[POLL] Do you use Bleeding Edge/Beta Releases?


Do you use Bleeding Edge/Beta Releases?  

86 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you use Bleeding Edge/Beta Releases?

    • Everything - there's blood everywhere! [Anime Physics apply]
      32
    • GUI wise [or] Server wise, everything
      7
    • 1, 2, or a minor few number of apps
      39
    • If it's not offically released, I wan't touch it.
      8
    • If it's not at a 1.0+ release, I refuse to have it!
      0


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I'm curious - how many others out there actually use Betas and to what extent? Why do you do it?

I'm about to go on a beta/bleeding edge install craze on a duplicated [wouldn't do this on a normal use machine - at least at first] & finely-tuned Slackware-current+2.6.4 machine - with X-server [freedesktop.org], GARNOME 2.6 Beta 2, Enlightenment DR17 CVS, Evolution 1.5, etc. coming in the future.

For me, this is more for testing and a "I do it, because I can." project for myself, but if I can get some personal karma points [read: feel better about myself] for submitting bugs, then hey - Cool!

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I voted everything because I have my apt-get configured to use experimental releases and I keep my system current through that. That being said, apt-get is often a few weeks behind the times (I need to wait for another debian user to compile the code and post a .DEB binary package). So I'm really only near-bleeding edge, if that is at all possible.

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I like to use cvs builds all the time, usually when i find bugs (that aren't of my own design) i always report and suggest possible fixes. I've been really meaning to join an OSS project like freedesktop's cairo, mame, or something, but during semester i don't have nearly enough time.

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I'll take the latest mm-sources, gnome-current (including evo 1.5), nptl, udev, Java 1.5. You name it. If it's new I want it (except Xfree :no:).

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Do you guys find that a lot of these betas, esp in the X, kernel patching, and DE/WM arena, help with the speed of things - with more optimized code, better ways of doing things in the backend, etc? One of the tests I'm doing with this is seeing where I can eek performance out of my laptop. I don't expect huge increases, but with a PII/400 and a 2.5MB NeoMagic video card, any performance boost is a good one :)

OT:

Hahaha. I love these laws. :laugh:

:vbfeg: Found those back when I first got web access (around '94/'95 - whenever ADS BBS became KIS.Net) - they've been a staple for explaining outrageous things ever since :ninja: Law #17 and Law #18 are the most referenced.

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Well, everything on my system was compiled with a bleeding edge compiler, gcc 3.4. Also, KDE 3.1.94 (when it was bleeding edge), blackbox from CVS, glibc from CVS, XFree86 4.3.902 (need to upgrade this), kernel 2.6.0 (upgrading this now to 2.6.4 along with glibc), gimp 2.0-pre2 (need to upgrade), mplayer 1.0-pre<something> from CVS and some other stuff. Come to think of it, everything's out of date. Well, gotta rebuild my system then with everything CVS.

OT: That laws of anime page was great! Bookmarked.

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i don't have anything that is "mission critical" so if somethin decides to bug out on me it's ok...i have a good backup image ;)...so yes, i will throw practically beta/alpha on here and test it out....OS wise...this is where the beauty of MS Virtual PC 2004 comes in :woot:

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.this is where the beauty of MS Virtual PC 2004 comes in

Oh I'm sorry but Beauty and MS don't go together :blink: . Not that I have something against that application but my friend tried to run Mandrake on it and he had nothing but odd video problems which he didn't have when he tried later on seperate partitions.

As for my system, it really depends.

If I'm sure that the application won't hurt the base system , I'l go for it. For example, I know that the latest fluxbox versions RULE so thats why I run 0.9.8.

The last thing I'l run that's considered as a "rc" or "testing" is the kernel. I guess I Just don't have time for headaches so I just usually keep the rythme of latest stable builts. gotta love 2.6.4!

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what is the fun in not using bleeding edge. Unless I had some sort of dependency on the system running linux for a long period of time (such as a server) I would use normal stable releases. but for my purposes, the more it bleeds the better it is.

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Gentoo ~x86, several breakmygentoo ebuilds (including firefox-cvs (menus are gtk themed now!) and gnome-current), and a few homebrewn ebuilds. It's pretty fun :D

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including firefox-cvs (menus are gtk themed now!)

You tempt me. I've been using Epiphany 1.1.x (I love its speed/integration/higification) for a couple of months now, but GTK menus just may be the thing to get me to try Firefox again.

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I'll test one or two apps but I usually use stable releases since I have to have my Linux box up and running all the time (it's my file server).

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other than firefox I don't think there's anything I'm using that isn't officially released & stable. My servers are valuable to me - and I really don't have the time/energy to constantly up date. When I'm not doing something productive with my workstation machines I don't like to be near them.

I've been tempted to install evas and the CVS enlightenment stuff, but never followed through.

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I'll use a few betas. It depends.

Recent betas I've used include:

Audacity

Gimp 2

I guess techinically using Firefox 0.8 is beta, I've used it since back when it was Phoenix.

i also use Thunderbird

I wouldn't however use a beta OS, I didn't for example download the Mandrake betas (though they did look good) because it's generally too much trouble for something which you know is only going to last a few weeks in its current state anyway.

I also don't use the unstable kernels or anything. I think the most daring beta install I've done is KDE 3.2 beta. So not all that scarey really.

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I think the "unstable" adjective is usually not true. For example I use "unstable" kernels all the time and they are very stable. Granted some things that are "unstable" are unstable, but for the most part that just means they haven't been used thoroughly by a large number of individuals.

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Granted some things that are "unstable" are unstable

I like that, things that are unstable..., are unstable. More words of wisdom!! :D

Seriously though, I probably should have said the Kernel Testing rather than unstable. I can't actually personally comment on its stability because (as I said before) I don't use it. I stick to release kernels.

BTW 2.6 rocks!

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