[mdlug] Linux in the store front ?

[David Relson]

On Mon, 21 May 2007 16:32:33 -0400 (EDT)
Rich Clark <rrclark at rrclark.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 18 May 2007, Wolfger wrote:
> 
> > On 5/18/07, Fati <fati at venerealinjection.com> wrote:
> > > > Why Is Linux not in the store shelves, is it because many
> > > > download the ISO's?
> > >
> > > That seems likely, I know personally I've only bought Linux from a
> > > store once, when I bought Redhat 5.2 nearly 10 years ago.
> > 
> > I bought Mandrake 7.2 off the store shelf, got home and found out
> > that 8.2 was just released... I don't think I need to say how
> > disappointed I was that I just paid ~$40 for something that was
> > already out of date, and which I immediately replaced with the
> > current version, which only cost me a few blank CDs.
> > 
> > I love the idea of having Linux on store shelves, but the fact is
> > that Linux releases new versions far too quickly for it to be a
> > really good idea. Maybe if there were more Gentoo-ish distros
> > (where "upgrading to the current version" is just a matter of
> > typing one command), it would be a better idea.
> 
> So what's difficult about updating your urpmi media sites, then
> issuing "urpmi --update --auto --auto-select"?

It's truly easy.  I've done it several times (at least 3 or 4 times).
It works quite well, though there's usually one or two download errors
which make it necessary to run the command a second (or third) time
before all is done. Occasionally one also runs into config file issues,
so saving a copy of /etc before starting is valuable.  To paraphrase
All-State (?) "don't run 'update world' without it"

David