I think that will only add to the confusion. Operating systems aren't supposed to be esoteric. Pick a good name for each (your "future," etc sound good), and then write an easy to understand one-sentence explanation at the download site.
--- Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 14, 2004 at 06:47:42PM -0400, Chris > Metzler wrote: > > This thread got started because people were > frustrated about having > > to explain stable vs. testing vs. unstable to new > users trying > > Debian. But it appears to me that a lot of people > with strong > > ideas on how to fix that don't understand the > differences themselves. > > this is good evidence that there must be a better > approach than > the one we're currently using. > > john doe will read "stable" and might think it means > that "it's > got all the current upstream bug fixes" when what we > mean by it > is "we stopped adding new stuff to this one a long > time ago, and > haven't found any serious conflicts in quite a long > time". > > john doe will read "unstable" and may think it means > "not > stable", whereas what we mean is "probably stable, > and we're > working on making it more stable". > > john doe will read "testing" and may think it means > "experimental" when we intend it to mean "whatever > isn't stable > here will be really soon, and it'll be the new > stable version". > > there's a discrepancy between what a newbie it > likely to infer, > and what the old hands have learned to interpret. > > > The web page http://www.debian.org/devel/testing > explains what testing > > is. It isn't what many people in this thread seem > to be suggesting. > > exactly this confusion could be alleviated by a > better naming > scheme. but perhaps we should examine AVOIDING > descriptive names > altogether... > > > > as Tom Massey also has a point: > > On Thu, Apr 15, 2004 at 12:14:05AM +1000, Tom Massey > wrote: > > I vaguely suspect that renaming the releases won't > actually > > solve the problem that it's meant to - reducing > confusion > > among new Debian users. You're likely to just end > up with a > > new set of labels to explain. Any name you come up > with is > > going to be too short to fully explain the > situation: call > > stable 'server', testing 'desktop' for example, > and you still > > have to explain that the server release is good > for desktops > > if you prefer stability over new stuff, and the > desktop > > release might be good for a server if you need > more recent > > packages and don't want to search for backports. > You can't fit > > all that info into a short name. I run unstable > on my desktop > > machine, stable on my mail server because I know > what the > > names mean. Education as to what goes in to the > various Debian > > releases is the key, and changing the release > names doesn't do > > much for that. > > > perhaps instead of trying for > descriptive-but-too-short a name > for each layer (stable/testing/unstable) of release, > we should > stick to ONLY the colorful code names which will > give the newbie > NOTHING to assume about current-vs-stable, and then > they're more > likely to traipse over to the description page to > learn what's > what. > > i.e. instead of > > stable / server / rocksolid > testing / workstation / almost > unstable / cuttingedge / future > > maybe we should avoid the descriptive names and use > only > > ...slink > ...potato > woody > sarge > sid > > ? > > -- > I use Debian/GNU Linux version 3.0; > Linux boss 2.4.18-bf2.4 #1 Son Apr 14 09:53:28 CEST > 2002 i586 unknown > > DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #101 from Joost Kooij > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > : > Looking for a way to CREATE A PAGE OF LINKS to all > the > */index.html that already exist in your > /usr/share/doc tree? > apt-get install dwww > then point your browser to: > http://localhost/dwww > > Also see http://newbieDoc.sourceForge.net/ ... > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
