[64studio-devel] New kernel & GNOME backports

[Daniel James]

Hi Free,

 > We could try to
> backport individual applications (e.g. synaptic) instead of the whole
> suite.

Alternatively, we could plan to backport the whole of Gnome 2.20 when it 
becomes available, with 64 Studio 3.0 in mind.

However I think we have to be careful not to go 'release crazy' :-)

People sometimes say Debian has a long release cycle, but if you look at 
what Microsoft does, they put out a major version of Windows every 3-5 
years and a bugfix/security update every 1-2 years. This gives the 
Windows application developers, hardware vendors and everyone else a 
realistic amount of time to adjust to the new version. Even then, some 
people feel like they *have* to upgrade Windows too often.

Consider that a distro like Ubuntu is released every six months, but 
that it usually takes at least a year to produce a printed manual and 
get it into the stores.

I think Etch is actually a pretty solid platform for the next couple of 
years on the desktop; we should be able to make any updates we need 
without changing things like gcc and glibc versions. Perhaps the next 
thing we should do is look at the open tickets and decide which things 
we should tackle for a 2.1 bugfix version, and which other things should 
be dealt with later.

Personally, I think the sound and graphics applications are in pretty 
good shape. I believe the next step is to make video editing and 
compositing really well integrated with Jack audio, so you can have your 
whole multimedia project controlled from a single transport, without 
having to mix down or export anything until the final stage. Also, we 
need to help the LV2 developers finalise the new plugin standard and 
look at creating custom GUIs to make these plugins more user-friendly.

Cheers!

Daniel