Re: 2.1.X and its separation from the Linux User base

Horst von Brand (vonbrand@pc17.usm.edu.ec)
Wed, 04 Feb 1998 16:17:05 +0500


> It has been almost two years since 2.0.X was released and it seems to me
> that just a few highly specialized people are using 2.1.X for mostly
> limited purposes. I use it for a workstation and I know of others as
> well.

I'm using 2.1.x for workstation (and limited experimental server) use
exlusively since it came out, or thereabouts. Many of the hackers I know do
the same, they just keep quiet until they have a bug report or patch to offer.

> But mostly the people who run production servers or fully featured
> networking stuff use 2.0.X. On the Campus I run I use 2.0.X exclusively.

That's exactly the idea! If you need a _stable_ version, run the stable
one. If you want fun and games, run beta versions; for fireworks look for
experimental patches and pre-releases. There are plenty collections of
these animals, just look around.

> I think it will be very difficult to release 2.2.x and to get a large
> number of users to test it before release. There is not even much concern
> to fix the existing bugs in 2.1.X (See the IP masquerading issue) . Many
> people (like I) have or had to just give up on trying 2.1.X in a fully
> featured environment.

If you percieve so, then help in finding and fixing the bugs and
misfeatures! Just pushing 2.2 out of the door _without_ fixing the bugs,
stabilizing the new features and smoothing the rough corners won't do any
good: It's (more or less) what happened to 2.0, and there is talk of a
2.0.34 now... And there are massive changes in the code for 2.1 that need
to get a workover, and features that were included that need to be made to
work first.

I don't much mind if we go up to 2.1 255 before 2.2.0... if we later don't
go past 2.2.4 ;-)

-- 
Horst von Brand                           mailto:vonbrand@pc17.usm.edu.ec
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