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Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed
An anonymous reader writes "Scott James Remnant, the former Ubuntu Developer Manager at Canonical and current Ubuntu Technical Board leader, has proposed a new monthly release process for Ubuntu Linux. He acknowledges that with the six month releases there are features that end up landing way too soon, leaving them in a sour state for users. With his monthly proposal, Remnant hopes to relieve this by handling alpha, beta, and normal releases concurrently. It's unknown whether Canonical will accept the policy at this time."
When did he start at canonical?
Previously there was a proposal for continuous releases and for me this monthly idea is about the same. Ubuntu releases continuously anyway. But they maintain different branches and repositories. Every six months you skip to a new branch. So if you had a monthly branch and updated that on every build I think there would be some sort of longer term configuration management anyway. There would have to be experimental branches lasting for more than a month because some things take more than a month to develop. Not saying that this would be a policy, just that the community would informally organize it that way in any case.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This would probably end up working more like a rolling release, staying up to date would mean you ARE using the latest distro.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Oh, it's clear something has to change! The question is more like: What exactly? I have no good answers to this, but as a user I equate the 11.04 release to "Vista of Canonical". I stick fervently to the last LTS release which seems to be good. Sure, I still have two years left on it, but by the end an LTS release loses love and does get stale.
On my own desktops (So, not the desktops I support for family and friends), I usually run the latest release of Ubuntu. The experience was so bad, I personally went back to the LTS. I hope 11.10 will be better, and I'll get back to normal releases if it is.
I've heard good things of Linux Mint, which is Ubuntu based. Thing is, for my family/friends users, I really don't want to switch distributions every few years, just because one has lost my favour. That's going to hurt my credibility.
I've been thinking of switching completely to Debian, but the amount of work to get that running right as a modern desktop is daunting. I can do it, I have done it, but for example, to have a modern browser you either have to manually install it bypassing the package management (bad!) or use backports to get modern compiles of iceweasel. Neither is optimal.
What I fear, is that the proposed shorter release cycles are going to make Ubuntu break too often. That will turn off users, and they cannot afford to lose even more users after the 11.04 release.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Rolling release
If the trend continues, I will a day end up with an Apple.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
They must be smoking the same crack cocaine that Mozilla is.
Well, for what it's worth, free drugs may incentivize people to switch to using Linux on the desktop sooner.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Rolling releases are great for devs because it lets you put your new feature into the release cycle when it's ready instead of locking it down in whatever state if you don't want to miss the 6 month cycle.
The trouble is that this is terrible for users. The 6 month cycle is already a little aggressive (but tolerable) on support forums. Monthly releases would cause so much confusion when you're searching for other people who have experienced your problem.
Also, how does the support cycle work? Are you going to provide parallel support for 24 releases for two years? If not, do I have to upgrade monthly? I support too many computers for that to be a realistic option.
If you need faster releases, just use Debian unstable.
Reminder: "unstable" doesn't mean "crashes often", it means that it's a moving target.
Oh, maybe you mean ... like SID? (see the rolling release BoF at the last Debconf 11 in Bosnia.)
...Gentoo? One of the reasons why I have switched from Gentoo to Debian were stable, more rounded-up releases, with more bugs fixed and issues straightened out between them. Constant upgrading means constant stress over what could have possibly break. I believe people can handle a few broken things on Ubuntu desktop at home, but for Ubuntu servers and for Ubuntu desktops in the enterprise, this is a disaster waiting to happen.
imp
SID
The last two Ubuntu releases have been unusable from me for months after the release, due to bugs or regressions.
I wonder how they would be able to do monthly releases when it seems they can't even do them in 6 month cycles.
I prefer they just went to a rolling release. Why are there even versions, anyway? It amazes me that so few Linux distributions actually use rolling releases. Maybe rolling releases are seen as too "cutting edge" for mainstream, conservative distributions like Ubuntu and Debian. I guess I'm just a ricer at heart.
And each month, please change to a new window manager! And add some new wonderful default settings that are SO MUCH BETTER than whatever some idiot user like me might have customized to what he mistakenly thought fit his needs best! Particularly when it comes to the default internet applications, please reinstall the Evolution mailclient because the last three times I removed it I was obviously being STUPID.
Oh, and please make sure to break the WiFi and graphics drivers each time, because, you know, dist upgrades are BORING if everything just works out of the box. I really look forward to spending an entire weekend on fixing my broken system every month rather than twice a year!
If this means that they're going to fix Unity's usability, then I'm all for it. Otherwise, meh.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
Ordinarily, I might even find reasons to agree with the idea of a more rapid release cycle, but with Ubuntu's proven track record of "successful" releases, I'll have to give this one a pass. I always dread major version updates on Ubuntu, since it always takes me a day or so to figure out how to fix all of the new stuff that broke, and get my desktop working like it was before. It always seems that new user interface configurations make it in, not based on what users want, but on what whatever the current developer happens to prefer in his own environment, rest of the world be damned... Still running 10.04 LTS, and probably will until it's EOL'ed.
i know what! let's go back to releasing "when it's ready"! that would be great! oh wait... that's what debian do.
I'd say no support for rolling, support only LTS. With support meaning "backport bug/security fixes to the specific version you deployed" oh, and the actual corporate support of course... With true rolling, as soon as a fix is ready, there is a new version from upstream which would only need to pass the distro requirements (alpha/beta etc) to go in the official repos.
This might even relieve Canonical from supporting that many releases in a given 2 years time frame (1 instead of 4 + the previous LTS...)
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Why is everyone in such a hurry anymore, doesn't anyone care about getting it done right!?
Shouldn't they use the Mandarin alphabet to start naming their releases, if they're going to do it so frequently? Or will they simply use MMYYYY?
Debian does have rolling releases, it's called Testing and Unstable.
Dilbert RSS feed
Because who is going to work on last month's version? "Oh, just upgrade you'll get all the new fixes." And all the new bugs.
Bleeding edge is fine for hobbyists, but grown ups? We need a version that's going to start solid and get steadily better.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Users can now be confident of always receiving a stable operating system, because of the multiple testing and QA passes each change continually receives. Updates come in monthly, two-weekly or dailyish batches depending where in the main series they chose to run.
I've heard this before, the alleged continuous testing and QA won't happen. Things that are in change aren't stable, that's why we end up in release cycles to begin with so we can have development periods where we're flexible and testing periods where we stabilize it. The "be everything, all the time" development method doesn't work.
In theory, this doesn't sound so bad - it sounds like Agile on a 4 week sprint. But in such a project you should have damn good control over your production environment. When you have tons of people using it on tons of configurations then you will break things this way.
In a distro, the whole thing about gradual changes is a lie anyway. Chances are that every month some package or the other will decide now's the time to make radical changes. It's completely unintuitive to the users what packages made major changes the last month, you just have to test everything each month instead of twice a year.
If this goes though, then I think by far most people will stick with the LTS releases. Which probably means they'll get too little testing and it'll all go crap. The only point I really agree with if true, is that Ubuntu developers should get a better way to run a project that's not for the next release, but for the one after that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Those names hardly inspire confidence for use in a production environment..
which is totally what she said
If you think your LTS starts getting stale, take a look at the various PPAs. For instance you could keep a current stable Firefox (v6 atm), by adding the firefox-stable ppa to your Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
I personally switched to Xubuntu (XFCE) because i don't like gnome3/unity/kde4, had no problems using 11.04.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
It's better to be warned by the name up front than learning it the hard way as with Ubuntu.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The easiest / best approach would be to have alpha, beta and release candidate channels, offering various levels of recency and robustness.
These are all unversioned, and simply update to the latest set of packages available in the each. Then, every 6 / 12 / 18 / whatever months, make the current state of release candidate a versioned release.
If only it were possible to have the best of both worlds, a stable "base" and new/recent applications. I think e.g. PBI-9 from PC-BSD may have a chance of doing that, but none of the currently popular package systems offer anything like it. (Yeah, I read the paper, so kill me.)
Personally, I think it would be interesting if the base (kernel, glibc, that kind of thing) were updated every 6-12 months, but applications were rolling release.
Ubuntu is kind of close with PPAs, but it's a bit of a crapshoot if your particular application has a (high-quality) PPA.
HAND.
I've heard good things of Linux Mint, which is Ubuntu based. Thing is, for my family/friends users, I really don't want to switch distributions every few years, just because one has lost my favour. That's going to hurt my credibility.
I've been thinking of switching completely to Debian, but the amount of work to get that running right as a modern desktop is daunting. I can do it, I have done it, but for example, to have a modern browser you either have to manually install it bypassing the package management (bad!) or use backports to get modern compiles of iceweasel. Neither is optimal.
quote>
It sounds like you might be a good candidate for Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). Basically, it is Linux Mint 11 but on top of a Debian base. It is a rolling release based on Debian Testing.
Those names hardly inspire confidence for use in a production environment..
Quite. If they were a respectable company they'd call their test rolling release something like "Windows Update with Genuine Advantage"
someone mod parent up please
Hm, I don't quite understand what happens there to cause so much change! I mean, it's really hard to keep up with all this!
Removal Company
I can't even begin to convey how bad an idea I think this is. A typical user wants to install an operating system and have it work the same way for a period of at least a year or two. The six-month release cycle is bad enough; introducing feature changes and potential breakages (e.g. to software not installed via Ubuntu's package manager) on a monthly basis is pure insanity.
You have to remember that most people who use a computer actually have work to do and need it to stay consistent for relatively long periods of time to avoid unnecessary interruptions. I much prefer the Microsoft/Apple model of a major release every 2-3 years, and only bug fixes and security updates in the meantime. That way the user only has to deal with the inevitable changes that occur with major releases once every 2-3 years.
I was a dedicated Linux for years but it's things like this that caused me to eventually switch to a Mac.
Except you don't want to boot up one day with an urgent task to perform only to discover that your user interface has completely changed. There are pros and cons to this.
If Ubuntu does this, I will finally be switching to straight up Debian. Cannonical seems obsessed with turning a great Linux platform with the highest visibility into nothing more than Apple Too.
...Already I don't keep any files on my ubuntu machine. Re-installing an OS every 6 months can make it difficult to actually use. Monthly releases will just cause a huge fragmentation issue. I would prefer a yearly release, with other substantial updates throughout the year that can just be downloaded. We could call them service pack's or something. The proposer's proposal actually makes sense though...it's not so much the release schedule that needs to change, but the way that canonical's developers have to get their not truely stable code into a release before its ready so that they can get paid. If the dev's need more time, then canonical should give it to them. After all, isn't the point to build a great working OS and not a semi-working one?
No, carrier pigeons do not count as wifi.
Currently wifi is the make or break of many a linux install. Laptop builders love to add the latest for no very good reason that barely works under windows, let alone linux.
Often by the time a new piece of hardware makes it to the consumer a driver will be out there but getting it involves going cutting edge... and then a 8 week test window starts to look bloody long.
There really is no middle ground unless you want to spend an absolute fortune on release management.
Wait till everything you want to put into a release is stable and tested and you will be obsolete and unable to add patches some users need NOW.
Doing a rolling release and you are a tester and will just have to rely on people not breaking things on purpose like Gnome 3 or KDE4.
For Ubuntu, 11.04 was a mistake, they released new projects that were in an early beta state at the best as critical packages for any desktop. You can make available a beta package as an optional replacement for an established package but to go Unity Gnome3 full hog when neither was or is ready... no.
Why they wanted it 11.04 and no say in 99.10 when it might be functional (it isn't right now) I don't know. Why other distro's copied them, I understand even less.
Sometimes you need the cutting edge and sometimes you don't. But going cutting edge on a critical piece... that is just silly.
There were gnome 3 packages for the fans in 10.10. They should have kept it that way.
Mint so far seems to be only distro with the sense to keep the basics that work.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This makes it harder to hold back a release because the decided to axe a stable Gnome. Also makes it hard to hold back a week for the final beta testing.
THAT'S IT!!! I'm moving to Gentoo!
May the Maths Be with you!
I now understand why he left Canonical:
Canonical’s own performance-review and management is based around [the 6-month cadence]. The Ubuntu developers so employed (the vast majority) have such fundamentals as their pay, bonuses, etc. dictated by how many of their assigned features and work items are into the release by feature freeze.
So, the dream team sets both targets and deadlines, and developers get paid depending on how many dreams they make come true? Sounds like a great idea. Do the targets include usability directives, or do they only specify the "ooh! shiny!" factor?
How is this proposal any different than Debian testing/sid with a monthly flag day instead of the 10-day gestation period?
Perhaps they could give them useful names, like, stable, unstable and testing. Nobody has thought of that before
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
They need to separate the applications from the OS the way every other operation system does (eg. BSD, OSX, Windows, etc).
So you have a core system which is just the most basic requirements to run the OS. Kernel, utilities, display, web browser, etc. I would do it like the BSD's where you have a kernel core, x-windows core, etc. No large apps like OpenOffice and all the other crap. Those can and should be installed separately by the user like they do on every other system.
Then you just maintain and have releases of the core like everyone else does. This is much less work and allows for more focus and higher quality.
The general applications can be done as a rolling release or whatever the user wants. Separate from the core.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
just use Debian Sid.
And if you have a clue, that makes sense and is why you don't want 'rolling releases' in general.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
My vote for best comment of the day.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
I guess breaking your system twice a year just isn't enough?
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.
Why don't they just switch to a rolling release?
Or, better yet, have a rolling release, with major changes (e.g, desktop environment changes, like from GNOME to Unity) every 2 years, when they are doing LTS releases now. That way, we can keep the cute alliterations.
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.
Those names hardly inspire confidence for use in a production environment.
Good. At least you have been warned. Now consider a rolling release where this month the distro decided that everyone should use Unity.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
"That will turn off users,"
Ubuntu already turned off most users with Unity, and then said they would IGNORE the overwhelmingly negative feedback people gave about it. I don't think turning off users is a major worry for them.
Could be time to jump ship and switch to another distro.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
After using Ubuntu for a year, and abandoning it because of their questionable decisions, I just don't see how they could manage doing a rolling release, without having it become a huge pile of interlocking bugs.
If you want a rolling release that shows how it's done, use Arch Linux...
If they go to a monthly release then they are going to run out of letters pretty quick!
At this rate, they will soon need to release Ubuntu 69: Zealous Zuckerburg!
I no longer update except for the key, supported updates, every two years. Instead of going to monthly updates, it needs to cut the updates back to once a year, or once every two years.
Enough said!
Keeping up with security patches is a major concern. Part of the reason Canonical has been considering a more rapid release cycle is the need to keep pace with security patches for Web browsers.
IMHO, Yearly releases would be ok, if it means they're actually stable. Above all, please keep developers working on fixing problems AFTER the release, or keep it longer in RC if necessary. Above all, don't uphold freezes, if it renders related components unusable or severely broken.
One of my personal examples was the QBzr package in Jaunty. The Bzr-package were upgraded since the previous release, but the QBzr package wasn't, leaving it at a broken API. When I noticed it, the freeze were already in place, and the end-result was that QBzr were mostly unusable during Jaunty. (Better having unusable packages than making an exception)
Seriously, what's stopping users from sticking with an LTS?
I've stuck with 10.04 and I couldn't be happier.
This fake outrage about having to update every month is FUD pure and simple.
--
BMO
For those of us who support Ubuntu and Kubuntu torrents, this will make life much more difficult. I currently seed desktop and alternate versions for 10.10 and 11.04 for both interfaces. Now I have to get a new one every month? I am amazed at how much traffice 10.10 distros are still getting.
Why not just use Debian Testing? It uses 2 week minimum cycles to put software in there from unstable, doesn't it? I use it at home, and it STILL breaks way less than any Ubuntu release I've used.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I switched to Debian from Ubuntu awhile back b/c I didn't liie the way that Ubuntu was going with Unity and all the other Ubuntu-specific stuff they added lately. I want to use plain vanilla GNU/Linux, period. If Ubuntu won't give me that I'll find something else that will.
The only problem with Debian Stable is that some of the packages are old as hell even in the latest release. For instance, Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" still has Firefox/Iceweasel 3.5.16, which is absolutely ancient. Just today, Gmail started showing me notifications that my Firefox is so old that it isn't properly supported any more and that some things might not work right b/c of it.
I like stability as much as anyone, but stable shouldn't be synonymous with obsolete.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
It's better to be warned by the name up front than learning it the hard way as with Ubuntu.
Yup. I've used Ubuntu since Hoary (quickly replaced by a beta of Breezy), and suffered on two of the upgrades since. In fact, shortly after Dapper failed to upgrade to Edgy on one laptop, I began to realize how much safer it is to stick to the LTS releases. Nowadays, I don't upgrade any of our PCs to a new LTS release until a few months after it comes out.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I'm running Mint Debian Edition. I'd forgotten that I'd even chosen that version rather than the Ubuntu based one. It's a rolling distribution based on Debian Testing, but I've had no problems with it apart from having to get the wireless drivers working when I first installed it.
I'd recommend switching to the Testing branch of Debian, or adding in repositories for the latest builds of Firefox or Chrome's stable versions to your current setup. When you install the .deb for Chrome, the appropriate repository is added automatically to keep you up to date - not sure if it's any more awkward for Firefox.
I stopped using Firefox a couple of years ago, but I still try it out from time to time. Bog standard Firefox isn't very responsive on my wheezy little netbook, but Chrome with adblock is running great!
which is totally what she said
Calm down folks. Ubuntu was never stable from the start.
Give it 3 to 6 month to mature before installing a fresh version.
Also, make a list of tweaks that you make, so that you can do them faster every time you upgrade.
Cool, so I can get my internet connection shut off after downloading a new release and all of the subsequent fucking bug fixes every month. Coooool. I know that that won't actually happen, but...come on. Ubuntu is what got me away from Windows. This much update and patch downloading will feel Windows-y. Fuck that.
That's what Backports are for ;)
Having said that, I use Unstable, but that's because 1) I keep daily backups and 2) I'm prepared to lose two hours of sleep restoring them if it breaks.
Dilbert RSS feed
Debian Testing is a tricky beast. Sometimes it can stay broken for longer than Unstable, at least that was my experience (I moved from Stable to Testing, then to Unstable).
Dilbert RSS feed
Figured I'd give a fair warning...
"And people called me crazy when I moved to Windows 7 after my LTS 8 to 10 upgrade failed several times".
Is some big company suddenly shoving payouts to people in charge of bigger OSS projects or something? Now, you can say about Mozilla what you want but they clearly expressed their intention that the enterprise market was not of their concern and even managed to baffle Microsoft over it. My take on that is that Mozilla knows all too well what's going on and gives a fair heads up without fabricating stories. Heck; the annoyance of suddenly seeing my workflow habits (favorite plugins stop working or end up in completely different locations, tabs in my mail client and no way to get rid of 'm, interface looking like a browser I didn't want to use up front, etc.) totally change was reason enough for me to dump FF& TB all together and move to SeaMonkey. What a boring project; YEARS into the project and still the same interface; JUST what I like.
Ubuntu otoh claims its for end users and business / enterprise users alike (given their LTS version, which ironically enough has a very big tendency to break the moment you try to upgrade across LTS versions).
Yes, I "sold my soul to the devil" and I'm probably a nice drone in the eyes of some of you having swapped Ubuntu / OpenOffice for Win7 & Office 2010. In my reality though I get work done twice as fast ALTHOUGH I have to admit that OpenOffice gives quicker results. Add a few fields, save as template and wham; popups show up asking you to fill out values. It took me a few days to cook up a MS solution being somewhat familiar with basic, not vb. Now I have a pop up screen asking me to fill out an address as a whole, it checks and fixes the data (name vs Name) and even cooks up a reference entry for me. That was impossible with OpenOffice.
Yet OpenOffice has a LOT of advantages over MS 2010 as well. Adding a table to a text document? (Writer vs Word)? In Word I have to press F9 to update formula fields (or perhaps write a macro for it). Heck; I can't even enforce a layout "just like that" (like finance or such). OpenOffice otoh (ok ok ok, libre office) will do that just fine. Even updates fields the moment something changes.
But at least the OpenOffice project recognized all of that (at least that's how I picked it up) and focused on their key strengths and never allowed themselves to steep as low as in trying to ridicule the competition.
Which I think is exactly what is happening here. We don't NEED new versions every frickin' month, we need stability instead. Some of us may want cutting edge; give 'm access to your repositories. Others like me want stability and continuous support.
WHY do you bozo's think that MS supported an OS like XP YEARS after its EOL period? Because of Vista? Ok; why do you think MS promises me (paid customer) to support my copy of Win7 professional up until 2020 (at least anyway) ? Knowing that I'm good for 9 years gives me trust, enough to tell others that Win7 is the /safe/ way to go. If you need to get work done; get win7 and you can. Get used to it and use it for YEARS to come.
NOW try that Ubuntu.
Sad, sad,developments.
After reading ~50 comments I come to realize that many people doesn't really know what hey want. It's really simple. When you select Ubuntu as a distro you also have the choice between LTS release and latest release. I've come to realize (when I install 10.04) whats the LTS really mean. It's stable BUT doesn't have the latest version of X applications. So the choice you really have to make is do you prefer to have a stable system or the latest features. If you want a stable system, go with LTS. If you want the latest features, go with the latest release.
After stating the difference between LTS and other release, it's should be simple for any one to select whats they want. But, as mentioned, most people doesn't know what they want.... or worst, they want both at the same time : stable system with latest features.
So I invite every one blaming Ubuntu for the latest 11.04 release, do you want a stable system ?? If so, don't even install intermediate release, it WILL be buggy !
Are you going to backport firefox every 6 weeks???
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
I'm not familiar with how Ubuntu package and push their software. Do you get everything inc the kitchen sink with each crank of the wheel whether you want it or not? Red Hat, in between major/minor releases bundle up new RPMs into errata. An errata may contain one or more RPM packages that are tested/required to be installed together, and they're delineated into three types, prefixed with:
RHBA - Red Hat Bugfix Advisory
RHSA - Red Hat Security Advisory
RHEA - Red Hat Enhancement Advisory
In our production environment, we avoid anything that's an enhancement (too risky) and consider each bugfix and security errata to see if it's application to our builds, and whether we want to install them or not, and whether the fixes would warrant a new QA effort (time consuming and costly). We're not forced to, nor are we forced to take each point release in turn if we don't want either. That's the way it should be done.
is going up
SEGFAULT
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