[svlug] Re: Drew salivating over Roswell RHL 7.2 beta

[Rick Moen]

[Snipped:  A whole lot of questions about the "Roswell" beta.  I sent 
some links off-list, which should cover that.]


I think I should say a few words about beta (pre-release) distributions.
People tend to get a bit gung-ho on these things, and want to acquire
and install them, in order to get early access to goodies.  I
understand.  I've been there.

And, once there, I got reminded what betas are all about.  Pre-release
software is put out in public beta form in order to be tested.
Debugged.  That's a fairly colourless way of saying that things are
broken.  They malfunction.  They corrupt data files.  They corrupt
entire filesystems.  (_This_ beta has recently been discovered to have,
among other things, a Makefile for printconf that wipes out your
system.)

You put up with that because you're an _experienced_ and highly
self-reliant user, willing to (e.g.) download and burn CDs repeatedly
during the beta cycle.  You should be the sort of person who finds all
the relevant materials by himself, and has found, read, and digested all
of the release notes, known-bugs documents, and support mailing list
posts -- before even thinking of installing the software. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but, if you're the sort of person who
has to ask where the beta _is_, doesn't know what a swapper is, who
thinks it's an endorsement when I say the beta Disk Druid is "less
sucky", who tries to argue about DRI/OpenGL being broken in XFree86
4.1.0, who asks acquaintances to burn CDs for you, and who asks those
acquaintances sales/marketing questions about Red Hat Software, Inc.'s
commercial updating service, you probably are _not_ someone who should 
run pre-release Linux distributions.  Wait for the release version.

-- 
Cheers,                                     The Viking's Reminder:
Rick Moen                                   Pillage first, _then_ burn.
rick at linuxmafia.com