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Canonical Could Switch To Rolling Releases For Ubuntu 14.04 and Beyond
massivepanic writes "For the longest time Canonical has slapped an LTS ("long term support") moniker on some of their Ubuntu releases. Currently, a new major release of the operating system happens every six months, and is supported for 18 months after release. Whereas in the past when LTS versions received two years support or more, the current model — starting with 12.04 — supports new LTS releases for five years. However, a recent public Google Hangouts session revealed that Canonical has been thinking about switching from the venerable LTS model to a rolling release, starting with version 14.04."
all three of them.
One small thing... Unity.
I like the idea of rolling releases, but given the amount of massively stupid crap that Ubuntu springs on us by just rolling it into a new release (unity, I'm looking at you), I also like the idea of freezing a Ubuntu box at a non-ugly release and having a box that at least receives security updates for a few years
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
That is, if Canonical didn't already shoot themselves and their distro in the foot in every way possible.
Ubuntu already has frequent updates, with the packages I have installed it's a rare day that doesn't have at least one, and a week with no updates is just about unheard of.
a rolling release would just mean that there would be more things changed in the update, and that the updates would go to new versions of software rather than old versions with backported fixes (a combination that's not tested outside of Ubuntu)
I think this would be a very interesting thing to do
David Lang
It doesn't surprise me, considering how shit their stability and reliability has been lately, they might as well stop wasting resources pretending like they care about testing their releases.
There's a reason why nearly all OSes have releases that they update only sporadically as needed, it makes it much more efficient to identify bugs, security flaws and not break things unexpectedly.
Although, there was this in the article:
Assuming switching to a rolling release between LTS versions doesn’t disrupt Ubuntu’s growth in any way, the casual Ubuntu user doesn’t really have to pay too much attention to the switch should it happen, though they might get a little annoyed at the probably-higher frequency of software updates. To satiate the more in-depth user, Canonical could theoretically put out a test version in between the LTS releases, which would also help cut down on bugs in the LTS.
Which leads me to believe that this is targeted at the desktop builds, but the article was a bit skim on details.
If they dropped LTS for their server builds, I guarantee Ubuntu's popularity would drop faster than a whale out of the sky.
But how will the alliterative critters be named then?
Rolling Release is just the new catchphrase. All the cool kids want it, so it's natural Comical would jump on the bandwagon.
Now broken code will get release much faster!
Tell me, have they ever addressed the LDAP bug that's been sitting in a queue for 2+ years. I mean, it's not like anybody would want to use LDAP or anything...
google "gsettings LDAP ubuntu"
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libnss-ldap/+bug/974938
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gsettings-desktop-schemas/+bug/873403
Last I checked 2 months ago, this same shit happens on a fully up to date 12.04 machine and the first reports were rolling in back in 2011 about this issue.
It's a joke distro.
If they're going to dump LTS, they need to be REAL careful about what shit they push out. I used Linux for many many years, but finally I just got tired of stuff breaking all the time, and switched to Mac OS, where Apple seems to be reasonably careful not to annoy me too much with their updates. Maybe Linux got better since then, but I doubt it judging by some of the discussions I read about on Slashdot, like massive controversies still going on about KDE vs Gnome, as well as major about faces going on WITHIN KDE and Gnome, AND talk of distros even going away from KDE and Gnone entirely. I don't mind things changing, even largish changes, but you ought to be REAL careful to make it smooth, and I don't see it happening.
Fuck Slashdot and your ubuntu fanboys. I hope you drown in a river of nigger piss.
Updating systems every few months was very time consuming. Why do you have to re-download every single application just to do an operating system update?
from what i see the users that currently don't mind updating/prefer to update every 6 months would rather it be a rolling release. this is what i had recommended/requested back when i used ubuntu exclusively. the 6 month releases are not especially bleeding edge or stable right now anyways it might as well be rolling and remove the hassle of trying to guess when it's safe to move to the new version. for these users ubuntu's package versions are too old anyways. the users who just want their security and stability updates but for things to stay the way they are can stay on the lts for 5 years. i think this would be clearer to users and give canonical some wiggle room for testing. maybe have two tracks on the rolling release: testing and stable
Probably the best solution is to standardize on a set of applications as is done now and then set critical packages that need to be updated (think firefox), hplip (HP printers), and kernel to rolling.
Actually what I'd probably suggest is give the user the option of subscribing to a backports repository which would provide updates to critical packages. These would not be security updates but regular updates. IE the latest stable kernel, the latest stable hplip release, the latest stable firefox release, etc.
Things like the desktop manager should remain static.
ThinkPenguin's solved the problem though of supporting hardware. They simply stock the parts which work with current LTS releases. So even though you may not be able to get a printer that works out of the box with the latest LTS release from HP any more you can get it from ThinkPenguin. Without ThinkPenguin the hardware support for Linux really sucks.
The thing is, there was a time when Debian Testing was very unstable and the ability to install drivers and property software was very convalescent. This days are no more. Now you can even run Unstable, let alone Testing mostly troubles frees and you'll find separate packages with very good integration for property stuff.
One example is the nvidia driver which was packages into Experimental the same day it was released and after updating worked bug free.
There's also now the fracturing of the firmware drivers (ralink, realtek...) that are now found in multiple packages so you don't have to risk all your stack just for one WAN driver.
Most importantly however is the the multiarch is mostly mature for the end user: Almost all the packages were transitions and now you can install foreign libraries of all kinds troubles free. The cross compile is still a work in progress but that just means it's either equal or surpassing other distributions.
Honestly, Ubuntu is choosing to start rolling because it's more than likely within the next few month the Debian base will be so rock solid it won't make much sense to fork out every few month so they might as well start pulling from Debian's repositories directly or on a very regular - weekly - basis.
they're already scraping the bottom of the barrel for names.
Canonical dropped a POS with Unity, lost over half of their user base and destroyed any credibility they have.
Solution? Have a way to update all of the LTS's to remove the rubbish unilaterally and thoughtlessly forced upon those users who couldn't stand it.
The problem isn't that Canonical can't undo the mistake they've made, the problem is that Canonical made that mistake in the first place. And here comes the next mistake, rolling releases. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion where everything that made the train great is slowly being crumpled under the weight of the impact.
So, they sucked up the UI, making it roughly on par with Windows 8.
Now, they're going to emulate Firefox, I mean, Chrome's rapid versioning system.
What's next? Zero day exploits left unfixed? Excessive licensing/support costs?
It's like Canonical is trying to be MS in a Linux world.
I'm a big fan of long-term releases, only because I may be one of those individuals who might be responsible for systems that do not have access to the internet in order to support the "rolling release" model.
It's nice to be able to have a stable, known-good server installation on several isolated networks that just need an occasional update of dpkgs and completely expect it to work fine after it's been restarted. I don't think the same is expected in a rolling release model.
The idea that a rolling release maintains binary compatibility is, so far, been proven false. In our world, long-term releases make sense.
Kriston
Sure...why not.It really has worked for FireFox, hasn't it?
I hate it when half your shit breaks because you upgraded Ubuntu and too many things changed at once. Maybe with rolling releases they can do more gradual package upgrades that won't hose your system every six months.
The amazon search bar will re-install itself every 6 months!
the best thing about Ubuntu are the forks made from it
Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
If you are looking for quality and stability might I recommend FreeBSD?
I've run FreeBSD releases with -release ports installed. I don't have to monkey with the system until the next time a release is tagged. You could track changes (-releng) and compile them for a specific release if you wanted to have the "LTS" experience. The APIs are stable with a major release number so I just do binary updates with each minor release. I am at most 6 months behind on things like XFCE and LIbreoffice, but then I have to do very little putzing with my computer. I just use it.
Regards,
Jason C. Wells
Purely speculation here but part Steam seems to be promoting Ubuntu for their Linux-based Steam client. Games often require patching to get acceptable or optimal performance. This announcement for Rolling Releases might be directed at keeping Valve / Steam happy.
Anything that improves Linux distros is good news. However, if Steam suddenly gets 100 million Linux gamers, the sudden popularity of Ubuntu (assuming at some point Steam might only work with Ubuntu) might not work in favor of other distros. I'm concerned that it might push too much development resources to get X & Y working which is popular for the gaming community but not for all other Linux / ''Nix users (personal, business, enterprise...).
I've tried using LTS on some machines, but it hasn't worked out well. The trouble with it is that Ubuntu's quality is crap, and that applies to LTS releases just as much as non-LTS. For instance, they started gratuitously breaking sound with Jaunty, and as of Precise it's still broken on some machines I use. When important stuff is randomly broken in an LTS release, you end up upgrading to a non-LTS to see if they've fixed the bug.
For almost 2 years I'll been volunteering for a branch of Freegeek and in that tyme I've installed Ubuntu 10.04 on hundreds of PCs and most of the installs have been fine. So I don't know where you get LTS hasn't worked out well or that Ubuntu's quality is crap. You may not like the DE, Canonical, or how Ubuntu is run but that's different than saying the distro is crap.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Anybody know what the policies are for the other major distros? Debian, Mint, Fedora, Mageia, PCLinuxOS, Gentoo, Slackware, et al? How about the BSDs - what's it for FBSD/PC-BSD, NBSD, OBSD and so on?
I think the most sane approach would be too keep doing releases for the "core system", i.e. kernel and libraries. Applications are the "leaves" in the package dependencies graph and could be made rolling without compromising stability.
Check out my cross-platform apps
The idea of rolling releases is by itself a good one, as there is really no point in trying to get thousands of packages, that are in large part completely independed of each other, "stable" at the same time ("stable" mostly meaning we won't ship the fixes upstream provides). However far to often new packages also break stuff, be it just little things or Unity and Gnome3 comming along and wreaking your whole desktop environment. So could we please get proper support for downgrades or the installation of multiple versions per package first? If stuff breaks and I could just go back to the older version in a single click I wouldn't mind if stuff breaks. But right now I have to search for the .deb via arcane means, twiddle with raw dpkg and in the end might completely wreak the dependency tree as a result (try install old Gnome2 on modern Ubuntu, not easy). As long as upgrades are a one way street, rolling releases really sound like a bad idea if you want a stable system.
...because they were running out of bad names for 14.04 and beyond.
Between Unity and GNOME3, I switched after 10.04 LTS and never looked back. Hello Cinnamon.....
Ubuntu has lost its way, as is typical with many open source projects.
I hope they find their way back, but I am neither expecting them to nor waiting for them to do so.
Specifically: Linux Mint Debian Edition. It reminds me of what Ubuntu was before Cannonical lost their minds and decided to become Cupertino 2.0 (or is that Too?).
So they're going to have one frozen release and a continuous rolling release... just like Debian.
Hi,
I'm absolutely pro rolling releases but I'd like to know how you feel about that.
Please vote here: pollator.com/polls/are-you-pro-contra-rolling-releases-in-ubuntu/votes/new
Thanks for your opinion!
I've used Arch for years, which uses rolling release as well.
I've noticed that rolling release doesn't tend to carry the breakage that dist-upgrade carries, because changes are gradual to the system, one at a time, and don't need to be tested in some arbitrarily defined time, which means they usually get tested more thoroughly too.
I use a fairly old LTS on an Ubuntu workstation at work because that's the same LTS that the hosting company providing our production server supports, which allows me to replicate as much of the production environment as I can.
How is removing the non free as in speech wifi/graphics driver repos supposed to help me when it means my laptop can't connect to the internet or display properly?
I guess FSF's rationale is that it encourages you, going forward, to patronize laptop manufacturers that respect your freedom.
....I have one thing to say.
The nerdrage is strong with this thread.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
but debian testing has freezes. Will Ubuntu-Rolling have Freezes half a year before a new LTS?
I don't think Ubuntu will be using alpha releases for normal downloads. It makes sense that alpha releases would be for testers and those who know what they're doing just as with Debian alphas.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?