Some clarity on my feeling about Ubuntu Lucid
Read this comment I wrote to my previous post on Ubuntu Lucid being an LTS with a lot of alpha-feeling features.
I make the following points and ask the following questions:
-- Yes, I installed the beta.
-- I'm no expert but managed to get everything working. Updates from Ubuntu resolved some problems for me.
-- Do most Ubuntu "experts" really think that an installation that began in the beta period cannot be updated through released date and afterward to a fully functioning Ubuntu system?
-- I genuinely like Ubuntu. I agree with its stated mission, and I believe it's the best hope we have for general uptake of Linux/Unix as a desktop operating system, and I believe such uptake is something very important and very much desired.
-- Right now I'm happy with how my Lucid install is performing. I'm using the "social desktop" features even though their design and implementation leaves much to be desired (and developed).
Whenever I criticize Ubuntu, I preface by saying that I hold Ubuntu to a much higher standard than I do any other open-source desktop operating-system project. Ubuntu aims higher. I respect and admire that.
But lofty goals, masses of volunteers, a for-profit company and the No. 1 Linux distribution of all time with global ambitions — we should all expect more (and, if so motivated, be willing to help achieve those goals).
I'm not comfortable doing six-month upgrades. I realize that a regular Ubuntu release has an 18-month support lifetime, and I thing that's about right for my own personal circumstances.
The LTS version of Ubuntu is very important to me. I've relied on it on a few machines, and I think 8.04 LTS shaped up to be a very successful release. I'm still running 8.04 on one of my laptops.
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS was one of the first Linux distributions I ran (back in 2007). It remains one of my favorite releases (along with Debian Etch and Lenny, Puppy 2.13, Wolvix 1.1.0 and OpenBSD 4.4).
Despite all my bitching and whining, I'll probably stick with Ubuntu 10.04 for a long time. A very long time on some machines.
Like many, I re-evaluate every release about where I'd like to be distro-wise. Debian Lenny was a great release for me. I had more functionality there than just about any other release I've used. I got that itch to use newer packages, and that's how I ended up blowing through Squeeze (dist-upgrade failed me), FreeBSD 8.0 and 7.3 and now Ubuntu Lucid.
I'm also working with Tiny Core 2.11 a bit. I like it a lot. I've booted Lucid Puppy a few times, and that's another very nice release from a project I'm very fond of.
I really like OpenBSD, but I acknowledge that it's not the easiest system to use on the desktop, to upgrade, or to get working with Flash and Java. I miss things like NetworkManager, a utility that went from terrible to excellent in maybe a year and a half.
Again, I'm just a user. I'm not the smartest user, or the most geeky user. I'm only one voice in a blogospheric sea of thousands.
I want open-source environments to be the best they can be. The Ubuntu community, from developer to forum participant, doesn't have to do anything I suggest, implore or cajole. (There may be some transitivity issues in that last sentence, but I'm just letting it flow.)
I'm just a user. But don't dismiss me because I'm critical.
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Hi Steven,
I really enjoy your posts since they are similar to what a lot of us newbies are going through. Keep them coming.
I'd consider myself a very experienced user and can fix 99% of the problems I encounter myself. If necessary by fixing bugs myself and submitting my patch back upstream.
For me there are two types of bugreports. The stuff you see on bugtrackers like launchpad belongs to the first kind and should be handled/reported "mostly" by experienced users.
The second kind of bugreport are reports where people explain how they fail to use the software because they use it differently than the developer intended. You often see this in games. Players just think of stuff that nobody would ever imagine to do and thus discover bugs.
Your writings belong to the second kind which is often greatly underappreciated. There is a lot to learn from reports like yours, so thanks alot for writing them.
To answer you question: Do most Ubuntu "experts" really think that an installation that began in the beta period cannot be updated through released date and afterward to a fully functioning Ubuntu system?
Yes. If you know your way around you can always recover from completely broken and messed up systems.
Wow, Ubuntu is Linux for Human Beings as long as those humans don't reboot? I think segments of the Ubuntu Community are getting a little snippy or sensitive to some of the criticism their favorite distro has taken the last couple releases. Anyway Steven keep up the great work, even though I don't use Ubuntu I am finding your posts enjoyable anyway. By the way Slackware 13.1 is out and it is a great release. I have been running Current for a couple months and frankly its been more stable then other distros I have tried. I also upgraded from Current to Beta, to RC1, RC2, and then to 13.1 using Slackpkg with no problems at all. I encourage any of your readers to check it out. Keep up the good work!
Slackware is famous for being upgradeable from one release to the next. I thought Debian was, too, but the udev situation between Lenny and Squeeze bit me.
Had I grabbed a newer kernel and booted from it before doing the upgrade, everything would've probably gone well, and I expect that the upgrade process with dist-upgrade will be modified to deal with this problem once Squeeze goes stable.
As it was, I didn't know about the udev situation until I was mired in it, so I wouldn't have known even to Google it before I messed the whole thing up.
As far as Ubuntu goes, I really don't think that installing the beta and upgrading as I went along constituted some kind of capital sin.
And like @dakira above, I can eventually fix most things that go wrong - and I have just about everything fixed that is able to be fixed in Ubuntu Lucid, so in that regard I'm happy with it.
Sure I have a few lingering xorg issues (which I have with every distro). I just restored the ability to quit X with ctrl-alt-backspace - with instructions I found here http://www.ubuntugeek.com/enable-ctrl-alt-backspace-in-ubuntukubuntu-10-04lucid-lynx.html#more-5216
I'd love to get to the point where I could actually write a patch and submit it back, but I'm pretty far from that level of skill, I think.
@slacker_mike I always have Slackware in the back of my mind. I ran 12.0 for a while at one point, and I'm feeling more charitable toward KDE all the time, so I could very well find myself back in Slackware at some point.
In Slackware, every release is an LTS release - that's just the way they do it. I really appreciate that kind of commitment to the user. And Patrick V. is very conservative in terms of what he'll put into a release - another thing I appreciate.