On Tuesday, July 05, 2011 05:54:31 pm Josh Andler wrote:

> Hey All,

>

> Windows devs, what version of Win are you all running regularly? Do many

> still run XP or 2000? (I know user-wise they're still pretty common, just

> not sure in our circle)

>

> On the Linux side, I'm trying to get a feel for how old the distros

> everyone uses are... does anyone lag any older than one "LTS" for example?

> Do people tend to upgrade with every release? For me, I tend to run

> whatever the next release of Ubuntu is (so I'm using what will be 10.10

> for example)... what can I say other than I like bleeding. ;)

>

> On the Mac side, what are your upgrade habits?

>

> There is relevance to me asking this, but I will hold off on sharing until

> there's a bit of feedback.

>

> Cheers,

> Josh

I currently run Linux Salix 13.38 that is derived from Slackware 13.38. Salix, unlike Slackware proper, offers an Inkscape dounload, currently 0.48.1 I also have a Slackware 12.2 partition just to use Quanta Plus, the best free html editor program I have found.

I generally don't run Slackware-current versions, which would be bleeding edge.

Applications drive my upgrade habits. Specifically Scribus 1.3.5 et seq. drove me kicking and screaming into Slackware 13 and QT4. I now run Scribus 1.4.0rc5 (and counting) and also Scribus 1.5.0 which has pdf X/1-a:2001 capability. These get downloaded and recompiled nightly, although both seem to be stuck in mid-June.

When libraries are upgraded that starts the cycle. The next release of e.g., Inkscape or Scribus or Gimp will use these upgraded libraries. But libraries typically don't ship with the application program. So the user can either go to the next release of the OS or else spend a week in library hell

trying to figure out what depends on what. Hence I stay with the latest stable release of the OS, even though it may be quite inferior in other respects to a previous release.

Happily one can always use another UI. I use XFCE because I won't put up with the nonsense found in KDE 4. Newer is not always better.

--

John Culleton

"Death Wore Black" Police procedural: http://www.deathworeblack.com/

"Create Book Covers with Scribus"

http://booklocker.com/books/4055.html