Re: [tlug] Ubtuntu 8.04 -> 8.10 Upgrade Pain

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Scott Robbins writes:
 > On Sun, Jan 04, 2009 at 05:59:43AM +0900, Ian Barwick wrote:

 > > I'm not sure if it's an Ubuntu thing or an Xorg thing, but I was
 > > somewhat bemused to find an effectively empty xorg.conf file. It seems
 > > settings are dynamically detected, which comes as a bit of a culture
 > > shock;

The real culture shock for me is that the defaults don't suck.
(Dynamic detection does, though, especially of Japanese keyboards.)

 > Yes, it's an xorg thing.  They feel they've improved so much that you
 > don't need an xorg.conf.

Hey, X.org has its problems, but this one isn't their fault.  They'd
like to believe you don't need one, but they don't believe that (and
with good reason, older hardware doesn't support the necessary
queries).  The "it's *your* computer, that's why *you* have no need-
to-know" crowd are responsible for this one.

 > As with many theoretical improvements in Linux (Fedora and
 > Ubuntu--working together to keep Windows number one)--it turns out
 > to be a regression for a large minority.

I got snagged on Gentoo and maybe Mac OS X, too, though.  At least on
Gentoo they leave in the comments that tell you how to disable HAL (is
anybody else here old enough to get chills when software named HAL
gets between you and the hardware?  At least it's not Loki 9073!) and
go back to the more or less manual configuration.