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Canonical To Release Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS 'Xenial Xerus' Tomorrow (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the omg-new-ubuntu-release dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Canonical announced today that it will be releasing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on Thursday, April 21. The sixth major release of Ubuntu Long-Term Support (LTS) features the new 'snap' package format and LXD pure-container hypervisor. "The addition of 'snaps' for faster and simpler updates, and the LXD container hypervisor for ultra-fast and ultra-dense cloud computing demonstrate a commitment to customer needs that sets Ubuntu apart as the platform for innovation and scale," said Dustin Kirkland who leads platform strategy at Canonical. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS introduces a new application format, the 'snap', which can be installed alongside traditional deb packages. The snap format is much easier to secure and much easier to produce, and offers operational benefits for organizations managing many Ubuntu devices, which will bring more robust updates and more secure applications across all form factors from phone to cloud.

126 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Look on the bright side by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Look on the bright side - two more and they'll be out of letters.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Look on the bright side by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2

      Not even close:
      17.10 "[Leftemous [Brackfish"
      18.04 "\Backetty \Slashhound" ...
      I figure that there's room for at least 10 more years of releases.

    2. Re:Look on the bright side by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Funny

      when it circles around, again, I think they should consider 'boaty mcboatface'. I've heard the name is available...

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    3. Re:Look on the bright side by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 1

      Sorry. I think it has to be Boaty Boatface to follow the Ubuntu standards.

    4. Re:Look on the bright side by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      What a strange name to ship software under...

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    5. Re:Look on the bright side by jd2112 · · Score: 1

      Look on the bright side - two more and they'll be out of letters.

      After that The Artist formerly known as Prince will get a Ubuntu disto named after him.
      Fortunately Zebra will be getting that honor before Prince.

      --
      Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
    6. Re:Look on the bright side by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      They'll just go back to AA, which they haven't even used yet..
      They've already used HH twice (5.04 Hoary Hedgehog, 8.04 Hardy Heron) and WW twice (4.10 Warty Warthog, 1510 Wily Werewolf)

    7. Re:Look on the bright side by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I suppose that's better than using unicode. Just, by a whisker.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Aw, I missed Wascawy Wabbit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    comment content is overrated

  3. About time! by Maelwryth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thursday, April 21....where? Can't we just do it in UTC. It is Thursday, April 21 in New Zealand (18.23% PURE and dropping) already but there is no release. Is the date based on South Africa? U.S.?

    --
    I reserve the write to mangle english.
    1. Re:About time! by fishscene · · Score: 4, Informative

      Based on experience, Ubuntu will be released at the last possible moment on April 21st for the last people on Earth (Literally!) to still be in April 21st. It'll be available for most people on the 22nd I'm sure.

    2. Re:About time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Canonical is located on the Isle of Man, UK, so maybe they'll release it when it hits midnight there. Currently they've got 3 1/2 hours to go.

    3. Re:About time! by Goose+In+Orbit · · Score: 2

      Now there's a rarity... a company on the Isle of Man that has an employee on the island

    4. Re:About time! by Threni · · Score: 1

      > It is Thursday, April 21 in New Zealand

      When someone in New Zealand creates the most popular desktop Linux distro they can release it first there. Until then, wait until the Americans wake up, k?

    5. Re:About time! by johnsnails · · Score: 1

      Does that make those having to 'wait' longer have a first or third world problem on their hands?

    6. Re:About time! by youngone · · Score: 1
      Why would we have to wait for Septics to wake up?

      Canonical seems to be a UK company. Head office is Southwark St London from what I can see.

    7. Re: About time! by Goose+In+Orbit · · Score: 1

      How many pubs compared to how many shell companies for tax "efficiency" purposes?

  4. Oh good by fredrated · · Score: 1, Funny

    just 2 more letters and this naming crap will die?

    1. Re:Oh good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Then they work at the ubuntu naming departments gets really difficult as they have to start move on to the rest of the ascii character set... try coming up with two words (or almost words) that start with "["

    2. Re:Oh good by TheReaperD · · Score: 1

      That actually would be funny for three releases from now.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  5. Re:Ubutntu usuable when? by kamapuaa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My wife isn't a computer person and is totally fine using Ubuntu Linux. She thinks it's basically the same as Mac OS, but with a different color scheme.

    --
    Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
  6. Might be asking too much by ilsaloving · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I may be asking too much here, but I would love to know what people think of 16.04 from a real-world, practical perspective. What can you do with it that you couldn't with previous versions? What, in your opinion, has improved? Any issues? For example, I haven't been keeping a close eye, so this is the first time I've heard of this new snap system. Is it any good?

    But I suspect the forum will just be filled with the usual "systemd sux!" and "pulseaudio sux" and "I can't stand Unity, and Shuttleworth is an asshole, use linux mint or instead!"

    But here's hoping for a civil discussion for once.

    1. Re:Might be asking too much by geek · · Score: 4, Informative

      Its quite good and I say that as an Arch user.

      Snap is basically sandboxed apps the way Mac OS and now Windows is doing. It greatly simplifies deployment and dependancies. It also creates a number of issues but you should google it for more info.

      Unity is greatly improved and very stable. The biggest change to me is the use of the GNOME software center instead of their own. I experienced a number of bugs with it and I'm not sure I care for it over the commandline yet. But for those who care, it's there.

      It's an LTS tho so people who prefer LTS should jump on this as it will have the newest packages fit for an LTS (in Ubuntu's standards of LTS which differe from that of Debian).

    2. Re:Might be asking too much by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      That's funny considering that I've never found it distinctive enough from Ubuntu to be with moving to. Since Ubuntu has no problem with this, I would expect the same out of Mint.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    3. Re:Might be asking too much by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Me too. I never understood the vitriolic hate towards systemd. It's infinitely cleaner and more powerful than the mishmash of init shell scripts.

    4. Re:Might be asking too much by jandrese · · Score: 2

      It's great until it breaks, and then you're hosed. If your system stops booting because some message was not passed or the listener missed it somehow tracking down the missed message can be nearly impossible. Or if the built-in resolver stops working and you have to figure out what it is trying to connect to and why it isn't working. It's kind of like trying to debug a Windows box.

      If everything is working you're golden, but if it's not you are in for a world of pain.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    5. Re:Might be asking too much by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

      I'd not used systemd much until recently. From my perspective, it's no better/worse than before except that now things that used to work don't. I'm sure it'll get sorted eventually, but it kind of has the feel that almost no one fully understands how it works... hence the breakages.

      And so, things that are hard for individual's to understand, are often too large in scope. Basically, to me anyway, it smells a bit like X does, i.e. overly complicated and hard to maintain.

      But like I say, I've not been exposed to it for very long, and I don't completely hate it... I'm just not seeing the benefits myself.

    6. Re:Might be asking too much by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

      For me, it's simply having newer versions of things in an LTS release.

    7. Re:Might be asking too much by xtronics · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Snap is a really bad idea - instead of a common version of a lib - there are many - so code depending on a bug never gets fixed. Think of Windoze bloat..

      The beauty of the apt system is it polishes code over time.

      There is a way to install custom libs for development etc. - snap is mostly aimed at making microsoft happy and moving people away from other Debian based distributions.

      Full disclosure - I don't trust Canonical the for profit company behind Ubuntu - and the name stinks too.

    8. Re: Might be asking too much by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Why would an average user even have to? An average user wouldn't be able to fix an old style init file either.

    9. Re:Might be asking too much by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I may be asking too much here, but I would love to know what people think of 16.04 from a real-world, practical perspective. What can you do with it that you couldn't with previous versions? What, in your opinion, has improved? Any issues?

      I'd be happy to oblige, except...

      If I mention one problem, people are going to say "that's not ubuntu, it's the desktop!"

      If I mention another problem, people are going to say "that's an easy fix! Just go to /etc/mumble/bimple and edit fragbum.cfg file. Navigate to the "Enable Blather Frills" line and set the 1 to a 2 and that'll fix it.

      (Don't believe me? Try changing the swappiness: "sudo bash -c "echo 'vm.swappiness = 15' >> /etc/sysctl.conf". What the heck is swappiness anyway, and why did I need to change it?)

      If I mention a problem in any application, it's always "It's free. If you don't like it, why don't you build your *own* video editor?".

      I can't just report a bug on a project website, I have to register and "become part of the team!". Ten years after, and I'm *still* getting E-mails from the GCC project from a bug I posted. ("Respond with Unsubscribe" doesn't work, because my E-mail provider changes the subject line.)

      I've given up on both bug reporting and learning about programs.

      Basically, when I get an error message I just cut/paste the error into the search bar, click on the stack exchange link of the *first* person to get that error, and cut/paste the answer into my system. Usually it starts "sudo apt-get ".

      (I just recently fixed my emacs to not show the intro screen on startup. It took me 2 tries: firstly, I cut/paste the requisite line "(setq inhibit-splash-screen t)" only to find that I *already* have that in my config file! So then I tried adding "(setq inhibit-startup-message t)" and that didn't work either.

      I had to navigate: Options -> customize emacs -> top-level customization -> environment group -> initialization and set "inhibit startup screen" to on.

      All that seems reasonable if you know ahead of time where that option lives, but I defy anyone to find that option, knowing what you want to do and knowing that there's an option somewhere that does it. You have to sort through mounds of pages and options.

      Oh, and the options aren't always in alphabetical order, so even if you are following the StackExchange answer, it's always 'jest a liddle bit harder' than normal.)

    10. Re: Might be asking too much by PixetaledPikachu · · Score: 1

      Well it's an LTS release that formally supports Bluetooth SMART function (with Bluez5) so I can use my spiffy Logitech MX Anywhere 2 in bluetooth mode

    11. Re:Might be asking too much by ShakaUVM · · Score: 2

      >Look, I get that Linux might be harder at some things, but damnit, learn to use the fucking man pages.

      To be fair, man pages are terrible. They were bad when I was in computer science grad school 20 years ago, and they haven't gotten any better since.

      They're useful if you already know how UNIX operates and what the utility does - like you need to remind yourself of a flag or something - but for someone coming in new to UNIX, like the GP is, then it's much better to just read a web page.

      For example, take 'sort'. It's a very straightforward utility. By default it reads from standard input and does an alphabetical sort of each line. Easey peasey. Or you can type "sort filename" and it will sort the lines in filename alphabetically as well.

      Here is the entire fucking description of the sort utility in man 1: Write sorted concatenation of all FILE(s) to standard output.

      No mention it defaults to reading from standard input. ("It's UNIX! You should know that coreutils default to reading from stdin! Plus, it's in the addendum!") No actual description of *what it does*. How does it do a "sort"? By word? By line? By file? Nope! You have to know that already.

      And if you think they're just being stingy on the bit budget, this one useless line of description is followed by 100 lines of flags. It is then followed by... this:

      "KEYDEF is F[.C][OPTS][,F[.C][OPTS]] for start and stop position, where F is a field number and C a charâ
                    acter position in the field; both are origin 1, and the stop position defaults to the line's end. If
                    neither -t nor -b is in effect, characters in a field are counted from the beginning of the preceding
                    whitespace. OPTS is one or more single-letter ordering options [bdfgiMhnRrV], which override global
                    ordering options for that key. If no key is given, use the entire line as the key.

                    SIZE may be followed by the following multiplicative suffixes: % 1% of memory, b 1, K 1024 (default), and
                    so on for M, G, T, P, E, Z, Y.

      I've taught a lot of people UNIX... I tell them about man, but I also tell them to expect to be confused by man.

    12. Re:Might be asking too much by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Yeah the KEYDEFF stuff there is really hard core, however regarding your first issue you forgot to include the next line from man: "With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input."

    13. Re:Might be asking too much by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Because with that amount of ifs there is no way that this could happen with System V init... Extra fun for example where one such old remote server where the OpenSSH script for some reason where run earlier than the "bring up the network with dhcp" script leading the OpenSSH script to just hang forever waiting for an ip address to show up that never would since dhcpcd where blocked due to the non parallel nature of System V init. For every horror story of systemd there are thousands for System V init.

    14. Re:Might be asking too much by Andtalath · · Score: 1

      To me, it's very interesting that the results of packaging being done right (which was basically done to avoid actual dependancy hell) is now being called dependancy hell.

      It's way easier to maintain statically linked libraries, naturally.
      That, essentially, is the problem.
      Developers taking short-cuts.

      This shortcut will be "tons of fun" when every program has an essential security lib which contains a massive security flaw.
      Now, instead of updating that lib, every program needs to update it's lib first.
      It's no longer properly maintained?
      Good luck removing the next heartbleed...

    15. Re:Might be asking too much by mythix · · Score: 1

      Well, they dropped support for the Radeon drivers, while the open source variant doesn't work yet... so it's an LTS that doesn't support one of the 2 largest graphics card producers........

      They done fucked up.

    16. Re:Might be asking too much by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Think of Windoze bloat.

      I'm thinking of downloading a program on Windoze and it works. No need for the blessings of a repo maintainer to resolve a clusterfuck of dependencies. No need for not being able to run a new version of something because it depends on something which is unable to be upgraded because another core function can't handle the upgrade. No completely screwed up package management because you dared to do something special.

      I not to fondly remember it being easier to get the latest version of Zoneminder running in a VM on a current version of Ubuntu than it was trying to get it running on the LTS version that hosted the VM. From a bloat point of view I would have happily duplicated my entire lib tree if it meant I didn't need to run an entire OS due to how complicated this was.

    17. Re:Might be asking too much by xtronics · · Score: 1

      For some reason, I don't have problems with that on Debian. (Of course sticking with the repository fixes MANY problems).

      The times I want to run a bit of development code, yes - but realize there are broken bits and most packages should not use this for day-to-day stuff. That is the point. You don't want to break the backbone infrastructure all the time. Bleeding edge is bleeding edge..

      Anyway - there is a better way - seeing as you are running something that might be buggy - a virtualized container makes sense - but don't screw up the whole packaging system.

    18. Re:Might be asking too much by cen1 · · Score: 1

      I can finally install openjdk 8 without adding an external repo.

    19. Re:Might be asking too much by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1

      As I mentioned, it is in the addendum, not on the first line, as it should be, and the description is extremely lacking in explaining even its most basic functionality.

    20. Re:Might be asking too much by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't say, smug. More like pity, that you were unable to enjoy the pleasures that zfs provide... such as being able to sleep more easily at night, knowing that random bits in your data weren't going to magically flip for no apparent reason, and with no way for you to verify.

    21. Re:Might be asking too much by xtronics · · Score: 1

      And the bugs never get fixed - and the bugs that depend on bugs never get fixed.

      There is a place for custom libs - vitalized container - There are other methods as well. But using this for a distribution will reduce the long term quality of the code.

  7. Unity 8? by Prien715 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It looks like the dev team has been waffling about whether or not ship 16.04 with Unity 8 (which under the hood, dumps Gnome for Qt) as well as Mir. Has anyone tried it out since the rocky betas I looked at in 15.x? Does anyone know what the defaults or plans are from the good folk at Ubuntu?

    --
    -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
  8. What in the world is a snap? by bulled · · Score: 1

    And how/why is it better than deb/rpm/tgz?

    I found this: https://insights.ubuntu.com/20... but is it full of marketing speak without any real information as to what a snap actually is and how it is better. Sounds kind of like Canonical doing the not-invented-here thing for packaging.

    1. Re:What in the world is a snap? by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      I've never found either of those to be terribly problematic.

      Linux "dependency hell" seems to be an invention of trolls more that anything else.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    2. Re:What in the world is a snap? by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      I think the idea is that snaps replace .debs, which in fairness can be awkward to install outside of a repository if they have dependencies, and can break things if they don't integrate with the packages already installed.

      How it does that isn't fully explained. The articles I've read imply that you could, for example, use a snap to install the latest version of GNOME on an older LTS release of Ubuntu, but doesn't go into the consequences (would both GNOMEs be available? Are they using something like Linux Containers to do this?)

      The bottom line though appears to be that someone distributing proprietary software (or software just precompiled to make things easier) no longer has to either maintain a repo or offer .debs to be installed with a long list of instructions.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    3. Re:What in the world is a snap? by jandrese · · Score: 1

      It's a problem for people on machines not connected to the internet that get patched only with a small subset of updates (security critical stuff only) and then discover that their library versions are all over the place. This is definitely a corner case, but it does exist.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    4. Re:What in the world is a snap? by fishscene · · Score: 1

      I've run into dependency hell a few times trying to set up an LTSP server. Usually because it took *forever* for the documentation to be updated and I had to manually track down dependencies. Also ran into it trying to get a VMware viewer (to connect to pooled VDI's) running a few years ago under Ubuntu. That was super easy though as it only took a couple of hours to track down the one library it needed. (I'm not the most experienced with dependency resolving)

    5. Re:What in the world is a snap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Here's the sales propaganda:
      https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/

      Amazing developer experience

      Creating snappy Ubuntu apps with Snapcraft is much easier than traditional packaging, simply bundle or pull all the files you need in a single package and publish, then users can download it instantly. Snappy packages can be statically linked and include their own copies of any file they need. Developers can use the exact library versions they want, and they get to control when those libraries are changed, or use the core system libraries from Ubuntu if they prefer.

      There is no need to become an Ubuntu developer or to comply with complex packaging rules in order to publish applications for Ubuntu Core, anybody can publish any application, easily and instantly, to a global audience.

    6. Re:What in the world is a snap? by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

      First goddamn result: Build apps | Ubuntu developer portal

      Haha I see a 'Snappy Store', I get the impression this is Ubuntu's attempt at a play store similar to android and other smart phone ecosystems. Developers can 'sell' their apps to Ubuntu users.

      I have an android tablet, and the 'free' apps are usually littered with ads or constant nags to 'buy additional content features'. No thanks Ubuntu.

    7. Re:What in the world is a snap? by TheReaperD · · Score: 1

      I could see this as having been a much bigger problem before broadband being common. To download dependencies that you need could take forever on dial-up when you try to apply something you took the time to download from work. Instead of working with the new software/game/whatever, you spend all night downloading.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    8. Re:What in the world is a snap? by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      What? Patching/updating should never change the library version, if there is a patch/update for a library in Debian/Ubuntu it's backported to the version of the library that where installed to begin with. This should only be a problem when you move between versions of distributions, say from Ubuntu 15.10 to 16.04LTS. Either that or your experience comes from distributions who use rolling releases like Gentoo.

    9. Re:What in the world is a snap? by doom · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Okay, so software libraries were invented to have a standard place to put shared, common code, which allows bug fixes and so on to be applied in one place.

      And so stuff like "snap" packages are much less annoying, because every app gets it's own different versions of the libraries.

      But this means that if, for example, you try to fix a bug by updating a library, the snap package that uses that library won't get the fix, because it's go it's own variant of the library.

      And to actually fix a bug in a library, you need to update the version embedded in each snap package...

      (Someone please tell me this is wrong.)

    10. Re:What in the world is a snap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Having one central version and each app having its version both have pros and cons. The pros for each are both good, so the pendulum keeps swinging back and fourth. It will continue to do so until someone makes the effort to get both supported in an elegant way where everything is shared by default but programs with issues can be easily and automatically converted to the other way.

      From a developer's perspective, if your source control tree doesn't include every library you're using you're doing it wrong. Anyone should be able to checkout your code and run a single command to do a build. The only dependency should be the build tool (even better if there aren't any dependencies).

      From a system admin's perspective, trying to manage every program's libraries is a nightmare and wastes disk space.

      People who don't understand the pros and cons keep building system ontop of system to switch their current method to the one. They don't bother to consider why their current exists the way it does and instead only look at the pros of the new system. "I'm smarter than the guy before me, so we must do it this 'new' way." Most developers have no respect for current designs and know nothing about how we got there. For instance, almost no software follows the original OOP design. What people program now is a bastardization of the original principles. How is OOP on topic? The original OO design requires programs to include their own copies of libraries.

    11. Re:What in the world is a snap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, that's it.

      But what's worse, you need to update the whole snap package. That assumes that whoever built it is tracking for vulnerabilities and updating the snaps. If statistics on docker images is any indicator, that's going to be very poorly done, if at all.

      So yeah, welcome to the year of Linux Malware....

    12. Re:What in the world is a snap? by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      "Dependency Hell" is what I called it before automatic dependency checking with dpkg and "apt-get." I used Linux (and other Unix like OSes) for some long time, and when I tried to build something by hand, I'd be met with a list of prerequisites, and those prerequisites would have prerequisites, and so on. It sucked. The newer package systems may not be perfect, but they're heavenly compared to that era.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    13. Re:What in the world is a snap? by bulled · · Score: 1

      This is what I had feared, Ubuntu is moving to the Windows version of "handling" the library dependency tree. Now that every damned application carries around all of its dependencies I will have to update all of them to fix what would have been a single new package install.

    14. Re:What in the world is a snap? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      This is what I had feared, Ubuntu is moving to the Windows version of "handling" the library dependency tree.

      Actually, this is the Macintosh version.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    15. Re:What in the world is a snap? by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      If you decide to bring dependency hell upon yourself then there is nothing any one else can do to help you but yourself.

  9. Hipster Hate Comment Thread. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    Being that Ubuntu is one of the more popular distributions, that means is must be hated on slashdot. Granted it is one of the distributions that comes with a good selection of drivers available. As well decent defaults for standard desktop usage.

    Would I use it for a server? No, but for an OS on my laptop for standard stuff and some development. I have no complains at least with the last version. It is much easier to deal with than Windows 10.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Hipster Hate Comment Thread. by BlackPignouf · · Score: 2

      Ubuntu server is actually very decent : no unity bullshit.
      Linux Mint + MATE is just about perfect for my desktop needs,

    2. Re:Hipster Hate Comment Thread. by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Outside of a professional context, where third party (and second party - other employees, etc) support is critical, I have no problems using Ubuntu Server. It's an extremely easy to put together, easily used, distribution.

      As for the desktop, well... I use Mint at home, which actually is Ubuntu with an added repo that overrides some packages. If and when Cinnamon becomes a first class citizen on Ubuntu I'll probably dump the Mint part of Mint. I don't particularly like Unity, but I don't understand the hatred of it either. It's not my thing, and I dislike the "tap Windows key by accident" => wonder why entire computer has frozen => after 10-20 seconds suddenly an unwanted and not terribly usable menu thing appears in top left corner thing, but I've seen much, much, worse. GNOME 1 anyone?

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    3. Re: Hipster Hate Comment Thread. by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Thanks! I'll upgrade my "pure" Ubuntu system and see how well it works.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re: Hipster Hate Comment Thread. by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Being that Ubuntu is one of the more popular distributions, that means is must be hated on slashdot.

      You go on telling yourself that but the majority of slashdotters don't hate things that are popular but rather things that suck.

    5. Re:Hipster Hate Comment Thread. by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      I run Mate on Debian - All the goodness of Mate but without the Ubuntu bloat!

  10. Any useful comments? by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

    I know this is probably too much to ask, but I am really hoping that people who have poked at it can give constructive, practical comments on what they think of the new version. I haven't been paying attention cause I'm too busy. I'm looking forward to zfs-on-linux, but this is the first time I've ever heard of this new snap package system. Is it any good? Any gotchas?

    Have there been any notable improvements? Anything you can do now that you couldn't before (eg: is it easier to manage multiple displays, or digital audio) ?

    But I expect the forum will just be drowned in a bajillion posts about how systemd sucks, pulseaudio sucks, shuttleworth sucks, unity sucks, etc.

    1. Re:Any useful comments? by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I rewrote the post cause I thought Slashdot glitched and lost the previous one.

    2. Re:Any useful comments? by dlenmn · · Score: 3, Informative

      Scroll down for the release notes on

      https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xenial...

      I've skimmed over it, and truthfully, I don't see major changes for my use case (normal desktop user of Kubuntu).

    3. Re:Any useful comments? by zwede · · Score: 3, Informative

      Plasma 5.5 is the default in kubuntu 16.04. If you're on KDE4 now you'll notice quite a big difference (for the better , IMO).

      http://www.kubuntu.org/news/ku...

    4. Re:Any useful comments? by burbilog · · Score: 1

      Plasma 5.5 is the default in kubuntu 16.04. If you're on KDE4 now you'll notice quite a big difference (for the better , IMO).

      "For the better"?!

      Just installed Kubuntu 16.04 in virtualbox and tried to add a quicklaunch. Too small, need to resize. How to resize? No hints whatsoever. Hovering mouse cursor does not work, right-click does not work, nothing works. Some googling reveals brand new shiny and completely "intuitive" method -- left click and wait. Wow. Look, I use computers for more than 20 years and I had to google how to do it. 100% user friendly!

      And where are screensavers? Gone...

      You call that "better"?!

    5. Re:Any useful comments? by Coop32 · · Score: 1

      Welcome Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus! If not yet read, here comes the installation of Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus web hosting server with Apache2, Postfix, Dovecot, Bind and PureFTPD to prepare it for the installation of ISPConfig 3.1. The resulting system will provide a Web, Mail, Mailinglist, DNS and FTP Server. However, brand new ServerSuit hosting control with remote cross-platform control is equally capable and allows you to configure the services through a web browser, such as Apache or nginx web server, Postfix mail server, etc.

  11. ZFS by dmoen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It includes ZFS as a standard supported file system. That's the most interesting new feature from my perspective.

    --
    I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
    1. Re:ZFS by blackomegax · · Score: 1

      The opensuse installer defaults to ZFS for /home....

    2. Re:ZFS by spire3661 · · Score: 1

      I want ZFS, i dont care about the license as long as Canoniacal isnt doing Tivo-ization or Android-ization.

      --
      Good-bye
    3. Re:ZFS by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It hasn't so far, and yet they've included ZFS tools and kernel modules buildable from their own repo for years now. I don't see why publishing the actual model would make it any differently, and as far as the legal hot water rises they've all but said "come and sue us so we can test this and prove you wrong".

    4. Re:ZFS by JImbob0i0 · · Score: 1

      No it doesn't, it uses BTRFS for /home Similar in capabilities (subvolumes, snapshots, COW, etc) but very different tech in implementation.

    5. Re:ZFS by exomondo · · Score: 1

      It certainly does seem to be a gray area but the objection is to it is based on interpretation of the letter of the law rather than on some principal of free software. They're saying that while the result is exactly the same with the same freedom and access to the source code, the user must do the work to integrate the two systems rather than having somebody else do it and distribute it to them.

    6. Re:ZFS by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Solaris is dead at this point. OpenIndiana/Illumos hasn't been updated in +-2 years, and isn't even capable of booting anymore on current generation hardware. You may have better luck using one of the derivative projects that are based on Illumos, but then you have to worry about compatibility.

      If you don't use ubuntu, then your best bet is to use FreeBSD. (I'm currently using FreeNAS, which is based on FreeBSD. The UI could really use an overhaul, but the underlying system is solid.

    7. Re:ZFS by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      A whatization? Complaints in real english please.

      Here is the Wikipedia article of this commonly used term in FOSS communities.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    8. Re:ZFS by MichaelJackson123 · · Score: 1

      Solaris is very alive and kicking. Oracle sells lot of Solaris servers. Solaris 12 is on it's way, right on track. Oracle have more engineers on Solaris and SPARC than Sun ever did. Oracle has ramped up their investments in Solaris / SPARC. Larry Ellison has said "Solaris is for high end, Linux for low end". All the largest business servers are Unix, there are no large Linux business servers out there. For instance, look at the important business SAP or TPC-C benchmarks, the top spots are all Unix (Solaris and SPARC) and Linux and x86 are far below. Just look at all business benchmarks, you will see no Linux no x86. Linux is very fine on scale-out clusters, such as SGI UV2000 or UV3000 with 1000s of cores. But they are all used for number crunching, just look at SGI customer stories. No SGI UV2000 in SAP or TPC-C benchmarks - they are useless for business workloads, they can not run them

    9. Re:ZFS by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Oh, absolutely. Unfortunately, high end is very high end indeed, which means newer, smaller companies will never even get exposed to Solaris cause they can't afford the support contracts that Oracle would demand from them.

      Combine that with OpenSolaris now basically abandonware, and IMO Solaris has lost a catastrophic amount of mindshare. It's now basically equivalent to z/OS or Cobol. Only understood, or even cared about, by people who are already working with it.

    10. Re:ZFS by MichaelJackson123 · · Score: 1

      "...Combine that with OpenSolaris now basically abandonware..." There are many OpenSolaris distros out there by the community. It is true that OpenSolaris is abandoned by Oracle, but the community carries on. The most popular OpenSolaris distros out there are OmniOS and SmartOS. OpenIndiana to some extent. But there are several more OpenSolaris distros out there. Oracle only cares about high margin high end customers, so they dont care about small companies.

    11. Re:ZFS by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      I tried to use OpenIndiana. It hasn't been updated in a couple years, and won't even boot on machines with Haswell chipsets or newer.

      I considered using OmniOS and SmartOS, but after having been bitten by bad problems with OpenIndiana, I basically gave up on the whole platform for being too high-risk and switched to FreeBSD (specifically FreeNAS) instead.

  12. Re:Who is... by sexconker · · Score: 1

    I tried Ubuntu a couple of weeks ago when setting up a VM for a quick dev/testing environment.
    It was a fucking mess. Nothing made sense. The desktop quirks reminded my of Windows Vista pre SP1. The Linux core was tweaked just enough that the CLI I spent the most time in was my browser's search bar.

    Nuked that VM from orbit.

  13. If theyve not fixed Gnome terminal, it ain't ready by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

    Last time I checked, I couldn't use F11 to full-screen Gnome Terminal and then F11 to get it back to it's original size. Advanced feature I know, but I use the terminal a lot!

    And that's what I really really really fucking hate about Ubuntu LTS releases... so much stuff is broken, and never actually get's fixed. So I wind up having to faff with PPAs afterwards and then hoping that the next LTS will have things fixed.

  14. Re:Who is... by yithar7153 · · Score: 2

    I used to use Slackware. Don't get me wrong. I love Slackware, but I just don't have time to compile stuff anymore. Not everyone has time to make their own distro, just saying.

  15. Re:Who is... by armanox · · Score: 2

    LOL - "no even Linux anymore." - how do you figure? It's Linux sure enough, and works just fine. I don't see what all the Ubuntu hate is about these days. The biggest difference between Ubuntu and say Fedora is the package management (and Ubuntu has the option for the Unity desktop, which I rather like. There are just a few small things that I wish were changed and it would be awesome).

    --
    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  16. Last Ubuntu LTS without systemd was 12.04 right? by Torp · · Score: 1

    It should be supported 1 more year, at least for servers. Then it's time to make a decision.

    --
    I apologize for the lack of a signature.
  17. Re:Will it include systemd? by armanox · · Score: 1

    I think they're keeping with having both systemd and upstart available (I'm running 15.10 here with upstart).

    --
    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  18. Here's looking forward to the release of by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 1

    16.10:

    Yammering Yobbo.

    --
    "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
  19. Re:Who is... by rdelsambuco · · Score: 1

    I agree with you - but I bet I make more money than you. A LOT more. It would boggle your mind if you knew how much more. Boggle, not impress.

    --
    I comment occasionally so that I can mod others -1 overrated or -1 offtopic.
  20. ZFS and GPL by dmoen · · Score: 5, Informative

    An AC said: "Which could get Canonical into hot water with the GPL."

    Whether or not this is a licence violation depends on Linus Torvalds and The Linux Foundation. They are the ones that set the terms for how Linux is licensed. Under U.S. law at least, it's the copyright owner's intent that matters, and not some third party interpretation interpretation of the licence text.

    Torvalds has previously stated that a kernel module can't violate the kernel licence agreement unless it is a derivative work of the kernel (and the module licence violates the GPL). At the very least, it needs to have been designed with knowledge of the Linux internals. Since ZFS was developed independent of Linux, it seems unlikely that The Linux Foundation will be suing Canonical.

    If you want to thoroughly understand the issues, you could read Eben Moglen's opinion (he's the lawyer behind the GPL 3): https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2016/linux-kernel-cddl.html

    --
    I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
    1. Re:ZFS and GPL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >Since ZFS was developed independent of Linux, it seems unlikely that The Linux Foundation will be suing Canonical.

      No. The ZFS that works on Linux is a native port called appropriately enough, ZFS on Linux. Its not independent of it Secondly, you need to review Eben Moglen writing about the issue. He's says its a legally a grey area, but that including a binary module is probably ok.

    2. Re: ZFS and GPL by dmoen · · Score: 2

      ZFS on Linux consists of two parts. The ZFS part is independent of Linux (not a "derivative work"), and uses the Solaris kernel API. The other part is SPL (Solaris porting layer), which implements the Solaris API using Linux. The SPL is Linux dependent, but it has a GPL licence.

      --
      I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
    3. Re:ZFS and GPL by Andtalath · · Score: 2

      While true, it's the copyright holder who has to pursue the infringement.

      So, basically, how likely is it that Linux will sue Canonical?

  21. Re: And the systemd unit files... by xtronics · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I use MySQL on Debian - have zero problems with systemd -- could it be your chair?

    It took me about a day to get used to systemd - I didn't ask for the change - but it seems to be somewhat helpful in the long run. Mostly invisible on the servers I run - just don't notice the difference. Worst feature of systemd? This command is too long to type when I'm sleepy:

    # systemctl list-unit-files --type=service

    Needs an alias.

    For the old farts that can't adopt ( I'm 61 - so you must really be old ) - there is help:

    https://wiki.xtronics.com/inde...

  22. Re:Who is... by narcc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't see what all the Ubuntu hate is about these days.

    This is normal. Ubuntu was exciting, a Linux distro that was suitable for the desktop. They'd even mail out free disks for you to distribute to friends and family, spreading the Good News, the gospel of Linus. Slashdot loved it. It was easy enough for your grandmother to use, painless to setup, and required very little maintenance. Everyone was happy.

    Then, it became popular. It was easy to find answers to questions, support, drivers, whatever you needed.

    Slashdot hates popular things -- especially popular things that are easy to use and support. If you want to be cool, be intentionally obtuse. Slack, Arch, and Gentoo are a safe bet for now.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  23. Re:Ubutntu usuable when? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Don't ya love a low-maintenance wife like that? Switched mine to Linux, mostly Mint, almost 10 years ago, and it has been a lot less support stress for me (not no stress, mind you, just a lot less than in the Windows days...).

  24. Re: And the systemd unit files... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    .... real arguments about technical merits that it doesn't have.

    This was discussed as part of the debian decision. The technical board (widely accepted as being technically competent, even when they disagreed with any particular party) said systemd was the right technical solution.

  25. Re:Last Ubuntu LTS without systemd was 12.04 right by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    It should be supported 1 more year, at least for servers. Then it's time to make a decision.

    April 2014 was the time to make the decision. If you're not in the testing phase for systemd or an alternate distro at this point you're not doing your job.

  26. Re:Who is... by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    I loved Ubuntu right up until they fucked it up with Unity. I went back several times but I just can't deal with it. I'm glad you like it, that's what I love about Linux. I just turned around and started testing distros until I got the right one. Every once in a while I try out the latest Ubuntu but the fit is never right now.

  27. Re:If theyve not fixed Gnome terminal, it ain't re by tpgp · · Score: 1

    I just opened a terminal & pressed F11. It full screened.


    root@server:~# gnome-terminal --version
    GNOME Terminal 3.16.2
    root@server:~# cat /etc/issue
    Ubuntu 15.10 \n \l

    --
    My pics.
  28. I think I wait for Zippy Zebra. by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 1

    Or whatever, and what are they going to do after that? It is almost as ominous as naming generations of humans after the last few letters of the alphabet....

    1. Re:I think I wait for Zippy Zebra. by Opyros · · Score: 1

      They'll just have to read their Dr. Seuss to take things any farther.

  29. Re: Who is... by eggz128 · · Score: 4

    Wait... you installed a completely different distribution because you didn't like Unity? You didn't just sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop or xubuntu-desktop or whatever?

  30. Re:Who is... by armanox · · Score: 1

    I personally like Unity. It feels like a modernized WindowMaker/AfterStep. But if you didn't like it, that's fine - there are plenty of other DE/WM to choose from. I run TDE (KDE 3.x) on several systems, and currently toying around with CDE and MaXX on older machines (Pentium III and older) since they are super lightweight (and MaXX because it provides the fonts for remote IRIX programs to work right)

    --
    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  31. Re:Who is... by narcc · · Score: 1

    Yeah, Unity is painful. For the casual home user who just needs to launch a browser, it'll do the job, but I can easily understand why it's a deal-breaker for you.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  32. Re:Who is... by gfxguy · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of Big Bang Theory... in one episode Sheldon muses that "Windows 7 is so much easier than Windows Vista. I don't like that." In another, he calls Ubuntu his favorite Linux distribution.

    --
    Stupid sexy Flanders.
  33. Re: Who is... by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    I did but it was never the same as when Gnome was the default. I struggled on for a few months but finally went looking elsewhere.

  34. Re:Who is... by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    I've settled on PeppermintOS.

  35. Ubuntu "Tax Evaders Edition" by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mangy Manx

  36. Re:Who is... by exomondo · · Score: 1

    I loved Ubuntu right up until they fucked it up with Unity.

    It's trivial to switch desktop window managers, or was it that the thing you loved was just Gnome.

  37. Manjaro by basecastula+ · · Score: 1

    Never had to spend time configuring Manjaro unless I wanted too.

  38. Re: Who is... by jhol13 · · Score: 2

    Why XUbuntu is IMHO much nicer (and more responsive) than KDE.

  39. Re:Who is... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    Slashdot hates popular things -- especially popular things that are easy to use and support.

    My Linux machine boots from a RAID because I was short on SSDs when I built it. Thus I didn't want systemd in case I had a problem sometime and needed to troubleshoot boot. Therefore, I installed Mint Rebecca. If it weren't for systemd, I'd be using Ubuntu. I'm not eschewing systemd for its popularity, but for its being known to cause complications with the sort of problems I anticipate down the road.

    I chose Ubuntu because of its popularity, and that was what I liked best about it. People bothered to do stuff for it. That is always a feature.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  40. Re:Who is... by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

    Your domain expired.

    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  41. Re:If theyve not fixed Gnome terminal, it ain't re by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

    As the AC said, it's when pressing F11 again that it fails to restore back to it's original window size.

  42. Re:Who is... by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

    My linux machines boot from raid. They use systemd (Debian). The only time I have trouble with one of them was ages ago when I had a sheevaplug that ran Ubuntu (with upstart) -- that thing was fucking up the raid like 1 time out of two.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  43. Re:Last Ubuntu LTS without systemd was 12.04 right by Torp · · Score: 1

    It should be supported 1 more year, at least for servers. Then it's time to make a decision.

    April 2014 was the time to make the decision. If you're not in the testing phase for systemd or an alternate distro at this point you're not doing your job.

    I'm not a sysadmin any more, i just run my own toy servers. There ain't much to evaluate for those.

    --
    I apologize for the lack of a signature.
  44. Re: And the systemd unit files... by cryptogranny · · Score: 1

    I'm 61 - so you must really be old )

    wow! impressed! the biggest problem for me is that /etc/init.d/my[tab] worked in any case. And with systemd I need special craft with aliases now. Notice, this:

    in case service is disabled or stoped, you type: systemctl stop my[tab][tab][tab] - what the f*ck why it's not completing? is it just my mistake or is it disabled? we need to check status... then run something else etc..

    in case of /etc/init.d/ you can always try run any command.

  45. Re: Who is... by i.kazmi · · Score: 1

    Dont get me wrong, I like XFCE but it is not very convenient when used with a multi-monitor setup. After each restart, I had to manually tweak the panel on the second screen to make it display where I wanted it displayed with the applets I wanted in the panel. With KDE, that is not an issue and although KDE is not perfect either, it keeps forgetting the positions of application windows, compared to XFCE it is a lot more convenient.

    Also, I haven't noticed any lag or low responsiveness on my primary laptop with an Intel 4700qm processor, 16GB ram, 500GB mSata SSD (aftermarket), 1TB HDD, Intel 4600 graphics (I think) or on my very old (from 2007) laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo 7200 processor, 2 GB ram, 120GB HDD and Intel integrated graphics. The new laptop actually boots up in under 30 seconds (and that too with the boot sector on the 1TB mag HDD) and even with the SSD, was just over $1000. I normally have Netbeans, a bucketful of tabs in Firefox and Chromium and GIMP (or a Windows 7 instance in VirtualBox with Photoshop) running on the current laptop (or if I am using the older laptop, Netbeans and dozen or so tabs in Chromium or Firefox with GIMP).

    Most cheap laptops being sold these days ($350 to $500) are at least as powerful as my old laptop so could you please elaborate the conditions under which you experience lag with KDE? I would honestly like to know the workload which causes KDE to become a stuttering mess (so I can avoid it if at all possible).

  46. Re:Who is... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    The only time I have trouble with one of them was ages ago when I had a sheevaplug that ran Ubuntu (with upstart) -- that thing was fucking up the raid like 1 time out of two.

    Yes, the USB on the sheevaplug seems to be less than perfect. I have a Pogo series 4 and I love it. Actually, I have two of the most crap pogos from that generation and they seem to be crap, too. The only one I haven't had problems with is the full-fat version. I have my u-Boot configured to boot only from the internal card slot, and never have a problem finding the disk unless its state is wonky due to power failure. It's on a UPS now, so that doesn't happen any more...

    I think sheevaplugs and kin are intensely sensitive to power issue.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  47. Intended consequence for 14.04 LTS by Zanadou · · Score: 1

    sudo apt install linux-generic-lts-xenial

    Woot!

  48. Re:Who is... by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

    Well, now it's running Debian (with systemd) I have no problems.

    (Of course I also replaced the crappy power supply).

    (The kernel & initrd are on the built in Flash, the OS is on a mdadm RAID1).

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  49. Re: And the systemd unit files... by xtronics · · Score: 1

    Tab complete works for me sometimes? Looks like that is a known bug:

    https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bi...

    Already fixed upstream..

    I actually didn't mind the old system - I do understand the 'whys' of changing - in the long run I think we will have a better system.

    But really, I've been through much more troubling changes - just isn't a big deal for those that are still capable of change.