I love when new updates are available, it makes me feel productive!
But really, rolling release in production use is a little scary. It greatly increases the odds of something potentially going wrong in a routine update. I wouldn't mind more frequent releases, such as quarterly maybe; but this worries me a bit. I have a lot of trust in the Ubuntu team to be thorough in their testing, but we are all fallible and this is going to cost me some peace of mind.
I can update the included web browser on Windows or OS X without waiting six months and it hasn't affected my stability thus far. thats the kind of thing I imagine Ubntu would be fixing here - shipping a currrent firefox, new drivers, etc, rather than changing glibc versions.
There is already "archlinux" which is a rolling release distro.
But this would be a killer feature if Ubuntu can pull it off. I think there needs to be a fundamental difference in packaging philosophy to achieve this - for example the "-dev" being packaged separately will now need to go IMHO, etc.
Not only is Arch rolling release, but it has the AUR, the two in conjunction is in my opinion the best aspect of linux. No repositories really, or messing with anything but a few commands and odd scripts to download and keep updated nearly every program I use. As soon as I hear about new program it's yaourt * and I'm 10 seconds from have it installed.
I don't know how I would feel about this, but I guess I would be okay if they had both a LTS and a rolling release distro.
As someone else commented ISOs need to be updated more often, at the very least weekly. (It really sucks after downloading an ISO on a shoddy connection only to find out you have to download another 300mb in order to replace the software you just downloaded)
Some distros have 'netboot' ISOs that only boot into the basic loader, and pull all packages from the network. This would take longer to install be negate the 'out of date packages on the iso' problem.
trustix linux, I'm sure there are others, used to do this. It was kind of annoying when installing servers because you were never quite sure of the exact versions of the selected packages, and I had a few regularly diverging servers that caused some minor problems.
Testing is the parade of preparation preceding a traditional release where they ship 53 CDs to desert island users every few years.
Testing still gets frozen once they think they're nearing a release.
Testing still completely breaks unless you update all systemy packages in lockstep — apt+deb are not designed for mix-and-match, hell it can't even resolve multiple installed versions of the same package! You have to mangle the name and fuck up the depgraphs of every package that depends on it, forcing mutual-exclusion of otherwise unrelated packages.
hopefully this will mean that they'll have updated ISOs on their website more often.
It's ridiculous that many people that get an ISO end up having issues with things like missing WiFi drivers fpr laptops and they're not able to download the updates to fix the problem unless they can get a hold of an ethernet connection to the internet.
Grr. Can't delete/edit on my Hacker News client. Sorry.
Judging from personal noob experience and Ubuntu forums, wireless driver shortcomings are probably holding back a significant number of people who want to try Linux, don't know enough to successfully grok and use ndiswrapper, have a Dell or a Mac with a Broadcom wireless chip, and don't feel like driving to Fry's twice just to get the right USB wifi adapter just so they can install updates and use their built-in chip.
If this ever gets improved, good things will happen.
man, you don't have an ethernet internet connection, yet you are installing ubuntu...
I think it is obvious what is wrong with this picture.
That aside, this will be a great improvement for ubuntu as constant progression will allow for more bug fixes and cool new features on a more regular basis (not 6 months apart)
[+] [-] joelmichael|15 years ago|reply
But really, rolling release in production use is a little scary. It greatly increases the odds of something potentially going wrong in a routine update. I wouldn't mind more frequent releases, such as quarterly maybe; but this worries me a bit. I have a lot of trust in the Ubuntu team to be thorough in their testing, but we are all fallible and this is going to cost me some peace of mind.
[+] [-] nailer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leif|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] St-Clock|15 years ago|reply
So I really wonder how Ubuntu will pull that off (rolling release of customized packages?!)
[+] [-] sandGorgon|15 years ago|reply
But this would be a killer feature if Ubuntu can pull it off. I think there needs to be a fundamental difference in packaging philosophy to achieve this - for example the "-dev" being packaged separately will now need to go IMHO, etc.
[+] [-] katovatzschyn|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meastham|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zokier|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niclupien|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wwortiz|15 years ago|reply
As someone else commented ISOs need to be updated more often, at the very least weekly. (It really sucks after downloading an ISO on a shoddy connection only to find out you have to download another 300mb in order to replace the software you just downloaded)
[+] [-] pyre|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thwarted|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robotblake|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niclupien|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graywh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blasdel|15 years ago|reply
Testing still gets frozen once they think they're nearing a release.
Testing still completely breaks unless you update all systemy packages in lockstep — apt+deb are not designed for mix-and-match, hell it can't even resolve multiple installed versions of the same package! You have to mangle the name and fuck up the depgraphs of every package that depends on it, forcing mutual-exclusion of otherwise unrelated packages.
Testing is not a rolling release.
[+] [-] joelmichael|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Legion|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bennyk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gubatron|15 years ago|reply
It's ridiculous that many people that get an ISO end up having issues with things like missing WiFi drivers fpr laptops and they're not able to download the updates to fix the problem unless they can get a hold of an ethernet connection to the internet.
[+] [-] zachrose|15 years ago|reply
Judging from personal noob experience and Ubuntu forums, wireless driver shortcomings are probably holding back a significant number of people who want to try Linux, don't know enough to successfully grok and use ndiswrapper, have a Dell or a Mac with a Broadcom wireless chip, and don't feel like driving to Fry's twice just to get the right USB wifi adapter just so they can install updates and use their built-in chip.
If this ever gets improved, good things will happen.
[+] [-] zachrose|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DungFu|15 years ago|reply
I think it is obvious what is wrong with this picture.
That aside, this will be a great improvement for ubuntu as constant progression will allow for more bug fixes and cool new features on a more regular basis (not 6 months apart)
[+] [-] gcb|15 years ago|reply
10.10 is the end for me. Good riddance. Im back to debian
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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