Ubuntu and UserLinux to Combine?

An anonymous reader submits "With all the noise about Ubuntu, and no sarge release in sight, we haven't heard much from UserLinux in recent times. Even Bruce Perens has admitted that the "lack of a Debian release is becoming a critical problem". Now, Ubuntu has invited UserLinux to combine forces. More distro consolidation -- without a corporate buyout in sight!"

Comments

I'm Not surprised

[ciroknight]

The first one out with a working product tends to win the market, as long as their product is the best. And since UserLinux stagnated in a lot of trivial discussion, Ubunto got the one up on us..

That being said, I believe that the collaberation of the two products will be a great support to the cause!!!!

Ubuntu, as a desktop and a server

[alienfluid]

i personally think it is a very good move. Combining forces with UserLinux will not only increase its userbase but will allow Ubuntu to conform to the standards that UserLinux was established on. Ubuntu is a great distro that is good for the desktop and the server alike. You just got to love the apt-get. Visit Lafayette Linux Users Group at http://lug.lafayette.edu

Makes sense

[aCapitalist]

Maybe it should be Ubuntu assimilates the few users of United Linux.

I asked Jeff Waugh about this a few months ago on irc and he had said that Mark Shuttleworth and Bruce Perens had talked before, but nothing about a merger.

I think there's a natural synergy here with Bruce Perens being an "industry insider" and Shuttleworth having deep pockets.

And at this point in linux history I don't think a little consolidation of efforts is a bad thing.

Re:server versus desktop

[claes]

I don't think that is what Debian is meant to be, but that is what it is actually used for. And this has become kind of rationalization for slow infrequent releases.

Ubuntu the new Debian

[affinity]

I would like to see..Ubuntu replace Debian as the base system for many of the current debian distros out there. I think with Ubuntu could promote other distros to focus work on the application and desktop layers while keeping better package compatibility.
This could be what UnitedLinux attempted to be.
No dis-respect to Debian or it's developers. I believe Debian as a base could have been managed better to take advantage of the many advances the "Deb based distros" have made.

I am not a professional developer or Software Manager so take this opinion as you will....

Looking at the graph

[fozzmeister]

on http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/ it looks like debian stable isn't going to be done till at least 10/05 at best or 01/06 at worst. Jesus how long has it been. I really love debian, But the longer you leave the stable distribution, well stable, the longer it gets behind testing/unstable and makes the upgrade to the new stable unimaginably worse.

I always try to keep to stable, but I recently had to swith one server to testing coz I needed some updated programs which could not run under stable. To say it was a mess is a major understatement. It trashed my ldap and my mail configurations, the ldap had to be restored from ldif's! Heck the only thing that stayed working was NFS which was generating warnings.

I really think testing should be kept at a "just about ready to go stable" stage, whereas stable should be "run this for a year (or whatever is deamed to be reasonable), it won't change".

Re:Long way to go

[ultrabot]

Synaptic is still too complex a procedure for average users to install software with, a normal user wants to click "Software to do my taxes" and have it ready, not struggle with package management.

I assume you don't consider Windows users average users then? The current approach is still much easier than searching the web for the program, downloading it and installing it (only to stare constant shareware nag screens and tolerate limited features).

For experienced users the one thing that really annoyed me was the complete lack of GCC in the default install.

Experienced users should be able to use apt-get or synaptic to install gcc. gcc is still completely supported ('it's in main' as they say in UbuntuSpeak).

what is up with all the python tools?

Ubuntu aims to be a premium development platform for Python developers. Python is one of the priorities of Ubuntu, which is one of the reasons why it will be swiping the floor with other distros RSN ;-).