Thanks Mac. I thought they would at least throw us a couple of bones .. but looks like really slim pickings at this stage of the game.
Release schedule discussion
Archived thread 1859253 from Ubuntu +1 (Precise Pangolin)(Closed). Markdown source: Ubuntu_+1_(Precise_Pangolin)(Closed)/thread_1859253_Release_schedule_discussion.md
Wait, the toolchain was uploaded before Oneiric released?
Is Canonical trying to make Ubuntu a non-rolling endless beta?
I remember when it took the toolchain a week or two after release to pop up.
The toolchain hasn't been uploaded yet, but I created the forum now while I had the time, I'm visiting family over the weekend so thought I'd do it ahead of time :)
Also, while I recall - thread stuck.
the earlier the LTS is started, the better it will be... :)
Hopefully it turns out to be a great release like the last LTS!
Oneiric is looking good too, and hopefully even more stable as time passes.
Starks said: Is Canonical trying to make Ubuntu a non-rolling endless beta?
Actually, I *think* so... Let me see if I can find that article.
hrm... Ah, yes, here it is:
SOURCE: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/34812-ubuntu-eyes-speedier-releases.html (September 28, 2011)
The latest software house to consider jumping on the rapid-fire release schedule is Canonical, makers of the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system.
Canonical is apparently considering releasing a new version of Ubuntu every month, a significant speed-up from it’s already rapid six-monthly releases.
In a recent blog post, Scott James Remnant, a member of the Ubuntu Technical Board, outlined some of the problems with the six-monthly release cycle and suggested that perhaps a monthly release cycle would be better.
The proposal from Remnant is that Ubuntu switches to a monthly release cycle starting with the 11.10 version of Ubuntu due out next month. By his reckoning the 11.11 version would follow in November, 11.12 in December and 12.01 in January.
With so little time between the various releases under the new system, a new version would be incrementally different to the one preceding it. Users would then be able to choose how close to the edge they want to be, with some opting for releases a few months older, while others work with the bleeding-edge version.
In many ways the release process would be similar to Debian’s release schedule, which has a testing release available as well as a stable version. Users would then be able to choose which version suited them.
While there are benefits to speeding up the release cycle for any piece of software, especially for power users that love new things, there are also pitfalls.
One of those particular problems is that the software becomes a moving target. It’s something that has affected Firefox since it sped up it’s release cycle.
For many developers, having to constantly update plugins as new releases are issued is not worth the time and puts too much pressure on them.
While Ubuntu may not suffer the same fate as Firefox if it does adopt a monthly release cycle, it does need to tread cautiously so as not to alienate contributors.
Can we please move the answers to a new un-pinned thread? Keeping the thing clean. :)
If they do the monthly release, they will have to REALLY improve their upgrade script!
Starks said: Wait, the toolchain was uploaded before Oneiric released?
No, I messed that one up. The schedule says Oct 20, which is obviously wrong.
That is why I posted that. Also lists the UDS at the 27th which appears to not be quite right too.
Where did you get yours?
I will be upgrading my Xubuntu here later tonight. Doing some repair work on the house first (on break right now).
Huh? Nothing in my post says 27th?
VinDSL said: Actually, I *think* so... Let me see if I can find that article.
hrm... Ah, yes, here it is:
SOURCE: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/34812-ubuntu-eyes-speedier-releases.html (September 28, 2011)
Why doesn't ubuntu just have the masses use the LTS release? The people that know computers can use the rolling release. Then third-parties can sort-of concentrate on the LTS releases as their target if it's too much a burden keeping up with the rolling release?
Having a new release every couple years works magnificently for the two biggest computer OSs in the world (Windows and Mac).
nrundy said: Why doesn't ubuntu just have the masses use the LTS release? The people that know computers can use the rolling release. Then third-parties can sort-of concentrate on the LTS releases as their target if it's too much a burden keeping up with the rolling release?
Having a new release every couple years works magnificently for the two biggest computer OSs in the world (Windows and Mac).
to my knowledge they haven't approved anything yet and here is the original proposal: http://netsplit.com/2011/09/08/new-ubuntu-release-process/
however, they do need a better process and fix the problems mentioned in the article (root problem: Ubuntu has not just time-based releases, but time-based features).
hopefully they will discuss it at the UDS
MacUntu said: Huh? Nothing in my post says 27th?
No, it was in the schedule I posted.
nrundy said: Having a new release every couple years works magnificently for the two biggest computer OSs in the world (Windows and Mac).
One good thing...
Ubuntu is finally recognizable, from across the room. :D
I had a digital artist scan a mechanical drawing for me last week. He was surrounded by a sea of winders machines - but, he was obviously using Mac OS X - didn't even have to ask what he was running.
Now that you can spot Unity a mile away, maybe Canonical can slack off a bit - assuming they are simply trying to make a name for themselves. LoL!
madjr said: to my knowledge they haven't approved anything yet and here is the original proposal:
http://netsplit.com/2011/09/08/new-ubuntu-release-process/
however, they do need a better process and fix the problems mentioned in the article (root problem: Ubuntu has not just time-based releases, but time-based features).
hopefully they will discuss it at the UDS
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply it was approved. I just think, like you, that the 6-month thing is not working. The idea that seems intriguing to me is to have an LTS every 2-3 years and a rolling release in-between the LTSs. As I understand it, this is basically what Debian does.
Windows has been doing that since 1995. An LTS every few years and monthly updates.
PaulInBHC said: Windows has been doing that since 1995. An LTS every few years and monthly updates.
They've been successful with it too.
But monthly updates are not equivalent to a rolling release. As I understand it rolling release will also see OS advances. It'd be like Windows XP gaining features of Windows 7 along the way.
yes, releases every 1 or 2 years would be the best (like mandriva already shifted to 1 year release cycles).
Everyone wants a stable platform for _at least_ a year.
And the development release would be rolling for us geeks to test.
thats how i think things will work out best. 6 months is indeed not working.
nrundy said: They've been successful with it too.
But monthly updates are not equivalent to a rolling release. As I understand it rolling release will also see OS advances. It'd be like Windows XP gaining features of Windows 7 along the way.
My Dell laptop is prompting to upgrade from Edubuntu (natty) to (oneiric).
I had a seamless upgrade with (maveric) and from (fedora 13 to fedora 14) .. but I know the precautions.
So.. here goes!
The process of Alpha, Beta, RC, etc should at least be a little more reserved IMO. Standard users don't go into launchpad and developers pages, etc. The only reason they get this unstable releases is because it's easy and they're heavily promoted. I can get how that is apparently beneficial for Canonical in short-term - a lot of people talking about it, creating blogs with impressions, questionable fixes, etc. Keeps Ubuntu hot on Analytics. But the end-results are a lot of newbies messing up their PCs, posting bad PR, threatening us to move to mint (lol) and creating environments that won't be cleanly updated to finished version when its released, etc.
And, in the end, what can average users report or test? The bug reports are generally invalid or incomplete anyway.
effenberg0x0 said: The process of Alpha, Beta, RC, etc should at least be a little more reserved IMO. Standard users don't go into launchpad and developers pages, etc. The only reason they get this unstable releases is because it's easy and they're heavily promoted. I can get how that is apparently beneficial for Canonical in short-term - a lot of people talking about it, creating blogs with impressions, questionable fixes, etc. Keeps Ubuntu hot on Analytics. But the end-results are a lot of newbies messing up their PCs, posting bad PR, threatening us to move to mint (lol) and creating environments that won't be cleanly updated to finished version when its released, etc.
And, in the end, what can average users report or test? The bug reports are generally invalid or incomplete anyway.
The reason bug reports are marked invalid, or incomplete, is as usual, they don't read the documentation:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs
If they use apport to gather data, and show how to reproduce the bug, it will get some action.
In a perfect world, everybody should be a competent computer user, instead of being a competent operating system user, that is the biggest problem. The majority of people spend a lot of time memorizing how to do a task on their computer, instead of learning how to use the system, and this leads to many of the problems they are running into doing the upgrade, and changing from one operating system to another.
I always tell people to look for the similarities in different programs, instead of looking at the differences, there are usually many functions that are the same, no matter what operating system or program they are using.
Something crashes, apport pops up, you send in a valid bug report with high importance. Quite useful and no rocket science.
In a perfect world, everybody should be a competent computer user, instead of being a competent operating system user, that is the biggest problem. The only reason people join the forums is because the recipe they tried to follow went wrong. I help a couple guys that clearly mentioned that they uninstalled lightdm and installed following from some Linus "guru" that rights in some popular PC magazine... The recipe failed. You look at the guys profiles, they have like 1 to 3 posts in the forum.
1) What seems to be the problem? "-My PC won't boot and sound doesn't work." Well, one would imagine that a PC that can't boot probably can't play media files. Later, I found out he was inside Gnome. For him, since that didn't look like unity, he hadn't properly booted.
2) "-I'm stuck at the login screen, but I can't login with my password." I tried everything to be sure this guy had lightdm installed, owned his $home, file perms ok, had compiz, etc. He kept doing the tests and telling me it was OK. Then I learned he was trying to type a password at a frozen Plymouth screen. Insane hun?
And there's a lot more. And they'll never report anything. Apport or non-apport... They'll show here by the next release, when some recipe they hear on school, read from the magazine Linux guru, etc fails.
I really would like if this kind of user would use a LTS for a long time, a years or maybe more, unaware of the existence of alpha/beta versions, while advanced users would do their job of testing / reporting.
Maybe Ubuntu could keep strong in media by releasing insignificant updates, like backgrounds, sounds, new breeds of neko cat to run after the mouse pointer, etc. Focus on small applications, like happens today in the mobile world. WHile the really important work is happening isolated from all that.
cariboo907 said: The reason bug reports are marked invalid, or incomplete, is as usual, they don't read the documentation:
Computer Science 101 Read the Documentation!
My prof hounded us on this one. We can lead a horse to water but we can't make him drink it.
However.. with new users it's kind of eccentric to just openly tell them to read the "man" pages. They are already frustrated and to just throw those off-centered buzzwords and terms at them will definitely send them back to windows or mac.
I dunno .. it's hard to encourage people to read documentation and it's hard enough skipping through links as it is. Perhaps there is a program that is in the repos that help centralize the Ubuntu documentation.
At university we had to do the footwork.
Rather than go on with it here ..I wrote a small paragraph here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11356140#post11356140
Computers are so ubiquitous these days that the average person thinks of them as an appliance like a toaster or a vacuum cleaner ,many people had problems trying to figure out how to program their VCR's and we expect them to know how to diagnose and describe a computer problem ? .
The problem of getting people to read the documentation is not just with computers . As a mechanic by profession I can tell you without hessitation that the problem exists there also . " You mean I have to put oil in it ? " and "I didn't read the owners manual" are things I hear far too often .
madjr said: yes, releases every 1 or 2 years would be the best (like mandriva already shifted to 1 year release cycles).
And here I thought LTS *was* every 2 years. ;)
Later, Seeker
ronacc said: Computers are so ubiquitous these days that the average person thinks of them as an appliance like a toaster or a vacuum cleaner ,many people had problems trying to figure out how to program their VCR's and we expect them to know how to diagnose and describe a computer problem ? .
The problem of getting people to read the documentation is not just with computers . As a mechanic by profession I can tell you without hessitation that the problem exists there also . " You mean I have to put oil in it ? " and "I didn't read the owners manual" are things I hear far too often .
We're instead making computers more like appliances. We don't even write out "Application" in full on certain platforms and manual file management is being phased out.
The problem with computers in general is the expectation for people to learn. They have a profession and they're good at it. Computer Science, Information Technology, etc, are professions as well. You're expected to be able to drive your car and press the brakes, not know how your brakes work, that's someone else's job and you pay them for it.
But it got to a point in which the standard user got totally alienated from reality, to the point of not knowing the name of things.
I can go to the mechanics and say:
"I was inside my car then I put foot on thing, thing didn't react, heard sound of part scratching against stuff, pressed other thing, tried button, used the hand on the black part, but it didn't work. I'M GOING AWAY TO MINT!!"
which is equal to
"I'm stuck in black screen"
There's something deeper in there. Why do people know a brake is a brake, but even if they use their PCs everyday and look at the screen everyday, they can't remember that grub is named grub, desktop, console/terminal, etc.
People have to take a test to legally be able to drive a car. Simple as that. Car analogies always seem to carry over, but that one isn't there.
You have to know what all the signs mean before you're allowed to _start_ learning how to drive. On a computer, you're only expected to know (poorly) things you've experienced. I still remember while the gimp was being removed from the cd, someone was explaining how easy it was to crop an image and didn't use the crop tool. That made me give up trying to keep it on the cd. (Using the select tool can be more versatile, but still...)
BwackNinja said: People have to take a test to legally be able to drive a car. Simple as that. Car analogies always seem to carry over, but that one isn't there.
You have to know what all the signs mean before you're allowed to _start_ learning how to drive. On a computer, you're only expected to know (poorly) things you've experienced. I still remember while the gimp was being removed from the cd, someone was explaining how easy it was to crop an image and didn't use the crop tool. That made me give up trying to keep it on the cd. (Using the select tool can be more versatile, but still...)
I agree with you. No one would buy a car if she/he is not able to drive. You need a license and some basic knowledge to actually drive a car without wrecking it the very second you sit in it. No one would even think about doing this, because everyone knows you need some basic training and knowledge. It is even frowned upon if you have no idea what kind of petrol/gas you are using and if you do not know how to check oil and stuff.
With computers? Everyone gets one and - as said previoulsy - expect it to run automagically like a toaster or microwave oven. And if it does not they blame everything and everyone else but not the lack of interest to actually read or take time to learn.
I do not quite understand how those people actually end up using something else than what the computer came with (eg. MS Windows). The only reason I see is that someone else told them to use Linux. But then I do not get how they were able to get THIS far and then are able to complain in the forum.
Do not get me wrong. There is still a lot of work to do with Ubuntu and linux in general. Its not perfect, no OS is. And I am sure certain frustration and certain questions are absolutely OK. However, it sometimes takes a certain level I am not quite sure HOW this could have happend.
my 2 cents on that one...sorry for ranting. scheuri
it would be quite good for us testers/suckers to be able to have a beta channel/ppa that we can just constantly stay bleeding edge, someones gotta do it right,
can someone please explain in laymens terms what the toolchain is, ive never joined a dev cycle this early on and ive seen this term a lot the past few days
I think you can get the toolchain from "build-essential" (gcc, g++, make, and some dev stuff). That lets you build stuff from source.