On Sat, Mar 24, 2007 at 11:38:11AM -0500, Przemysław Pawełczyk wrote:
> One excerpt of Orewellian newspeak (from the text):
> 
> "The maintenance branch(es) can be considered an __easy way__ (my emphasis) to get the most up to date fixes for a given release.

What's Orwellian about that? I can't figure out how to even apply that
term to that sentence.

> I decided to partitioned my HDD to have two partitions for stable and testing releases. So I dived into ftp to find out ISO files. The more I went down or read the more the mess made my hair stand up on end. "This set" here, "that set" there, ISO STABLE here, ISO BETA/UNSTABLE/5.0 (???) there, and no ISO for 4.0.

Why are you so fixated on ISO files? NetBSD has official ISO files for
releases--4.0 isn't out yet; it's still in beta, so you shouldn't expect
ot find an ISO.

> BTW. Is the ISO for 4.0_BETA or 5.0_preBETA (from http://iso.aydogan.net/)?
> NetBSD-i386-4.99.16-install.iso    24-Mar-2007 04:14  233M

As the filename implies, that's an ISO for 4.99.16. It's not 4.0_BETA,
and there's no such thing as 5.0_preBETA. Also, as has been mentioned,
those are unofficial ISO images. I don't see any problem with them myself,
but if you consider them a "mess", don't blame NetBSD.

> I think we deserve some help from NetBSD developers. Let there be a page from where I can choose appropriate ISO for testing.

You don't need an ISO to test.

> And the hell with the 4.99.xxx, 3.99.yyy etc. For developers the major or minor designations  are of great value helping them keep the releases tidy and in consistant way. For the users they create hurdles, more, they are thorns in the a**.

4.99.*, 3.99.* are _for developers_. If you're not a developer, you
don't need to bother with them.

> How many more such scare aways will I find in a future which permeates not only NetBSD's but other distributions or Open Source systems' cultures?

I don't know, but you seem to be easily-scared. As with anything,
NetBSD has room for improvement, but I don't see the things you mention
as problems.

If you just want to use NetBSD, download NetBSD 3.1 (as an ISO if
you like, or use one of the many other methods of installation) and
install it. http://www.netbsd.org/Releases/formal-3/NetBSD-3.1.html

If you're interested in testing NetBSD 4.0 beta, great! However,
I think it'd be easier if you first familiarized yourself with
NetBSD before starting testing. Daily snapshots are available in
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-4/ .
-- 
Name: Dave Huang         |  Mammal, mammal / their names are called /
INet: khym@azeotrope.org |  they raise a paw / the bat, the cat /
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