[Pan-users] Re: update on freeze, high CPU getting new headers: GNOME!

[Duncan]

David Shochat <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Mon, 10 Nov 2008
20:38:08 -0500:

> This problem, which I first reported back on August 1
> (http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/pan-users/2008-08/msg00000.html), has
> remained unsolved and highly annoying.

Thanks for linking back to it.  It's very useful for remembering the 
context!

> Then, 2 days ago, I got an E-mail
> from another pan user saying that he had the same problem, asking
> whether I had found a solution. I told him I had not, and reiterated the
> strange fact that the problem is totally absent when I run pan under
> MacOS X. Somehow, he thought of testing for the problem under Linux, but
> using a different desktop, namely XFCE. Bingo! This made the problem
> vanish (note that we have both been using GNOME under Ubuntu). I
> promptly tried XFCE myself and reproduced his success on my own system.
> And tonight, I loaded KDE onto my system and tried pan there. Once
> again, no trace of the problem.

That may explain why I've seen nothing.  I rather despise the "There's 
only one true way" attitude the GNOME devs seem to have.  Just give me 
the choices (instead of deliberately removing them as GNOME has done over 
the years) and I'll happily customize away until it works the way I want 
it to work.  KDE gets that, so for me it works, while GNOME just makes me 
frustrated.  Of course, others prefer the choice be made for them and the 
UI remain nice and simple.  There's nothing wrong with either way, as 
long as the user gets to choose the desktop that fits his style, as is of 
course possible on most *ix.

Anyway, no GNOME for me, so if it's GNOME related, that goes quite a way 
toward explaining why I don't see it.

> As hard as I find this to believe, it
> appears to be a GNOME problem, or a pan/GNOME incompatibility, at least
> under Ubuntu, both Hardy and the new Intrepid, both 64 (which he is
> running) and 32 bit (which I am). It seems ironic, considering that the
> first pan version I used (let's call it old old pan) was explicitly
> advertised as a GNOME newsreader, and used GNOME libraries.

Yes, it's still the primary GNOME news client I believe, and still using 
GNOME bugzilla, altho since GTK2, it has only required GTK, not the full 
GNOME.  And yes, that the problem seems to be GNOME related is certainly 
ironic, given all that.

But I do have a suspicion it may be an Ubuntu-specific GNOME patch, as it 
does seem there's a decent amount of GNOME users using pan, certainly 
enough that unless it was distribution specific, I'd expect more reports 
of this than I've seen.  In fact, yours, and now that other user who 
emailed you, seem to be the only reports I've seen, so it doesn't seem 
all that common at all... unless people just think that's the way it is. 
<shrug>

> I have been
> a loyal GNOME user for almost 10 years, but XFCE seems to do everything
> I need so I guess it's finally time for a vacation from GNOME. I'll keep
> retrying it from time to time to see if the problem is still there. It
> definitely did not used to be there, so it must have crept in with some
> GNOME/Ubuntu update. Meanwhile, I cannot imagine what the mechanism of
> this could be.

Let's put it this way.  I'm rather frustrated with Ubuntu right now.  Not 
only did they let the security bug from 0.132 hang around in 8.04 for 
five months after a patch was available, and three months after 0.133 was 
released, fixing that problem and others, but 8.10 seems to STILL have 
0.132 as well, for all I know, still vulnerable.  The bug one of our list 
regular Ubuntu users filed, complete with Ubuntu security CCed... just 
sits there!

Now we find out they have a bug with pan and their default GNOME desktop, 
as well.

Well, as I mentioned above, different strokes for different folks, but 
let's just say I'm glad I'm not on Ubuntu right now, or I expect I'd be 
looking elsewhere.  They have a great reputation for just working, but 
this is sure souring me on at least their security policies!  I've 
previously suggested Ubuntu to some of my "technically challenged" 
friends and had thought if I could ever get my folks on Linux, Ubuntu was 
probably a good candidate for that.  I've changed my mind.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman