Arch Linux

arooaroo

Member

From: London, UK

Registered: 2005-01-13

Posts: 1,268

Website

Why is Amarok beta in Extra?

Hi,

Apologies because this query doesn't seem to fit exactly in any of the package groups. Anyways...

My preferred media player is Amarok. I dare say that there are many others like me in this respect. What confuses me, as the subject of this post suggests is why the version of Amarok available is a beta is in the Extra repo.

Now, maybe it's because I'm still relatively new to Arch, but my definition of 'extra' does not include unstable. That's why unstable exists. And since 'beta' by definition is unstable, it seems rather presumptuous that it exists anywhere other than 'unstable' or a TUR.

Whilst I personally haven't experienced many issues with Amorok (other than some peculiar album covers being displayed that having nothing to do with the track being played) I still think it is a rather dangerous policy to put beta software in what should be a stable repository.

Now, we all like the fact that AL is more cutting edge than many other distros, but I'm sure the packagers still respect that many people would prefer official - stable - releases by default, with the option of enabling 'unstable', other TURs, or even making custom packages should the user so wish.

Does anyone agree or am I being too safe? (and boring!!)

---

arooaroo | Jacman (Pacman GUI) | Getting to Grips with LaTeX | flickr

Mith

Member

From: out there

Registered: 2004-10-05

Posts: 163

Re: Why is Amarok beta in Extra?

well I can agree with you that it would be better in a TUR or the unstable repo. Besides I do have issues with that beta and gstreamer..

---

ArchLinux (x86_64) w/ kdemod

aCoder

Member

From: Medina, OH

Registered: 2004-03-07

Posts: 359

Website

Re: Why is Amarok beta in Extra?

While this should be somewhere else, probably Arch Discussion, I whole-heartedly agree that beta software shouldn't fe in current or extra unless there's some sort of special circumstance.  I would think there's a very good reason for the amarok maintainer to be using the beta, and if there isn't, well, that's bad.

---

If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.
  - John Cage

IceRAM

Member

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2004-03-04

Posts: 772

Website

Re: Why is Amarok beta in Extra?

I can't even use amarok-beta in extra. It has a "feature" which pops kmail composer window whenever a glich in the playing occurs, even if everything is working. And, unfortunately, this occurs pretty often and makes it unusable. I also think that a good backtrace (which is attached in the e-mail) required enabling debug information (not stripping the exacutable), but I don't know how to obtain this.

I'm using amarok-1.1.cvs20050128-1 which is in testing.

---

:: / my web presence

sarah31

Member

From: Middle of Canada

Registered: 2002-08-20

Posts: 2,975

Website

Re: Why is Amarok beta in Extra?

Unless there is no stable version there should be no CVS, aplha, beta, RC, PR, etc in extra or current.

IMO

---

AKA uknowme

I am not your friend

mico

Member

From: Slovenia

Registered: 2004-02-08

Posts: 247

Re: Why is Amarok beta in Extra?

In general, I agree. For me stability is important. But there are rare special cases, where even the RC is very stable, like mplayer for example. Would you prefer the old 0.92 instead of the current 1.0 RC?

Amarok 1.2.beta4-1 does have some annoying bugs, e.g. playlists are not loaded properly, songs are sometimes a little skipped at the beggining and faded in even if you cancel cross-fading and fade-in, I can get only arts engine working properly, ... On the other hand, I never installed the "stable" amarok version 1.1 so I can't compare beta and stable here.