Ubuntu Linux 17.04 'Zesty Zapus' Final Beta Now Available For Download (betanews.com)

BrianFagioli writes: The final beta of Ubuntu 17.04 'Zesty Zapus' became available for download Thursday. While it is never a good idea to run pre-release software on production machines, Canonical is claiming that it should be largely bug free at this point. In other words, if you understand the risks, it should be a fairly safe. Home users aside, this is a good opportunity for administrators to conduct testing prior to the official release next month.

"The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of the Ubuntu 17.04 Desktop, Server, and Cloud products. Codenamed 'Zesty Zapus', 17.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution," says Adam Conrad, Canonical. "The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs."

Comments

So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[dwywit]

What's the next naming scheme?

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[MichaelSmith]

I would be fine with numbers. 18.04, 18.10, so on.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

go back and do the "A" and "C" that were not done, then everything "A" through "Z", again, except "H" and "W" which were already done twice. THEN we can talk about what to do next.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[DontBeAMoran]

I hope it's something that doesn't sound retarded so I can finally talk to my boss about Linux.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[John Allsup]

Names are less vulnerable to single-char typos. 17.04 is one char (and physically one key) away from 18.04. Also, it is easier to search for things related to your distro using google if you use the name (since google will struggle to grasp the context for each number you use).

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow up and start doing uncool number releases without names that are only good for the wintendo-crowd making fun of it...

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[MichaelSmith]

ubuntu 12.04 apache conf (or whatever) works perfectly. At lest its obvious what is new and what is old, with numbers.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[arobatino]

It should work fine with quotes (for example search for "ubuntu 18.04", including quotes) as long as there are no typos.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

Code names only work if you have intimate knowledge of the versioning scheme.

If I tell you "I have version Delicious Doughnut", what does that tell you? Nothing. It might be version 4 or 30 (4+26, it looped around once) or something else entirely (imagine that A, B and C were non-public betas, so D is now 1.0... fantastic...).

And what happens to point releases? I'm running "Delicious Doughnut.5"? Or do we create a new name for the point release?

This isn't theoretical. You have this problem with Android. "I'm running Lollipop" can mean either version 5.0 or 5.1, released about 6 months apart. This, and for a while, each 4.x point release got its own name, but now only major versions get a name.

This is a bad way of versioning software.

Just put a number in front of it. At least that way, I know that version 12.3 is more recent than anything with a lower number. Oh, and slap a damned LTS in front of it if you intend to make it LTS, and a BETA if it is supposed to be BETA, don't use some retarded point versioning scheme to denote that.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Excel, after Z comes AA. So we should have Aahing Aaron.

Re: So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

If I tell you "I have version Delicious Doughnut", what does that tell you? Nothing.

Well, it does tell me that you aren't using FreeBSD. The FreeBSD devs would never use dumb code names like that.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Kjella]

Vista? Snow Leopard? I can understand names that are groan-worthy like GIMP, but the rest doesn't sound worse than NFL teams. Besides they have official release numbers, if you say Ubuntu 17.04 you don't have to call it "Zesty Zepus". If he should care enough to find it and ask, then "Yeah the developers have a nickname for each release, easier for the techs. For everyone else it's Ubuntu, just like Windows or OS X". If that's the excuse your boss would use it's because he doesn't like it for some other reason.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Kjella]

It should work fine with quotes (for example search for "ubuntu 18.04", including quotes) as long as there are no typos.

If people typed that out fully when they ask yes, but on an Ubuntu forum that would be extremely redundant and "18.04" triggers on everything to do with 18th of April and other junk. The nice part about the nicknames is that if I say zesty and the page contains ubuntu somewhere, you've probably come to the right place even if they're not right next to each other. They should try to keep them short and simple tho. Like:

artsy, burly, curly, dandy, earthy, frisky, gaunt, humble, innate, jolly, keen, livid, murky, narly, overt, puffy, queezy, rocky, sweet, tasty, unique, vaunty, wobbly, x... can't really think of any. But I think that's enough for another decade.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[fluffernutter]

I'd me more interested if you actually had a delicious doughnut.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

you can tell android is aimed at fat fuck basement dwelling neckbeards with diabetes by these fucking tacky names "Delicious Doritos", "Tasty Tendies", "Massive Mountain Dew", cool man, let us know how the gastric bypass goes.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[WoLpH]

I assumed it was base64, in which case we still have quite a few characters to go. Perhaps less if we don't consider case, but still :)

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Bite The Pillow]

Accessible Arsehole

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[lucm]

I hope it's something that doesn't sound retarded so I can finally talk to my boss about Linux.

Or do him a solid and suggest to use Red Hat like real companies do.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[lucm]

Using Ubuntu is like ordering a mocha at Starbucks; if you don't like coffee, just get a hot chocolate and move on.

If you want a Debian, use Debian; if you want a retarded UI, use a Mac. There's no point in going halfsies.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[John.Banister]

I was thinking Aaron Aardvark.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the next naming scheme?

it is aabvious:

aahing aardvark

Re: So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true, because it would take them 5-10 years to argue and bikeshed on mailing lists which name to use. At which point the next version would come up for discussion and so.... the process repeats.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

> x... can't really think of any

In ancient times, one would get a paper dictionary and immediately see a list of words starting with x. Now, that seems not possible. Anyone knows of an on line dictionary which can be "browsed"?

There are sites like "adjectives starting with x", which are not so useful.

I thought we would never need to go back to old tech... I think I donated my Webster's! (my wife donated it, more precisely)

Re: So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been working with Ubuntu professionally for about 3 years in my job now. Not once has anyone ever used the stupid name - we use the version number in both conversation and documents.

Re: So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

The FreeBSD organization moved on from those self-defeatist days a long time ago. It's a damn good system now putting out a damn good OS. Made better by its lack of cuteness.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[K. S. Kyosuke]

They'll switch to Cyrillic for one more run.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[UnixUnix]

Aavid Aardvark

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[quenda]

Might as well switch from animals to vegetables.

Anoxic artichoke, blushing beetroot, cross-dressing cabbage, ...

Re: So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

With such a top down attitude it has, old shit like a korn shell or whatever and the need to spend half an hour to learn how to set up the prompt so that is displays the path you're in, I kind of wish it was a freeware Solaris with commercial software like Photoshop, and to run a game like doom or quake etc. you download a binary, run it and it works. (that worked on a user account I had on a Solaris machine, although you had 320x200 Quake on a 1024x768 X11 dumb terminal. Also got Firefox and the flash plugin that way, while linux/BSD/Unix shit usually worked with the make and ./configure way)

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

They have switched to planets, so you can finally talk to your boss about Ubuntu Urectum.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

First thing you can try is not using the word "retarded" to rule out sounding like a teenager in front of your boss.

Re:So, they've reached the end of the alphabet

[Anonymous Coward]

dickless dandelion, erotic eggplant, fugly fennel

Kooky Desktop Still?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it still have that ergonomically-challenged excuse of a desktop?

Re:Kooky Desktop Still?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:Kooky Desktop Still?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it still have that ergonomically-challenged excuse of a desktop?

not if you go with one of the official alt builds, like the Gnome 2 derrived Mate desktop variant. https://ubuntu-mate.org

"Final beta"

[Anonymous Coward]

stop using these oxymorons, and things like "pre-alpha-release-candidate" and what not. It's either a beta, or a final.

Re:"Final beta"

[king neckbeard]

There are multiple scheduled Beta releases. This is the last one. The only things left will be release candidates and the final release.

Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[Alain Williams]

In other words, if you understand the risks, it should be a fairly safe.

No: if you understand the risks then you won't run anything mission critical on it, but it won't make it less prone to break. Breakage is unlikely to come because you stress it, more by exposure to some unusual edge case.

I suppose: if you do really understand it you might be in a better position to repair it and dig yourself out of a hole.

Re:Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[John Allsup]

Stick it on a spare machine, try your mission critical software with test data, see what's different, and what breaks. In any case, you should be asking why you're investigating a non-LTS release for serious stuff, and indeed why you're bothering with Ubuntu at all for serious stuff.

Re:Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[Anonymous Coward]

This. It's better to just use Debian rather than a hacked copy of it.

Re:Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[somenickname]

I think anyone who has been using Ubuntu for anything mission critical has been ignoring the non-LTS releases for years now. If you want to put Ubuntu on a toy, grab the latest release. If you want to put it on a real machine, grab an LTS release that is at least 6 months old.

Re:Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[Anonymous Coward]

> This. It's better to just use Debian rather than a hacked copy of it.

Nope, sorry to disagree -- see why ahead, please.

Ubuntu does a helpful job of making Linux palatable to end users -- specially newbies who don't understand much and top advanced users which can code a new kernel but really don't give a fsck anymore.

The parent post clarifies something about language and responsibilities (about using a beta), not about the distro itself.

I am particularly annoyed that Ubuntu stopped supporting some 10+ y.o. CPUs (of which by chance I own one)... but Debian followed suit!

Now, given Ubuntu's objectives, I can understand their "economy" in not supporting old CPUs (even though they're quite usable). The problem is all derivatives (Lubuntu, Xubuntu, etc.) being forced to do the same. "Lubuntu for older computers" really becomes a misleading slogan.

Now, Debian should not do that. It should be like Slackware, which really works as it should.

This is why despite Debian being a lot cooler than e.g. Ubuntu, Slackware still is the coolest of all.

(I recommend Salix, a tad more friendly)

Re:Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps a Debian for i486 CPUs will still be made, it simply has to be an unsupported or unofficial release like e.g. Ubuntu for a PowerPC Macintosh.

Re:Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just i486s. I was talking about an i686 not supported by Debian.

Re:Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok.
I remember now, Ubuntu will supposedly not support i686, starting from Ubuntu 18.10.
I don't remember anything about Debian dropping i686?, I don't doubt it might come some day (or do they require PAE? there's a "force PAE" linux option for buggy Pentium M)

Thanks.

Re:Understanding the risks does not make it safer

[Anonymous Coward]

> I remember now, Ubuntu will supposedly not support i686, starting from Ubuntu 18.10.

Seriously? I didn't know that. It is pretty crazy IMHO.

> I don't remember anything about Debian dropping i686?, I don't doubt it might come some day (or do they require PAE? there's a "force PAE" linux option for buggy Pentium M)

Long time ago (10+ years), some complex instructions started to be offered in CPUs. A single instruction would deal with multiple operands at first and then came the streaming versions, good for fast graphics processing (for instance). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions for more info.

In a phrase, Intel's SSE was introduced after 3DNow!, a technology by AMD. SSE is said to be better, but the key idea here is that a lot of software has required SSE2. AFAIK this is the reason to require the Pentium 4 as a minimum (though some Pentium M carry that instruction).

A few old CPUs don't even have SSE, but are useful (I'm using one as print server now). But others got the SSE instruction -- but not SSE2. I just checked the recent Debian requirements and saw Pentium 4, 1GHz as minimum. But this is not just about Debian, as Firefox itself is warning that it will require SSE2 as already mentioned. Reference: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch03s04.html.en

So, it's not about PAE. My SSE2-less i686 AMD CPU has PAE; it's about a successful move to make AMD support less interesting, which I would expect on Windows, but not on Linux.

You may think 10 years is a lot of time and it really is, in a sense (conversely, think how young is a 10 year old kid). But it all boils down to which uses one has in mind and whether a computer can or cannot do the job. Besides, it can avoid becoming a source of pollution (e.g. in a landfill) and avoid the pollution from the manufacturing of a modern replacement for it.

Meh,

[messymerry]

I think I will go have a MINT...

Re:Meh,

[TheGratefulNet]

at the very least, a mate or cinnamon desktop.

those fucking stoopid ubuntu term window scrollbars. dammit. after all these years, they still continue to force that on users. damn.

Re:Meh,

[Anonymous Coward]

It took a while before trying that, but I'm getting used to default black-on-white terminal. That's on Mint Debian, I moved in from Mint Ubuntu. Seems a bit better when your computer is shit, although installing the AMD proprietary graphics driver didn't work (the driver that's not available at all on Mint Ubuntu)

Also for this installation I could, and had to install on two small old hard drives, root partition on the IDE one and home partition on the SATA one.
This is great for the I/O performance, no SSD is needed. When you launch something the I/O for reading /usr/thing and ~/.thing don't block each other.

There's a new iso of Mint Debian, it's just Debian 8 with Linux 3.16 but with Mate 1.16 out of the box.

Re:Meh,

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark the Mint Man, is that you?

Beta testing

[danbuter]

I used to alpha and beta test Ubuntu releases. It can be fun, especially if you have a spare computer with nothing critical on it. I did help find some issues back in the day, that got fixed before release. It felt good. If you have any skills, it can be a cool experience to try.

Re: Beta testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for you hard work. Around 90% of the PHP applications don't work in the latest releases due to lack of testing with the new PHP version and not updating those packages (pretty much all of them do work with PHP7 but you need to download them manually). Same problem with Python and Perl packages... A few releases back, clang++ was unable to compile hello world, etc. They really do need more testing...

Re: Beta testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story, bro.

Let's get it started

[mattwarden]

Ubuntu is the best distribution for all use cases and user knowledge levels. The addition of systemd really kicked things up even another notch.

You may begin...

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

As an Arch user, I am tempted to go to Ubuntu and let others sort out my problems instead of being a constant guinea pig. (X)Ubuntu works. Besides, you get systemd either way whether you want or not.

Re:Let's get it started

[fisted]

Tried Ubuntu server, couldn't RDP to the machine. 0/10 would not purchase again.

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

As a BSD user, the whole systemd drama gives me the lulz, in a smug, condescending way.

Re: Let's get it started

[Zero__Kelvin]

Dude, I just returned my Windows 10 laptop for the same reason!

Re:Let's get it started

[John Allsup]

And once it has moved to Mir, all those other Linux distros won't even be properly compatible with the industry standard Ubuntu setup. [ ducks ]

Re:Let's get it started

[thegarbz]

Tried Ubuntu server, couldn't RDP to the machine. 0/10 would not purchase again.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-xfce4 xrdp

Even jokes are one line fixes in Ubuntu :-)

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they don't put you in a BSD jail...

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

Still no official Plasma 5 or amdgpu support though. Makes it harder to consider FreeBSD as a valid desktop option.

Re: Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither of those are useful on Linux if such an installation doesn't even consistently boot properly due to systemd failing in some obscure and usually moronic way.

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

As a linux user and an anti-fan of systemd, I thought I'd give FreeBSD a try - it's been years since I last gave any BSD a go. I was going to put it in a VM, but poking around I found there's now versions for ARM SBCs like the RaspberryPi. According to the wiki the RPi2 is best supported. Cool! I've got one of those I've been meaning to eBay, and a 2GB uSD card from the 35mm film canister of too-small-for-raspbian-or-the-crud-on-my-phone microSD cards.
So I dd the image on, plug the Pi into a network cable and an HDMI monitor and boot. Yep, nmap says it's dhcp'd to ...125 SSH-Log in as freebsd/freebsd (had to look that up) and su (root/root - ditto) Great! Now, what can I do? Load moar stuff! port? Nope. pkg!

root@rpi2:/home/freebsd # pkg
The package management tool is not yet installed on your system.
Do you want to fetch and install it now? [y/N]: y
pkg-static: Warning: Major OS version upgrade detected. Running "pkg-static install -f pkg" recommended

Ok, what does that mean? This is a new install! Ah well!

root@rpi2:/home/freebsd # pkg-static install -f pkg
The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):
Installed packages to be REINSTALLED:
                pkg-1.9.4_1
Number of packages to be reinstalled: 1
Proceed with this action? [y/N]: y

Done! Now where was I, ah yea, installing stuff.

root@rpi2:/home/freebsd # pkg search vim
pkg: Warning: Major OS version upgrade detected. Running "pkg-static install -f pkg" recommended

That didn't fix it - what does it mean? Google! Nope, everyone else with this message really upgraded, not from a fresh install.

So, first thing I try and do gives an unGoogle-able error message. That's enough playing about, I'll try a BSD again in a few more years.

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

So glad I switched to software development from systems administration. Using open source unix is a fucking waste of your life. The major mobile OSes may be based on unix at a very low level, but ultimately it just so much better to actually be able to do productive work creating new things of value, instead of throwing away the days of your life trying to configure some shitty 1970s era operating system to do anything worth a damn.

Re:Let's get it started

[basecastula]

I'm guessing the last "pkg" is where you would place the package you want to download and install. Based on the fact that you installed pkg with the line you used.

Re:Let's get it started

[lucm]

As a linux user and an anti-fan of systemd, I thought I'd give FreeBSD a try - it's been years since I last gave any BSD a go.
[...]
So, first thing I try and do gives an unGoogle-able error message. That's enough playing about, I'll try a BSD again in a few more years.

We've all been there... Next on your list should be: installing Slackware on a brand new ultrabook that has no ethernet adapter.

Re:Let's get it started

[lucm]

Even jokes are one line fixes in Ubuntu :-)

Here's the best one-line fix for Ubuntu:
wget Fedora-Live.iso

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything is a one-line fix in *IX, given enough semicolons and slashes.

--sf

Re: Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't do a standard FreeBSD installation. You found some random image somewhere. Of course the passwords will be set already! Of course there may be other issues.

You probably would have had a better experience by actually installing FreeBSD yourself, instead of dicking around with weird images you found online.

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried that but it didn't improve much, I mostly seem to have lost some available diskspace in the process...

Re: Let's get it started

[cyber-vandal]

From ftp.freebsd.org...

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

$ wget Fedora-Live.iso
--2017-03-26 12:52:12-- http://fedora-live.iso/
Resolving fedora-live.iso (fedora-live.iso)... failed: Name or service not known.
wget: unable to resolve host address ‘fedora-live.iso’

Re:Let's get it started

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you're using python for the fix.

Have they fixed the Radeon support?

[Anonymous Coward]

After the upgrade to a version of a graphics platform that didn't support my AMD card, I lost interest in it.

Re:Have they fixed the Radeon support?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just missed that the open source AMD drivers in mesa are now better than the old closed one?

Re: Have they fixed the Radeon support?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just missed that the open source AMD drivers in mesa are now better than the old closed one?

Only in the Linux world is "doesn't work" claimed to be better, or did you think I didn't mean what I said?

My card went from supported by being able to use the proprietary drivers from AMD to those drivers not working and me only getting the ugly software mode to work with some difficulty.

I'll be honest, you are inspiring me not to look, let alone try.

Pretty solid

[Ramze]

I've been running Zesty for over a month in VMs and on bare metal with no serious issues. I had one bug that threw an error message on startup several weeks ago, but it was patched within a few days... and the bug didn't seem to affect anything. I don't use the default DE, though -- I use Cinnamon, so ymmv with Unity.

My only issues with Zesty are the same as I have with previous releases. Running IPv6 as dual stack with IPv4 is more complicated than it should be... the Gnome network manager doesn't understand IPv6 DNS addresses so it displays part of them as an IPv4 address instead, and samba occasionally flakes out and doesn't see my windows shares, yet will map to them if I run a script to do so (I don't know what's going on there... master browser issue perhaps, but... doubt it!)

I really can't see much of a change from 16.04 LTS or 16.10, but it runs well, and I have no serious complaints. I've upgraded from 16.04 to 16.10 to 17.04 beta without anything breaking, but If your 16.04 works for your hardware and has repos for your software, you may want to stick with it 'til the next LTS. There's no significant changes in this one to convince me it's a must-have. Maybe the next LTS release if it has more Mir or Wayland support and Vulkan drivers.

Re:Pretty solid

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the next LTS release if it has more Mir or Wayland support and Vulkan drivers.

Well, I guess that answers my question of whether they've finally fixed v-sync to work out of the box yet (still no)...

Re:Pretty solid

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm running a 100Hz CRT and a 2D desktop, this way all is good v-sync or not.

I still have to run an xrandr user script on start up (xrandr --newmode blah, xrandr --addmode blah) while in the days of static xorg.conf you only needed to edit xorg.conf. But beside that sillyness it's still an easy way to get a decent display and it still works.

"Final Beta"?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are they driveling about?

Re:"Final Beta"?

[F.Ultra]

Why would that be so hard to understand?

The Ubuntu release schedule is and have always been:

• * FeatureDefinition Freeze
• * Alpha 1
• * Alpha 2
• * Feature Freeze
• * Beta 1
• * Final Beta
• * Release Candidate
• * Final Release

If you want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

stop using names like "Borky Brontosaurus", "Crazy Cockroach", or "Deranged Donkey", and silly boot-screens that say "Linux Mint" in shiny letters.

Consider how you would feel logging on to the next version of macOS or Windows and being greeted with "macOS Happy Halibut" printed in metallic letters on the desktop. Would it speak of a professional and competent system, or some play-thing?

The biggest obstacles in wider Linux adoption is 1) embracing modern desktop look and feel, like Windows 10 and macOS have done, and 2) branding the Linux desktop in a professional and competent way.

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[Gavagai80]

Not once has my Ubuntu installation ever displayed the animal nickname. In fact, I'm running 16.04 and I don't even know what the nickname for it is.

Also, MacOS uses animal nicknames more prominently and confusingly and both MacOS and Windows have confusing version numbering (OS X makes it look like there's only been minor revisions for decades, and Windows has no clue how to count and changes the whole scheme repeatedly).

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows DeFenestration© So pro, so true.

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[dbreeze]

You're absolutely backwards AC. I don't care what goofy assed naming convention or garish boot/login splash is used as long as the system is stable, fast, configurable, and suited to my needs. Likewise, I don't care how noble and "professional" the name or logo appears if I've got to reboot lock-ups, schedule coffee breaks for wait periods, and only get to do what the OS's developer decided I needed to do my work.

As always, you're the problem AC...

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Behold: the difference between good version numbering decisions and bad ones.

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's you who are backwards, because you don't understand people, and only consider what appeals to yourself. As long as Linux desktops try their hardest to be Linux desktops for Linux users, then they will only appeal to Linux users.

Branding matters, period.

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

"cat /etc/issue" returns the version number on old releases, and the animal name on newer releases.
"cat /etc/lsb-release" returns both.

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[fph il quozientatore]

Well, I guess the latest release is already old... $ cat /etc/issue Ubuntu 16.10 \n \l And which exactly is the animal name here? DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.10 DISTRIB_CODENAME=yakkety DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 16.10"

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[Osgeld]

I don't care what goofy assed naming convention or garish boot/login splash is used as long as the system is stable, fast, configurable, and suited to my needs,

well obviously you are not an ubuntu user

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Admit that you would immediately install "Masturbating Monkey".

Re:If you want to be taken seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because Android is so unpopular, what with it being Linux-based and having "goofy" names such as "Frozen Yoghurt", "Kit Kat" and "Nougat", amongst others...

You should get out more. Reality doesn't agree with your assessments.

Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu has a gay name.

What? No Zebra?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what happened... someone said, "Hey brotards, let's disappoint the youngsters (and the Anonymous Cowards); name it after a critter that has a common name... but OBFUSCATE it."

  Seriously (obviously), "Zippy Zebra" just screams "We don't need a marketing department!"

Pretentious wankers...Mice are always filed under "M".

And "marketing department" is always filed under "W" (for wankers!).

I looked up Mir and I'm Skeptical

[Neuronwelder]

Title: 'Mir will cause fragmentation in Linux on desktop' - (You be the judge and tell me if I'm wrong.) I personally like Ubuntu and am worried about this step they are taking. https://bugs.launchpad.net/mir...

phail

[lucm]

So they have Alpha 2 but no Final Alpha, and they have a Final Beta but not Beta 2. How hard is it to have a minimum of consistency in a release schedule?

Did they choose this scheme to annoy aspies, or are they just that nonchalant and careless? Oh wait, I've tried Ubuntu so I know the answer.

Re:phail

[NotQuiteReal]

I once worked at a small company that had "conference room A" and "conference room 2", so everyone called them "Little Joe" and "Big Hoss" to avoid confusion.

Re:phail

[F.Ultra]

It's because they have no freeze periods during the Alpha stages, the 'Final' prefix is there to mark that it's the Final Beta Freeze and Final Release Freeze.

Re:I feel bad for the less fortunate...

[Raenex]

Steve Jobs is dead. You can step out of the reality distortion field.

Next one?

[Tough Love]

Anxious Albatross?

Re:Next one?

[John.Banister]

Two A's each

Re:Next one?

[vandamme]

Aardvark is the only one I know of.

Next Ubuntu release: !@#$!@#$%

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever sincd Fedora decided to release "Shr(umlauted o)dinger's Cat" as a release name, breaking shell script based recognition schemes worldwide by stuffing non-ASCII and punctuation characters into /etc/issue.net, naming schemes for Linux systems have been completely messed up.

it is the current year

[Anonymous Coward]

use utf-8 snowflake !

Re:So, they've not reached the end of the alphabet

[techno-vampire]

They're nowhere near the end. There's at least twenty more letters if you go On Beyond Zebra!

Server and Desktop for me

[Britz]

I don't know if it is still the case, but as little as three years ago I tested various Linux distros for someone else to run on a laptop computer. Stuff that is easy to run and easy to update. I wanted to try OpenSuse. It kinda failed me in that it had obvious bugs. Too many of them. Bugs that could be fixed and all (Linux), but nothing an end user should see. I tried a couple other ones, but in the end, Ubuntu proved to be what it has been for more than a decade: A true Linux for end users. Since I prefer KDE I went with Kubuntu.

Then last year, LXD became the perfect solution for one of my personal user cases. I have been running Xenial ever since (btw. shoutout to Stephane Graber, one of the major driving forces behind lxd), even though I have been a 100% Debian guy for almost two decades now.

I don't know about embedded, but I heard they put something out for smartphones that was pretty rad.

And yes, Ubuntu wouldn't be possible without Debian. I am typing this on a Debian machine, of course.

Lubuntyu and LXQt

[zoward]

Will Lubuntu finally switch over to LXQt? It's been ages since they announced this, and I'm curious to see if it's better than Debian's version of LXQt...

Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tasty Turd

Re:I feel bad for the less fortunate...

[Anonymous Coward]

lulz. as if basement dwellers vote.

Are Mousekeys still buggy?

[lucasnate1]

As a person who ensures his hands' health, I have to ask, did they finally fix the bugs with mousekeys?

The Bugs are:
1) Sensitivity only be configured through command-line.
2) If you switch a mouse button the speed settings are lost and you need to run xkbset again).

SystemD

[Billly Gates]

Until gnome 2 and upstart is back I will stick with Ubuntu 12.04. The best version and last usuable and Ubuntu extended support too. Join us and we can teach cannoical a lesson if we don't cave in