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SubjectRe: [isdn4oz] Re: ISDN and the feature freeze
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Paul Slootman <paul@wau.mis.ah.nl> wrote:


> Have you really looked at the sort of traffic on that list? It's 50%
> questions that are covered by the FAQ, 30% answers saying it's in the
> FAQ, and 15% replies saying that the question can't be answered without
> stating at least the most basic info (kernel version, type of isdn card,
> ...). I try to answer questions on that list as much as possible, but
> if someone simply says "I can't get a connection!" without supplying any
> additional info, I can't be bothered; it's not like I'm bored with
> nothing better to do.

If there was a 'release' version of both the kernel and utils that would
work with it, I'm sure the number of messages would reduce dramatically. The
main problem I had when trying to get ISDN to work was finding a matching
kernel and utils. In the end I found Paul Slootman's web page which said
that 2.0.35 worked, so I downgraded to that.

> Anyway, those people simply need to read the docs first. What also would
> help greatly is Red Hat finally acknowledging that ISDN exists, and
> supplying an RPM of the ISDN utilities and a working kernel; I'm talking
> about RH 5.2 here where it appeared that 2.0.36 was used, while it was
> one of the prereleases of .36 that didn't have the ISDN patch yet that
> did get into the real 2.0.36. You won't believe the number of questions
> that _that_ generated... Unfortunately (as far as ISDN is concerned),
> Red Hat has a very large market share of new linux users, and not having
> any ISDN support at all doesn't help "the cause".

Why should Red Hat acknowledge ISDN when there has never been anything other
than a beta version of the ISDN utils. I'm sure they don't want to spend
lots of time trying to choose the particular CSV tree snapshot that works
correctly with a particuar kernel.

> > I sell self-contained ISP boxes in Australia that absolutely rely
> > on uptodate and usable ISDN code (no workie, no income = one more
>
> Usable I can understand, why must it be the very latest? If it works...
> I've installed a number of linux systems as internet gateways
> (masquerading etc.), some of which have been running for more than a
> year now. They still work fine, even though they're not "uptodate" any
> more....

There are bugs in the older versions. The copy of isdnlog I use (from
isdn4k-utils-2.1b1) doesn't work with all combination of command line
options and needs a delay of 30s before it runs in my startup scripts to get
it working. It would be nice to resolve these problems so there is always a
desire to upgrade. So far the way ISDN4linux has been developed makes it
difficult, especially for someone who doesn't really understand the code.

> > linux based business down the drain) and Karsten was kind enough
> > to allow me access to both the CVS and the the i4ldeveloper list
>
> Part of the problem is probably also that the CVS is available
> (read-only) to anyone who knows how to do anonymous CVS... I don't mean
> to say that _you_ shouldn't have had access, I mean that as anyone can
> access it, the users of ISDN4Linux didn't have a really pressing reason
> to want it in the current kernel version (as someone else stated
> already).

But I for one don't really have the knowledge to use CVS (well I haven't
spent the time to learn) so I resort to the SUSE snapshots, where you then
have to work out which kernel they work with.

I get the impression that too many linux developers persist with a beta
description for their software long after it surpasses the quality of some
MS Windows software. This then confuses people and discourages newbies from
trying it.

If the ISDN development could mirror the feature freeze then bug fix of the
kernel, I think more people would be using it and therefore provide more
input, thus actually progressing it faster.

Regards

Liam



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