Slashdot Mirror
Mark Shuttleworth Proposes Delaying next Ubuntu
Beuno writes "Mark Shuttleworth has proposed on the ubuntu-art mailing list to postpone the 'Dapper Drake' release by 6 weeks. He lays out the reasons pretty clearly: the delay should make the release a more user-friendly distro. He has also called up a community meeting in April 14th on IRC for community input. Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?" Commentary on this also available from the Tectonic site.
He proposes a town hall for March 14, not April.
How long exactly has Longhorn, er, Vista been pushed off? Six weeks pales in comparison.
Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?
Absolutely.
Polished Chocolate... *drool*
What can be done with Ubuntu that I can't do with Debian?
Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?
Yes.
505 users in favor of the delay, 50 against at last count.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=142536
Dapper is coming along nicely, but there are a number of bugs that might not get the attention they deserve if Dapper is released on schedule.
Their Flight 5 CD is out. It should be quite stable for normal use.
Polish is good. Do it.
As a Gentoo user, I tried out Ubuntu on an old Toshiba laptop about a month or three ago when the current version came out. I liked what a I saw, but I ran into to huge problems. One, Ubuntu completely screwed up the monitor settings for the laptop, and the sound was completely futzed. I found the solution to fixing the monitor settings on an Ubuntu user forum (involved hand editing X.org's conf file) and the sound, well, I managed to get it to play somewhat but GNOME still never detected it properly.
If Ubuntu wants to be "Linux for human beings" it needs all the polish it can get after that experience.
Keep up the good work guys.
A 6 week delay doesn't sound earth shattering to me... I fail to see the problem here, to be honest. Especially if it's about improving usability, an area critical for Linux adoption, which is one of the main purposes for this particular distro.
To me, this feels basically like delaying an extra security heavy distro 6 weeks to implement verify a new security protocol implementation works correctly.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Sounds like you're just incapable.......
If you want to make Ubuntu user friendly, how about making it so that you can bypass GRUB instead of being locked out of your system just because it has an error? That to me is the epitome of bad programming.
Are you a programmer? You're clearly not one that understands bootloaders. How do you recover from every possible error in only 512 bytes?
Considering that they want this to be the first Ubuntu release that's supported for a long time and that can compete with things like SuSE's or RedHat's enterprise distributions, I'd say six weeks are perfectly acceptable.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Right. I somehow inadvertently gave it a command that says "GRUB: complain about reading a hard drive that works fine and then refuse input". What a goose I am.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
OMG, Ubuntu is closing on Debian.
To be honest, Dapper is very stable and polished already. There's mixed reactions over the new Clearlooks scheme they've implemented but overall, it's turning out very well. I can't speak for the localisation issues, but a stable release is much better than a rushed release. If you want to try Dapper, Flight 5 should be just fine.
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
>Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?
there are hundreds of distros already, and the only thing they all lack is polish, so yes.
what's the hurry?
Patience is a virtue. Ubuntu has no need to generate revenue, and if it takes six more weeks to make the release more usable for human beings, that can only be a good thing.
If your a VB programmer, thats REALLY easy:
Sub BootLoader()
On Error Resume Next
CodeLookingStuffHere
End SUb
liqbase
Well, Ubuntu is based on Debian right?
:)
It seems that now they are also copying release schedules (with delays) from Debian projects
Are you a programmer?
In that I write computer programs, yes. I'm also an engineer. A real engineer, not a "software engineer".
You're clearly not one that understands bootloaders. How do you recover from every possible error in only 512 bytes?
You toss control back to whatever would otherwise load when it fails. Now, self-proclaimed programmer, let me turn this back around: wouldn't you agree that programs with more catastrophic results upon failure deserve more testing?
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
If it wasn't for the fact that Ubuntu is synchronized with Gnome releases I wouldn't mind the delay. But now they would have to either rush the next release, be late with it or completly skip Gnome 2.16. I hope they'll find some good solution because many users are preferring Ubuntu to other distros because of fairly nice bleeding-edgeness. With this step they could lose major selling point to causal Linux geeks.
The recent theme changes are not a step in good direction too. It looks abysymal and burns my eyes. Even tough I didn't like brown theme the new one made me miss it.
Enough said.
Polish away guys. Keep up the great work!
Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?"
Yes, it's worth it. FTA, this isn't a release aimed at the "average Linux user." It's meant for enterprises, and it's important to get it right. It's something that can be a big point for the adoption of Linux in the desktop workspace, that this is a distro which looks good, has a wide range of language options, and has support. Spending a rather trivial amount of time getting it fully ready is what should be done, rather than try to hit an arbitrary "release date", only to, a few weeks later, do the MS routine of "here's the update package, Service Pack X".
I think that almost everybody would agree that a little more time spent making a product better is a good thing.
:) Any steps, no matter how small, to appeal to the Chinese/Korean/Japanese markets will probably pay off well.
:)
It's not just about polish, though. TFA lays out a number of points where improvements are needed:
1. Testing
2. Certification
3. Localisation
4. (last but not least) Polish
Improvements to Asian localisation should help a ton of people - we're not all English speakers.
Not that it all matters to me, though... I use SUSE.
BaltikaTroika
Its not like this isnt common practice in the first place.. "sorry its not quite done' is a good answer..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I doubt that it's an Ubuntu thing, they didn't write grub, but I do sympathize. I guess Linux has less chance of dealing with every possible quirk of hardware, due to the smaller installed base compared to Windows. I had a machine a while back that three different Linux distros would consistently lock up during partitioning of the drive. Every test in a Windows machine showed the drive was fine. Eventually I partitioned it under Windows (ironically) with Ranish Partition Manager, then I successfully installed Linux.
Oh no... it's the future.
Is it particularly newsworthy that it's Shuttleworth proposing this rather than anybody else? The reason I ask is that he was singled out as the person responsible over at Digg as well, and I see no point to saying that it was Shuttleworth rather than simply "Ubuntu release delay proposed". I know he's the founder of Ubuntu, but does everything have to go through a hero-worship filter before making it onto sites like Slashdot and Digg? It's pretty embarrassing to see tech-oriented sites act like teenage girls fawning over their latest pop singer pin-ups.
What would that be?
emt 377 emt 4
Are you a moron? PC hardware won't load anything by default, except BIOS. That windows on your Dell has a chainloader written in MBR, it doesn't magically boot you into the Windows(R) Operating System(R) [R is for retarded]
"We're too cheap to license mp3 and without the license it's illegal to include it in the distro. So, instead, we'll ask you to download the illegal code yourself. Have a nice day with your (almost) complete open source operating system."
Here's a little secret: Windows was able to load before I installed GRUB. Take that hint, and answer your question.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
...and besides, it is open-soure.
"Deadlines, we don't need no stinking deadlines!"
The problem is that, with a broken bootloader, you can't really 'bypass it'. The bootloader, by definition, is the first thing that runs. If it's broken, there's nowhere to put the logic to do anything else. Maybe if the PC had a more usable firmware than the BIOS we're stuck with, you might have some recovery route, but the way the platform is set up, you have no alternatives.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
how about making it so that you can bypass GRUB
You can't just bypass the bootloader.
I have used grub for over 5 years without any other problems than the ones I (as it turned out) created myself.
Apart from that, apparently you don't know a lot about bootloaders. Which is no crime, mind you. However, a bootloader cannot give the control back to whatever would otherwise load, because it replaces that very thing. So what you want, cannot be done. Ever. Afaik at least.
I'm sorry about the fact that ubuntu didn't work for you. I feel it would be a bit harsh to say the distro sucks because the bootloader didn't work for you, though, don't you agree? Try and install a certain OS made in Redmond on any other but the first harddrive and you'll notice writing bootloaders is just pretty hard. A lot of people here, me included, would probably say grub isn't doing such a bad job. Not a bad job at all really... And neither is Ubuntu. Give it another try. Be open-minded. Have fun.
When I had GRUB installed, the BIOS would load, then it would go into GRUB, have the error, and then refuse further input. The way GRUB could have been written is that when it returns an error, it spits control back to whatever would load in the absence of GRUB having been installed. Don't tell me that's not possible. And if it weren't possible, the fact that GRUB failure can be that catastrophic tells me that, being an engineer, it would warrant much more testing before release. But in all fairness, I work in a field where my solutions have to work, and I can't just shrug when the helicopter crashes.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Here's another little secret: Windows could load because it has its own bootloader, similar to GRUB. Except Windows's bootloader doesn't know how to load anything other than linux. If you want linux to run, you need something that can run both, such as GRUB.
And where would the windows bootloader go? Remember, you have 512 bytes. The Windows bootloader is also 512 bytes. Next.
You toss control back to whatever would otherwise load when it fails.
What would that be?
My army of 13oTz0rz of course LOL LOL BWAHAHAHA PWNED!!!!11one
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This is the Ubuntu that will be competing with Windows Vista. It needs to be polished.
There is going to be a reasonably large number of desktop users willing to "try Linux out" just before they "upgrade" to Vista. The distribution they're most likely to try is currently Ubuntu, and if it is good enough, they might switch to Linux rather than Vista.
You'll have to pardon me if I hold in low regard a distro in which you can be locked out of your system merely for following the install instructions as written. I wanted to use Ubuntu, I really did, but poor design really grates on me, and this a great example of not-so-great design. As for GRUB, not all distros use the same version of it. And if it's error isn't even the right one, that's even worse. I wish I had gone into software engineering rather than real engineering, where low quality is better tolerated.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
If you want to make Ubuntu user friendly, how about making it so that you can bypass GRUB instead of being locked out of your system just because it has an error? That to me is the epitome of bad programming.
Did you report it? They do have quality feed back.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Ubuntu's release philosophy is to take a snapshot of Debian every 6 months, and then stabilize it for two months. During this stabilization period, they import only minor fixes, leaving major ones behind. Often they will backport smaller fixes into their packages - but with limited resources they can't do this for everything.
The fatal flaw with this is that a lot of buggy software still gets in, with new releases with bugfixes coming out after the "Upstream Version Freeze" -- rejected because they have new "features" in addition to the bugfixes. And with a lot of important open source software being still immature, with versions less than 1.0, these few weeks of "stability" are a very long time.
Other major distributions, SuSE and Fedora, constantly release updated software, with new bugfixes and features. They don't just do constant snapshopts, and in my opinion this creates a better system. Ubuntu is even more conservative in their releases than Microsoft or Apple.
I guess the people who called me stupid for actually following the website's instructions didn't mention anything about that.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
You toss control back to whatever would otherwise load when it fails.
...
Back to whatever would otherwise load? That would be nothing (Well, not nothing, but it's impossible to determine what that something would be). The BIOS loads the first 512 bytes of the disk (the MBR) into ram at location 07c0:0000, that MBR then loads the 512 bytes at the start of the partition marked "active" in the MBR at address 07c0:0000. Now, keep in mind that there are 512 bytes in the MBR for data, and code, also remember that the MBR just loaded the partition bootloader over itself in RAM, it's not there any more at all. Next, the partition bootloader (grub in this case) has 512 bytes at location 0x7c0:0000 to load the rest of itself into memory, including error conditions. Now, the read fails, and you get code like this:
if(read failed)
print ("read error")
goto fail
fail:
clear interrupts
halt cpu
because there isn't any other option. You can't just jump back to code that was overwritten when you came into ram. There is no option but to crash in this case. It's like if your interrupt handling code page faults. Your OS WILL crash.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Except, I don't believe, that's on the cards
Considering that Dapper is going to be a major release, oriented towards gaining the business market, not supporting WPA is a big mistake!
I hope I'm wrong
There are no "safety factors" in software engineering like in other engineerings my friend. There is no such thing as tolerances. Things either work or they don't. You can have some error handling, but that is all.
No, I don't want the next ubuntu release to be polish.
Quantum hacker.
The way GRUB could have been written is that when it returns an error, it spits control back to whatever would load in the absence of GRUB having been installed.
As the numerous other posts have shown, you're missing the point; there is nothing to spit control back to, that is just not how it works.
Don't tell me that's not possible.
Well, if I don't tell you, it doesn't make it any less true that it's not possible. GRUB gets loaded overtop of that would have been loaded in the absence of grub. What would otherwise have been loaded is no longer in RAM at this point, you can't just jump to a nonexistant part of ram.
This is the failing of the IBM PC architecture. GRUB programmers are writing code within the framework their given. BIOS is crap, and that's one reason that Apple isn't using it in the new Macs.
It's not possible. And it's great that you work in such a manly field with Real Engineers, as you keep reminding us.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
This is exactly why I always install a Linux bootloader on the Linux partition. Never install a bootloader like GRUB or LILO on the master boot record for the whole drive.
However, MBR is extremely handy when put on the master boot record. I have never seen it fail, even on a completely borked drive. All it does is let you select which partition to boot from (or floppy). This can be extremely handy because there is no need to set the boot flag on your various paritions.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
The fact that you're not a software engineer shows.
Want to know what would have otherwise loaded? The Windows Bootloader, which would have been within the exact same 512b sector that Grub now occupies. Boot loaders on PCs are extremely restricted in what they can do -- their code can be no larger than 446b in size, they run in real mode, and basically must rely directly on BIOS for all of their I/O routines.
In effect, this is 1980's technology, and flexability is virtually nil. The primary boot loader can't just pass its duties off to another boot loader, as there aren't really sufficient instructions available to do this, and the two boot loaders cannot occupy the same space on the drive.
If you're looking for something to blame for this situation, it's the fact that the architecture of the PC BIOS hasn't changed significantly in more than 20 years. It's still firmly rooted in the days of 160KB floppy booting, where the idea of a second-stage boot loader for choosing what OS you want to boot would never have occurred (want to boot a different OS on a diskette-only system? Use a different boot disk). BIOS should have died a long time ago.
Boot loaders like GRUB do the best they can with what little resources and possibilities they are given. I'm sorry that the GRUB developers don't have access to your screwy system to test and debug on. Here I've run GRUB on a variety of systems, and the only machine I ever found which had problems with it is one with a built-in nVidia chipset, back in the Fedora Core 2 days, which was easily solved by switching to a different boot loader.
Yaz.
Got released in April, but the CDs didn't come out until everything was polished? Maybe a 6.05 edition?
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
That was no secret.
Yes, the windows boot loader was able to load windows.
Then it was replaced. By GRUB. For whatever reason,
GRUB had a problem.
There is nothing remaining for it to fall back on.
Same as the windows boot loader.
emt 377 emt 4
The preferred method is to replace the boot loader but you can also boot Linux using the Windows boot loader if you prefer. Also, if all you want to do is get back into Windows, boot to the Windows CD and run "fixmbr" and reboot. Problem solved.
If you're going to complain about an installer that "locks you out" of your existing system, try installing Linux on a fresh system and then install Windows. It will callously overwrite your existing boot loader and you can't run Linux.
In the absence of GRUB (or other bootloader), you would get some generic error message stating "Operating System Not Found". This message would vary depending the BIOS. Pop in an unpartitioned disk without a pre-existing boot loader and you'll see the message. It's not much more helpful, is it? How much code you think you can fit into 512 bytes anyway?
Oh, and about "real engineering," you don't have to retrofit one engine into every model helicopter, do you? Are the people who design the computer control systems not "real engineers?" No, they're just software engineers that let your precious helicopters crash... right?
>> "I wish I had gone into software engineering rather than real engineering, where low quality is better tolerated."
Hmm... It would be interesting to know which "real" engineering discipline you are refering to. I am unaware of any engineering discipline which has not encountered catatrophic failure due to unforseen environmental issues, or simple miscalculation. Your arrogance seems to be masking either a bad childhood, or inability to find love.
What is keeping Ubuntu from _only_ making two releases a year?
Release 6.04 on schedule for those who want it, and release again six weeks later when the polishing is done.
get it here: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/flight5 Live CD and .torrents available
and fuck you to all the impatient twats out there. I'd rather wait for something to work right than something rushed at the last minute coming out.
hoary has some nasty glitches here and there that often dont get resolved until the next release.
Xchat freezes on exit for me, I've unloaded my scripts and get the same effect.
So I welcome such delays to ensure everything is perfect. People bitch when microsoft doesnt do this. So why bitch when a linux distro does this? I'd also like to see an x input driver put in for the genius wizardpen.
Polish can come after the release. Personally, I couldnt wait and upgraded to dapper drake because of XGL and Compiz (the 3d desktop) - Boy I'm glad I did, so much have been fixed and improved, it fixed all my video playback problems, the startup times are infinitely lower, far better hardware support (wireless anyone!?), etc.
:(
Why do I appose to delaying the release? - Because the only reason my less technical friends didnt upgrade is because, ah, hell, a couple of weeks more now and its ready, now they will and probably ruin their experience with the rash of pushing packages into an unstable branch, shame
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
Actually the Linux kernel does these things pretty well. And modern distros that use udev, hal and dbus can detect hardware configurations on-the-fly. I was half-shocked when I plugged in my digital camera and it was detected and mounted automagically. The problem is X has it's own hardware subsystems for the sake of portability (BSD kernel does not Linux-like subsystems) and are not as good. It would be great if X just would let the Linux kernel do its thing. There is some work being done along these lines and hopefully will improve the situation.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
By the way: does anyone know if dapper will ship a kernel that's been compiled with the version of gcc that's included on the distribution CD's? If badger had one fundamental flaw, it would be a kernel compiled with gcc3.4 and gcc 4.? included on the CD. People who need to compile e.g. their wireless driver because it's not included in the standard kernel, are fucked, because they may not have network access with the distribution files and need to download either gcc 3.4 or kernel sources...
It looks as though this error occurs during the second-stage bootloader, so it should be possible to archive the original bootloader and jump to it if there are any problems.
However, I agree that there are certain cases where recovery just isn't possible (and LeonGeeste clearly fails to recognize that) but this doesn't appear to be one of those cases.
http://outcampaign.org/
I have never had problems using GRUB to boot various flavors of Linux, as well as dual-booting them with Windows (XP). The difference in my case is that I always searched or asked someone "does this installer set up dual-booting correctly?". When the answer was no, I tried something else.
On the other hand, bugs happen. But saying that it is the fault of GRUB, LILO, or whatever program happened to fail on you is not fair. It creates the impression that certain programs are inferior when the reality is that all programs have problems.
Who sat down and said "if this program has an error, how bad is the consequence? What can we do to minimize this negative consequence?"
Someone did. It took them a couple of seconds. You want to know the answers to your questions? "If we have an error, the user can not load any operating system." and "Nothing" Because that's how software works (Or doesn't) Failures are final in software; that bit is either set, or it isn't. Welcome to boolean algebra, enjoy your stay.
P.S: The only person using the phrase "software engineer" is you.
The biggest issue is that not everyone will work on polish and bug fixing. Some will be working on development of new features. A good version control system should allow this state of affairs, but what will happen when someone working on the development branch gets a major new feature developed in the long six week time frame that others are working on the polish?
One faction will say, "Don't commit any new features until the next major release after this one!" while another faction will say "This is too important to wait through endless patch releases and another major release cycle!" The temptation will be to "just risk a few bugs" for this "major new feature" by those who don't really see the value of the polish right now. The offense will be that "any new feature" will require more polish, patches, or in essence de-values the work the polish team has been doing. Great amounts of spite and venom will be launched at each side.
Set a firm, clear policy about what the polish window will be and about the firm exclusion of new functionality that's independent of any particular technology before this starts and make sure everyone knows what that policy is. Not setting a policy is bound to cause chaos. Setting and then breaking a policy is bound to drive off any future desire to work on future "polish" release work.
As many others have pointed out, in 446 bytes, we can't do anything. All the Microsoft boot loader have historically done when it barfs is print something like "NT Loader not Found", and then left you "locked out of your system", just as GRUB did.
BTW, you're not really locked out. You can create a GRUB boot floppy and manually boot into your OS installation. You can also use the Windows CD to set the MBR back to its original state. Or you could use most Linux distros' rescue CDs to fix the problem.
I think that's great. Just a while ago Dapper got a new urine-colored Human theme, and - all due respect to the people who put their efforts into making Ubuntu better - frankly, it's just horrible. If the release is delayed, they have a lot better change to fix the theme.
Another thing i'd really like to see in dapper is the new NetworkManager 0.6 with its WPA and OpenVPN goodness. "Automatic network detection and configuration management" is high-priority target for dapper, and the new features in n-m 0.6 are needed by many users.
You're asking the software guys to do something that CAN'T BE DONE on the given hardware. If it fails, there's nothing more it can do. You have to re-install GRUB or a different bootloader (like the one that Windows uses). There's no room on the first 512 bytes of disk for multiple boot loaders.
Is it unfortunate that there was a bug in GRUB? Yup. That sucks. But the guys working on GRUB are almost all volunteers; they don't necessarily have access to your motherboard/hard drive/firmware combination.
Why does the Windows bootloader support more hardware? Guess what happens if Dell builds a system that Windows can't boot? They don't release it, or they make Microsoft fix it. Most OEM's don't test Linux, so these problems don't get found.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
See slow firefox problem in Dapper and the un-upgrade-able firefox 1.0.7 still vulnerable to security issues in Breezy. They also need to fix the fact that they cannot update firefox because everything else in the distro depends on it...
One very nice thing about Ubuntu is that they do host these decoders in their Multiverse repository. You have to edit your sources.lst to add a Canonical run repository (packages are signed), apt-get install the codecs, and you're done.
On distributions like Fedora Core, you have to add a Russian warez site ("livna") to your yum configuration to be able to get MP3 support. These packages may be unsigned and full of root kits. It's a risky proposition.
In absense of the bootloader, there is nothing. There is nothing to fall back to. So yes, it is impossible.
What if you were told that it was unnacceptible for the helicopter you designed to fail even the blades were removed? Or if in case of the death of the pilots and all the crew, it still had to had to fail-over to another pilot?
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
... you see, in my latest try to switch to Linux, I used Breezy Badger, and cam within a hairs breadth of being able to switch. So Dapper is something I eagerly await.
I'm a very awkward bugger when it comes to switching, so if Dapper can satisfy me, then it's going to satisfy a lot of other awkward buggers too, and that has to be good news.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
I'm a Computer Scientist. I wouldn't know, nor do I care about such semantics.
The problem here is that Software Engineers are not Hardware Engineers. They develop software for the system that is available. No amount of pure software can overcome the shortcomings of the BIOS.
BIOS sucks. If you're looking for me to argue with you that BIOS is a poor engineering solution, you're not going to find one. It's hardly the software developers fault that you (and most other people) keeping buying systems that feature the crappy old PC BIOS. Would you build a search and rescue helicopter out of a motorcycle engine and paper mache? And if you did, would it have the same level of fault-tolerance as an EH-101?
Boot loaders are fragile because the architecture they are based upon wasn't designed to handle them. Want a real solution? Go out and buy a system that doesn't use PC-style BIOS. Get a system that sports Open Firmware, or the Extensible Firmware Interface. And then go and bitch to Microsoft that their consumer-level OS's won't boot on such systems because they still only support the 25 year old BIOS for bootstrapping.
Fault analysis works best when you have complete control over the entire system. Software developers typically don't get a say in how the handward is designed, however, and PC hardware is so riddled with cruft and poor design from 25 years of backwards compatibility, developers working in dark corners like those of boot loaders have to make do with what little they have. If you want something more robust, then buy something more robust and ditch your PC altogether.
Otherwise, don't complain. The software developers in this case do the best with what little resources the system provides them. The fact that the system can't be made more fault tolerant isn't the fault of the developers -- it's the fault that the 25 year old system they must rely upon actively works against such fault tolerant code from being developed in the first place.
Yaz.
There is more than the BIOS that needs to be fixed on PCs, and the whole issue of anachronisms, the technology and processes that aren't needed anymore.
What about printers and the whole WYSIWYG thing. This didn't make monitors and printers work on the same principle. There is a standard monitor output, and how the monitor deals with that internally to present the screen image is up to the monitor manufacturer.
Why can't there be a standard printer output, instead of the thousands of different drivers and outputs. How the printer handles this standard output internally, with firmware or whatever, to present the printed page image would be up to the printer manufacturer. That would solve the Linux printer driver problems, and reduce PC manufacturers and users problems.
Here's a little secret: Windows was able to load before I installed GRUB. Take that hint, and answer your question.
I was able to close my window on my car before I installed this new power window system that completely replaces the old one.
Now does it make sense? You can't just replace something then expect the old one to be a fail-over.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Why waste all the bandwidth twice? Really? If they release on schedule then release a major patch that soon that everyone will apply. Why waste the bandwidth. I thought /.ers where all about things like saving resources of all kinds?
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I'm not even an Ubuntu user, but I think the whole community would benefit if some major distro said "Okay, stop everything, we're going to spend six weeks on making the distro usable by normal people." Thanks and Kudos to Ubuntu if they lead the way on this.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
I dont mind waiting a bit more if it means a more stable experience. Users should not have to tend to bugs and such issues at all. A better more polished experience means less drive to test the next distro. If its good and easy to use you dont have that voice in your head urging you to upgrade all the time.
I really hope Linspire get their CNR for Ubuntu thing up and running. Having an easy way of buying apps and installing them would make for eg. gaming on Linux much easier and give a boost for commercial games on Linux.
HTTP/1.1 400
Yes. We're not talking a year, here. A month is inconsequential. The question is silly.
And, with a distro where being "user-friendly" is a primary feature, it's all the more important to make these minor adjustments in release dates for improvements that are fundamental to the underlying concept.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
In that I write computer programs, yes. I'm also an engineer. A real engineer, not a "software engineer".
You are also a really arrogant engineer.
Don't let your anger show. Frustration is understandable, but showing it makes you harder to communicate with. If you want people to help, don't make snide remarks.
The fact is there are ways to do it. OS/2 has been doing this for ages. It's called making another damn partition to become more flexible. Even XOSL lets you do this. Use the bootloader to hand it off to a real section of drive that can DO something. ie. make it flexible to recover from something such as this. We can afford to use another primary partition when the bootloader is strapped for space. Good god, you lose 10 MB of HD. With today's capacities, that ain't squat.
Install XP on one disk, install Linux on another. Write GRUB on Linux disk and set the BIOS to boot from that. Now if GRUB boots ok, you can choose between linux and xp. If GRUB errors, then change the BIOS setting and boot from the NTFS disk. Your xp installation will boot without a problem. If your most important installation is xp, the wise thing to do is install Ubuntu in a new disk and not repartition the old one
oaky what you are missing is that in a single engine helicopter there is exactly X ccs of space where an engine can go (this may have a bit of wiggle but..) so given possible engines and performance factors how exactly are you going to put two engines in?? oh btw a couple of things 1 both grub and LILO can be used from removeable media (boot dis[c|k] 2 i think the windows boot loader can be hacked into booting a chainloader or worst case you can use Bootmagic (comes on the Partion Magic cd) (and in your helicopter case isn't it common to have the rotor unhook from the engine if the engine cuts out?)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
The stockholders are going to revolt!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
how about making it so that you can bypass GRUB
You have to have a bootloader for dual booting. Pick your poison, you don't have a choice in the matter. You could, of course, get rid of your other OS. Then you can bypass GRUB.
Here's a little secret: Windows was able to load before I installed GRUB. Take that hint, and answer your question.
Are you really this ignorant and incapable of logical thought, or are you just a troll?
> spits control back to whatever would load in the absence of GRUB having been installed.
/boot/grub/stage2. GRUB needs to do this because it is bigger than 512 bytes, so stage 2 contains all of the GRUB code that doesn't fit in the first 512. GRUB needs to be this larger than 512 bytes because it's a really advanced boot loader, it even understands file systems, which allows it to load configuration files, initrds, kernels, and modules by reading the file system, instead of having hard coded locations of those files location (by disk geometry) rammed into it. (this really helps when you update, replace, or change those files!)
/boot/grub/stage2, a location which is hard coded with the disk geometry location of this file. (stage 1 doesn't understand file systems).
/boot/grub/stage2, the parition table, and the boot sector of your windows partition are completely differnt locations on the drive, it is entirely posible that GRUB stage 1 could have a problem, while the Microsoft MBR could not.
/boot/grub/stage2 is located, but not in the partition table or boot sector of the Windows partition, one could fail where the other succeds.
/boot/grub/stage2) is loadable, but a bug in the implementation means it only works for block_number=(location of partition table) or block_number=(location of boot sector). Who wants to bet that there are BIOS out there that only get tested by the manufacturer on MBRs that only load play with the partition table and boot sectors of partiti
The BIOS knows you want to boot from your hard drive, it does one simple thing to facilitate this, it loads the first 512 bytes from the drive into memory, and it tells the CPU "start executing here". Should the code in those 512 bytes fail, the bios has nothing further it can do, it only knows how to do one thing, grab the 512 bytes and let them execute.
You installed Stage 1 of GRUB in the MBR (first 512 bytes of the drive). When you installed it, you installed it over top of the 512 bytes that were Microsoft's MBR. This is what was there before GRUB was installed, and now it is gone, completely written over, and neither GRUB nor the bios can do anything about it.
I think you would probably like it if the grub installer put a backup copy of the Microsoft MBR somewhere else on the drive, and you would like stage 1 of GRUB to load and execute those if there is any problem. But, if there is an error loading those 512 bytes, absolutely nothing can be done.
There is a perfectly valid explanation for why stage 1 might fail and why the microsoft MBR doesn't.
Stage 1 of GRUB (installed in the mbr) has 1 job, load a file from your Ubuntu partition,
The Microsoft MBR also has a simple job. It looks, at the partition table for partitions marked as bootable, takes the first one, loads the boot sector of that partition into memory, and executes it.
So stage 1 of GRUB and the Microsoft MBR really have a lot in common, as they are both 512 bytes they really do shit all, they just attempt to load more boot code off the drive and let it rip. The crucial difference here is WHERE on the drive they play with. Microsoft MBR reads the partition table and the boot sector of the partition marked bootable. GRUB stage 1 reads the location of
As
What could be different about these different locations on the drive?
If there was an error on the drive where
Or, maybe the hard drive is fine in all locations, but the mechanism used by these two MBRs to access it is not behaving as it should. What is this mechanism? Our frequenly buggy friend, the BIOS. The BIOS implements a interface that the MBR can use to get its job done. Something like
load_sector_from_ide_drive( ide_channel, master_or_slave, block_number )
Assume neither MBR has any bugs in calling this interface, what if there is a problem with the implementation itself? What if the interface promises that a block_number=(location of
Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
I would like to call for a community "town hall" meeting on Tuesday 14th March - once at 09:00 UTC (for the Aussies and Asian communities) and then again at 18:00 UTC (for Europe and the Americas). The meetings will be in #ubuntu-meeting on irc.freenode.net. Based on feedback at those meetings, we will ask the Tech Board and the Community Council to take a view on the proposal, and announce the decision by the end of the week. The submitter added an extra month on that town hall notice!
IANAE but I think that the vast majority of your printers rely on patented Adobe technology, and as such, each manufacturer is on different versions and licenses.
I am, on the other hand, an expert on a technology called SVG, and I know that there are alot of guys at Canon working with the w3c on something called SVGPrint, which they are looking to use as an Open/Free mechanism to transmit data to all their printers. (In place of postscript?).
There is alot of work going on in these fields, but it will take a little bit longer until some of the newer open technologies hit the market.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
I'm Shocked, shocked I tell you that a distro based on, and dependent upon, Debian packages would choose to focus on some kind of abstract "usability" or "stability" issue over fast and frequent updates!
Where's the bleeding edge code? Where's the "It compiled this morning let's push it out" mentality that's so common with Debian based Distros??
I'm astounded and saddened. Microsoft has updates coming out weekly. It can't be good for Ubuntu if it loses the "update war" with Microsoft. If you lose the update war, everything else is down hill from there.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
I am in fact quite familiar with IBM's Boot Manager, having at one time been a DB2 for OS/2 developer at IBM. And I agree -- it is generally a much more elegant system.
The big problem is that Boot Manager takes up a precious primary partition, of which you're still only allowed 4 per drive. It also has its own built-in limitation that requires the boot partition to be wholely withing the first 1023 cylinders of the hard drive (usually within the first ~512MB of disk space). To some people, such restrictions are undesireable (not to mention that AFAIK there are only three ways to legally get Boot Manager in the first place: from OS/2, from an old copy of AIX x86, or through an old version of Partition Magic back when they used to bundle it).
Boot Manager always worked well for me -- I routinely used it in place of LILO on older Linux distros back in the day. But that hardly excuses the fact that it's still a work-around to what is largely a BIOS problem.
Yaz.
I think you're trolling. As an engineer, you should be able to understand "that's just the way it has to be." I'll try to explain further, but for some reason, I don't think you'll get it:
PCs have exactly one master boot record. That master boot record points to exactly one bootloader. When you install GRUB, the single entry in the master boot record is changed to load GRUB instead of the Windows bootloader. There is no "whatever would have loaded." PCs just aren't designed that way. Don't like it? Call IBM and ask them to go back in time and fix it. But until then, that's just the way it is.
As for Ubuntu's install instructions not being correct, I find it highly unlikely. The fact that tens of thousands of people have managed to install it just fine by following those same instructions would seem to indicate that it does work the vast majority of the time. The logical conclusion when a set of instructions work fine for thousands of people but don't work for you, would seem to be that you did something wrong. Believe it or not, even an "engineer" can fuck up sometimes. Did you try the install again paying closer attention to the instructions? Did you make sure your partitions were correct? Did you try using LILO instead? Or did you just get pissed and start trolling?
Oh, and by the way, I like how you state that you're not a software engineer and that you have no idea how PCs boot, and then make suggestions about how GRUB and the boot process should work. Do you have software engineers telling you how helicopters should work? How often are their good ideas thrown out because they don't know how anything works?
Maybe not
I remember keeping track of the Breezy Badger planning wiki before that version was released, and it seemed to me that the team deferred many of their major goals... on the other hand, it looks like most improvements planned for Dapper have been implemented already, as Shuttleworth notes in his message:
s
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+spec
I'll refrain from Debian comparisons, as they're not needed to communicate what stellar work the team has done here. Point is, Ubuntu users and admins ought to support this delay, for the same reason I support Ubuntu... the Ubuntu team simply has its shit together, moreso than that of any other freely available distribution.
Let Shuttleworth strategize to take on Red Hat, SuSE, and Vista--because Ubuntu actually has a fighting chance. That prospect ought to excite Ubuntu partisans (like me) and fence-sitters alike.
After analyzing LeonGeeste's post and answer style, it becomes obvious that he is a troll.
Definative replies to his questions are ignored, and his replies to other answers focus on the irrelevant, ignoring all else. You can't help him understand, because he isn't here to understand, just to waste people's time and energy.
As for Ubuntu's install instructions not being correct, I find it highly unlikely. The fact that tens of thousands of people have managed to install it just fine by following those same instructions would seem to indicate that it does work the vast majority of the time. The logical conclusion when a set of instructions work fine for thousands of people but don't work for you, would seem to be that you did something wrong. Believe it or not, even an "engineer" can fuck up sometimes. Did you try the install again paying closer attention to the instructions? Did you make sure your partitions were correct? Did you try using LILO instead? Or did you just get pissed and start trolling?
Except for LILO and the trolling (odd that explaining your problem and the shortcomings of the solutions others provide now counts as "trolling"), yes, yes, a hundred times yes. I didn't just give up once. I tried installing it again and again, and yes, I did exactly what the install instructions said. Burned to a CD, booted from it, followed install instructions, made partitions, and so on. But don't take my word for it -- why don't you name one thing I could have fucked up that would have caused this specific error -- GRUB error 25, a hard disk read error on a hard disk that works fine? As for intelligence, I made perfect scores on the GRE analytical and quantitative, and completed a mechanical engineering program directly from high school in two years and one semester. So save the attribution to intellectual deficiency.
Oh, and by the way, I like how you state that you're not a software engineer and that you have no idea how PCs boot, and then make suggestions about how GRUB and the boot process should work. Do you have software engineers telling you how helicopters should work? How often are their good ideas thrown out because they don't know how anything works?
The general principles of engineering -- i.e., since you want to call programmers "software engineers" apply to all fields. Following those principles, you should focus most efforts on correcting those components whose failures cause the worst problems. When GRUB had that error, nobody on the Ubuntu forums even knew what I should do. And the fact that, finally, someone with experience in programming bootloaders can help me is bad, not good, because it signals that these eventualities simply were not planned for. There was no Plan B for when GRUB fails -- nor was the error even diagnosed properly! If you think you can excuse these because it's software "engineering", and you have to be a software "engineer" to "get it", I don't know what to tell you.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Amen to that! I tried installing Ubuntu on my girlfriend's laptop, and in the end I just gave up getting Chinese input working properly (she's Taiwanese and sends a lot of mail in Chinese to her friends back home.) After a couple of long nights spent fiddling with it, I could get it to sort of work with some apps, but this is one area where Windows beats Linux hands down -- after I gave up and installed Windows on her machine, enabling Chinese input took me all of about 30 seconds to do, and it works flawlessly in every app she uses.
I think Ubuntu is just trying to silence critics that say that they've run off and abandoned Debian. I think that delaying the release date is a move to get back to the distro's roots.
A bootstrap loader sits in the Master Boot Record -- the first 512 bytes on the disc. The BIOS knows how to position the reading heads at any cylinder and sector on the disc's surface and select the signal from any head. It knows precious little else. What it does when first switched on is go to head 0, cylinder 0, sector 0 {which is the only sector you can be absolutely cast-iron certain will definitely always exist, no matter what size drive it is}; read that sector, which is 512 bytes big, into memory; and begin executing it as instructions.
/mbr
Within the space of those 512 bytes, you have to have a program which loads the operating system proper. It can use BIOS calls to find any place on the disc {or just within the first 1024 cylinders, if it's a really ancient BIOS} in order to do this. Once the operating system itself has loaded, it no longer needs to rely on the BIOS's own methods of accessing the disk; it can talk to devices directly.
Windows has a bootstrap loader of its own, which goes in the MBR. Grub also goes in the MBR. Even Lilo, the original bootstrap loader which had nothing wrong with it in the first place before Grub became all trendy, goes in the MBR. When you installed Grub, you overwrote Windows' own bootstrap loader. It is now lost for all time.
The solution is to replace the MBR. Either boot up with a Windows CD and do
C:\> fdisk
to install the MBR from Windows; or boot up with the kernel from a Linux boot CD, using a cheatcode to specify your usual root file system:
boot: linux root=/dev/hda1
{or whatever partition it's on}, and then re-configure Grub. Or preferably just install Lilo instead.
I hope this explains why you can't have a fallback when the bootstrap loader fails. In the Olden Days, with no bootstrap loader you would have been given a simple memory editor which would allow you to display the contents of memory, enter instructions and data in hexadecimal, and begin executing instructions from memory. Things like this would be useful to programmers {you could type in a bootstrap loader by hand if you needed to}, but they stopped being popular about the time more non-programmers started buying computers. More sophisticated display devices began needing more sophisticated BIOSes, and the hex editor {which most users would not know how to use anyway} was squozen out to make room.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Thanks, this is the kind of information that I never see posted anywhere, when I am about to beat on my printer with a hammer because there is some Linux USB or printer driver that I don't have. The light at the end of the tunnel thing. Take the problem outside the PC box.
If you live in the EU or the UK, and certain other countries, a software MP3 player licence costs nothing; the patents in question are not valid in those countries.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Already happened. Debian took three years to get Sarge declared "stable"!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Some example specs (copied / pasted) :
This is what all linux distros should do, start listening to the users instead of relying on the old "RTFM n00b" cliché.
I'm sure that if Ubuntu keeps doing all of these user-friendliness checks in a couple of years, Ubuntu will match the usability and installation-friendliness of WinXP, yay!
I think the next release of Ubuntu has some really bleeding edge new features and testing is probably not going well. XGL alone is a bit of a gamble(though I cannot wait to have it running soon after a full install) and I think he's looking at some of the QA for some of these features and flinching. I don't blame him but the community will be there for it, so let it delay 6 weeks if they think that's enough time to make some significant resolution to the quality of the distribution, otherwise let it fly and see if it stabilizes with the increased interest.
"Except Windows's bootloader doesn't know how to load anything other than linux"
Not very bright, are you?
I think this could be best compared to the Xbox 360. Microsoft rushed Xbox 360 = Heating issues. Ubuntu delays Ubuntu = Problems where fixed and it just works. Simple eh?
It will be good to go from the Firefox 1.0.7 that comes with Breezy Badger to Dapper's Firefox 1.5, but I still think it's worth the wait.
I guess your meant Windows.
But that's not true either. The windows boot loader is fully capable of loading another OS.
Take a look at
Garry Williams
True, and even if that was not the case, where would we put the Bootloader Recoverer recoverer?
- These characters were randomly selected.
...because it's Steak & BJ Day. Wouldn't miss that for the world.
Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?
If they delay the release for more than a month, then maybe they will find and fix some of the minor issues and inconsistencies missed in a hasty release.
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
I've been using linux (Mandrake to be precise) consistently for 2 years now and was eXtremely disappointed when it turned into Mandriva. I'm open to suggestions about choosing another distro. Someone atleast point me to a reliable comparison site. I remember having attrocious problems with bsd, my x window was this fugly grey screen that didn't do much. I need to atLEAST have a pretty desktop with icons. And I run heavy java and c SVMs and do image processing stuff.
*Complete newbie*
Ubuntu is out of the question.
WTF!!! Are you trying to get your self killed? Refitting a helicopter without any formal qualifications? Do you think we charge $500 an hour to do something that some "software engineer" can do after chatting with their mates on a web forum???
Don't even try to fly the helicopter until we get someone over from London to fix it and certify it is in good condition... Yes, we know its expensive, but it is important to get it checked out every six months anyway. You are damn lucky that it didn't start, it could have crashed, killed everyone, been infected with spyware, leaked your credit card to phishers and deleted all your data.
[[Takes off real engineers hat]]
Yes it is unfortunate that out of 15 million installs, yours had to be the one that failed. It is also unfortunate that no-one knowledgeable was able to help you on the web forum. But you do catch more flies with honey you know, and otherwise you could always pop down to the local computer shop and reinstall your old boot-loader for $50, assuming you don't know how to do that yourself.
Perhaps you could provide a link to the forum where this was discussed? Although the webforum is not staffed by paid employees, it does sound as if more constructive solutions could have been proposed.
@Zonk
There is a typo in your post. It is march 14th and not april 14th. I guess on this day, the irc channel is going to get a flood of traffic. I wonder how many users will be allowed to enter the channer and participate in the discussion. Will there be a cap on the number of people logged in at any time ?
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
"And my suspicion that programmers have unjustifiably taken the title "software engineer" in a petty attempt to inflate their status shows basis."
Why don't you take your beef about using the term "engineer" up with microsoft, who use it regularly in their tech support titles.. ie:MCSE - Microsoft Certified Software Engineer, etc..
Get over it man. So grub failed. I'm sure you're scarred for life from that experience. Guess what? Regardless of all the ranting you've done here, at least you've learned something (hopefully, anyway).
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
I'm all for them taking their time in the next release especially since the development builds started supporting Broadcom chipsets. I'm running Fedora at the moment but I would gladly swith if I could get wireless running natively instead of having to deal with ndiswrapper. No disrespect to ndiswrapper, it works just fine, I just hate fiddling with it everytime I install an update to the kernal.
WPA configuration via GUI isn't too much to ask for, is it?
This guy is way out there
All the Microsoft boot loader have historically done when it barfs is print something like "NT Loader not Found", and then left you "locked out of your system", just as GRUB did.
That'd be "NTLDR not found". I have a laptop which is infected or something and keeps printing that message on every boot, and even when I fix it all the files in root of C:\ disappear on shutdown... strangely enough that seems to be the only thing wrong with it, so I just do suspend and fix it from a boot CD until I find time to reinstall...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I said:
I'm listing the specs for Ubuntu
I should've said:
I'm reading the specs for Ubuntu
Sorry.
In that I write computer programs, yes. I'm also an engineer. A real engineer, not a "software engineer".
If you actually have to go out of your way to point out your dick size.....
I use this every time I do my Ubuntu Install. It not only installs the DVD/MP3 codecs, but can install much of the other "non-gpl" (but free to download) software that a lot of people use, including Opera and Skype.
XOSL also did this using a fat partition, and it was freely available. This is an option for many folks.
;-) Oh yeah, got any cool ibm or os/2 swag you wanna get rid of?
Doesn't everyone own a copy of OS/2?
Guy, if your urine is dark orange like that, you oughtta go to the doctor's office. I suspect a bladder infection or UTI. Get some cipro, and get that puppy fixed!
Own a moving van? :)
I must have a metric ton of OS/2 swag around here. T-shirts (including pink Team OS/2 t-shirts). Mugs. Ball caps. Pens. Pins. Posters. Signs. Buttons. Shorts. Sunglasses. Bumper stickers. Note pads. Bags of various shapes, sizes, and types. Mouse pads. OS/2 hand grip excercisers. And software. Gobs and gobs of software. Including still shrink-wrapped copies of OS/2 2.1 on diskette. You name it, I probably have it somewhere. And a sizeable chunk of it predates Warp. I even have the OS/2 WARP v3 presss release kit kicking around somewhere, with slides of what the boxes looked like :). I even have stand-up booth signs that proclaim things such as "we're developing for OS/2!" and "we're OS/2 compatible!" for use by vendors at trade shows.
And I'm probably forgetting a lot of other really odd items. And that list doesn't include some of the interesting non-OS/2 related IBM items I have (like my VisualAge leather jacket).
Say what you will about IBM (and as a shareholder, I have my share of things to complain about), but one can't deny that know how to create and give away some damn fine marketing swag :).
Yaz.
Either this guy has the best sense of humor in the world or he/she/it is a complete idiot.
Most likely the first.
I really wanted to change my sig to something witty, but all I could come up with is this.
I have a HP Compaq Business Notebook NC6220. Ubuntu recognized many of my drivers; however, I continued to have similiar problems expressed in this post.
After coming out of suspend mode, my sound would take a dive. A full restart was needed to bring back sound. I tried the numerous fixes through Automatix and Ubuntu forums without any avail.
The point...these little things add up to a major annoyance, and the fix is installing XP Pro back on the notebook. Hopefully waiting another four to six weeks for a smooth Dapper with be worth it.
-- The Arizona Kid
Yes. It is. Full stop.
Free software ships When It Is Ready. That's why it's better.
All's true that is mistrusted
Anyone notice that most of the development packages for various libraries don't seem to be installed by default? Not that I've looked too hard during the installation process. But it's annoying to find basic stuff missing to compile a program.
I just realized how ridiculous this discussion is compared to announcements about Debian delays. Ubuntu delayed? "YES YES YES!". Debian delayed? "Haha they're teh dum lol"
I think Patrick Volkerding has taught us well.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
You weren't called stupid for what you were saying (while you said reasonable things that is, didn't last long), but for how you said it.
No, that's not what I am saying. Bootloaders (any bootloader) can get screwed up if your drive changes. LILO is most sensitive, just changing a partition will make it freeze up. GRUB is not as bad but it still sometimes freaks out if the drive is in a state it doesn't expect. And when your bootloader freezes then you have no way to do anything without using a boot CD or something.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
What does Ubuntu offer that Debian doesn't other than cosmetic? Tomahawk Desktop features Resistant to Viruses, Resistant to Pharming, and package user based simple yet very effective package management system. Its based on latest KDE.
.. in metaphysical way (joke :)) because this delay what was in my mind all this weekend. Dapper comes to be *good*, in sense "cheap, working iPod for masses", so it should be polished at maximum. I mean, almost *everything* works out of box, so why not done it that everything what is possible to be done is done?
Actually I would welcome all hackers/coders/common linux crowd take a way in their browsers to Ubuntulinux.org, download latest beta, install it as some test partition and try to crash/test their favorite apps. Then, get all those nasty bugs to www.launchpad.net and get them filled. Kudos tu Ubuntu bugsquash team, which are very quick in testing/confirming bugs. You won't be left in cold.
So, let's get over "we have different distros", and let's help make one who really rock!
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Yeah thats all Ubuntu is, standard Linux, just polished out a little bit.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Normally I'd ask whether a bug report has been filed on this but I happen to know there's a launchpad bug about the 2G/2G kernel option breaking WINE and Lisps. You're in luck too - a fix for the problem was released two days ago.
Remember folks: Slashdot isn't your distro's bug tracker. Complaining here may give your issue exposure but it probably won't help your bug to be fixed. Please, please report bugs in your distro to your distro's bug tracker. There's no guarantee that your issue will ever be fixed but your odds are vastly improved...
Hi there, I've seen this mentioned before in comments on other sites but I've never seen an authorative source mentioning this. Is there any chance you can post a link to an offical Mandriva/Thompson spokeperson mentioning this? My (old) understanding was that many years ago they were shipping MP3 support without a licence...
Isn't
apt-get install build-essential
the usual way to get the minimal libraries/headers/programs for when you wish to have a basic build environment on a Debian based distro?
It could be that your particular problem isn't seen by anyone else (they may have similar but subtley different kit and not see the problem). If you wander off and no one else mentions it the odds are when you come back in six weeks the problem will still be there (hint: looking at the HP Laptop Support page no one has mentioned the problem on your laptop model).
While it may be daunting, your best chance of having this fixed quickly is to head over and file a useful bug report (e.g. Description of the problem, simple step by step instructions indicating the lead up to the bug, what you expected to happen and what actually happened) over on Launchpad.
I think what we're dealing with here is that six weeks is an appreciable fraction of the lifespan so far of the article poster. Assuming it's a he, and that he is 12, then six weeks is nearly one whole percent of his lifespan so far. To an adult, it's like having to wait an entire quarter, which is the maximum timespan that even those paragons of patience, corporate CEOs, are capable of waiting.
Why does Linux have to be as user-friendly as Windows?
Please flee in terror in an orderly manner.
I'm currently switching to Ubuntu from Debian because of the rigid release cycle. If Ubuntu starts to slip release times it might soon fall into the same trap as Debian. I don't mind if this release is postphoned but Ubuntu (Mark) should make clear that the release afterwards is scheduled at the normal release time.
A top project needs to have a reliable roadmap since many other projects and activites depend on them. As soon as this reliability is lost the confidence is lost also and will finally lead to a decline in the inportance of the project.
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
If Ubuntu strives for enterprise linux releases it needs to have the wxWidgets libraries in its base release. wxWidgets libraries are far more used in enterprises and are a requirement for many small ISV's. If Ubuntu wants to become a real contender agains Redhat/Suse/... in enterprises the top framework libraies have to be available in the base release.
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
Well, considering how broken various parts of all the previous Ubuntu distributions have been at release i think it's certainly a better idea to release when it's ready as opposed to when the release says it's due, why do we need a new version every 6 months if it's always going to be just that little bit less than completely usable, what's the point?!
this is something microsoft doesn't do, they don't promise a free upgrade to a new version of windows every 6 months, such a promise would almost certainly either need to be broken or introduce serious bugs from extremely rushed coding and review cycles.
Meanwhile your credit card data is being sent to Kathmandu...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
It took about 5 months to discover <a href="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03<nobr>/<wbr></wbr></nobr> 13/0525254">this</a> major and pretty simple bug in Breezy so will 6 weeks be enough for polishing Dapper?
Ubuntu will not include this plugin by default, last I checked. It was discussed to death on the devel mailing list.
>>You'll have to pardon me if I hold in low regard a distro in which you can be locked out of your system merely for following the install instructions as written.
I've seen Windows systems refuse to boot after install. It's called bad luck. It's fixed by sticking the install disk back in and clicking "rescue" or "repair". Also, if you're mad at Ubuntu for accidently locking you out of your existing OS, remember that Windows does that by design.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
"There was no Plan B for when GRUB fails"
This is hardly GRUB's fault. Rather it is because we are working with incredibly outdated *hardware* system architecture that only know how to do a single thing: load the bootloader. If the bootloader fails, then the system doesn't know how to do anything else.
So no, its not GRUB's fault for not providing a backup plan. It's the system architecture inherited from the 1980s that makes it *impossible* to provide a backup route. Don't go around blaming the GRUB developers for a system they didn't design.
"When GRUB had that error, nobody on the Ubuntu forums even knew what I should do."
Patently false. People were trying to help you, but you weren't playing very nicely.