[tlug] Re: Feisty Upgrade, USB issues and other oddities

["Shannon Jacobs" <shannon.jacobs@example.com>]

> Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:36:02 +0900
> From: Dave M G <martin@example.com>
>
> TLUG,
>
> So, for amusements sake, I upgraded to Feisty Fawn. I was motivated by
> the fact that I had heard that Bluetooth support was a little better,
> and I want to get my wireless headphone/microphone set working.
>
> I know it's beta, but it's only a week or so away from release, so I
> figured I'd be safe.

My main comment is that if really want to be safe, you should wait at least 
a week or two after the release to see if any big bugs crawl out of the 
woodwork. The people who volunteer to run beta stuff have to be regarded as 
a highly skewed user sample, to put it politely...

My minor comment regards my own upgrade plans for Ubuntu. I finally got 
around to doing the tweaking on my mini-scratch-monkey's hard disk, and I 
now have about a GB to play with. The current state is partly stripped from 
Dapper. Perhaps 75% of a normal installation, and somewhat behind on its 
updates, too. My two main options are to take it to Edgy now and then go to 
Feisty in a couple of weeks (a two-step upgrade), or wait and try to do the 
Feisty upgrade in one fell swoop (a one-step upgrade). I'm quite sure that I 
have room for the Edgy (or Feisty) upgrade, but I'm concerned that Edgy 
might leave me in a tight situation for the Feisty upgrade. I'm also unsure 
if I might get a "cleaner" upgrade by going with one-step, or if I might be 
at greater risk of running into some irresolvable Feisty dependencies on 
Edgy if I skip it. Anyone with deeper insights into the real risks?

No real USB comment, except that I still think it would still be nice to 
figure out how to use the modem mode on my USB-connected phone with Linux. 
That's a Sharp 003. The hardware is okay, but the Windows Mobile OS is truly 
appalling.

My oddity comment regards the club funding... This auction-based thing kind 
of bothers me. In my current technical and non-programmatic state, I don't 
feel like I'm likely to make any significant technical contributions. That 
leaves non-technical contributions, including funding--but auctions sort of 
leave me out. Partly I feel I have too much junk already, but mostly it 
bothers me to feel like some people seem to be taking significant financial 
hits for the fractional benefit of the group. I'd rather just pony up a bit 
at each meeting and let it go at that.

> From that perspective, I'd rather invert the problem. I suggest the club 
decide on a budget and let the members discuss it and vote on it. Having 
decided on how much money is needed, just divide it up by the number of 
meetings and the number of people at each meeting, and ask for donations of 
the appropriate amount, perhaps defrayed by auction proceeds or any other 
revenue sources. I don't know what the budget has been, but considering the 
meetings I've attended over the last few months, if most people gave a 
hundred yen at a meeting, that would probably generate rather more revenue 
than seems to be needed...