[mythtv-users] Ubuntu Edgy -> Feisty upgrade report

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Tue May 1 23:57:44 UTC 2007


Brian J. Murrell wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-01-05 at 14:20 -0600, Brian Wood wrote:
>> But that always has been a drawback with Linux, if you move drives
>> around their names change, unlike Solaris or the like.
> 
> This is why you should not use the /dev/[hs]d* names and use something
> more static like the /dev/disk/by-{uu,}id paths.  They will remain
> static no matter where your drive is.  If you took it out of the machine
> and put into a USB enclosure you should still see it at the same path.

Agreed, but many scripts and much software are/is not written this way.
This fact has to be known by the developers of the kernel. No "upgrade"
should ever be made that the upgraders know will break things, even if
they are "right" morally and technically, without a long and clear
warning to everyone.

There is a lot of bad software and a lot of inexperienced users out
there, you may not like it but it is reality.

That's the kind of arrogance I expect from the likes of MS.

A far better solution would be to have an explanation at the start of
the upgrade process, and give the user a choice of selecting the old
behavior or the new, and a chance to migrate smoothly.

The old "odd/even" kernel upgrade process would not have allowed this.
Linus has stated that doing away with that process has made kernel
upgrades "smoother", which I am sure is true - they would be even
"smoother" if we all moved to Windows.


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