[sf-lug] PCLinux OS release

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

> Please note that i am using the KDE 4.10.1 version as indicated in the
> file name title.

Ah, right, thanks.

> The latest Gnome has a fallback choice of Classic mode but I am not
> eager to try it as I ran Gnome 2.3 or however high they took it under
> Mandriva for several weeks to see the differences from KDE 4.x and
> I went back to KDE.

Online accounts say that the GNOME developers have eliminated Fallback
Mode entirely, as of GNOME 3.8.  This is in fact one of the more recent
things that have motivated discontent with upstream GNOME generally (and
towards the MATE and Cinnamon variants).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_GNOME_3#Fallback_Mode

> I found even the old version of Gnome not to
> be as easy to use as KDE 4.x and that says a lot about the Gnome Desktop
> environment.  

Among the problems to watch for:
http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm#_Steve_You_Sound_Angry

> I was told 9 months was the schedule.

Well, they've consistently done May or June every year, once a year, so
far.

The notion of having 'problems gettting a release out' should be
considered in context.  The release manager of a distribution had to 
manage the elimination of release-critical bugs until he/she judges the
distribution ready to go out.  You cannot speed up the process by
throwing more personnel at the problem:  In fact, that reliably makes it
take _longer_ (Brooks's Law).  So, rationally, the release manager has
to allow the process to take as long as it needs to take.

You _can_ try to force the process by insisting that you're going to
make a ship date come hell or high water.  Canonical, Ltd. does that
with Ubuntu Linux, for example, and the quality consequences have often
been dire.  On balance, it's just not a smart thing to do.