Win98 -- all kidding aside

[Mario Vukelic]

On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 16:16 -0500, Jimmy Montague wrote:
> Vukelic -- Floppy Formatter is installed on my system and has been
> installed since the get-go. It doesn't work. Although Applications -
> Add/Remove shows that floppy formatter is present, floppy formatter
> doesn't show up in any of the menus and no formatting options appear
> when I right-click the drive in any context.

You need to learn to read instructions, otherwise the list will be of
little use to you. To repeat, again:

Right-click the Applications menu to edit the menu.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In the left pane go
to System Tools. Click it, then check the box next to Floppy Formatter.
This will add the floppy formatter to the System Tools menu. 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Start it from there.


For the record, I am personally not very happy with Ubuntu's choice of
hiding some tools in the menu although they are installed. I think it is
confusing. At the very least it should try to be smart and, e.g., show
the floppy formatter if the system has a floppy drive. (If no floppy
drive is present, hiding the item is fine, since it reduces menu
clutter)


> I made those facts plain early in the exchange, but Silverstrim was so
> busy spouting command-line blah that he missed the point. 

A very simple trick to not come across as a jackass is not to call
people by their last names in an unfriendly manner. Just FYI.

> Seems like you
> missed it, too. 

To repeat myself yet again, you failed at reading instruction. Blame
yourself.

> So now you've got it (I hope), there's another bug you
> can report. Or put somewhere.

First of all, we are trying to behave as a community here, since it
gives the best results and makes it a nicer place to be.

Part of that is that it is considered a nice thing to do to file bug
reports when you find a bug. Telling others what they should do is,
well, not so nice. Who do you think you are? Why do you think I owe you
anything? 

If for some reason you don't want to file the report yourself (e.g.,
because you feel you are not experienced enough to write a helpful
report), many people will be willing to help you write it or even do it
for you, if you ask nicely.

Of course, it is not a bug as I already described. If it was, I would
not be able to report it since I do not have a floppy drive.

> Maybe it's a Gnome thing. Maybe it's a Nautilus thing. Maybe it's a
> Ubuntu thing. I'm a user, for god's sake, not a
> developer/programmer. How the hell am I supposed to know whose/which
> province the thing belongs in?

Yeah, that's right. But since this is so, you should also show restraint
in blaming all and sundry for issues you believe to experience.


> And regarding that question I will again raise a point that I raised
> earlier. The sooner Ubuntu (or Mandrake or Xandros or any other distro)
> realizes that responsibility for buggy administrative software installed
> by THEIR DISTRO is THEIR PROBLEM, the sooner those bugs will be fixed
> and the sooner that distro will capture more market share.

And you think that people who have worked in the industry for decades
don't realize this?


> If I have a problem with Explorer (the Windoze file manager) Microsoft
> doesn't blow me off and tell me to consult the Explorer development
> team. Microsoft treats it as a Windoze problem and, soon as they can
> devise one, broadcasts the fix for that problem. 

You are living in a dream world. I work for a quite important global
company with 15,000 seats (and a quite a few Windows servers) which pays
millions of dollars to MS each year. I have reported numerous bugs
(which have a real impact on our business) to MS through the
representative that they have assigned to us. Sometimes they acknowledge
that it is actually a bug in their software (even though I can give them
reproduction instructions in every single case), and sometimes, they
actually fix it. Usually a few years later, if at all.

Are you telling me that Windows has no bugs?

> So, if Ubuntu is going
> to rely on the Gnome interface and the Nautilus file manager, Ubuntu
> people would be wise to take versions of Gnome and Nautilus under the
> Ubuntu development wing and solve problems associated with those tools
> and better integrate those tools into the Ubuntu concept.

This is true, but what do you think happens all the time? You need to
stop extrapolating from a possible, but quite minor floppy disk issue
(icon not renamed automatically to represent the floppy disk filesystem
label) to grand sweeping statements that no bugs are getting fixed.

Take a look at Launchpad and see the work that is being done.

> More directly -- when Ubuntu developers start thinking of Ubuntu AS A
> SYSTEM instead of a collection of software that, for the most part,
> works together, the sooner Ubuntu Linux will attract a lions share of
> the user base -- a user base that, whether YOU like it or not, consists
> of guys like me who are devoted to the GUI.

Again, I believe that guys like Mark Shuttleworth, who has made billions
in the software industry and was a Debian developer before that know a
thing or two, even if you don't teach them the basics.

But yeah this is the way it should go -- and it does. Compare a linux
distro from 5 years ago to one from today. Then compare Windows from 5
years ago to Windows from today. Then come back and tell me which system
makes faster progress.