On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 20:36 +0100, James Freer wrote:
Wayne
Not sure i quite follow what you're trying to convey?
"But then how do you ever learn how to fix things when re-installation isn't really a practical solution ?" imho that is determined by time and cost - if you can fix a problem in 1 hours workshop time then maybe worth it. Perhaps you have the ability to spend a week rewriting and compiling some glitch... perhaps someone would pay you to do that. Re-install and job done in an hour at no cost!
Yes the investment in time researching a solution is reasonable the first time you encounter a problem but if you just reinstall when you hit a glitch then you have two problems.
a. You cannot be sure you won't just run into the same problem again b. If you do you won't know how to fix it and it is quite likely that once you know what to do the fix is quicker than re-installation.
Now I would agree that some computer problems are not worth fixing but that is generally only when the fix is labour intensive each time you do it or you cannot be sure to have completely "fixed" the problem (i.e. in the case of a heavily compromised machine) But from what you say this sounds like it is more of a bug, and if so it most likely has a fix or workaround that is far quicker than reinstalling your operating system so the investment in time to discover that if it is as common as you suggest is worthwhile no ?
As to whether it would take me a week of "writing and compiling" that I cannot answer as I am still not sure what the problem is you are referring to. Can you give me some links ?
I'd be interested to see a widespread issue relating to ubuntu updates and/or apt do you have a launchpad id or something I can work from ?