If you use Ubuntu Dapper as your primary OS, you’ve undoubtedly been hit or are blissfully unaware of the serious X.org problem with the most recent update offered by the ‘notifier’. I say blissfully because the fix was out before I could count to 3.
In the world of software this is a bit of a paradox. One one hand — “How dare they not test their fixes!” and the other…”They fixed it already?!” The folks that are used to commercial software get a little nervous when patches don’t work as advertised or seem to cause more system problems than they solve. Why is that? It could be because they have been burned by companies that are too slow to correct problems and realize that a bad bug will be around for a long time.
I’ve been involved with Gnu/Linux now for about 7 years and during that time I’ve seen dramatic progress towards Joe Sixpack. When I started, I felt like Joe (that from a SW Eng). But now things really are looking good for Joe.
What is the point? Sure the update was a serious infraction, and many probably reinstalled because they didn’t know what to do. However the community rallied and found a fix in a matter of minutes. Maybe Ubuntu (and Linux in general) needs some kind of rollback or “restore point” that will allow Joe to undo any “damage” that may have been done by a bad update. This would really help out Joe.
Until that time, the community is there and ready to help (And perhaps you shouldn’t do an update as soon as it is available :)). Next time, don’t reinstall, just go to the www.ubuntuforums.org and see what you need to do.
j
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