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Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, the Hardy Heron, is scheduled for release on Thursday,
April 24, 2008. In anticipation, Canonical has issued a pair of press
releases for the server and the desktop editions.
"Ubuntu 8.04 Long Term Support (LTS) Server Edition adds new features to enhance the performance, stability and security of this fully supported general platform. The LTS release sees further expansion of the commercial ecosystem of software, hardware and services vendors supporting Ubuntu Server." "Ubuntu 8.04 Long Term Support (LTS) provides a stable platform for software and hardware vendors, developers and users. With three years of support and maintenance on the desktop, 8.04 LTS is a great choice for large-scale deployment. A substantial and growing ecosystem of free and commercial software built for Ubuntu provides a rich set of choices for desktop users. This is the eighth desktop release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu's track record in delivering - on a precise schedule every six months - a commercial operating system that is free, stable, secure and fully supported, remains unique." (Log in to post comments)
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 22, 2008 18:15 UTC (Tue) by ArbitraryConstant (guest, #42725) [Link] The server edition seems to be doing fairly well, but on the desktop there's a number of bugs, some of them significant regressions, that make me nervous about the quality of this release. Particularly given its status as an LTS. Examples: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug... https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager... https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/188226 There isn't time to fix these now, and major changes in behavior post-release are very tricky. Basically, I don't think the LTS we're going to have for the next 2 years will be a high-quality one, and this is profoundly disappointing.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 22, 2008 19:37 UTC (Tue) by jwb (guest, #15467) [Link] There's a huge number of regressions from 7.10 to 8.04 on my laptop, including that it now takes 2-3 *minutes* to wake from sleep. But the Ubuntu project has always had a "ship it!" mentality. Luckily we'll only wait six months for the next release ...
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 22, 2008 23:09 UTC (Tue) by vmole (guest, #111) [Link] "Waaah! Debian never keeps its release schedules!" Okay, lets make a Debian-like distribution that hits its schedules and is close to bleeding edge. "Waaah! Ubuntu ships buggy stuff!" Grrrrrr. (Not aimed at jwb in particular, BTW. Just pointing out that there's always going to be some disappointed people.)
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 22, 2008 23:16 UTC (Tue) by ArbitraryConstant (guest, #42725) [Link] I think a corollary to meeting schedules is dropping features from a given release if they're too ambitious. Some of these IMO qualify as show-stoppers.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 6:29 UTC (Wed) by joib (guest, #8541) [Link] What's so irritating is that at least some of these are really simple and obvious fixes. The kernel could be fixed with a 1-line change in the kernel config. PulseAudio is a good idea IMHO, but most of the problems with it seems to be due to not shipping an out-of-the-box config that is optimized for PA, like the "PerfectSetup" page on the PA wiki. What the heck where they thinking?
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 8:47 UTC (Wed) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] I have a written a few ALSA applications in my time. Nothing serious, though. While I hold no love for ALSA, I also do not appreciate the pulseaudio developers' apparent attitude that everything not using their shit is legacy. (A comment to this effect is written on the pulseaudio bug page at launchpad.) Maybe if they win out in the game of popularity they are right, eventually. I configured pulseaudio for sound playback on my desktop box with SB Live! and digital audio link. It was a painful experience. After I toggled the option on in the gnome-sound-properties dialog (which talks about ESound), it started PA. Then I forced the default pcm & ctl to pulseaudio through .asoundrc, but got no sound. Applications were playing happily, so I suspected a routing mishap. The problem here was that the default alsa sink is the analog output sink, and there is no toggle to switch digital output on instead. Missing an option like this is probably acceptable for software with 0.x version number, I guess. I'd hazard that pulseaudio guys would see less migration resistance if they didn't configure "front:0" as the output device (which should be explicitly the 2 analog sound channels of a N-channel setup) but used "hw:0" instead, because that would work the same way as ALSA does per default. Yet another nail in this coffin. *sigh*
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 17:31 UTC (Wed) by felixrabe (guest, #50514) [Link] > Yet another nail in this coffin. *sigh* No, opportunity for change.
Dropping features Posted Apr 23, 2008 6:36 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Ubuntu doesn't have a lot of new features that can be dropped. There are a many packages to integrate, and that is a lot of work, but you cannot just drop them. Were you thinking about some features specifically?
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 7:46 UTC (Wed) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link] I suppose what I would personally love to see would major releases "when they are ready" (à la Debian), but six monthly updates, consisting of the last major release plus all backports which fulfil the right stability criteria. Plus a nice easy and granular way to enable backports on just the software that you really need to be more up-to-date and its dependencies. This last would also improve testing of software in the upcoming release. Plus perhaps even an additional level of backports so that you can use certain software at "developer tree" level if you are particularly interested in it, or badly need a certain new feature.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 24, 2008 17:54 UTC (Thu) by vmole (guest, #111) [Link] Uh, so that would be Debian, yes? Debian 3.1 (sarge), released 6/2005, updated 12/2005, 4/2006, 9/2006, 11/2006, 2/2007, 4/2007, 12/2007, 4/2008. Debian 4.0 (etch), released 4/2007, updated 8/2007, 12/2007, 2/2008. Admittedly not a rigid 6 month cycle, but not too bad. Also, you can pull from propesed-updates any time. The www.backports.org site allows specific selection of individual packages. Using "apt-get -t etch-backports install foo" seems reasonably easy and granular to me. Of course, not every single package is backported, but most of the popular stuff is.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 22, 2008 19:49 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I'm not a Ubuntu user, but why would the LTS status be a problem for fixing the regressions? Would not a longer support time cause more bugs to be fixed? After all, package maintainers would be more motivated to fix something that needs to be maintained for years, rather than something that becomes obsolete within months.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 22, 2008 20:00 UTC (Tue) by ArbitraryConstant (guest, #42725) [Link] The problem is that in an LTS release, you really don't want to be making significant changes in behavior mid-release. For some of these bugs (eg, the pulseaudio issues and kernel scheduler issues I linked to above), people are going to have to work around them because they're pretty much broken by default. Coming along post-release with a fix has a good chance of breaking the workarounds, which is bad because entire point of doing snapshotted releases (particularly LTS releases) instead of continuous upgrades like Gentoo is to keep intra-release updates safe. Fixing these problems after the official release will be anything but safe. You are correct that there's a greater incentive to keep the LTS versions maintained over their (lengthy) term of support, but this is why it's imperative to get things right at the time of release. Failing to do so results in broken behavior that has to be preserved.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 22, 2008 21:16 UTC (Tue) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] Ouch. I've hit all three of those issues myself, even that sudo thing, which was especially infuriating. Damn, this would call for a .1 bugfix release or something, or everyone ends up fetching some backport/whatever semi-official update for those issues. Not good. :-(
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 22, 2008 21:17 UTC (Tue) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] Forgot to mention an extra crappiness: it's now 1-2 days off release and Firebug was broken in Firefox by the update earlier this week. I thought it'd be fixed by the update of today, but it's still broken.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 1:09 UTC (Wed) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] Well, at home I decided to upgrade to 8.04 a week ago. Everything was working wonderfully, but today turned up the computer and X didn't start. It ended up being some change that made the nvidia drivers to fail to load, which it's not too bad because I can spent enough time without 3D, but the sound card driver also refused to start (old soundblaster audigy). Breaking 2 essential things for a Linux desktop in an update 48 hours before shipping isn't making me too happy about this release.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 7:37 UTC (Wed) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] Hmm. I'm assuming a lot to make this suggestion, but it sounds like you are using one of the -386 kernels instead of the -generic kernels. I don't know what the difference between these two is supposed to be, but the symptoms match what I got just last week when the update chose to install a -386 kernel. (It keeps on doing this on one box and I have no idea why.) So basically ensure you have linux-image-generic and linux-restricted-modules-generic installed, and if it does install some new kernel then boot into that... And uninstall everything -386 related afterwards.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 14:26 UTC (Wed) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] I believe so. I thought the two were the same on x86-32. I will try this when I get home. Thanks for the tip.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 4:46 UTC (Wed) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] The Hardy server kernel won't even boot on my home server system.. "initrd extends beyond end of memory" Still waiting for a response on bug #219868.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 6:41 UTC (Wed) by BackSeat (subscriber, #1886) [Link] Seems like Ubuntu is playing into the hands of those who'd rather not see Linux succeed, which is shame after all the hard work they've clearly done.YearOfLinuxDesktop += 2;
Distros... Posted Apr 23, 2008 12:51 UTC (Wed) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] Seems like Ubuntu is playing into the hands of those who'd rather not see Linux succeed,Ubuntu != Linux. For instance, the past few Mandriva linux versions I have run at home have worked so well as the desktop it is getting boring :-) A few "brown bag releases" years ago + Ubuntu hype reduced Mandrake/Mandriva mindshare as a desktop Linux (it was once considerable), but I think people should give it a fresh look.
Distros... Posted Apr 23, 2008 14:37 UTC (Wed) by TxtEdMacs (guest, #5983) [Link] Not a completely accurate description on why many departed Mandrake. The professional version I bought didn't even let me know how badly the installation failed on an IBM T-30 laptop. Long story ... In desperation I tried Fedora Core 3 on the same machine, expecting serious problems. It was a dream installations where nearly everything that I can remember just worked. [I was not so happy with later versions.] On the desktop, for a time I was happiest with Debian (mostly) Testing on a stable base along with a few items from Unstable all with working dual monitor setup that was all trashed going to 3.1. Very reluctantly and slowly did I move to Ubuntu (5.10 an update from an unused 5.04), compared to previous experiences it was not stellar but certainly workable with some irritations. I too was skeptical of Ubuntu's overly enthusiastic user base. Nonetheless, I could live with that version of Ubuntu, because other work I had to do was more important. Moving to 6.06 in clean installs was a great improvement. However, I have been waiting for a later version. I tend to update Firefox early. Now I cannot run even all the 3.0 betas. They stopped working at beta 2 and beta 4 cannot even attempt to start. It is unfortunate that the supposed long term, stable release will not live up to its name. For now I will just upgrade to the last short term release and decide what I might try in its place. However, Mandriva is unlikely to be the one selected due primarily to past, less than satisfactory experiences. I should mention too that I was a Mandrake club member at the time.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 7:05 UTC (Wed) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link] Same for me. My main machine has now major regressions in: * browsing https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/213016 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/21... https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/22... * mouse support https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/216927 (I have to ssh into my laptop and run a script to fix it...). And some of these appeared in the past weeks. I am supposed to make a speech this week and I am crossing my fingers, hoping that it's not going to let me down in the middle of the talk...
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 11:51 UTC (Wed) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032) [Link] I'm just joining the choir of people bitten by major bugs in hardy. Still, overall I'm quite happy with ubuntu's development model. I just feel a bit uneasy about marking hardy LTS. Not that this designation would keep me from switching to the intrepid ibex before too long :-D No hardy kernel has ever booted on my machine: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/180758 Can't print with firefox-3: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bu...
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 19:23 UTC (Wed) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032) [Link] The firefox printing problem seems to have been fixed :-)
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 23, 2008 16:56 UTC (Wed) by docomo (guest, #32926) [Link] That third bug makes me really sad. The fix is obviously a simple kernel config setting and the devs simply fail to apply it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/188226
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server and desktop releases Posted Apr 24, 2008 17:29 UTC (Thu) by docomo (guest, #32926) [Link] A fix has been committed now.
Ubuntu 8.04 and keeping fingers crossed for good luck Posted Apr 22, 2008 21:24 UTC (Tue) by a_hippie (guest, #34) [Link] I'm going to be upgrading both my machines fresh here. Then I have to do the same for my Xwife who I still admin for. I really hope I don't have to fight a ton of bugs. The only bugger she will have is still using MVware. Wish it would just figure out new kernels so she didn't have to re-run install script :( Anyway, I have had mostly very good results with u/kubuntu. The OS on this is dapper and that says a lot! best to all,
Ubuntu 8.04 and keeping fingers crossed for good luck Posted Apr 23, 2008 0:52 UTC (Wed) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] I'm guessing you mistyped MVware. VMware is currently not in the Hardy partner repository because it's virtual network driver (not open source) conflicts with the new 2.6.24 kernel. So it will fail to install even if you install it manually. Just an heads up. I decided to give VirtualBox a look and it works for me (and it's open source).
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