Ubuntu Hardy Heron Announced

Jono Bacon, Community Manager for Ubuntu, has announced development on the next version of the popular Linux distribution name "Hardy Heron". "Not only will the Ubuntu community continue to do what it does best, produce an easy-to-use, reliable, free software platform, but this release will proudly wear the badge of Long Term Support (LTS) and be supported with security updates for five years on the server and three years on the desktop. We look forward to releasing the Hardy Heron in April 2008."

Comments

Re:Silly

[HomerJ]

There's an argument to be made for the goofy "code names". However, they are just that, code names. As far as version numbers, they make about as much sense as any. Higher versions get bigger numbers. 8.04 is a later version than 7.04. 7.10 is going to be a later version than 7.04, but behind 8.04.

What exactly is so confusing about it?

Re:Silly

[hhlost]

Ok, perhaps "non-standard" would have been a better term. And I really should have left the already-confusing part out, because my real concern is that, as someone posted above, convincing someone that the best platform for their needs is "Hardy Heron" in a professional environment is difficult, and embarrassing. Linux has the reputation of being usable only by teenage computer geeks and this does not help. Yes it's a code name, but it's used in public much more than most code names, and regardless, there's no reason for them to be increasingly ridiculous.

Re:And hurts Ubuntu

[hhlost]

I develop a medical database that requires a server to be installed locally, for security reasons. I try to convince the hospitals to let me use Ubuntu instead of MS Windows for obvious reasons, but so far have been unsuccessful. My latest attempt was thwarted, at least in part, when the IT staff had a good laugh at the "Feisty Fawn" name.

Re:Hope they get it right this time

[MobyDisk]

Your information is out-of-date. AMD64 has been around since April 2003, and Windows/Linux has been working on since before it left the factory. Actually, all AMD motherboards since that time are 64-bit, even if nobody runs the 64-bit OS's.

what's really in Gibbon and Hippo?

[bcrowell]

It would be interesting to know more about what's planned for Gibbon and Hippo. I'm currently running Feisty on all my home and work machines, and in general it works great. TFA does have a link to a wikified wishlist for Hippo, but that's not the same as knowing what the focus of the release is really going to be: usability, innovation, stability? I'd guess the focus won't be innovation, since they're going to make it a long-term support release.

Here's my person impression of what's already okay in Feisty, and what needs to be improved.

Already okay in Feisty:

1. 64-bit support is perfect, as far as I can tell. I hear a lot of people complaining about it, but all I can say is that I'm running the default packages for firefox, flash, and java, and everything Just Works. The flash and java applet plugins work fine for me. AFAICT, some 64-bit enthusiasts are upset that they can't run these plugins as native 64-bit apps in a 64-bit native browser. What I can't figure out is why that matters...? If it works, it works.
2. Wifi just worked for me, and is now sufficiently integrated with the Gnome gui to make it easy for my 11-year-old daughter to deal with it on her machine.
3. The kernel has built-in support for AMD's Cool'n'Quiet energy-saving technology.

Problems with Feisty:

1. ACPI power management doesn't work. This is a particularly bad problem for laptops. My laptop would shut down as soon as Gnome started, because it believed the battery was dead, when it really wasn't. Hibernation has never worked on any machine I've tried it on. Sleep typically doesn't work. To be fair, this may not be the fault of the linux/ubuntu developers; apparently a lot of hardware manufacturers refuse to supply enough information to allow kernel developers to know what hardware registers need to be restored when waking from sleep or hibernation.
2. Getting a working java runtime is still more work than it needs to be. At the very least, you have to enable a non-free repository, and then add an obscurely named package. I assume this is basically a licensing issue, and will go away as the open-source runtime matures and has the rest of its proprietary components replaced with free ones.
3. CUPS and printing suck to high heaven. This is the single biggest problem I'm facing now. It's not as much of a disaster as it was in earlier versions like Breezy, but it's still a disaster. I have pages and pages of notes on how to get my printer working with Feisty, and it still doesn't work very well -- the printer freezes unpredictably and needs to be power cycled. No, this is not a case where the problem is just that the manufacturer won't release specs; it's a Brother laser printer, and Brother actually hired the CUPS developers to write GPL'd drivers.

Re:And hurts Ubuntu

[nuzak]

Firefox has a component named "libpr0n". It's developed by an organization named Mozilla (which also develops a full suite named Seamonkey), and the fundamental basis of its UI technology uses an XML namespace defined by a uri of, get ready for it, http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there. is.only.xul

If you are in the business of reselling a distribution, you may have a point. If you cannot sufficiently hide the development names of pieces of your system from dour humourless micromanagers, then you cannot do your job, full stop. This may or may not be your fault, but it's hardly a reason to keep dragging out the same tired old "the name is too silly" argument. Serious people take Mark Shuttleworth seriously, and it's not just because he has money.