Slashdot Asks: Do You Install Preview Version Of An OS On Your Primary Device?

On Monday, Google released a new -- and also the final -- version of the Android N Developer Preview. Android Nougat, which is the latest version of Google's mobile operating system comes with a range of new features and improvements, including a notification panel redesign and additions to Doze power saving. The fifth preview, which is releasing today offers a "near-final" look at Android 7. Interestingly, Apple also released the public beta versions of iOS 10, and macOS Sierra to users earlier this month. Microsoft continues to offer preview builds of Windows 10 OS to enthusiasts.

We were wondering how many of you choose to live on beta version of an operating system on your primary devices. Does anyone here wait for the final version of an operating system to release before making the switch? Also, what does the setup of your office/work computer look like? Anyone who is still on an older version of an operating system because of reliability and compatibility concerns?

Comments

Hell no

[AuMatar]

A not yet finalized version of an OS on my primary device? My primary device only does security upgrades- I can't afford for my primary device to go down for days while I try to get it to work. Now my secondary device like a phone I'd consider it- but still I'd probably wait for 2 or 3 releases later before doing so seriously.

Re:Hell no

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not.

I install it on someone else's primary device and gauge completeness by the volume of obscenities and time between repeats.

Re:Hell no

[jellomizer]

Well I do, but I fully expect a weekend of rebuilding if it goes off. But that also means backing up my primary device to be restored as well.

Re:Hell no

[greenfruitsalad]

isn't that exactly what a multi-boot setup is for? i have 2 root partitions (1 for a stable OS, 1 for a bleeding edge OS). /home is independent of the OS. I spend most of the time in bleeding edge OS but if shit hits the fan and i need to wait for a fix, i have a fallback. eventually, when the bleeding edge stabilises with updates (i.e. debian testing turns into stable), the old stable partition becomes home to a new bleeding edge os.

No

[LichtSpektren]

I run lots of beta software (Firefox Nightly, Chrome Dev, Thunderbird Early), but I avoid doing it for the OS. Why? If my email client or browser's too buggy, I can uninstall them and roll back to the stable channel. On the other hand, fixing a computer that won't boot or having some other highly annoying problem takes just way too much of my time on my primary device.

Of course not

[JohnFen]

I need to have confidence that I can continue my normal workflows on my primary machine.

Re:Of course not

[KiloByte]

Use btrfs with a daily cronjob to snapshot /, have /home on a separate subvolume (also snapshotted, but for a different reason). Anything goes wrong, you roll back / to yesterday. Want a version from two months ago? All it takes is a reboot and type subvol=sys-2016-05-18 on the grub command line. That's the key to comfortably running unstable...

I'm not here to test your OS.

[bytestorm]

Hire actual QA. Showstopping bugs prevent me from getting shit done. Looking at you, Windows Insider program.

Re:I'm not here to test your OS.

[thegarbz]

That is simply not possible. Windows is an OS that is used in such a wide variety of ways in such a wide variety of hardware configurations that if we waited for them to do full QA then we'll never see another version of windows.

I say they should do a full QA.

Nope

[bsDaemon]

This is what VMs or test devices are for

I don't install any OS previews at all

[HBI]

I'm not an "OS dilettante dabbler", harking back to the BSD trolls of the past.

Never

[sentiblue]

I make the money to feed my family on my macbook pro... so no I will never install the beta OSX on the laptop.

Even when the OS is released as GA, I still wait until the first patch to install it.

Beta Versions of Linux

[Prof G]

Beta versions of Linux Mint and Neon are really not a problem. Risky, yes. Especially if you don't know what you're doing. But, with proper backups, disk partitioning, etc., neither Mint nor Neon has bit back. I've never been able to say the same thing about Windows, even years after the release was "final".

Re:Beta Versions of Linux

[phantomfive]

But, with proper backups, disk partitioning, etc., neither Mint nor Neon has bit back.

I would imagine both of those have stable versions of the Linux Kernel, even if they are running some experimental software on top.

Depends

[MBGMorden]

Depends on your definition of "Primary". Primary at work? Heck no. I just moved from Windows 7 a few weeks ago. I'm long past "ooh shiny" at work and as long as something works I'm happy to apply security patches only.

At home? Yeah I don't care. The stuff I do on a home computer is all run of the mill crap: internet/social networking, video games, and other stuff that's either not too critical or can be done from a browser.

I've got 2 desktops (one of which I'd consider my "primary" device at home), a laptop, 4 internet capable game consoles, my phone, and two tablets laying around at home. If any one of them is down I can make it by with the other devices for as long as I need until I get it fixed. Heck if I got really desperate I've also got a pair of Raspberry Pi's setting around too that will technically run a Linux desktop - just painfully slow.

Really with $50 tablets and $200 laptops these days computing has gotten so cheap that fully functional computers have gotten as cheap as child's toys.

Re:Depends

[slickepott]

Pretty much the same. I don't have a primary computer that has to be working all the time. No work is relying on my "primary machine". Usually don't reinstall all the time but nothing stops me.

But a spare laptop usually works quite well for that too. :)

FreeBSD boot environments

[koinu]

On FreeBSD I have already tried the 11.0 development preview (aka CURRENT) using a boot environment (beadm). It's very easy and intuitive.

Used to...

[rwven]

I used to get the fast track insider builds on my work machine, but I got tired of constantly having to troubleshoot stuff that got broken along the way. It became really annoying to constantly have to reinstall visual studio problems, troubleshoot vbox issues, etc.

Ultimately I just formatted the machine and went back to the standard production build.

Early Adopter?

[Holi]

Nope, as I have gotten older I find I prefer my devices and computers to work instead of having the bragging rights to the new shiny,

No

[zamboni1138]

No. This is what virtual machines are for. Or an older box you might have laying around.

If you answer "Yes", then I won't be hiring you...

[mykepredko]

I have a Win (various), Mac, Linux and Chromebook devices which I install OS (as well as browser) previews on to test my software on and hopefully give me a bit of runway to report a problem in an upcoming release. As a few others have noted, my primary (development) systems have stable versions of the OSes in which I review all updates and only install security patches.

If somebody is so irresponsible and so chained to the idea of being on the bleeding edge that you put previews on your primary machines, then I wouldn't trust you with my company's software.

Who is this "We" that were wondering in the question? Why would you think that serious professionals (or even semi-serious hackers) would do such a, frankly stupid, thing?

Re:No, why would I?

[cbhacking]

Usually, because of the new features. Often, they are
A) cool / fun - letting you do neat stuff the device couldn't do (or at least not easily) before
B) useful / productive - even if you spend some time debugging, you can sometimes make back that time by using those new features to get stuff done faster
C) more secure - while pre-release software can have (new) security bugs as well as other kinds of bugs, defense-in-depth type features often aren't rolled out in minor updates, and OS security features can help protect you even against security vulnerabilities in third-party software (sandboxing features, ASLR improvements, etc.)

Alternatively, because you support internal or niche software for that platform. The company isn't going to test your specific environment; there are far too many to try, even if you ignore the combinatorial explosion when you consider interactions between components. They'll do their best to ensure backward compatibility, but it's never exactly perfect (if only because sometimes they have to fix buggy behavior that old software was relying on). It is your responsibility, not that of the OS developer, to ensure that your specific code works on the new version before your customers (internal or external) start coming to you saying they updated their machine and now your code breaks. If you test before the thing gets released, and find a compatibility bug that affects your code in particular, you can tell the OS vendor about the bug and maybe they'll fix it before any of your users see the problem.

My primary device runs Windows.

[Cro Magnon]

The final version IS a beta.

Bathtub gin

[mmdurrant]

Do you test your moonshine by drinking it? Hell no. You give a jar to a friend and watch for symptoms of methanol poisoning.

Re:I would, if....

[AC-x]

Ideally, in my mind, it'd work just like a PC --- where I could make a backup image of the Factory Disk Image (just in case); and then install whatever I want on it; knowing that it wouldn't be hard to boot from an external device and restore the factory image. Anyone know of such a phone --- and that'll be the next one I'd buy.

Any Android Nexus phone. Just hold down a button combination while powering the phone up to enter the bootloader menu, plug the phone in to a PC's USB and you can wipe/flash any of the phone's partitions. It's very easy to re-flash the factory images (which Google provide), or flash custom recovery software and reinstall any custom rom you like.