Ubuntu 6.10 is Out

cloudmaster writes "Apparently they were watching me to see when I downloaded the 6.10-rc release isos, as I did that last night, and the full release happened this morning. :) Neat stuff, including Firefox 2.0, Gnome 2.16, myth 0.20, faster booting thanks to upstart (sort of a replacement for init, among others), etc. The announcement and download pages are up. I've got *my* torrent running..."

Comments

Easy upgrade from Dapper

[fracai]

gksudo "update-manager -c"

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[fracai]

using apt-get is possible as well, but more involved
http://www.debianadmin.com/upgrade-ubuntu-dapper-t o-ubuntu-edgy-eft.html
http://duggmirror.com/linux_unix/How_to_Upgrade_Ub untu_dapper_to_Edgy_Eft_Today_Released_With_screen shots/

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[bodger_uk]

Also available is kubuntu (for those that like their desktop KDE.

Links to the CDs / Torrents here:
http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php

Automatic update procedure is as follows:
      1.In Konqueror go to /etc/apt, right click on sources.list and choose Actions -> Edit as Root
      2.Change all instances of dapper to edgy
      3.Launch a console with K-Menu -> System -> Konsole
      4.In the console run: sudo apt-get update
      5.In the console run: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and follow the prompts to upgrade
      6.In the console run: sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop python-qt3 python-kde3 ubuntu-minimal and follow the prompts to install
      7.Reboot your computer

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[teslar]

I wouldn't call

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

after an

sudo sed -e 's/\sdapper/ edgy/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list

more involved, just more to type... but for those of us who like their consoles, it's easier ;)

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[Fweeky]

If update-manager -c doesn't offer it, try update-manager -dc

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[TheStonepedo]

sudo sed -i "s/dapper/edgy/g" /etc/apt/sources.list && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[cosmic_gravy]

The people at the Ubuntu forums recommend you use "aptitude" instead of "apt-get". The thread should be found here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=37736, but it appears the Ubuntu forums are being pounded. Here is the google cache: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:425l937tFkYJ:u buntuforums.org/showthread.php%3Ft%3D37736+ubuntu+ use+aptitude+not+apt-get&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4.

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[SydShamino]

Thanks. This was what I was reading this article for.

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[JohnBeaulieu]

Actually the correct command would be something like gksudo "update-manager -c -d" from dapper. The "-c" switch isn't enough on it's own from dapper because of it's LTS nature.

Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper

[wobblie]

Since my home directories are on an nfs mounted share, and user accounts / groups / mount maps are in ldap, I find it so much easier to simply blow away the old installation and copy everything relevant over from a backup of /etc/. What could be simpler?

If you had any backports (like KDE 3.5.4 for kubuntu) or alternate sources, dist-upgrading is a little messy.

apt-get dist-upgrade

[JeepFanatic]

Why use the torrent to d/l when you can just "apt-get dist-upgrade"? It's much easier this way (and it's another one of those "features" that Windows won't likely have for a long time).

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[johansalk]

It's also nice, once the iso burned, which is a 2 minute job, to have a CD around.

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[somegeekynick]

I'm a first time Linux user, and Ubuntu's been installed for a couple of months alongside XP in my computer. As can be seen at the Ubunut Forums, there is a problem with the internet connection for some Ubuntu users. It(DSL)stays fast, but only for a short time and then it becomes inactive. I don't believe I could let Ubuntu update with such a connection. I hope it gets better with this version. I guess, in some cases, Linux does depend on Windows. :P *Runs and hides*

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm a first time Linux user, and Ubuntu's been installed for a couple of months alongside XP in my computer. As can be seen at the Ubunut Forums, there is a problem with the internet connection for some Ubuntu users.

No problem here. I've been using Ubuntu since a couple of days after the release of 5.10. I get updates almost daily.

I connect to the default Ubuntu repositories (and a few others to get things like Wine updates) from my Comcast cable account. I've never seen a slowdown or experienced any problem connecting except to the third-party Wine repository.

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[cptnapalm]

It works the other way around too. For example, I put XP MCE on a small partition. It has drivers for almost nothing in my laptop. So I had to do this constant reboot to get into Ubuntu, download the drivers and go back to XP and install them only to find that there was more stuff that was needed. A right pain in the butt. WAP still doesn't work at all in Windows.

Remember, that 6.06 is the Long Term release. If what you want is a working, solid release, then stick with it. Edgy is aimed at... well, being more on the cutting edge.

Hope you are enjoying your Linux experience :)

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[Mateo_LeFou]

It's also polite to torrent it so that people trying Ubuntu for the first time will get good speeds. Why not share some unused bandwidth & disk space. I personally run FC5 but will leave this torrent going for a couple days.

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[Aadain2001]

Maybe because using the torrent I was able to download the entire ISO in record time (dl speed hitting 1MB/s+ O_o) while using apt-get would take much longer. And having a burned CD around making life easier when you need to re-install or install it on a friends computer.

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[somegeekynick]

As I said, it's only for some users. Sometimes, updates as small as a few hundred KB's take many minutes to completely download (on a 256 kbps connection), and sometimes it never does until after a few tries. I'm going to completely remove 6.06 and do a fresh install to see if things change.

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[morgan_greywolf]

Are you sure it's not your provider?

My experience with DSL was appalling. At first it was great; I regularly had 768K downloads. After a while, my download speeds reduced more and more. They tried cutting my rate in hopes of eliminating transfer errors that were occurring, but it just kept getting slower and slower.

Just as I was ready to give up and call the cable company (who had just started offering cablemodems in my area), Rhythms went out of business. That solved that...I went to cable and never looked back.

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[somegeekynick]

I don't think so. It's flawless in Windows, and during the bursts of speed in Linux, it's usually at full speed and after some time it starts slowing down. I often have to pause and resume a few times(using Opera) when I download files. Surfing the net takes up most of the time I'm in front of the computer, and this little problem prevents me from using Ubuntu regularly.

Re:apt-get dist-upgrade

[knewter]

I can verify this. My friend gets around 5KB/sec from security.ubuntu.com and 140K+ from all the other repositories / any other site that can saturate his download link.

It's not a problem with security.ubuntu.com, because I get around 400K/sec from it. My guess is just that Ubuntu's servers are somehow behind some particularly nasty other servers from his IP address, and maybe a lot of routes to the ubuntu servers go through these crappy servers?

I'll traceroute next time I'm over there if I think about it and compare it to my traceroute, see if we can't find the culprit. But yeah, I've noticed this too.

Awesome!

[hurting now]

Im going to download Ubuntu again! If I would just install it and leave it on a machine, it would auto-update, but I cant seem to ever leave it there. This will be a nice upgrade... now if I would just use the dang thing.

Dapper's fine for me, thank you

[endemoniada]

I'll be staying with Dapper for a while, since I value stability and safety over new features. However, hopefully some new bling will make it into backports.

I'm really glad to see that the Ubuntu project is chugging along so nicely. It's really starting to make quite a name for itself :)

Re:Dapper's fine for me, thank you

[UbuntuDupe]

Well, you may be content with it, but I'm always a dupe for new Ubuntu stuff.

Firefox?

[jdavidb]

It's got Firefox 2.0? I wanted IceWeasel!

Re:Firefox?

[starwed]

Here's a blog about Firefox/Ubuntu topic.

Re:Firefox?

[leamanc]

sudo apt-get install lynx links

will take care of you in that regard. I like links a little better for its table support, but lynx has some nice features and works with some sites that links doesn't.

Re:Firefox?

[pato101]

Who needs pr0n anyways...
Really? I must be a very strange guy.

Re:Firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says lynx means you go without pr0n? ;-)

Re:Firefox?

[fourchannel]

Who says lynx means you go without pr0n? ;-)

That comment has got to be one of the funniest posts I've seen on /. in a while.

Re:Can I

[Rik Sweeney]

Can I now dist-upgrade my Ubuntu Dapper to Edgy?

I think so, I was going to do (on the command line)

sudo sed -e 's/\sdapper/ edgy/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

* Go to bed / work *

Which will update my sources list, update the repository and then upgrade. At least, that's what I think it'll do. If anyone has any corrections then let us know.

Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[vain gloria]

I say, here's fun! Official word from Mozilla on why Ubuntu shipped with Firefox branded Firefox, rather than Iceweasel.

Plaudits to the Ubuntu guys for getting this release out so quickly. Wonder if I should stick with 6.06 and its LTS or upgrade?

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[tolan-b]

There do seem to be a number of regressions with Edgy to be honest. I think they cleaned up a lot of them before release, but the release isn't as solid as Dapper. Personally I've been getting quite a few random crashes, but I am running the nVidia beta drivers and Beryl, so I can't necessarily blame that on [...]*firefox crashed here!*(luckily its new session recovery recovered the tabs *and* my half written reply, which is quite impressive)[...]

Main stability issue for me has been FF2.

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[MooUK]

Edgy always was expected to be a little less stable than Dapper, with more recent releases and updates included in it. Hence the name.

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[drinkypoo]

Stop karma whoring. It only makes you look, well, like a whore.

From that link: Ultimately, Debian took a position that was consistent with their own policies, and not compatible with some of the exceptions to Mozilla trademark policies that we offered

Oh my god. What is Mozilla trying to do, split the free software world in two? Those who will agree to their shit, and those who will remember the truth. This sort of FUD is completely unacceptable from what should be an upstanding organisation.

Do you even know what this whole fight is about? It's over trademarking. Mozilla foundation refuses to allow a seriously-modified product be known as Firefox. Firefox is a trademarked name, and they must protect the trademark or they will lose it.

Did you know that Debian's logo is also a trademark and that Debian does not allow free use of their trademark either? They can't, because if they did they would lose their trademark status. Thus, Debian is finding fault with Mozilla for doing something that Debian does itself. Where I come from, we call this hypocrisy.

The Mozilla Foundation/Corporation keep up their bad work, and have continued to disgust me more with each passing month; I have lost any respect for them they once had earnt. I post this in a Gecko-based browser (Galeon) only because Konqueror doesn't have any session saving capabilities when not used in KDE, and because I haven't worked out yet how to write my own KHTML-based browser. I will be glad when I can have Mozilla behind me as a sad memory of a once great product.

I think I speak for us all when I say HJAHAHAHAHaHaHaHaHA!!H!H!111ones! "Mozilla disgusts me but I'm still using the core of their browser because it's the best thing around. As soon as I figure out how to write hello world, I'm going to write my own web browser because I AM THE GREATEST!"

Why don't you just take your toys and go home? Oh right, if your toys break, you won't know how to fix them. I guess you still need the Mozilla foundation, huh?

I myself would rather be in awe of a great Cathedral that works, but that I can enter, than be bumped around in some bazar.

First, is it really too much to ask that you spell "bazaar" correctly?

Second, you aren't permitted to enter the Cathedral. Only the privileged classes do that; mostly the people who built the cathedrals. You are reduced to milling around outside, begging for a handout and occasionally selling some scrap you crafted to someone who is strolling in or out of the cathedral's doors with a big bag of money. You are the loser in every deal that you broker with the cathedral or one of its actual members.

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[ClamIAm]

Debian's policy has always been that they can't and won't accept a licence specific to them. This applies as much to trademark licences as any other sort.

I think this is a good stance for a project to take, if they really want to live the ideals of capital-letters Free Software (and perhaps Open Source). However, this does raise some interesting issues as far as trademark law is concerned.

IANAL, but I do know that trademarks must be used and "enforced" in order for a person/company to keep holding the mark. Mozilla seems to be doing a pretty good job here.

But we should also remember that this isn't the only case of a Free/Open software project holding trademarks. "Linux" and "Apache" (and probably dozens of others) are trademarked. And yet we don't have Linus penning novella-length flames about the patches applied by the multitude of distributions that use Linux.

My question is: how would the courts view this? Mozilla could definitely show that they vigorously "defend" their marks, but what about other projects? I know that all distributions I've used have all stated "Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds, Ell Oh Ell", but who knows whether or not this is done for all trademarked packages.

I guess I'm probably really overthinking this whole thing. Trademark holders can perform diligence by periodically crawling Google for their mark and yelling at people who don't give credit, or those who try to pass off their "Myspace Stalker" patches as SUPAR OFFICI4L (D00D).

PS: this is the post you receive after I don't sleep. i hope you enjoy it

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[stu42j]

Did you know that Debian's logo is also a trademark and that Debian does not allow free use of their trademark either? They can't, because if they did they would lose their trademark status. Thus, Debian is finding fault with Mozilla for doing something that Debian does itself. Where I come from, we call this hypocrisy.

Where do you get this animosity from? Mozilla says: You can't use our Trademark anymore unless you follow these rules. Debian says: Following your rules would break our rules so we won't call it Firefox anymore.

Debian is simply respecting Mozilla's trademark in the same way that Debian expects people to repect their own trademark. How is that hypocrisy?

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[drinkypoo]

Debian is simply respecting Mozilla's trademark in the same way that Debian expects people to repect their own trademark. How is that hypocrisy?

Because first they tried to get the Mozilla foundation to behave differently, when they themselves would not be willing to do so - for the same reason. It's not that it's not a good reason, it's that they were disparaging Mozilla.

Ultimately I don't understand why they can't just package it and leave it the hell alone. It doesn't need their "help".

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[zsau]

Stop karma whoring. It only makes you look, well, like a whore.

Hm, I seem to have been modded '-1 Flamebait' twice. I believe the moderations were unfair, but if I was karma whoring I would've said 'I know I'll be modded down for this, but here's the full text to that link'. I was just posting my opinions. That's what this comment functionality is about, right?

Thus, Debian is finding fault with Mozilla for doing something that Debian does itself. Where I come from, we call this hypocrisy.

No they're not, and no that's not. Debian wanted a licence to the Mozilla trademarks, and they were asking Mozilla to compromise. Mozilla did. Now Mozilla has gone back on their word, and so Debian are going to remove the remaining trademarks from Debian.

Debian also has trademarks, and they've also asked other groups to stop using them inappropriately. Debian does not even distribute their Official Debian logos in Debian, because it would be against their principles. Likewise, now that Mozilla has decided Debian no longer has a licence, Debian are removing the remaining trademarks.

HJAHAHAHAHaHaHaHaHA!!H!H!111ones!

Ooh, such wit. What can I say to that?—you obviously have won the debate! I'll pack up my things and go home now...

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[JonasH]

Firefox in Ubuntu represents a somewhat more modest set of divergences from original Mozilla source code.

Complete and utter lies. Why a Mozilla employee feels the need to spread FUD and lie like this, I can only speculate about, but it really isn't pretty.

Re:Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't...

[tolan-b]

Yeah but a little more unstable isn't necessarily the same as 5 or more application crashes a day. I wouldn't expect that from a clean Win98 install...

Re:Can I

[kripkenstein]

Can I now dist-upgrade my Ubuntu Dapper to Edgy?

Yes, but just like with any operating system, the safest thing to do is a clean install.

Re:Can I

[bodger_uk]

You need to run a second dist-upgrade to update the new usplash. Other than that you should be ok.

Re:Can I

[Klaidas]

The safest thing is not to use a computer :)
Clean install is good if you just play/mess/etc with it, but if you have some nicely configured system you might better want to upgrade it.

I hope the S3 video driver works this time

[FedeTXF]

There's a bug since 6.06 in the S3 driver that comes from xserver-xorg 7.0
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/xserv er-xorg-video-s3/+bug/33504

I hope the patch works this time.

Re:I hope the S3 video driver works this time

[Boreras]

edgy eft uses xserver-xorg 7.1, so maybe that will fix it.

Shipit change

[cloudkiller]

I was kind of disappointed that the Shipit process has changed. According to the site you can only get free Ubuntu CDs of 6.06. If you want 6.10, you will have to pay for them. I guess the gravy train has to run out of gravy eventually. Regardless, I still can't wait for the torrent of 6.10 alt install to finish.

Re:Shipit change

[TheStonepedo]

The process has not changed. Dapper, 6.06, is marked LTS for long term support. It has 3 years of support for the desktop flavor and 5 for the server, according to Canonical's website. Think of Edgy as a testing distribution; it has all of the new gizmos and doodads but will only be around for 6 months. It would not be practical to ship CDs of 6.10 if they will be obsolete long before support ends for the stable 6.06 version.

Re:Shipit change

[Locutus]

While I think it makes good 'business' sense for Canonical to keep distributing the 6.06 LTS version over the latest, 6.10 has an 18 month suppport cycle, not 6. Think about it, Canonical wants people to try out Ubuntu but they also want them to feel comfortably supported when they continue to use it. The LTS version gives users this while the latest Edgy/6.10 version will lose support after a relatively short period. IMO.

LoB

Re:Shipit change

[BecomingLumberg]

Once they install Dapper, the OS will inform them that Edgy is out there, if they choose to upgrade.

Debian?

[Klaidas]

Why is there a Debian icon here? Yeah, I know, "ubuntu is based on debian", etc. But if the distro is THAT popular, you might wanna get an icon for Ubuntu too.

Re:Debian?

[Kjella]

I think icons are part of the nostalgia on slashdot. New icons are fashionably absent, just note how many categories still have icons that were officially replaced years ago. Ubuntu is probably far too young (and should probably be over the top so they can speak of the good old days) before it gets its own icon.

Re:Debian?

[JanneM]

But if the distro is THAT popular, you might wanna get an icon for Ubuntu too.

Well, slashdot hasn't managed to update to the new Gnome icon for over two years either. The /. art department isn't what you'd call speedy.

Re:Debian?

[kbob88]

The /. art department isn't what you'd call speedy.

Yeah it's real hard to go to http://ubuntu.com/ right-click on the icon, and choose Save As... Could take at least 3 maybe 4 seconds.

Or I'll make it even easier for ya:

wget https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Official?action=At tachFile&do=get&target=UbuntuCoF.svg

Re:Debian?

[SexyJesus]

I agree. Ubuntu has been the most popular distribution on distrowatch for more than a year now.

Re:Debian?

[Doc Ruby]

You know that a department's speed is limited not by its speed of a single operation, but by its latency in getting to any operation, right?

Re:Debian?

[hritcu]

You are right, still Ubuntu is based on Debian GNU/Linux.

Re:Debian?

[Library Spoff]

Yeah cause you don't have naked people "hugging" photos anywhere on your pc...

No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[mrjb]

It runs kernel 2.6.17, which means it does not yet include the realtime patches by Gleixner and Molnar which find their way into the Linux kernel from kernel 2.6.18 on. To me, this would still mean manually recompiling the kernel, but not for long anymore!

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[Directrix1]

What exactly do you need realtime support for? Are you going to be running Ubuntu on some embedded device or something, or are you a musician?

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[SoapDish]

Yes, I'd rather have the 2.6.18 kernel in my distribution (like in FC6), than Firefox 2.0. It's a little easier for me to install a web browser than a kernel.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[misleb]

Yes, I'd rather have the 2.6.18 kernel in my distribution (like in FC6), than Firefox 2.0. It's a little easier for me to install a web browser than a kernel.

Unless you can get a package for Firefox 2.0, it isn't necessarily easier to install a browser. More people care about having Firefox 2.0 than a real-time kernel, by far. So you are in the minority.

-matthew

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[SoapDish]

with a web browser: ./configure
make
sudo make install

or, you can just download the opera package :)

Kernels have a lot more options that you have to consider

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Realtime support should make things better latency wise with audio. Lots of audio specific distros out there will go away once this is mainstreamed.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[wfeick]

Um, let me get this straight. You're upset there is no 2.6.18 binary package included in Ubuntu which forces you to compile the kernel for yourself. In response, you're going to go to Gentoo and compile everything on your system for yourself. Do I have that right?

I'm actually getting ready to switch away from Gentoo. I've been using it for something like 4 or 5 years now, but I'm really getting tired of the compilation times and random changes that break my system and force me to hunt around the web site to find out which part of the system someone decided to rework. The only way I could get one of my systems back to running was to completely bebuild it, and it literally took me over a week of compiling on a 2GHz P4. That's no good when it's a notebook I use every day.

Don't take that as a complete condemnation of Gentoo; it just seems like keeping things running requires a lot more fiddling than Redhat did when I used it before. Now I'm trying to decide between Fedora Core vs. Ubuntu.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[rpdillon]

Clearly, you've never tried to compile Firefox! =)

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[rpdillon]

I used Gentoo for a few years as well before choosing Kubuntu for all my machines these days. The Gentoo community's knowledge is outstanding, as is their documentation, but Kubuntu has served me well since the switch (about 8 months ago). Having worked extensively with FC, CentOS, Debian, openSUSE, Gentoo and (k)ubuntu, I would have to say that Kubuntu is my favorite. I'll admit I'm looking at installing PC-BSD or DesktopBSD onto my laptop though, just to learn it. =)

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[misleb]

with a web browser: ./configure
make
sudo make install

That assumes that you have all the correct build dependencies. It also assumes that the default build options are what you want.

And it is certainly not ideal to have unmanaged software on your system. Packages are much easier to manage/update if you can get them. I'd much rather have Firefox 2.0 ship with a distribution as a stock package than a cutting edge kernel version. I usually replace the kernel with my own anyway.

Kernels have a lot more options that you have to consider

Presumably you are compiling a custom kernel because you WANT to consider those options and change the distribution's defaults (e.g., turn on realtime). Otherwise there would be little point in getting a slightly newer kernel. If you want an easy kernel build, you could just take the configuration from your currently running kernel and change the one thing you want to change (turn on real-time in this case). Making a kernel .deb package on Ubuntu or Debian isn't any more difficult than ./configure; make install. It is something like:

zcat /boot/-config.gz > .config
make oldconfig
make-kpkg- --revision=1.0.custom kernel_image

-matthew

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[TheRaven64]

I've built Linux, OpenBSD and FreeBSD kernels, and I've built Mozilla from scratch. Of the four, Mozilla was by far the hardest (and took quite a bit longer). Unless they have dramatically improved the process in the last couple of years, it's a lot easier to build a kernel than a web browser. In terms of options, the number you want to tweak with a kernel is generally low (building an OpenBSD kernel for an embedded box required changing quite a few, but generally you want something close to the default), but with a web browser it can be a very large number.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[wfeick]

Well, sort of. That'll get you the kernel sources, but you'll still have to compile them. You'll also have to generate a config to compile the kernel with. For that, you'll probably want to also emerge genkernel which is supposed to do a decent job of autogenerating the config for you. I haven't bothered with genkernel myself. I've been compiling kernels for so many years that it doesn't phase me to generate the config via the standard kernel make targets.

They have a binary install disk now that gets you a running system reasonably quickly, but whenever new versions of core packages are released (e.g. X.org, openoffice, evolution, gnome/kde) you'll spend a lot of time compiling the new stuff. If you want to change the compilation flags or package options (use flags), you'll need to recompile most if not everything on your system.

I'll say it again, in case someone thinks I'm bashing on Gentoo - I'm not. It's a perfectly fine distribution and has it's on pros like being able to use the exact compilation flags you want. But I have found over the past few years that it takes a fair bit of time and energy to keep things current and stable. I've just gotten to the point where I'd like to reduce the time I spend maintaining my server, and increase the time I spend actually doing something useful with it and having a life.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[Mad Merlin]

The only way I could get one of my systems back to running was to completely bebuild [sic] it, and it literally took me over a week of compiling on a 2GHz P4.

I doubt that, I have a P4 2.0 GHz right here running Gentoo:

emerge -epv world | genlop -p

...

Estimated update time: 1 day, 13 hours, 54 minutes.

...and that includes KDE and Openoffice. Without KDE and Openoffice, the above would take well under a day. Not to mention that the only reason you'd need to completely rebuild your system is if you did a major gcc or glibc update, neither of which happens very often and both of which can be postponed indefinitely.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[wfeick]

It's always nice to have someone suggest you're wrong, rather than inquire as to the differences between what they're doing and what you're doing which might account for us having different experiences.

It did take that long. I tried to just emerge the packages that were in my old world file, but got into all sorts of conflict issues. This seemed to have to do with virtual packages (e.g. mail agent) where I had chosen something other than the default. I kept getting complaints about it wanting to install conflicting packages, and had to piecemeal pick subsets of the packages from my old world file that didn't have conflicts. That certainly contributed to the elapsed time, since one emerge would complete sometime overnight and I'd start the next one in the morning when I woke up.

I also have a lot of software installed on this machine, since it's my primary development box: both gnome and kde, openoffice, evolution, firefox/thunderbird, gcc, subversion, cvs, several jdks, various video/audio tools, mail, dns, samba, dhcpd, vnc server and client, ldap, apache, tomcat, yada, yada, yada.

For what it's worth, it takes on the order of 12 hours to compile openoffice on my notebook. I have a p4 mobile, and only a 5400 rpm disk. Perhaps you're using a non-mobile processor or a faster disk.

This did all came about due to upgrading gcc/glibc to the latest stable version at the same time as an X.org upgrade. I had followed the instructions from the web site, including running revdep-rebuild, but things just got whacked.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[ladoga]

I'm going to Gentoo - unless someone can tell a relative noob how to easily update the kernel to 2.6.18!! (yes I realize 'easily update the kernel' is an oxymoron)

As long as you keep your old kernel installed, there's nothing to lose.

# apt-get install kernel-package build-essential libncurses5-dev
# cd /usr/src
# wget ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2 .6.18.1.tar.bz2
# tar xjvf linux-2.6.18.1.tar.bz2
# cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1
# make menuconfig
# make clean
# make-kpkg --append-to-version -[whatever] --initrd kernel_image
# make-kpkg --append-to-version -[whatever] --initrd modules_image
# cd /usr/src
# ls
# dpkg -i [lookupthefilenames].deb

Reboot and hope it works. :)

I use debian so put sudo in appropriate places if you don't have a root account enabled and use some creativity replacing the [ ]s. (the [kernel.org] tag is a slashdot "feature" so just ignore it) Remember that if you roll your own kernel you generally wont be able to use nvidia or ati binary driver packages from ubuntu (or debian) repos, but have to install ones from manufacturer's site instead.

Though with Larry the Cow you can have lots of fun fiddling with USE flags and waiting for emerge -uavDN world to complete. ;) (half kidding, im an occasional gentoo user myself)

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[imbaczek]

Get Swiftfox!

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[ElleyKitten]

Unless you can get a package for Firefox 2.0, it isn't necessarily easier to install a browser. More people care about having Firefox 2.0 than a real-time kernel, by far. So you are in the minority.

Mozilla.com has packages for Firefox, so I don't see why that would be a problem. When I was using Breezy and they didn't have FF 1.5 for Breezy, I used Mozilla's package and it was easy enough, while I wouldn't have a clue how to recompile a kernel.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[Almahtar]

Expect a few hardware hurdles. I used to be a strictly FreeBSD guy, but when I looked up what it took to get it running on my HP ZV6000, I just threw my hands in the air and went to Ubuntu. It's been serving me really well ever since. If I had a server I'd probably throw FreeBSD on it, but for a desktop or notebook I'll likely never leave Linux: it consistently has more up-to-date Xorg releases.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[Al Dimond]

If a laptop is your secondary box and it's what you've got, that's cool. Just make sure that BSD supports its hardware. ACPI support and wifi chipset support are considerably different than in Linux (better for some h/w, worse for other). I'm running FreeBSD on my very old laptop right now and it works great except for ACPI (which is probably due to non-compliant hardware, what can you do). Often people wind up having better luck on Linux for ACPI.

Of course there are a few differences in terms of software availability too: no ALSA (sound is really easy to get working, though, especially for the simple stereo chipsets that most laptops have) is the big one for me. The build process for the system and kernel on FreeBSD is pretty nice. They put everything from the ports tree in /usr/local. FreeBSD's ifconfig works for both wired and wireless cards (I've never run Linux on a laptop so when someone told me you needed a seperate program for Linux I thought it was madness). If you need to work with Windows networks all the commands for that are totally different (so you should probably hide it behind scripts or GUI if possible). The kernel, basic system utilities and ports tree really feel unified and "right" to me on BSD, more than on GNU/Linux.

Totally agree about Gentoo's documentation; Gentoo docs occasionally bail me out on any modern Unix system, especially for desktop config-related stuff. The FreeBSD handbook is a great resource for all system-level stuff (at least when it's up-to-date), and FreeBSD has better manpages than any Linux I've used.

Just thought I'd mention some things, since I don't often hear of people putting *BSD on laptops.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[Mad Merlin]

I don't see why you wouldn't just emerge -ev system && emerge -ev world and let it go, as suggested by the GCC upgrade guide. The X.org upgrade would happen as part of the world rebuild and you can even continue to use the computer as it goes.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[bit01]

Packages are much easier to manage/update if you can get them.

Try:

sudo checkinstall make install

Works a treat. Checkinstall asks some easy documentation questions, creates a package on the fly and installs it. You can uninstall/reinstall the new package at any time with the standard package manager. I install all my non-packaged software this way.

---

Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.

Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet

[ladoga]

It can update the kernel

To the lastest one currently shipping with Ubuntu (2.6.17).

If you want something more recent, then you have to head to kernel.org, download the source and roll your own.

Re:Can I

[grazzy]

Also the documentation recommends running sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Thats because if the first command fails you shouldnt run the second for whatever reason.

Ubuntu is the next best thing since sliced bread, and everyone should atleast try it out. I upgraded my 5.10 (no idea how I managed to install that) the other day to 6.06 this way - it went without a hickup. I love ubuntu :P

Some early impressions

[Anonymous Coward]

Upgrade from Dapper via the net too around 1 hour (DSL) and went very smooth. During the updating process the system worked fine, but some strange things started to happen due to new versions of apps and libraries slowly filtering in (e.g. funny fonts, missing icons).

After the reboot ...

Dapper was already a fast system, Edgy feels even faster. In particular, bott time is shorter, the Gnome menus come up quicker. The Murrine GTK+ theme I had installed from outside of the normal repositories was broken. Fonts were not fully hinted (looked smeared) in Firefox and gnome-terminal; this was fixed by explicitly switching to full hinting in the fonts preferences. These have been the only regressions I've noticed so far.

The new Firefox 2 is certainly nice, e.g. spell-checking in text fields, not slow as molasses anymore on framed pages, etc. Departs further from GTK look & feel with the (literally) shiny new tabs. Epiphany has acquired adblocking capabilities, but is still not installed by default.

Re:Some early impressions

[dolson]

Another one: Try dragging some application launchers around on your GNOME panel. For me, this bug still exists, and yes, it was reported in Launchpad. Simple fix: don't drag launchers around on your GNOME panel.

Also, Epiphany is my browser of choice, and it had adblocking capabilities in Dapper too.

Re:Some early impressions

[intangible]

What kind of problems do you see? Seems to work for me on Edgy.

Re:Some early impressions

[drinkypoo]

Another one: Try dragging some application launchers around on your GNOME panel.

Perhaps you should tell us what is supposed to happen? It worked fine on my laptop running 6.06 (my 6.10 update is flailing and I'm trying to put it right now.)

Re:Some early impressions

[dolson]

Yeah, of course it works fine in Dapper, I am talking about Edgy. Here is the bug report: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/gnome -panel/+bug/59431

Re:Can I

[grazzy]

A small success story;

The company that I hire my office from has been running redhat for ages, they're getting problems installing their in-house software to the newer versions of redhat because they are using cups instead of the older lp/lpr/lprng systems. Knowing this I started synaptic (the ubuntu package manager), searched for LPRNG with one of the senior guys behind my shoulder. Choosed to install LPRNG, synaptic automaticlly disabled cups and change the appropriate settings. 15 minutes later we were printing useing their sed-scripts from the 80's again.

I think I can safely say that I singlehanded arranged for a bunch of new ubuntu installs with that 20 minutes of my time.

Of course...

[Reapman]

Now that I finished installing 4 Ubuntu systems this week this would happen...

Re:Of course...

[Billly Gates]

I played with the release candidate and let me tell you its good you picked the older and stable distro. I would wait for a few weeks before the bugs are out.

MythTV on Ubuntu

[KefkaTheMad]

Does anyone have any thoughts about MythTV on Ubuntu vs. other distros?

I'm a relative Linux noob, having only been using it for half a year. I ran Myth 0.19 on Fedora Core 5, but broke it somehow when I upgraded to 0.20. I ran into some sound bug that I couldn't figure out, so I took the easy way out and installed KnoppMyth, which has worked like a charm. However, I'm not in love with Knoppix, so I'm thinking about running trying Myth on Ubuntu.

As a relative noob, I really loved using Yum on FC5, but I haven't had as good of an experience with Apt on Knoppix. In my limited experience, I've had more issues with dependencies using Apt than I did with Yum. I know Ubuntu is also Debian-based and also uses Apt, but I've heard it's very noob-friendly, so I was wondering what merits there would be in switching from KnoppMyth to an Ubuntu-based Myth system.

Re:MythTV on Ubuntu

[eirias]

Mythtv 0.20 and Mythplugins are in the universe repository along with IVTV source. So in theory and Myth system on Edgy should be pretty easy. If you give it a few weeks there should be some blogs with instructions appearing and there's a page inside the Ubuntu wiki that's starting to document it also.

Re:MythTV on Ubuntu

[joes_meat]

Apt on Ubuntu/Debian is brilliant. I've never had a single dependancy problem.

I'll never go back to RPM.

Re:MythTV on Ubuntu

[JonJ]

apt and rpm are two very different things and thus shouldn't be compared.
My experience with apt is that dpkg -i had a nasty habit of hosing the entire package manager if the deps weren't alright.(No, apt-get -f install didn't help.)

Re:MythTV on Ubuntu

[ichimunki]

I recently installed MythTV on an Ubuntu Dapper system and had a lot of trouble with the packaged version. Installing from source available at mythtv.org worked quite well, though.

Re:MythTV on Ubuntu

[What'sInAName]

I will second this. I built a MythTV combo backend/frontend machine from scratch, and chose MythTV 0.20 and Kubuntu Dapper. As I recall, I ran into a couple of minor problems, but no showstoppers. Depending on your hardware, you might want to start here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=186747

My kit has been up an running for a couple of months now, and let me say, it is awesome! Well worth the effort to get it working. (Well, for me, that was most of the fun anyway. I don't really watch much TV. Go figure...)

Re:MythTV on Ubuntu

[businessnerd]

I currently run MythTV 0.19 on FC4. If I were to do it all again, I would probably run a distro that was extremely lightweight with an extremely lightweight window manager like XFCE, etc. Since Myth is so storage hungry (or rather your reocordings can be) it's good to save all the space you can. On top of that, the less processess running the better for smooth recording, especially if watching a something previiously recorded and recording another show (or more) simultaneiously. I did really like the yum install of myth though. Very easy using "Jared's" famous guide. (tweaking on the other hand is a never ending nightmare, but I'm sure you know this already).

Re:MythTV on Ubuntu

[idcard_1]

It really has to do with what hardware you have. My motherboard's onboard audio did not work well with FC5 (it was always really soft), so I loaded up Ubuntu and 3 hours later I had a working MythBox. I did have to compile IVTV and Lirc from source, which is not too hard. There are a lot of great tutorials on how to setup a build environment just for this! http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_Dapper _Installation Granted Gnome is over kill for the GUI, but it makes your system a lot more versatile. I really like Ubuntu and it seems loads better to upgrade than FCX. I'll probably upgrade this weekend, because I have been waiting patiently for the new MythTV 0.20 repositories! Woo Hoo!

Upstart faster how?...

[karot]

faster booting thanks to upstart (sort of a replacement for init, among others)

I just had a look at "upstart" and some of its configuration documentation, and while I understand "traditional" rc script processes (such as sysvinit, and the variations on that) I cannot see how upstart will speed anything up. It still seems to be a serialised startup process, and the documentation does not make it clear how to specify startup dependencies ("IP before NTP", or "spamd before sendmail"), so there is no implied optimisation behind-the-scenes by using parallel startup.

Have I missed something, or is this just a move to an event-driven RC process "because I can" ?

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[sarathmenon]

It still seems to be a serialised startup process, and the documentation does not make it clear how to specify startup dependencies ("IP before NTP", or "spamd before sendmail"), so there is no implied optimisation behind-the-scenes by using parallel startup.

Check gentoo's startup scripts and their structure - they feature a lot of cool modifications like soft boot levels, and an exhaustive dependency structure. I don't know why other vendors aren't adopting it, but its worth taking a look and there is nothing gentoo specific in the whole structure. (I will probably be modded troll for this.)

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[LoadStar]

A better question: why didn't they go with Mac OS X's launchd approach, which is also open source and licensed under the Apache license? It'd be nice if, for once, the open source community would use what's already out there in the community rather than perpetually reinventing the wheel.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[Psiren]

This wiki should answer that question for you. I've been using Edgy for a few weeks and I can certainly say that startup feels a lot faster. Whether it actually is faster is I'm not sure, I've never timed it, but perception is just as important as hard figures.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[misleb]

Here is one (admittedly short) answer: http://lwn.net/Articles/198201/

I guess lanuchd didn't do exactly what the Ubuntu people wanted.

-matthew

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This wiki should answer that question for you.

I don't get it. That says it was rejected because of licensing issues. LaunchD is licensed under the Apache license. Does Ubuntu not include Apache which is presumably under the same license?

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[diegocgteleline.es]

"It still seems to be a serialised startup process"

It is. For Ubuntu edgy, a "compatibility layer" has been implemented to allow upstart run the old sysv /etc/init.d scripts

This is because changing everything in a single release was too much. For the next release, they'll replace the old scripts with true upstart scripts and then the switch will be complete (and still there'll be compatibility for the unported sysv scripts available in extra packages)

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[Anonymous Coward]

It still seems to be a serialised startup process, and the documentation does not make it clear how to specify startup dependencies ("IP before NTP", or "spamd before sendmail")

From the documentation, it looks like you can do exactly this, by specifying that spamd be started when and before sendmail is started. You can also have sendmail start whenever spamd has finished starting. It looks to give you the ability to inject dependencies in either direction. Example: If sendmail is already installed and configured to start at system boot, the spamd installer just needs to add "start on sendmail/start" to it's own startup script, and upstart will call it before calling sendmail's startup script. Or you can go the other direction, and have sendmail's script use "start on spamd/started" to run sendmail's startup script after spamd's startup script finishes running.

However, the most useful aspect seems to be the fact that it can process events at any time, not just startup/shutdown. Such as starting an iPod sync daemon only when an iPod is connected, and stopping it when the iPod is removed.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[yo_tuco]

"Does Ubuntu not include Apache which is presumably under the same license?"

The older v1.3.x version of Apache is under a different license. And IIRC, Ubuntu has that version in their main repository. Similarly with OpenBSD. They ship what they call the "free" version of Apache.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[MooUK]

According to a post further down this discussion, launchd wasn't available under an appropriate license at the time they started writing their own, and by the time it was GPL-compatible, they'd got to a point where it was less work to finish theirs than to make the alterations to launchd for the features they wanted.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The older v1.3.x version of Apache is under a different license.

Interesting. From a two minute quick look through Google, it seems the Apache license v2 is compatible with versions 1 and 3 of the GPL license, but not version 2, which is what Ubuntu relies upon. Apparently the specific issue is patent protection. The Apache requires that submarine patents be revealed and licensed for included code, while GPL v2 does not.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

From replies to my comment and some quick looking around, it seems the Apache v1 license is compatible with GPL v1, v2, and v3. Apache v2 license is compatible with GPL v1 and v3, but not v2. Since Apple's site is down, I don't know which version of the Apache license LaunchD is licensed under, but apparently Ubuntu relies upon GPL v2 and does not include the current releases of Apache (under the Apache v2 license) as a result.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[TheRaven64]

Really? Last time I read GPLv2, it had a clause in it stating that releasing GPL'd code included an implicit license to all patents required to run it, and if you didn't own the patents you weren't allowed to release under GPLv2.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[miscz]

Upstart is backwards compatibile with SysV init scripts. None of proposed modern implementations of init did that.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[sarathmenon]

Gentoo's init system is still the plain old init. The only difference is in a set of more intelligent scripts, plus a cross betwwen bsd and sysv levels.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

From the FSF, "The Apache Software License is incompatible with the GPL because it has a specific requirement that is not in the GPL: it has certain patent termination cases that the GPL does not require. (We don't think those patent termination cases are inherently a bad idea, but nonetheless they are incompatible with the GNU GPL.)"

IANAL and I'm not really motivated to research more seriously. It seems like GPL v3 currently brings the two back into compliance.

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[xenocide2]

This sounds like a huge diff to carry between Debian and Ubuntu. Is Debian planning on adopting upstart?

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[diegocgteleline.es]

The answer would probably not be "yes" or "not", but "how" and "when". "when" - gods knows when. And "how" - debian probably will force developers to continue supporting old init scripts and "let users choose".

We're lucky that ubuntu is doing the hard work anyway, debian will just need to merge it once it's done, doing what the upstart guys are doing in ubuntu from the scratch would be just impossible due to politics

Re:Upstart faster how?...

[Magada]

My experiences with xinit on Gentoo have been less felicitous...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Cry me a river

[3dWarlord]

Apparently they were watching me to see when I downloaded the 6.10-rc release isos, as I did that last night, and the full release happened this morning.

The release schedule has been known for a very long time...

Re:Cry me a river

[Doc Ruby]

Where's the release schedule for the next version, now that the EE schedule is history?

Re:Cry me a river

[jonasj]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeistyReleaseSchedule

Re:Cry me a river

[Aeamarth]

That means they knew when he was going to download them!! That's even worse!!!

With Strigi!

[oever]

The universe now contains the desktop search with the fastest file-indexer: Strigi! This is a huge improvement over Beagle in terms of resource usage and with the added ability to search for files no matter how deeply nested in packages, archives or mail, it's clearly the best file searching tool for Linux.

Re:With Strigi!

[keitosama]

But Ubuntu is a GNOME-based distribution, and after looking at that link, Strigi is obviously so far best suited for KDE.

Re:With Strigi!

[Anonymous Coward]

Strigi can be steered over DBus so anyone can easily add another client, be it command-line, GNOME or KDE. There already is a plugin for the Gnome Deskbar. And the packages in universe are available to Kubuntu users too.

Re:Eft???

[chrismcdirty]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eft

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

So, they replaced init.

[porkchop_d_clown]

But why develop a whole new mechanism, why not just use launchd?

Re:So, they replaced init.

[jZnat]

I believe launchd had licencing problems (not DFSG-compliant probably).

Re:So, they replaced init.

[beezly]

It doesn't take much to find out via the ubuntu wiki - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReplacementInit has lots of information on the whole implementation.

With regards to launchd, that page says;

The four candidates were Solaris SMF, Apple's launchd, the LSB initserv/chkconfig tools and initNG.

The first two of these suffer from inescapable licence problems, which is relatively unfortunate as both have features that are somewhat appealing though neither quite fix our problems. Having whichever system we use being adopted as a Linux-wide standard would not be possible if we chose either of these two systems.

and also from discussion further down the page;

NabLa: [WWW] Apple's launchd has been [WWW] released recently under the Apache license. Would that resolve those "inescapable licence problems"? Looks like a very interesting possibility now.

• ScottJamesRemnant: it still doesn't meet our requirements, so would be only a base for our own work. We've already implemented enough that it'd be a backwards step to start again based on launchd. Also the new launchd licence may not be GPL compatible, so it would still not be ideal

• jec : I think that the licence (apache 2.0) is GPL compatible. But if work is already advanced on your own solution, then great! Just hope that Redhat/SuSE/Debian will adopt it...

• ThomMay: it's not - [WWW] the FSF mark it as incompatible.

Re:So, they replaced init.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So if the FSF marks the Apache license as incompatible, does that mean Ubuntu does not include Apache, because it sure seems to be there in my install?

Re:So, they replaced init.

[Vellmont]

So if the FSF marks the Apache license as incompatible, does that mean Ubuntu does not include Apache, because it sure seems to be there in my install?

Well, I'd make the argument that a replacement for init is something that's a lot more integral to the system than Apache is. That likely means a lot more customization of it than you'd do with Apache, so more potential to interact with GPL code. Thus having a GPL compatible init replacement becomes a practical issue, not an idealogical one.

Re:So, they replaced init.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

FYI, from further looking into this, it seems Ubuntu only includes an older version of Apache that was licensed under the Apache v1 license, not the latest versions as Apache v2, is not compatible with GPL v2 (although it is with GPL v1, and v3 so far). As for ideological differences, the incompatibility is that contributors to Apache or LaunchD need to disclose and license (in some way) any patents that cover material they contribute. I'm not sure that is a ideological reason to avoid these projects for the Ubuntu team or anyone else in favor of free software.

Re:So, they replaced init.

[Spit]

I don't like these rc replacements. If management is an issue, then guis are a fine way to abstract the information, but to extend the abstraction all the way down is a sin.

Re:So, they replaced init.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

We've already implemented enough that it'd be a backwards step to start again based on launchd.

Where the fuck was this attitude when they decided to replace xscreensaver with gnome-screensaver?

Re:Can I

[Just Some Guy]

Yes, but just like with any operating system, the safest thing to do is a clean install.

I ask this seriously: what OSes have you been using that makes you think a clean install is the only "safe" upgrade? I've never done a reinstall-upgrade on a Debian or FreeBSD box, for example. Not once.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the server

[Chas]

Then Slashdot came and booted his wide ass off!

CAN'T...GET...NEW...RELEASE! DAMMIT!!!

Kubuntu DVDs

[N7DR]

FWIW, the Kubuntu DVDs don't seem to be available yet, despite indications to the contrary on the Kubuntu download page.

Maybe later today, one hopes.

"The DVD contains both Live Desktop and Alternate installers, as well as the other packages in our main archive", according to www.kubuntu.org.

Re:Can I

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I bet all the girls are after you now, you hot stud.

Re:Can I

[Anonymous Coward]

I updated Kubuntu from 6.06 yesterday (as detailed in the RC press release) and after rebooting the system stop working (frozen at the end of the boot process).
Should it happen to you, I did this:

1. reset
2. hit ESC when prompted at boot
3. select safe mode from the menu
4. run "startx" on the commnad prompt. KDE should start.
5. Update the system with Adept (system > package manager).
6. reboot.

Everything is fine now.

Why Upstart? Why not initng? Why not minit?

[Hoplite3]

What are the advantages of their sysv init replacement over others, like initng? I looked over the linked page. Some of it seems interesting, like the event-based nature, but I'm turned off by the continued use of numbered run-levels. Wouldn't names (startup, reboot, shutdown, nonetwork, default, etc) be easier and less cryptic.

I also didn't see, but did they do away with the ugly numbered symlink crap? It seems to me that init scripts should state what other services they depend on, then some other program sorts out the optimum (and correct) order to start them in. I did line numbers back in Apple II BASIC, and I don't want to touch them again.

I'm all for a new init system. I can't wait to try this puppy out. It could be cool.

Et tu, Kubuntu?

[CheeseTroll]

Kubuntu 6.10 has also been released. New features + installation/upgrade instructions are here: http://kubuntu.org/announcements/6.10-release.php

Re:Et tu, Kubuntu?

[TheStonepedo]

Entirely offtopic, but how does a Julius Caesar reference fit here?

Re:Et tu, Kubuntu?

[CheeseTroll]

It really doesn't (unless you're *really* passionate about KDE vs. Gnome).

But it rhymes, so...

Re:Et tu, Kubuntu?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Entirely offtopic, but how does a Julius Caesar reference fit here?

"Et tu," translates to, "and you?" Caesar was questioning Brutus asking if he had betrayed him as well as the others.

Re:Et tu, Kubuntu?

[GreatBunzinni]

Kubuntu 6.10 has also been released.

Unfortunately it seems that Xubuntu 6.10 (Ubuntu+XFCE) hasn't been launched yet. It's a shame though because XFCE seems so promissing.

Re:Et tu, Kubuntu?

[CheeseTroll]

Maybe if if we replace "Julius Caesar" with "Debian" it would be more appropriate?

Re:Et tu, Kubuntu?

[CheeseTroll]

It looks like they're close, though. As long as it's under active development, I wouldn't give up hope.

Re:Et tu, Kubuntu?

[GnuAge]

Unfortunately, Xubuntu Eft seems to have a bug upgrading from Dapper, at least with the with the update-manager. I'm not sure if using the aptitude/apt-get method works any better. I believe you can burn the image to a CD and insert it and Xubuntu will ask you if you want to upgrade. Or you can probably mount the iso and add it to your repository to upgrade, as per an earlier post in this discussion.

Luckily Automatix seems to be ready for Eft, even if EasyUbuntu's site is down at the moment.

GNOME slower after update?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just tried updating like that, going from an Ubuntu 6.06 system running GNOME 2.14. But now that I've got GNOME 2.16 installed, I've hit some major performance problems.

The most serious problem is that it now takes 12 to 15 seconds for a new window to open. Even running a GNOME app from an xterm exhibits this problem, so it's not a problem with the GNOME deskbar. Applications like xterm, xedit, and Opera, which do not use GTK+, do not suffer from this problem. They start up almost immediately. Mozilla Seamonkey, on the other hand, also suffers from this long delay, I presume because it is using GTK+.

I need my workstation to actually function, so I have installed KDE, and it's working fine. I think it's significantly more responsive than GNOME 2.14 was. I wish I had time to debug this problem with GNOME 2.16, but I don't. To me, it's just another example of the decreasing quality of the GNOME and GTK+ code. Ever since Miguel left to work on Mono, I've been running into more and more problems. This incident is completely unacceptable, so I think I'm done with GNOME. KDE has really progressed lately, and I think it even now offers me more than GNOME ever did.

Re:GNOME slower after update?

[MarkLewis]

The most common cause of these symptoms that I've seen is bad DNS, because gnome libs will try to resolve your hostname in DNS. It's the first thing I look at when gnome apps all become about uniformly slow to start but non-gnome apps are fine.

Re:GNOME slower after update?

[sinclair44]

I love Linux, and even dual-boot my PowerBook with Ubuntu. However, this is why the whole "Linux will never go mainstream" argument holds water. He says "windows opening slowly", you say "check DNS". Why should DNS affect opening windows and why should it have to be manually fixed? Most people probably don't even know what DNS is, let alone that it could affect their file browser.

Just to reiterate -- Ubuntu is much, much better about these sort of things than most Linux flavors that I've used. However, it, and most Linux distros, still have a long way to go before Linux "goes mainstream".

Re:GNOME slower after update?

[willjohnson]

We've experienced that problem in our office with Windows 2000 and XP so it is not just a Linux problem. Was a bitch to troubleshoot.

Re:GNOME slower after update?

[Abreu]

There's a spanish proverb,

Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos...

Roughly it translates as:

Failings of many, fool's consolation

Re:GNOME slower after update?

[mtxmorph]

You could have two different opinions here:
1. Linux has ways to go because of silly things like this.
2. Be thankful that there are people in the community that are willing to help (for free) when you have problems.

And yes, the Linux community doesn't always have an answer, but it's feedback like this that can only make Linux software better!

Just my $0.02.

Re:GNOME slower after update?

[10Ghz]

"However, this is why the whole "Linux will never go mainstream" argument holds water."

If Linux is not mainstream, then there is only one OS that is: Windows. Since Linux and OS X have more or less similar market-share, then OS X isn't mainstream either.

Cake?

[neaorin]

I guess the cake sent to them by the Vista team got lost in delivery.

Re:Cake?

[ceeam]

No, that cake is all over Vista team's face.

Re:Cake?

[hritcu]

They will deliver it, don't worry. It's just not quite ready.

Re:Cake?

[lxs]

The cake is nearly done. It'll be ready to ship early in 2007, promise.

Re:Cake?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Good call! ;D
The Ubuntu team should soooo send a cake to the Vista team when they release.

Re:Cake?

[busstop]

A cookie would have been the right thing to send!

Re:Slow News Day *YAWN*

[ElleyKitten]

Hey, at least this time we didn't get 8 previous stories "Ubuntu 6.06 releases next week!" "Ubuntu 6.06 releases tomorrow!" "Ubuntu 6.06 releases later todaay!"

We just like...

[Jasper__unique_dammi]

Slashdot readers just like free&open software, the story is just a hurrah for Ubuntu. Hurrah for Ubuntu!

so it's a NEWT?

[krell]

Come on now, if we need to use a newt, why not have the name "Gangrenous Gingrich" ?

Re:so it's a NEWT?

[sa1lnr]

"Pissed as a Gangrenous Gingrich" just doesn't cut it for me. ;)

Is the ATI (Radeon) driver fixed?

[SpinyNorman]

I just installed 6.06 last week, and am quite impressed by it compared to other flavors of Linux I've tried.. Nice philosophy of installing best of breed applications rather than 101 alternatives and the kitchen sink, and it all seems to work.

One thing that spoiled the experience though, was that I initially got a blank screen with the Live CD, so had to go back and do a "safe graphics mode" boot/install. It turns out (no mention of this in the release notes - had to dig for a day to find it) that the X.org ATI driver for 6.06 is broken such that it doesn't work for RV280 based (Radeon 9200) cards using the DVI output (flat panel)... The fix requires downloading and editing the source and rebuilding the driver.

There's also another bug in the 6.06 ATI driver just discovered a week ago where with xorg.conf RenderAccel="yes" it can corrupt drawing in some circumstances (themes that use Cairo).

Does anyone know if either or both of the fixes for these made it into 6.10 ?

Re:Is the ATI (Radeon) driver fixed?

[overlordmead]

I would really appreciate a fix for the bug in the ATI drivers that is "allowing" my ATI xpress 200 IGP to cause complete system hard locks that can only be treated with a hard reboot. There must be a thousand threads at ubuntuforums.org detailing similar experience with a broad range of ATI products.

First and last ATI product for this Linux user. (Maybe the AMD acquisition will help.

Edgy wireless proglems

[goofyheadedpunk]

Edgy apparently has major problems with wireless support. I upgraded my Lenovo 3000 N100 yesterday and my previously functioning wireless card is now non-functional. Sigh. More here.

(Why do I have to write one of these, Woops, a hardware regression. posts every time a new Ubuntu version is released?)

Re:Edgy wireless proglems

[RAMMS EIN]

``Why do I have to write one of these, Woops, a hardware regression. posts every time a new Ubuntu version is released?''

Because they release "on schedule", not "when it's done".

Re:Edgy wireless proglems

[xenocide2]

Because you use the forums, which are inappropriate for getting information reguarding bugs to developers? Launchpad bug tracking provides a way for INTERESTED people to be AUTOMATICALLY notified whenever a RELEVANT bug is filed. The forums are simply inadequate to connect the various people holding parts of the puzzle, despite the valiant efforts of folk like Sarah Hobbs.

I realize your wifi may have been the only connection with the internet, but has the initramfs shipped with edgy today fixed it, as suggested in the relevant bug report? Development versions are exactly that, and critical fixes can come in until almost the very last minute.

I suppose the other good news is that dapper will be supported for a long time, so you have at least that to work with.

No, that's not true

[StressGuy]

If you pay peanuts, you get elephants...you only get monkeys if you're willing to shell out some serious banannas. Rabbits can be had if you're willing to come up with the lettuce and, if you've got the cheese, you'll attract the mice - who will scare away the elephants you only paid peanuts for in the first place.

On the other hand, if I need to get rid of an ass, I'll just tie a carrot to a stick and lead him away.

Re:No, that's not true

[tom17]

I never saw Bugs eat lettuce.

Not once, never!

Re:PRESS RELEASE HERE

[146lily]

Hmm....some very sad people live in this world, a post like this shows a side of humanity which is way lower than your average animal genetically. Never mind we might be able to learn from pigs, dogs, cats....they do seem to be superior to this poster.

init dependencies...

[porkchop_d_clown]

It seems to me that init scripts should state what other services they depend on, then some other program sorts out the optimum (and correct) order to start them in.

That's one of the main features of launchd.

Re:Can I

[kripkenstein]

I ask this seriously: what OSes have you been using that makes you think a clean install is the only "safe" upgrade? I've never done a reinstall-upgrade on a Debian or FreeBSD box, for example. Not once.

Well, you often hear people talking about odd problems after upgrading, on the ubuntu forums for example. A clean install fixes things. It's very hard to pin down the relevant issue in such cases, and they seem rare. But still, I prefer to clean-install Ubuntu (as I will do later today for Edgy).

Wireless security?

[chill]

Does it support WPA without me having to download other packages? (wpa_supplicant, most likely)

Re:Wireless security?

[xenocide2]

i have nm-applet running right now -- its still part of universe. Its not fantastic, ive seen several bug reports about how it fails to suspend and resume, and I know it hates it if i toggle the wifi kill switch. Oh, and it has that goofy keyring to protect AP passwords. The only thing that nm-applet does is make migrating from network to network dead easy.

Re:Wireless security?

[Perky_Goth]

KNetworkManager works flawlessly, at least. I don't know about nm-applet

what about easyubuntu?

[Lumpy]

Anyone know how long I have to wait until easyubuntu is 6.10 compatable so I can go about friends and relatives upgrading them?

ubuntu without easyubuntu is like cake without frosting. Yes it's good, but not as good as it can get.

Re:what about easyubuntu?

[OnyxIR]

I have been using Edgy since Knot 3 was released and what I have found is that there is no more use for applications like easyubuntu and automatix. Most, if not all of the applications installed by those utils are now included in the Add/Remove list. Yay.

Re:what about easyubuntu?

[BlackPignouf]

Though I really didn't agree with their lack of respect for the GPL at first, it seems that Automatix is now in the right track. And I must admit that their product is really good and very helpful, both for newbies and veterans installing bunches of 6.(06/10): http://www.getautomatix.com/ Installing java, flash, dvd, mp3 support as well as skype or googleearth is as easy as using synaptic.

Re:Easy upgrade from 6.06?

[mbrubeck]

Here are the official upgrade instructions:

If you want to upgrade from 6.06 LTS to 6.10, run the following command (either via ALT-F2 or a terminal):

gksu "update-manager -c"

The -c switch tells it to look for upgrades at all. By default the 6.06 LTS release will not offer that automatically because of its long support cycle and high stability.

If you have a working network connection, it should then inform you about a new release and offer to upgrade your system.

Re:Can I

[blazerw11]

I ask this seriously: what OSes have you been using that makes you think a clean install is the only "safe" upgrade?

I believe that if you upgrade Ubuntu from release to release you'll be fine. However, I didn't do that. I upgraded Dapper to Edgy Knot 2. It worked, but over time as the bug fixes came in, it became difficult for X to start. I often had to power cycle 5 or more times before it worked. I even went so far as to enter a bug in Ubuntu's launchpad for it. Well, I did a clean install of the RC and it's all fixed now. My best guess at the problem is a remnant configuration file or something that didn't get appropriately upgraded or removed in the initial Knot 2 dist-upgrade.

So, in other words, for patient people, you should never have to do a clean install. For us impatient freaks, well, I guess we should know what we're getting into.

On a side note, my crappy Celeron 2.4ghz laptop with an even crappier old Intel graphics chip can run the AIGLX and Beryl Window Manager pretty nicely. Cool (possibly excessive) 3d and transparency FX on a computer that Vista's install program laughs at.

fixed kubuntu installer??

[amigabill]

I prefer KDE to Gnome, so tried isntalling kubuntu recently, the 6.06 release. That installer kept hanging before completing, which seemed a common thing in the forums. Has this been improved? Will I actually be able to install it this time?

Still no 3D desktop?

[cciRRus]

Mandriva 2007 and Fedora Core 6 now come out-of-the-box with 3D desktop support (XGL/AIGLX + Compiz). The 3D desktop not only serve as a great piece of eyecandy, it (e.g. cube desktop and Expose clone) also makes the GUI friendlier and more efficient. As a Ubuntu user, I'm a little disappointed that Ubuntu 6.10 does not provide 3D desktop support.

Re:Still no 3D desktop?

[RAMMS EIN]

The 3D desktop requires a supported video card, proprietary drivers (usually), and everyone I know who has used it has reported it to be unstable, as recently as a few weeks ago. I'm _happy_ they didn't go the 3D desktop route.

Now, if you want to use compiz and friends, I'm sure you can easily install the required packages, and there's probably a HOWTO already out there that walks you through the process. Last time I did it, it wasn't very difficult (but it didn't work well, either).

Re:Still no 3D desktop?

[BlackPignouf]

Using Beryl on a fresh Edgy install is as easy as adding repos and installing beryl package:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=26385 1&highlight=beryl (en)
http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/applications/beryl (fr)

With an Ati Radeon 9200, I didn't even have to modify xorg.conf or install any driver, while Mandriva 2007 just told me : "Your graphic card is unsupported, you'll never be able to use 3D desktop"

Re:Still no 3D desktop?

[chuckfucter]

Especially since I heard this release was supposed to come with xgl.

Re:Still no 3D desktop?

[maccam94]

Edgy Eft comes with AIGLX support built in. Setting up your choice of composite manager is YOUR prerogative, which is a good idea since your graphics card may not be up-to-snuff/configured yet.

Caught it first thing this morning

[DoctorPepper]

I started checking the Ubuntu site around 5:30 this morning. I saw the download page switch over from 6.06 to 6.10, and I jumped on it! It took me about 45 minutes to download the alternate ISO image for AMD 64 bit systems. It is already installed on my new dual core CPU system and running fine! :-)

Re:Why Upstart? Why not initng? Why not minit?

[Chris Pimlott]

This page on the Ubuntu Wiki has a good overview of the upstart, including why it existing systems didn't meet their needs.

Can we use this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

My choice (NSFW)

I recently picked up a live CD of dapper and wanted to put a pretty label on the disc. I found this on google images and it was good for a laugh. (No, I didn't use it, I used the most recent circle-of-people-looking-up version).

Re:Can we use this one?

[Library Spoff]

you're so fuckin leet...
Does it hurt?

Re:Can I

[cmorgan47]

that's pretty much how i got to dapper on my server.

Re:Can I

[eneville]

997 upgraded, 158 newly installed, 26 to remove and 31 not upgraded.
Need to get 659MB of archives.
After unpacking 238MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

looks like it will be a while. has torrent sources been thought about for apt?

I just downgraded to ubuntu 6.04.1

[Billly Gates]

Its not ready yet. I have summarized my experience here 2 days ago.

Initramfs has been updated several times a day and reports of usb drives double mounting, not mounting, and randomly unmounting are quite huge, many wifi cards no longer work, multiple midi files can crash xmms, firefox 2.0 randomly crashes, and other issues means its not ready yet in my book.

Also in my journal I mentioned gpart crashed during a resizing of my ntfs partition. That was quite scary but I did not lose anything. According to launchpad it has not been fixed yet so Windows users beware.

Ubuntu is my favorite and one of the most stable distro's out there. However I highly advise ubuntu users to wait a few weeks before upgrading to this version.

Re:I just downgraded to ubuntu 6.04.1

[RAMMS EIN]

I had similar "not ready yet" experiences with 6.04, including bugs that had been known for months, but hadn't been fixed yet (this was on PowerPC, by the way). It's sad, really, considering that Ubuntu's main selling point for me has been the "no hassle" part. I guess this is yet another piece of evidence for releasing on schedule being incompatible with good quality realeases.

Fortunately, I run Debian stable on my machines that must Just Work.

Re:I just downgraded to ubuntu 6.04.1

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Thanks. I'm a newbie to linux (only 2 months old now) and wasn't sure if I should update today or give it a few weeks for the bugs to be cleaned up a bit.

Re:I just downgraded to ubuntu 6.04.1

[Chris Pimlott]

No, you twit, he means Linux is 2 months old. Learn to read.

Installing Ubnutu on a laptop

[Rik Sweeney]

I had problems installing Ubuntu on my laptop when I first got it. I've written a little FAQ for it so if you're having problems you might want to check this out:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=712fb 622370482ce768ff5f50b0e5892&t=230565

I tried and got hosed

[naph]

i'm running a kubuntu xgl setup on my laptop, and trying to upgrade to edgy failed when it got to the xserver bit and hosed my install. i don't know if there was a better way, but as it would no longer even boot i had to re-install to the basic system, and am now upgrading to edgy before i go about setting up xgl again.

a warning i guess, if you've any kind of custom setup.

Re:I tried and got hosed

[micsaund]

I've had this happen just now also. I left everything downloading overnight and finally rebooted just now. Things hose-up at the X startup point. I am presented with the semi-ASCII screen about "the xserver could not start" and then it dumps to a normal grey/black console screen where things are echoed, but nothing interpreted. CTRL-C, CTRL-D, ESC, nothing does anything except CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Seems like quite a few people are seeing this. Wonder if anyone has a fix or if I'm just looking at wiping and reinstalling a la Winbloze...

Re:Can I

[ryanov]

I can verify this. I love Ubuntu, but I upgraded my laptop to 6.06 and some things that just worked on a fresh install on a different laptop just act funny on the upgraded machine. Nothing wrong with kpilot on that machine, for example... this one freezes all the time. Katapult acted different on this laptop than the other one, even though I never made any config changes. I think it will eventually be fine to upgrade, but right now when so many of the software packages are so early in their lives, it seems like nothing ever works perfectly after upgrade.

Yay for upstart

[Vexorian]

Seriously speaking the long boot time was the biggest downfall I could notice when comparing Kubuntu vs. Windows XP in this computer.

Re:Can I

[thepotoo]

Hey, well, the girls might not be after him, but a million Anonymous Cowards on Slashdot sure are.

INSTALL

[kurtis25]

I have above slightly average computer skills and was thinking of ditching XP. Is Ubuntu easy to install? I remember trying to install red hat years ago and never really got it working (to many driver issues). Would I have better luck with Ubuntu or something else?

Re:INSTALL

[Easy2RememberNick]

The install is much easier, pretty much just point and click. It's as easy as Windows if not easier.

  The hardest part is deciding on Ubuntu(GNOME) or Kubuntu(KDE). I think you would like either.

Re:INSTALL

[pato101]

I guess so. Ubuntu it is not only easy to install but it is even easier to upgrade.
If you download this release, the install CD is a live-CD as well... so you can check if you will have any problems with driver issues prior to installing.
If you plan ditching XP (I ditched long time ago win95), the challenge is not the installation process nowadays but finding all your needs covered by opensource apps.

Re:INSTALL

[cmorgan47]

most of the time, you're able to put the CD in, boot a pretty functional, albeit slow cause it's running from the CD, OS. if you're happy enough, double click the INSTALL icon and it guides you through 6 easy steps. upgrading is even easier.

Re:INSTALL

[kurtis25]

What is the significant difference between the to Ubuntu(GNOME)or Kubuntu(KDE)?

Re:INSTALL

[ostermei]

What is the significant difference between the to Ubuntu(GNOME)or Kubuntu(KDE)?

Ubuntu uses the GNOME desktop environment, whereas Kubuntu uses KDE for its desktop. Essentially, all the main packages are the same, it's just a matter of what you prefer your desktop to look like and how you prefer it to work.

KDE is very Windows-like, and is usually the desktop environment used in distributions that focus on helping Windows users come into Linux (not ONLY used in those distributions, obviously). GNOME I have less experience with, but in the tiny bit I have used it, it seems like it tries more to go its own way instead of mimicking Windows.

Re:INSTALL

[ithicine]

I find Ubuntu easier to install than Windows. Not only do you get to enjoy a working system during installation, when it finishes I get a fully functional system without having to mess with drivers. I certainly do not miss the endless parade of CDs and updates I have to put Windows through. Hell, the wireless card in my machine that Windows has difficulty finding a signal on was already connected to my network with at least double the signal strength, and hasn't dropped since.

Ubuntu is easy, fast, and in at least in my case, the easiest install I have ever experienced for any operating system, ever, including OS X.

Re:INSTALL

[imbaczek]

The easiest way is (unfortunately) to try out both.

Re:INSTALL

[Easy2RememberNick]

It's the GUI or the "Windows" part.

  I'd say KDE looks like MS Windows, "cold" with a more industrial/business look and GNOME is more Mac-like, rounder with more cartoonish looking icons and menus. I used to hate GNOME but now I prefer it over KDE.

I post this with every Ubuntu related article...

[SIInudeity]

Shuttleworth is the man! Wish more South Africans rocked like he did.

Fewer Updates for Dapper?

[RAMMS EIN]

I wonder if this will result in fewer updates for Dapper Drake. I hope so, because I don't like the large volume of updates that Ubuntu gives me. Just the security patches, please. And, ok, the bugfixes, too, although I'd hope the bugs would be fixed _before_ the release (which they weren't for Dapper, sadly).

Re:Fewer Updates for Dapper?

[hammarlund]

Why don't you edit your sources.list to get only the security updates then?

Re:Can I

[RoboJ1M]

Hi, mind if I ask a few questions?

I have Dapper at the mo, to which I've *just* managed to get the latest nVidia drivers and mythtv 0.20 working (not sure if there is any reason to upgrade to Edgy, unless it includes that funky compiz/GLX desktop?)

sudo sed -e 's/\sdapper/ edgy/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

That first line, what's that all about? As in, what does 'sed' do and what do those parameters mean?

Second line, OK, that updates everything and then upgrades to Edgy. Last time I just formatted and reinstalled (I wanted to try LVM)

Thanks,

J1M.

Re:Can I

[chaoticgeek]

This is good for the more advanced user who makes a /home so they don't lose everything, and possibly a /usr too so they can keep all their old programs. I'm not positive on the /usr because it would mess with that. Anyways until Ubuntu installer makes a /home doing an install every 6 months means average joe smith will have to back up their data.

What does a version release *really* mean?

[suggsjc]

In the grand scheme of things, what does it really mean to release a new version other than just having a continually increasing number? Why make it such a big deal?

I ask this seriously and also in jest. Why not just have

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

give you the latest and greatest? There has already been discussion of the "best" way to go about upgrading (dist-update, whatever). If instead of having repositories that were "version" specific, why not just have "current" repositories. Then as *everything* progresses, it all gets updated along the way?

Is it just the dependencies issue? Or am I missing something more? Just seems like since Ubuntu is aimed at making it the most user-friendly distro, "version" updates could follow suit.

Re:What does a version release *really* mean?

[SpinyNorman]

It's good for updates to be lumped into releases since they can be tested better. Individual updates can be individually tested, but in terms of the whole distro this is really just unit testing. System testing each entire release (via release candidates, etc) is likely to find additional bugs such as where updrading some component broke something else that relied on the old version.

Re:What does a version release *really* mean?

[deevnil]

I believe they're recompiling everything with a slightly newer gcc.

Re:What does a version release *really* mean?

[intangible]

Try Debian "Unstable" for a few years... it's good fun, but it does get old... That's why I use Ubuntu these days.

Re:What does a version release *really* mean?

[xenocide2]

Firstly, some changes to Ubuntu are more fundamental than a new version. Upgrading glibc is still a version bump, but affects almost every package. Additionally, new versions of gcc itself produce potentially different objects. Releases allow for a coherent whole to be formed.

Additionally, releases allow for planning and coordination. Sometime programs aren't exactly C++ standard compliant, and sometimes the compiler isn't either. Changing the compiler version can occasionally introduce subtle bugs or build failures. By staggering freezes, you give people deadlines to work with / around. Imagine not knowing whether the kernel would support a specific feature your program wanted (like wpa_supplicant and NetworkManager).

Finally, the release system allows for simple testing and bug fixing. Sometimes upstream will fix a bug and introduce a new buggy feature at the same time.

Re:What does a version release *really* mean?

[Respect_my_Authority]

Why not just have

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

give you the latest and greatest?

Heh, heh. Debian Unstable just upgraded Frozen Bubble to version 2.0.0 while Ubuntu Edgy distributes the old version of Frozen Bubble (1.0.0). Yeah, I know that Frozen Bubble is in Ubuntu's "universe," that is not officially supported, and I also know that the maintainer of Ubuntu's Frozen Bubble package is actually the same person that packages Frozen Bubble for Debian. Still, if you want the "latest and greatest," Debian is a better choice than Ubuntu. Maybe Ubuntu users will get the "latest and greatest" Frozen Bubble in the next Ubuntu release (if you can just wait for six more months). ;-)

Um, no.

[morgan_greywolf]

I luv ubutuntu because it makes me a geek

No, no it doesn't.

Now scuttle off back to your mom's basement.

Also Announced

[c41rn]

It was also announced (a couple days ago) that the code name for the next Ubuntu will be "Feisty Fawn"

Torrents

[RAMMS EIN]

Use the torrents

Re:Can I

[Qamelian]

The sed utility is an editor that allows you to make changes with in a file without actually opening the file in a more traditional editor like vi, emacs or gedit. What the mystery command does is to read through the file /etc/apt/sources.list and change each instance of dapper to edgy. Essentially it's converting the dapper verion of sources.list to an edgy version so apt-get, aptitude and synaptic will read from the edgy repositories instead of the dapper repos. So long as your system doesn't have to many oddities installed from outside to Ubuntu repositories, this method should work fine. If you've added a lot of stuff that doesn't appear in the repositories (i.e., compiled from source, convert from RPM via alien), you may end up with a broken system. I generally do fresh installs after making an image of my current set up and a separate backup of /home. The image is for quick reversion to my original setup if needed. The backup of /home is in case things go horribly, tragically wrong. I use a lot of custom apps that tend to interfer with the dist-upgrade process.

Re:Can I

[Sarisar]

Basically the repositories are all named after the version name - dapper. breezy and the like. In this case to upgrade from dapper to edgy you change your sources.list from dapper to edgy to pick up the upgrade.

This is what the sed is doing basically. It's a neat way of doing it, otherwise you could open the sources.list file and search / replace in GEDIT or other text editor

Re:Can I

[teh_chrizzle]

trumping redhat in any capacity makes me all weak in the knees.

Link to torrent download

[denmon]

I didn't see actual torrent download links in any of the posts, so here's the link for the desktop i386 iso from torrent.ubuntu.com:

http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/file?info_hash=%FE3 %D1%9A%06%E9w%DCn%DD%8E%3D%8D%07%A0%7D%06KuT

If you want to download a version for a different architecture, or the alternate text-based installer iso, they are all listed here:

http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/

Re:Can I

[lpcustom]

I wonder if these people are using apt-get upgrade or apt-get dist-upgrade. When you change your sources.list to a new release of a Debian-based OS, you should always use dist-upgrade to perform the upgrade. Some people change their sources to the new version and run apt-get upgrade. I believe this is probably their problem. It's a faulty keyboard to chair adapter.

Re:Can I

[MoogMan]

Easier would be to "sudo update-manager -c", from a command line.

and the next new release will be called...

[radarsat1]

You know, I really am not one to complain about Linux naming schemes. I actually LIKE all those crazy names for applications and operating systems, I think it's kind of fun. I think Dapper Drake sounds okay, and Edgy Eft sounds great. But I received the Ubuntu newsletter recently...

Did anyone notice the name for the next version???

Anyone??

wait for it..... "The Feisty Fawn".

Seriously.
What.. the .. fuck?

It makes it rather difficult for me to talk about my operating system with people... you know..

"Hey, yeah I just installed the latest version of Feisty."

"you what"?

Re:and the next new release will be called...

[shish]

Just wait a few years until we're further down the alphabet, installing our rampant rabbits...

Re:and the next new release will be called...

[Fnkmaster]

Umm... what's wrong with "I just installed the latest version of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS" or "I just installed the latest version of Ubuntu 6.10". They have version numbers so you can discuss this with your boss without having to use phrases like "Dapper Drake", "Edgy Eft" or "Feisty Fawn".

No DVD Image?

[mislam]

No DVD Image? Or that is not needed? Sorry newbie to Ubuntu.

ubuntustudio

[deevnil]

They have a project, I think they were considering 'mubuntu' at some point or it was a popular recommendation on the forums (I forget(maybe it was remarkable because it wasn't popular)). Now they have a front page with the graphics, video, ... they must be sticking with the more generic studio extended-moniker to cater to a wider audience. Possibly the 'mu' & emphasis on preemption was attracting too many of the lynx fanatics. :p

For the basic recording that I like to do, all that extra preemption seems like overkill. I happen to be running 2.6.18 on dapper with 'desktop' grade preemption and a sluggish 250Hz timer frequency and it records fine, I didn't really need the new kernel though - and those kernel options have existed for a while. If it helps for bigger recording projects then surely there could be DVB applications that benefit, and stuff like that. The more the merrier.

There should still be a place for the projects like agnula and planetccrma distros, dedicated machines aren't going to need any cinelerra or mythtv, etc. Specialisation is sort of the point of preempting your kernel to death.

Re:Can I

[slack_prad]

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -yy
Other wise it would be waiting for a confirmation.

GNOME faster after update

[tjwhaynes]

On my laptop, GNOME 2.16 is definitely faster than 2.14. That may be partly due to other system improvements such as the improved symbol searching during linking. As the other sibling poster pointed out, check your network settings and DNS.

Re:Can I

[drinkypoo]

You don't even need to start X. Just "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" and the system will update. (Some entry of your password may be required.)

I updated Ubuntu to 6.10 the night before last (in theory it was ready) and when I rebooted this morning, X didn't start and I can't log in - it never prompts me for password! If I start typing my password it echoes to the screen. Classy. I'm updating again now.

Re:Can I

[drinkypoo]

looks like it will be a while. has torrent sources been thought about for apt?

Apt just barely has concurrent downloads and you're worried about torrent sources?

In order to really make use of torrent, apt would have to be much more asynchronous. It should determine an overall order for packages, create multiple install jobs based on dependencies (so if you're installing two things and each one has five different dependencies, then apt should be allowed to install one while the other is downloading) and so on. Apt does none of these things so a torrent would be a waste. However, it might be reasonable to make major release upgrades through an automated process of torrenting an ISO, mounting it, and doing the update.

Probably not, though.

Slashdot as Upgrade Offerer

[Doc Ruby]

I wish my (6.06) Ubuntu's Upgrade Manager app would offer to upgrade my entire OS to the next version now that one's available on the upgrade server. It seems to just offer upgrades to apps in the currently installed version of the distro.

I understand the difference, but it's mostly an artifact of Ubuntu's internal project release schedule. Most desktop users won't understand or care (rightly). And they probably won't know they can upgrade.

Which situation also means more users of old distro versions, who artificially increase the user base of that distro's fork versions of apps. If everyone who wanted to upgrade an app knew there was a new version included in a new distro version, all automated, many more people would probably upgrade whole distro versions. Which would mean less people requiring old fork version upgrades. So more developers could work on the newest versions, not fork version branches and backports.

Re:Slashdot as Upgrade Offerer

[xenocide2]

I realize it's not as dead-easy perfect as it could be, but have you tried "gksudo update-manager -c" ? It does exactly what you're asking for. I have no idea why it doesn't do it automatically however. Perhaps they want to cushion the load by letting early adopters grab first, then push out the automatic upgrade a week later after a few thousand successful installs/upgrades?

Dapper has something like a 3 year support cycle. Should we be recommending edgy or dapper to new users?

Re:Slashdot as Upgrade Offerer

[Doc Ruby]

I'm not asking how to manually pull the info that the new upgrade is available. I'm talking about how to have Ubuntu push the offer. That's exactly what I'm asking for.

This afternoon I ran apt-get update, and the Update Manager "warning light" in my Panel told me there were two updates available, a couple security upgrades to a couple of installed apps. Without Slashdot, I wouldn't know to run "update-manager -c". That's the hard part.

Re:Slashdot as Upgrade Offerer

[ceswiedler]

I read on an Ubuntu wiki that Dapper, being their current long-term-support version, does not automatically suggest upgrading to Edgy, which is the 'bleeding edge' version. Presumably Edgy will notify users when Feisty is ready.

Re:Slashdot as Upgrade Offerer

[xenocide2]

Ah. I was wondering why I recalled a patch to update-manager that did exactly that. That makes some sense at least.

Re:Can I

[drinkypoo]

This is good for the more advanced user who makes a /home so they don't lose everything, and possibly a /usr too so they can keep all their old programs. I'm not positive on the /usr because it would mess with that.

Programs that you install that are not managed by the OS should always go into /usr/local. This way you can always know that you need only preserve your home dirs, chosen configs from /etc, and your /usr/local when migrating to a new system (or new OS.)

This has been the convention since long before I discovered Unix :P

A lot of programs seem to want to install themselves to /opt these days, too. I first saw that on SunOS5. Not sure where it comes from. I think it's a stupid idea myself, they belong in /usr/local if they're not managed by the OS' package management system, and in the normal filesystem layout if they are. But that's a matter of taste I guess.

APTorrent?

[Doc Ruby]

When will APT include a torrent client so we don't have to figure out whether the servers are clogged to decide whether to upgrade with apt-get or from a local torrent file?

Re:APTorrent?

[xenocide2]

maybe after someone figures out how to do that in a secure manner, and how to build the torrent in a way that makes sense? One torrent per package won't save much, and torrent for all packages fundamentally breaks the idea that all users in a torrent want all blocks in the set.

Re:Slow News Day *YAWN*

[Tribbin]

Well, that was because the 6.06 LTS you could order 10 CD's delivered at your door for free. And you know we all like everything that only costs other people's money and time!

What I do miss is another notification that we can, and will, order 6.06 CD's delivered at your door FOR FREE!!!

Dapper isn't dead.

[Kadin2048]

Actually you probably did the right thing, Dapper is the "Long Term Support" version -- basically the 'stable' line, while Edgy is the first of a number of smaller builds that will be released, but do not totally supplant the LTS version.

If the PCs were all your personal machines then of course you can do what you want, but if they're ones that have to work reliably and you're expected to support, you probably saved yourself a lot of trouble by going with Dapper.

Re:Dapper isn't dead.

[Reapman]

Yeah thats pretty much what I decided... my server's will remain 6.06, but my own personal desktop I'll give .10 a shot, doesn't seem that complicated a procedure to upgrade thankfully.

Re:Can I

[Bloater]

I switched from Debian 32bit to Ubuntu 64bit without a reinstall.

I love Ubuntu

[zzottt]

I thought I would give it a try a few months ago and I felt the same why I felt when I started to use Firefox for the first time. After a few hours I just couldn't go back to Windows XP.

After a week I wiped the WinXP partition off my computer and I haven't looked back since. I have even talked my friends and family into giving it a try. So far I have converted 3 people and 2 or 3 more are using the live CD to try it out. I have tried a few different Linux flavors over the years but none of them clicked so well with me as Ubuntu has.

Well done Ubuntu crew!

Re:I love Ubuntu

[Almahtar]

Same story here man. I can pick on problems with different operating systems all day, but when all's said and done the one that frustrates me the least is Ubuntu every time, in every category. I wish OSX and Windows were as willing to just do what I want and do it right.

Re:Can I

[newt0311]

but gentoo is even better than sliced bread...

Re:Can I

[dotgain]

And he should comment out "* Go to bed / work *" since the asterisks will expand to every file in the current directory.

Reasons to Upgrade?

[protomala]

Can someone who is already using Edgy tell me if the upgrade is worthy?
I'm running a fairy updated Ubuntu with Kde 3.5.5 and Firefox 2.0. So basically the "new program version" reason isn't a plus for me.

Is upstart, new kernel and other stuff a good reason to upgrade, or keeping my stable as rock Dapper a good idea until a release with more changes is released?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

Re:Reasons to Upgrade?

[Almahtar]

I've used both a lot (I had Edgy installed on one machine during development for a long time). The only difference I ended up noticing were mostly related to the flexibility of the bootloader (not an issue if you're not running on a "Mactel", and Firefox 2.0. To be honest Firefox 2.0 bugs me because clicking the app launcher will just maximize the current open window rather than opening a new one, and the close button for tabs is on the actual tabs rather than over on the right side of the window. So from a picky person that uses firefox a lot: not really worth it. If you want stuff like built in AIGLX and faster boot time then give it a shot.

No, they include apache2

[jonasj]

They include packages 'apache' for v1.3.34 and 'apache2' for v2.0.55. Only apache2 is officially supported -- package 'apache' is in the universe repository.

References:

distrowatch page

Ubuntu edgy package search - apache

Here's how to fix that

[Tarlus]

If I'm reading correctly, you're having internet slowdown issues while using Linux and connecting to DSL internet?

I used to have the same issues. Here's how to fix it:
Don't use local DNS. For some reason, DSL modems (especially of the Actiontec brand) have very slow DNS resolution in non-Windows OS's. Why, exactly, I don't know. I never bothered to research it. It doesn't happen with cable internet.

If you're not sure how to manually specify what DNS server your system is using to resolve names, I wrote a simple little guide on how to fix this some time ago. You can read it here. It explains how it's done in Debian, but Ubuntu is based on Debian, so it should all work exactly the same.

Hope this helps!

Re:Here's how to fix that

[somegeekynick]

Thanks for the link. In fact, it was worse before I blacklisted (globally) IPv6. I don't have an actiontec modem (I come from a different part of the world), but I'll give it a try if I face the same problem with Edgy.

dial-up?

[slapout]

Any one know if they've improved the dial-up internet access in this release? 6.06 has some problems in this area.

Will it solve The Problem?

[gilgongo]

I am not a very experienced or proficient Linux user, but I run Ubuntu Dapper and have been doing so since switching (out of curiosity) from OpenSuSE.

The distro is fantastic, save for one thing that I really, really hope will be cured in 6.10. The problem is so huge, so head-slappingly weird and strange, and so bizarrely counter to the usability of the OS that I am forced, when asked whether I would reccommend it to newbies, to say that I would not. The reason is that Ubuntu (and most other Linux distros AFAIK) mounts all external devices as root.

Plug in your Memorystick: read only.

Plug in your FireWire video camera and use Kino: permission denied.

Plug in your USB still camera and use GThumb to import pictures: read only.

Will Ubuntu 6.10 - as the leading and most devastingly cool Linux distro on earth - cure this for me?

Re:Will it solve The Problem?

[xenocide2]

That is a really weird bug. You should try searching http://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bugs/ for similar bugs already filed. I've not had that happen to me with my usb thumb drive. Ubuntu uses hal, dbus and pmount to make dynamic mounts accessible to the current desktop user. What that means is plug something in, and it sets the "owner" to whoever is currently using the computer.

The best way to find out and/or fix this problem is to file a bug and be prepared to answer questions about your installation.

Re:Will it solve The Problem?

[imbaczek]

Check which groups you are in, especially if the user you're running isn't the one you created during the install. Won't give any guarantee that that's the problem, though.

Re:Will it solve The Problem?

[pionzypher]

I run into this issue as well. My two external usb drives do it, as well as my shuffle and my thumb drive. With the fat32 FS though, it behaves as if the perms were 700. i.e. it's necessary to do

zion@hades:~>sudo ls /media/thumbdrive

to list...Royal pain.

Re:Will it solve The Problem?

[gilgongo]

Indeed. I've checked my group, posted questions on the support forums and tried various other things but it's no use. The really odd thing was that when I posted to Ubuntu support, people came back saying "What you complaining about? It's a *security* measure." WTF??

Bugs I can live with, crashing or non-running apps I can live with because there are usually alternatives, but this problem has to be the biggest of a all problems with Linux if you ask me.

Re:Can I

[dotgain]

/opt is kind of cool if you've got LOTS of non-managed software, IMHO. Each package gets its own subdir in /opt, for example, /opt/oracle. Not wanting to start a flamewar by any means, in fact I use /usr/local on my systems, but /opt seems to be the way it goes on a lot of packages for Solaris, and I'm a /path/of/least/resistance kind of guy.

Re:Can I

[eneville]

Apt just barely has concurrent downloads and you're worried about torrent sources?

well just using torrent sources for the iso images would be cool, but i guess i can do the same by getting the image from torrent and then mount it with loopback. never mind.

Re:Can I

[mrjeffreya]

"However, it might be reasonable to make major release upgrades through an automated process of torrenting an ISO, mounting it, and doing the update."

Already (partially) possible. Download the Ubuntu alternate ISO, mount it to your file system, and add the mount directory to your APT sources.list. You are now ready to apt-get update and dist-upgrade.

Once you downloaded the ISO, you can do:

sudo mkdir /media/iso/
sudo modprobe loop
sudo mount /path/to/ubuntu-6.10-alternate-*.iso /media/iso/ -t iso9660 -o loop
sudo echo "deb file:/media/iso/ubuntu edgy main restricted" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Although APT will still need to download some files, it should get everything it can from the ISO.

Beryl/Compiz with Xorg 7.1

[aok]

Now that Edgy Eft comes with Xorg 7.1 and AIGLX, I guess I should take a look to see how well the open-source radeon driver handles running Beryl.

I currently have Dapper Drake running XGL on top of xorg 7.0 and using the ATI proprietary drivers. There are some disadvantages like not being able to Shutdown without logging out first and higher CPU usage especially when playing videos. Hopefully ATI isn't stalled on it's support for the GLX_texture_from_pixmap extension due to the AMD acquisition...

You Mean....

[obsidianpoet]

You mean.... like Window Update? (Warning Will Robinson..... Danger Danger.....) Actually I love the apt-get feature in the Debian flavors. It might take a while for a dist upgrade, but it easily makes up the time rather than backing up your files, formatting the hard drive, reinstall the OS and pray that your files survived the process :)

Long-Term Support?

[mrpaco18]

Does anyone know if 6.10 will get the same long-term support that 6.06 has? Everything on the Ubuntu website still refers to 6.06 as the only version with LTS. It's not a big deal (to me anyway), just more of a curiosity.

Re:Long-Term Support?

[Almahtar]

It will not. The idea behind Ubuntu's release pattern is "try something new... refine it... get it right... LTS... try something new... refine it..." etc.

Edgy is the "try something new" phase, and as such couldn't be supported as LTS.

Re:Can I

[arabagast]

alpha@trait:/$ man work

No manual entry for work

I actually thought that was a valid command for a second there :)

(Mostly) happy with 6.10 RC

[timothy]

All my computers are cursed, of course, or they wouldn't have landed in my possession. So, I'm not surprised that there are a few things I don't like about Ubuntu, but at the moment it seems to be the best thing going for my ThinkPad T40: printing, sound, wireless*, external devices all work nicely. With a bit of the usual hair pulling, encumbered playback (DVD, MP3) works fine, too.

It's a nice system, overall.

My biggest complaint -- can anyone tell me that this has been improved in the final over the RC I have from 6 or so weeks ago? -- is that suspend is an iffy thing. I'd estimate my laptop correctly suspends about 25% of the time, certainly no more than this.

When it doesn't successfully suspend, it's a pretty even split between a kernel panic complete with lots of scrolling text, and a blank screen and a *blinking* sleep indicator (in my case, an LED above the keyboard) but no actual suspending. When either of these happen, the only way path to progress seems to be a hard power-off, which I don't like to do to my poor laptop. OTOH, hey, suspending 25% of the time is a 25% step up from most distros :)

timothy

Re(Mostly) happy with 6.10 RC (forgotten asterisk)

[timothy]

The asterisk I included on "wireless" is there because the wireless networking for me has been flakey; generally *working*, yes, but settings seem to float off into the ether when I'm not looking; I keep re-defining the same location settings only to have them gone in some random number of reboots, etc. Oddly enough, the internal networking card is recognized and works fine at home, but not on my school's network; I can access the school's network (with a WEP key) only using a PCMIA wireless card, no idea why.

timothy

That isn't normal

[Chuck Chunder]

I've been plugging memory sticks, external hard drives and my compact flash camera into my PC since Ubuntu 5.something (now on 6.10 and 6.06 on different PCs) and they always magically appear as you'd expect. I'm sure it would be interesting to get to the bottom of whatever is causing problems on your particular installation but I don't think it's the 'normal' experience by any means. A jump to 6.10 may be worth a try but if it's a configuration issue rather than a problem within an actual package upgrading may not fix what's wrong.

Thank goodness...

[Almahtar]

It's written in C++ with Qt. None of this .net mono stuff. Using a Microsoft controlled standard is like taking candy from a stranger, with the small distinction that people have taken candy from strangers in the past without it biting them in the ass later.

Re:Thank goodness...

[oever]

In fact, Qt is only required for the search client that is shipped with Strigi. With DBus support writing a client based on the GNOME libraries is peanuts.

i dislike the graphics at startup

[dr34d9]

i like to watch what happens during the boot process, it is a good way to see if something goes wrong (like: "trouble initialising usb device, maybe the cable is bad" which happened to my mouse last week, no problem, some duct tape fixed it and it saved me lots of time i would have spent on my x setup in the worst case). if i wanted some meaningless bar i would still use win2k, else it is a very fine system.

Re:Can I

[Silas is back]

I love doing this from the university-network. We are directly connected to one of the mirrors and therefore, downloads are incredible fast. Now, that`s what everyone claims, but I`m burning the ISOs directly from the mirrors rather than downloading them first, and my 24x burner is happy...

Core 2 Duo

[Samah]

Anyone know if C2D/JMicron support has been fixed in the final release?
If not, that's VERY poor since I believe the issues have since been fixed in the latest kernel.
A note to all Core 2 Duo owners or potential buyers, if your motherboard has a JMicron IDE controller, you're screwed (again, unless they've fixed it).

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Core_2_Duo_Support

Re:Can I

[Shortgeek]

While in the development stages, I frequently had X crash, and went back to Dapper, and found a way to stop it crashing. If you upgrade every single package before rebooting even once, it works fine. I don't know why, but it has worked invariably.

You don't understand the use!

[Inoshiro]

"some embedded device or something, or are you a musician?"

Soft real time is for INTERACTIVE PERFORMANCE! Soft real time means I can freely run some DISK I/O hogging app and have a load of 500 and still be able to ssh in easily and kill the offending process. Remember how sweet BeOS was? Like that.

I don't have to be a musician for that, and if I were embedded I'd use a hard-RT core OS with Linux running as a personality on top.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

u fail it

[thinsoldier]

willing to bet $400 that Ubuntu will once again not boot on my system.

Re:Slow News Day *YAWN*

[HeroreV]

The free CDs seemed pretty awesome at the time, but I don't think it'll cause the same excitement again. Waiting around week after week for something you can download for free (and probably already have) zaps a lot of the fun out of it. Although it was still cool to get those CDs in the mail. Now a free Tux poster, that would be the shit.

Re:Easy upgrade from 6.06?

[miro f]

oh just shut up.

Normal users are expected to stay with 6.06 because it's "long term support" and supposedly stable. This was a consious decision.

OK, sure, maybe grandma can't hit alt-F2 and type one single line but they're not meant to be upgrading operating systems. When was the last time Grandma upgraded her Wwindows install?
Whether Linux is "ready for the desktop" or not is a different matter, but saying it's not because some clueless user can't do something that they shouldn't be doing and don't care about is just wasting poeople's time

Re:Can I

[shellbeach]

You forgot the all-important first step: backup your system with a bare-metal recovery tool such as Mondo, and then double check your backups!! Owing to a bug in one of the numerous package upgrade scripts, upgrading to Dapper completely hosed my system (as it did to quite a few other Ubuntu users), and then I discovered that my Mondo backups that I'd burnt the day before were corrupted :(

Especially if you're not running a plain vanilla system, but like to compile software and re-write init scripts, upgrading Ubuntu is most definitely a, well, Edgy experience. Make sure you're bungee-jumping with the rope attached ...

Interesting.

[porkchop_d_clown]

Thanks for the cites;

I have to say, though, I find it amusing that the apache license isn't good enough for FSF development work, but people don't seem to have a problem using apache...

Edgy is bad with software RAID

[Theovon]

Looks like if you have software RAID, you should think twice before upgrading. Look here: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=28606 6

Re:Easy upgrade from 6.06?

[HeroreV]

Even grandmas know how to click "OK". You're right that some people aren't meant to be upgrading operating systems, but that's exactly why they need an operating system that does it for them automatically. That's exactly why Linux is not ready for the average person.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Ubuntu has hit the speed and quality limit

[beachdog]

I think Ubuntu has hit the speed of release vs. quality of packages limit.

The present Ubuntu system of preparing new software releases does not fix enough simple configuration errors before the the little checkbox appears in the Ubuntu software update service saying "Upgrade to 6.06 LTS available now."

My story is I upgraded from "Breezy Badger 5.10" to the "6.06 LTS" sometime in September.Right off the bat I lost three days of job hunting and programming time piddling around fixing 4 package configuration errors. xorg-xserver required a package roll back, printing required reinstalling the printers, Firefox no longer started Adobe Acrobat on pdf files, and GoogleEarth required an obscure edit to xorg.conf.

I seriously wouldn't wish such a string of aggravatons on a beginner. I absolutely would not install 6.06 LTS as a paid technician or consultant.

How did 6.06 LTS get offered to the public? My guess is a whole bunch of package testers were on vacation.

There has been a steady evolution in Linux distributions and I feel the Ubuntu team has hit a wall: The amount of volunteer manpower isn't enough to get all the packages in a Ubuntu Distribution tweaked before the published release date.

In the short term, my next upgrade is going to be a full separate install. I'd much rather set aside 10 Gigs of disk space ( that is $15 of disk space ya know ) than have my work and projects drop dead for 3 days. In the case of GoogleEarth, fixing one stupid number in xorg.conf took 3 darn weeks. Every single day held up a programming project. Yeoww.

In the long term, Linux distributions need something elegant and useful to test each package in place on beta tester machines with a clear connection back to the package maintainer. The slow release cycle of Debian reflects that quality from hand tuning takes a lot of time.

Re:Easy upgrade from 6.06?

[steeviant]

I keep hearing that Linux is ready for the desktop and it's easier to use than Windows. I used to think it might be true, but I keep seeing shit like this. What percentage of Windows XP users went to Microsoft.com to read instructions about how to install Service Pack 2 via the command line? Most of them didn't do anything because it was done automatically.

For god's sake stop whining, man!

You're not comparing Apples to Apples, you can't do the same thing under Windows at all, so it's not surprising you can't find any direct comparisons.

Dapper -> Edgy is a major version upgrade.

When Microsoft allows you to upgrade from XP to Vista over the internet without needing install media or editing a text file, you'll be entitled to complain. At the moment, the fact that this is even possible is something you should be commending not condemning. It's not likely that Microsoft will *ever* offer online upgrades between major OS versions.

You're perfectly welcome to follow the Microsoft-style major version upgrade procedure and grab a copy of the next version on CD if you want. Canonical will even send you one for free. Alternatively, you can upgrade like a power user by using the command line or changing your repositories in synaptic's preferences.

No one owes you a free operating system, particularly if you're not willing to put in the time to learn the ins-and-outs as you were with Windows.

Re:Can I

[larytet]

I lost sound in my laptop after upgrade to 6.06. I did not look logs though. May be the problem is simple. I am going to "clean install" 6.10

How long should we wait?

[FractalZone]

I like to keep my Ubuntu Linux box reasonably current, as I am trying to become enough of an expert at Linux to avoid wasting money on Vista just because that is where Windoze is heading and Windoze is the default PC OS these days, sad to say.

That being said, I wonder how soon a savvy computer user should plan on doing an upgrade such as the one from Ubuntu 6.06 to 6.10? As someone who is often paid to make recommendations about Windoze (license) purchases, upgrades, and related application software issues, in addition to all of the other things that one should consider when making a major OS decision, I realize I don't have a good intuitive feel for how long I should wait before upgrading Ubuntu.

With Windoze, a good rule of thumb is to put off major release changes for at least six months...that way the early adopters (read: guinea pigs) get to enjoy all the fresh bugs, security holes and goofy design flaws. By the time an MS Service Pack for the new version has been out for at least two months (and isn't getting ridiculed too much in the tech press/forums), it is usually safe to go ahead with the upgrade (IMHO).

What is a good default timeline for doing Linux upgrades, particularly where new releases of Ubuntu are concerned?

The only vista on my horizon is (the newest version of) Ubuntu,
Fractalzone

seamless & fearless

[bobp0303]

My system has a 60g hard drive -- I bought it with Windoz XP professional and promptly re-installed with three partitions of 20g each. I installed breezy badger (then the current version) and used the third partition as mp3 storage for a while until I got organized. Now each time I decide to try a new system I use that third 20g partition for the latest effort -- edgy Eft installed over the weekend with no hassles, I temporarily pointed my data directories back to the previous installation (now Dapper Drake) ran Automatix2, again with no issues except it wasn't successful on the additional true-type fonts. Point being that I never lose an installation until I'm ready to make the final switch. -- Your mileage may vary...

Ubuntu is more desktop ready than OS X or Windows!

[steeviant]

That's right, you heard it here first... Ubuntu is actually more "desktop ready" than Windows or OS X!*

*Logic courtesy of HeroreV.

Even grandmas know how to click "OK". You're right that some people aren't meant to be upgrading operating systems, but that's exactly why they need an operating system that does it for them automatically. That's exactly why Linux is not ready for the average person.

Damn, I guess that means Windows and Mac OS X aren't ready for the desktop either then, since I can't see Apple or Microsoft distributing their next major OS release through their automatic software updates either.

In fact, taking this argument to it's logical conclusion... Since you can point and click your way to a major version upgrade through the automatic software updater in Ubuntu, and can't do the same in Windows or OS X, I guess that means it's actually closer to being "desktop ready" than either OS X or Windows.

Upgrade was a snap

[magickal1]

Despite all that I have read the upgrade was a snap. Though the reports stated that anything out side of the mundane normal users setups fail with horror, the upgrade went smoothly. System specs are
AMD athalon clocking 1.1GHz, 3 Gigs sdram, 1 80 Gig Maxtor Hdd, 1 80Gig Seagate Hdd and one 200 Gig Seagate drive, a sony dvd r-w combo drive, MBA on / on /dev/hda /home on /dev/hdb abd WindowsXP on /dev/hdc on a nvidia chipset on an aopen Mb. pci wireless device, Nic cards and onboard nic as well. with BFG MX4000 AGP slot Graphix card

I simply used gksudo "update-manager -c" and all went smooth from there, kubuntu is the desktop.
After everything was installed I shutdown the system for 3 mins and the restarted and bang it was up and there have been no issues. So whats all the hub-bub about?

Pete da Geek
@quasar Internet Solutions Inc.