Beta Forum

[StrCrssd]

Could we please have our beta forum back??

It was a great place to stop bye and view the current problems with the new beta's. I for one ran the beta (3.1) for a while, before switching back to 1.2.

I'd love to take a look at the 3.2 beta (Gentoo 1.4) forum because I should be getting my dually rig back from manufacturer RMA shortly and want to test 1.4 beta if its fairly stable.

I realize this was probably already debated before the reorganization, but I for one would really like a easily accessable resource for the beta's.

(if this post sounds confused...its late local time)
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StrCrssd

Give a man enough rope, he'll hang himself. Teach a man to make rope, he'll hang other people.

[Scandium]

Personally I don't think we need the beta forum...

The forums are already split up quite good (gcc forum etc.) and most things which would be posted in the beta forums won't be beta anymore 1-2 weeks later, so I think it's a better idea to post into the gcc forum for example

[klieber]

We never really had a beta forum to begin with. We created the GCC3 forum specifically because of the major plumbing changes between 2.9.x and 3.x. Now that Gentoo is based on 3.x (well, any day now) there aren't any major differences that warrant a dedicated forum.

Keep in mind that, save for major technology shifts like GCC3, there really is no such thing as a "gentoo beta". Version numbers like 1.1 and 1.2 only refer to the installation process -- once you've done an "emerge -u world" after an initial installation, you're running the bleeding edge at that point.

--kurt
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[Scandium]

... and that's why I think a gcc3 forum was a good idea weeks ago and having it now as a general forum but a beta forum would be about the new kde alpha builds, kernel 2.6 etc. and personally I don't think we need an extra forum for that

[masseya]

Another problem with the idea of having a beta forum is that most things seemed to work with gcc 3.1 or 3.2. I don't know how much traffic it would have. The only things that would be needed would be a few threads on things that didn't compile properly with a particular compiler. Everything else would be the same type of thing that's going on in all the other forums.
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if i never try anything, i never learn anything..
if i never take a risk, i stay where i am..

[rac]

I was not an evil moderator at the time the GCC3 forum was created, but I'm glad it's gone. The inherent problem as I see it is that it's often really hard for someone who has a problem to judge whether the problem is a result of their environment or not. If they have multiple machines, and can figure out "well, the exact same thing works when it's compiled with 2.95.3, so it must be something related to GCC 3.x", well then that's great, but most people haven't gotten that far by the time they post a question.

All they know is that the ebuild failed, or xterm segfaulted, or Apache is crashing if they install mod_php, or they can't emerge system off this CD they're using to install, or dvd playback has weird green lines in it.

And what happened to the GCC3 forum was that anybody who was compiling their system with GCC3 (as klieber noted, distribution versions are not a very meaningful concept in Gentoo) would post in the GCC3 forum. It came down with a case of the "Running GCC3? Post here." syndrome that the old All Things Gentoo forum had.

During the recent forum reorganization, we decided that the primary organization of the forums is functional in nature. The right forum for a post largely depends on what sort of thing you were trying to do when you had a problem. I think that's a relatively straightforward way to find where your question should go. I also think that it makes it easier for people who have certain types of expertise share it - X, GNOME, and KDE experts can hang out in Desktop Environments, musicians and visual artists can just check Multimedia, long-time Gentooers with a working knowledge of Portage and other developers can concentrate on Portage & Programming, etc.

When the GCC3 forum was around, I always felt like I had to read it plus the other forums that I thought I might have a chance to be able to help people in.

This is my concern as to what would happen if a "Beta" forum were created.
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For every higher wall, there is a taller ladder

[pjp]

You forgot the option "I care, please don't bring it back".

Anything that could go into a Beta forum should already have a forum to go to. Beta ALSA -> Multimedia, Beta your favorite desktop environment/window manger -> Desktop Environments, etc.
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Quis separabit? Quo animo?

[deadbeat]

we REALLY need one, especially since the search function is dumb sometimes. ie you cannot search for 2.5 (ala 2.5 kernel), it doesnt like the period and it doesnt like the short words, also what about like gentoo 1.4 cant search for that either.
i think itd be a great idea to have it back for 2.5 kernel stuff, 1.4 stuff (or later betas), beta software/drivers etc etc etc.

plzplzplzplzplzplzplzplzplz
how can you say this is not a good idea?
or hack the search function :O[/b]

[Scandium]