to fix a problem with the upstream package and (2) he wrote their mailing list with questions and describing what he planned to but they also failed to notice the problem the fix would cause. See this link for further details: http://wiki.debian.org/SSLkeys#head-...f4205325c85819

Well, I now know I was making an unfair comparison (just me blowing off some stream), but thanks for the clarification. Like I said before, the system tends to usually work, otherwise I wouldn't be using Debian!

Quote:

Originally Posted by dahveed3

Actually Iceweasel is an improved version of Firefox. Don't remember the exact bugs that Mozilla has refused to recognize as problems and bother to fix through the years, but Debian DID fix them. Having had assorted problems with Firefox on both Windows and other distros and having experienced Iceweasel, with the user agent switcher extension for jerky websites, I can say that the experience has been superior. Maybe placebo, but I don't think so.

I see the same thing too. I remember using Firefox 2.0 in Ubuntu 6.10 and it was just jerky and plain unstable for a while. When Iceweasel eventually came out (and I had loaded up Debian), I noticed a much smoother experience. So it's the real deal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dahveed3

The dpkg-reconfigure problem is not a bug, but a "feature." In xorg-xserver-1.4 (xorg 7.3 and above) the video settings are now supposed to be all automatically detected and applied based upon what xorg reads from the driver and video hardware. XRandR can be used to adjust the resolution. Things like the Composite extension still need to be manually edited in but we're supposed to be able to not need to add any specific video settings in there. In reality it is not able to compensate for inaccurate monitor reports of screen size and refresh rates or able to give the user the ability to select custom settings.

They just took that stuff out of dpkg-reconfigure, and users have been reporting that manually adding in settings at times does nothing as xorg is ignoring what the user edits into xorg.conf.

There have been discussions I have seen in both the Debian and Ubuntu forums and users have figured out ways to generate modelines through nvidia-settings and manually applying them successfully. I forget exactly, but something I think is called jte (?), a part of X, can also be used to generate a modelines section that corrects for not automatically detected settings.

Oh yeah, now I remember. I had to do the same thing when I loaded Lenny onto my laptop. Even though the fglrx module was installed, X wasn't seeing it for whatever reason, so I got the newest fglrx driver from ATI's site and used aticonfig --initial to make a new one, which made a different file compared to the one in Lenny's repository. The nvidia one for my desktop was a little weird because it kept loading the nv driver, so I used the nvidia-settings tool to generate a new xorg.

I guess the new design is better in the long run, just a little frustrating when your driver doesn't load as it did in the past.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dahveed3

And, I like rickh and think he offers a great deal to the community. Quite forceful in his opinions, which rankles some, but he's always supported his opinions with valid arguments at some time in a thread or two. When encountering a response where he doesn't fully go into it, just waxing poetic about what he perceives as users ignoring the easy Debian ways to do their own thing and then (surprise!) having problems, I can see where a user can get a bit peeved.

For me, I'd rather not check every update. By sticking to established Debian practices, such as those that our outspoken rickh recommends from time to time, I've found that aptitude full-upgrade daily has never broken a thing on my system. Just lucky? I haven't had that kind of success when doing the same on other distros. In general, when Debian releases something into testing it works. It's just that at times the ways to configure things have undergone changes so we need to learn the new tricks. I'd rather proceed into the future than try to manage a system mixed up with older packages. Almost guaranteed that something will break that way.

Oh no, I'm not criticizing rickh's intelligence, in fact I often look forward to what he has to say on here and at forums.debian.net. However, I think sometimes he can be a bit too quick to judge others and that often gets him painted as an elitist. I agree with them though that sticking with Debian packages is the best way to make sure that nothing gets broken, but there are different methods to solving the same problem.

But yes, aptitude ftw! (In fact, rickh's advise got me to start using aptitude) Now we have to get those Sidux users to start using it as well.

dahveed3 · 05-18-2008, 04:25 PM

A while back when I was checking out the Sidux website I remember reading recommendations there not to use aptitude. Now that apt-get by default does a lot of things similar to how aptitude does them it shouldn't be as much of a problem. They were probably concerned with aptitude automatically removing packages it hadn't tagged while doing its own installations whenever calling upon it to install or upgrade stuff. Keeps a Debian system lean and mean, but can cause problems if mixing apt-get, sidux scripts, and aptitude. The aptitude keep-all command before doing things on a system that other package managers have been used on is a safe way to prevent that sort of thing.

There are a bunch of threads on the Ubuntu Multimedia forums and scattered among the Debian forum in sections like Desktop, Configuration, General, and the how-to's about the new xorg. You don't see happy campers, but those that it works automatically for likely aren't posting much.

I'm Eck in most forums so if you see my longish paragraphs about stuff there are my 2 cents worth about things. A bit less useful earlier on, and then progressively more informative as I've learned about Linux things. Often there are complaints or jokes about record post lengths! I get a bit long winded. I see that, and try to be concise but sometimes I just feel it necessary to explain and it just takes some time, length, whatever.

Gotta go a whole week or two without the computer as I'll be traveling. This is gonna be tough! Haven't been on the road in years but had a major loss in the family so gotta go visiting. I'll bring along a Knoppix DVD but my sister doesn't have a computer. Don't know if it'll get much use. Maybe some library will let me use the DVD on their computer so I can use webmail to get that stuff read and cleared out at least. Now is when I wish I had some sort of laptop.