[Mageia-discuss] [Poll] What are your top requirements?

[imnotpc]

On 01/28/2012 01:13 PM, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
> In https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1661 there's a
> poll running which lists all kinds of important features of a
> distribution. Unfortunately until today this poll has not received
> enough attention to draw any reasonable and remarkable information
> about the topic.
>
> The poll aims at YOU, the users of Mageia. It wants to find out your
> top 3 MUST HAVEs of a distribution - not single packages and/or
> applications but the 3 features a distribution MUST have to become or
> stay YOUR distribution.
>
> If you have missed this poll so far, please have a look, read the
> initial posting and give your 3 votes. The poll is about to be closed
> next week (Jan 31) and after this I will compile a report with the
> results. The more votes are cast, the better it will show what you
> need.
>
> Thx for participating.
> (Thx claire for reminding me that there is such a thing as a mailing list! :) )
>
Hi All,

I'm new here (a couple months) but I registered on the forum so I could 
vote. However I agree with Antoine in that there are quite a few more 
than 3 of those choices that are "deal breakers". My reasons for coming 
to Mageia weren't listed specifically, so I thought this might be an 
appropriate time and place to tell you why I use Mageia.

I'm a longtime Linux user (Redhat 6.2 was my first boxed set, but I 
tried a few before that). Over those years I've used a handful of 
distros and demoed a dozen others. I started with Redhat, then SUSE, 
Mandrake, openSUSE, Fedora, and now Mageia. That may sound like I'm 
fickle or hard to please, but as someone who manages a number of 
desktops and servers I assure you there were solid reasons for each 
switch. I'm not going to go OT with all the gory details of each change, 
but I can sum it up in a couple points that I hope are more valuable to 
the community that my vote on the forum.

First, why I leave a distro: This is easy to describe but probably hard 
to accomplish. Regressions. When something that worked in the last 
release stops working in this one, that's a problem. If it's trivial to 
fix, then it's a small issue. If it takes days to fix or can't be fixed 
at all it's a deal breaker.

Second, why I chose a distro: This is also easy to describe, but much 
harder to accomplish. It needs to install cleanly. Minor things like 
changing a checkbox during installation are no big deal. A failed 
install or a barebones desktop with no/poor configuration tools is a big 
deal. Also, I don't use any unusual or poorly supported software, so the 
software that I use must be in an official repo and easy to install.

Third, my humble suggestion: If I were to describe a dev/release policy 
that was sure to make me happy it would be this:

1) Zero regression policy - I know this isn't possible, but I think it 
should be the highest priority.

2) If there will be a known regression or deprecated feature, it should 
be announced one release prior to being effective. This would give users 
time to adjust, find other software, or find another distro if need be.

3) Stable. With Linux I consider this a given, but it needs to be listed 
so that it doesn't get ignored.

4) Keep the community friendly and vibrant. I listed this as one of my 3 
choices on the survey, not because it was a deal breaker, but because I 
think it is the strongest feature of Mageia and it would be truly 
unfortunate to lose it. This is the most respectful and friendly online 
community I've come across and you should all be very proud of what 
you've done in a short time. I wish my life were different and I could 
contribute.

Good Luck,
Jeff