August 6, 2007
Contrary to the wave of Anti-Automatix posts/reviews/bloggs/comments, an actual poll on ubuntuforums.org shows that the users themselves clearly support it with by an overwhelming 52.11%. It is also interesting that 7.28% who had a problem didn’t even bother to file a bug report or advise the A-X devs. Linux needs feedback to improve, not whinging.
3 Responses to “Ubuntu users vote in support of Automatix”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
August 7, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Yeah, but if Automatix causes problems (and it does) and a user does not know this is caused by Automatix and files a bug report on the respective program without noting he also has Automatix installed this makes improving Linux a lot more difficult…
August 8, 2007 at 8:03 am
Hello Vincent ! Long time no see :D, nice to know you keep blessing my blogg with your knowledgable presence. With all due respect, I seriously doubt that you have even looked through the code as Matthew did, then you probably wouldn’t even understand it, as Matthew most certainly did. Write us up a dissertation on dpkg or even apt and I will -maybe- listen to you.
If you knew anything at all about dpkg or apt, you would know that they are by no means perfect either and can cause problems themselves. But then again, it’s all too easy to have something go wrong deep inside the distro which you know nothing about and then blame Automatix, which is the case 99% of the time.
You have to remember that Automatix is just 2 guys working on a project right from the beginning. Dpkg has been a 10-year project by a group of devs, and it still has bugs and breaks.
So give the Automatix guys a break, and stop posting FUD.
You have to remember that back in the days of Hoary and Breezy (maybe you are too young to remember) if it hadn’t have been for Automatix, Ubuntu wouldn’t be where it is today.
New users went to Ubuntu in droves, Automatix was all over the forums, other distros were jealous.
Now every whinging little Ubuntuite feels that they know enough to criticise a project that 90% wouldn’t even understand.
So just keep coming back Vincent, but next time, hit me with some of your knowledge, see if you can get me to respect your opinion.
August 8, 2007 at 9:58 am
You’re right, I didn’t look through the code and I probably wouldn’t understand it. But you’re also right that Matthew did, and I am knowledgeable enough to understand his conclusions.
Of ocurse apt and dpkg are by no means perfect, but in most common usage, they cause no problems. Automatix, on the other hand, can cause problems doing the most basic things. And the problem is not that some problems are blamed on Automatix, it’s that some problems are not blamed on Automatix, even if it is the cause of the problem. This makes identifying bugs way harder.
The fact that it is a project by just two guys does not mean we should not warn against probable problems.
I’ve been using Ubuntu since Warty, don’t worry
It’s true that Automatix has played its part in the rising popularity of Ubuntu, but nowadays the problems Automatix tries to solve are not that big a problem anymore, and there are mostly better (albeit perhaps a little bit more research work) solutions. In fact, this series of blog posts will point out alternatives to all of Automatix’s functions.
With “not understanding” I suppose you mean “be able to read and edit the source code”? Because you don’t need to be able to do that to see that Automatix can cause severe problems, and Matthew identified them nicely.
Don’t worry, I’ll keep checking my feeds
Anyway, it’s completely up to you how high you value my opinion, but I hope that you will see that I base it on facts, even though I haven’t found out about them myself. And sure, you can keep recommending Automatix if you please, but I urge you to always mention that usage is on own risk, and when an Automatix user asks for help at any time, to have them mention they have Automatix installed.