[Ardour-Users] Hm...

[Thomas Vecchione]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 10:59 AM, David Kastrup <dak at gnu.org> wrote:
>> Then it sounds like not only are the issues with RTFM, but also you
>> are using a rather old version of Ardour(Several months at least).
>
> Uh, this is the user list, not the developer list.

What exactly is your point with this?  Developers are not the only
ones that can stay up to date.

> Well, you point out to the material at flossmanual, and if I look at
> <URL:http://en.flossmanuals.net/Ardour/Ubuntu>, they discuss installing
> version 2.8.4 on Ubuntu 9.10, whereas I am using 2.8.6 on Ubuntu 10.04.
> Actually a newer version than you are documenting.

This is a good point, thankfully it hasn't changed to my knowledge.
However the problems with using an old version still exist, including
the lack of the Help>Manual links, and a fair variety of problems
associated with Ubuntu Packaging as Paul referenced.

>
> And what you are documenting is using the package manager from a
> standard installation for installing Ardour from repository.  I have
> been doing exactly that, using the most recent released version of
> Ubuntu, quite in line with what your online documentation recommends.
>

Except it doesn't necessarily recommend it, it just says that is a way
to install.  What we typically recommend, and especially with Ubuntu,
is to build it from source.  However we also realize that not everyone
is ready to make that step, and the authors of that document in
particular chose to include that.  I don't necessarily disagree with
that choice, haven't thought about it to much, but I do recommend, no
matter what your distribution, that you use an up to date version of
Ardour as it ensures that a bug you run across isn't already fixed.

> I mean, newbie-bashing is fun and all that.  But it is sort of absurd to
> bash people for doing exactly what your documentation recommends (only
> using a more uptodate version than your documentation shows), and
> arriving at a configuration that omits pointing at your documentation.
>

1.  This is hardly newbie bashing for me.  I will readily admit it is
bashing someone that complained they couldn't use a DAW when they have
no experience using a DAW and didn't read the manual.  And you know, I
will admit that is probably the wrong thing to do as well.  But at
least now you have read part of the manual, had you done that to start
with you probably would not have had lost 4 hours trying to do basic
work.

> So perhaps grit your teeth for another few months, _update_ the outdated
> instructions to refer to Ubuntu 10.10 once it is out, and _then_ return
> to newbie-bashing with a vengeance.
>

Unfortunately this will never fix the main problem we have with
Ubuntu, namely their packaging is constantly out of date and that
there are almost always bugs particular to their package because they
refuse to build it how it is recommended.  That being said Ubuntu is
still one of the most commonly used distributions, especially for
people trying out Linux for the first time, and ignoring it is not
necessarily the best course of action(Though I will say in the tech
ref IIRC we specifically avoided distribution specific information
especially to avoid what you just did, which was to take it as a
reccomendation).

> It's just a few months.
>

And another few months, and another, and yet the basic process doesn't
change.....

     Seablade