Ubuntu Wonderful? [LWN.net]

Ubuntu Wonderful?

Posted Mar 26, 2008 0:09 UTC (Wed) by mikov (guest, #33179)
In reply to: Ubuntu Wonderful? by clugstj
Parent article: First look at Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" beta (ZDNet)

Here is something negative for you ...

There are serious upgrade bugs outstanding and some of them haven't been fixed for a couple of
releases. 

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/...
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase/+bug/11...
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/154195

So, if I am counting correctly, this will be the third release that will go out with known
upgrade problems. Of course the situation is exasperated by having a new release every 6
months.

None of the happy reviewers used it long enough to have to go through an upgrade did they ?

While I do like Kubuntu and use it on my laptop, I have wasted hours on every single upgrade
dealing with these bugs. An "ordinary" user would not be able to deal with it.

A couple of Kubuntu machines in our office are already a release behind (because nobody has
the time to deal with the broken upgrade). We are not using them for anything important, but
the opinion that Ubuntu (and by inference Linux) is unstable and unmaintainable has spread
through some of my coworkers.

The fallout is that now I would never consider shelling any money to Canonical for support.
Perhaps after the first upgrade, but not after having the same bug for several consecutive
releases.

to post comments

Ubuntu Wonderful?

Posted Mar 26, 2008 10:50 UTC (Wed) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link] (4 responses)

> We are not using them for anything important, but the opinion that 
Ubuntu (and by inference Linux) is unstable and unmaintainable has spread 
through some of my coworkers.

What they are comparing it against?  Upgrading Windows from XP to Vista 
perhaps?  Without re-installing? I don't use Windows, is that even 
possible?

If you want stable, you should only upgrade between stable (in Ubuntu case 
LTS) versions and just do security updates for them.

Ubuntu Wonderful?

Posted Mar 26, 2008 15:42 UTC (Wed) by mikov (guest, #33179) [Link] (2 responses)

Truth be said, I haven't had the dubious pleasure of installing Vista or upgrading to it.
Fortunately my involvement with Windows ended in the XP days :-) Anyway, you don't have to
upgrade Windows XP to Vista every 6 months ... So I think my coworkers are comparing Ubuntu
upgrades to installing a Windows service pack.

While LTS is a good idea, it is in theory only. The current LTS (6.06) is just too impractical
for desktop use, especially when the competition is the beloved Windows XP. In practice one is
much better off using Debian Etch instead of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. We use Etch on our development
machines (our development is 100% Linux based).

8.04 LTS is probably a much more attractive and viable version, but the important thing is
that our confidence in Ubuntu has already been destroyed.

I think that for our next "Linux in the office experiment" we will simply stick to the next
release of Debian. There is something to be said for having the same OS on the development and
"office" machines.

Ubuntu Wonderful?

Posted Mar 26, 2008 19:07 UTC (Wed) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link] (1 responses)

> Truth be said, I haven't had the dubious pleasure of installing Vista or 
upgrading to it. Fortunately my involvement with Windows ended in the XP 
days :-) Anyway, you don't have to upgrade Windows XP to Vista every 6 
months ... So I think my coworkers are comparing Ubuntu upgrades to 
installing a Windows service pack.

I had understood that service packs are mainly security updates, so they 
would be closer to single Linux release security updates than upgrading to 
a new release...?


> In practice one is much better off using Debian Etch instead of Ubuntu 
6.06 LTS. We use Etch on our development machines (our development is 100% 
Linux based).

I feel the same, Etch picked better time for the release in regards to 
Desktop versions etc.


> 8.04 LTS is probably a much more attractive and viable version, but the 
important thing is that our confidence in Ubuntu has already been 
destroyed.

Well, I would think anything changing things that fast would have some 
quality control issues.  I think the 6-monthly Ubuntu releases could be 
considered "unstable" ones although Canonical doesn't exactly advertise 
them as such.  Let's hope their process gets this new LTS release good 
enough quality (and there's more response to bugs in their BTS).

Ubuntu Wonderful?

Posted Mar 27, 2008 6:58 UTC (Thu) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

Windows service packs are not just security updates (those come out in monthly patches) - they
do roll these up, but they also include many other bug fixes and some new features, e.g.
Windows XP SP2 included many IE features, a new firewall, improved WiFi/Bluetooth, etc.  See
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/features.mspx 

So I think it's reasonable to compare an Ubuntu release with a Windows service pack, except
that the Ubuntu release will typically upgrade many bundled applications to new versions, and
even change them to alternative versions in some cases, as well as providing new system
features.

Debian is great for servers but I would not want to have to customize it for a desktop user
population, unless they are Linux developers who will just do this for themselves.  Ubuntu is
definitely easier to install than Windows (as long as WiFi is supported), since you don't
usually have to install any third party drivers as with Windows.

Ubuntu Wonderful?

Posted Mar 30, 2008 17:51 UTC (Sun) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]

> What they are comparing it against?  Upgrading Windows from XP to Vista
> perhaps?  Without re-installing? I don't use Windows, is that even
> possible?

I can't speak for Vista, having never used it, but for the other Windows versions I have
upgraded without a reinstall.  I've gone from NT to 2000 and 2000 to XP without any problems.
I don't remember if I ever tried upgrading from 98 to 2000 or not.

Ubuntu Wonderful?

Posted Mar 26, 2008 17:44 UTC (Wed) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

These seem to be mostly Kubuntu related - I use Kubuntu myself and like it, but it's likely
that Kubuntu upgrades aren't so widely tested or fixed.  Ubuntu certainly seems to be a bit
more polished, though I prefer Kubuntu generally.

I think it's also a question of priorities - an upgrade bug that breaks someone's wireless
card or other hardware is much more serious than (from one of your examples) something that
breaks Konqueror, particularly if there's a simple-ish workaround.  All upgrade bugs should be
fixed, but there's only so much development time available, so I guess the Ubuntu/Kubuntu
teams focus on the most critical bugs.