Ubuntu To Turn Into A Rolling-Release Distribution?

[bridgman]

Yep, although in general the 3D workstation market uses enterprise distros which change relatively slowly and which are maintained for a long time, not 6-month or rolling release distros. RHEL 4.x is still fairly common, as an example.

[XorEaxEax]

True, but that's likely s result of them having support contracts with companies like Red Hat, like Dreamworks for example.

[markg85]

would be nice but i still stick with archlinux. not going back to ubuntu unless arch fucks things up in the future...

[TemplarGR]

When a company pays for support it comes with the limitation of the developer deciding which operating system upgrades are applied. Everything has to be tested when you are bound by service level agreements.

Moving targets are fictitious in the professional world. You have to target an operating system version and patch-level. Even if your product is open-source, you still have to control the upgrades else you can't guarantee a customer that your product will continue to function.

Most companies who professionally develop for Linux target RedHat releases. They're static and rarely change. Patches are kept to a minimum.

Imagine a human-resource application that must maintain 100% uptime. No maintenance. No scheduled downtime. They do exist.

Sorry, but your post is irrelevant. We are discussing desktop not servers. Do not compare apples to oranges.

A moving target for the desktop is not a big deal, and in reality it requires just a little more maintainance than a stable target, if the devs are competent.

[grege]

Thread about whether UBUNTU should be a rolling release

This thread is about whether UBUNTU should be a rolling release. And the answer is No. Ubuntu is at the forefront, the distro that new users try, and many old hands use just because it works without too much effort.

It does not matter how much you love Arch or Gentoo or Sid or Aptosid - you are kidding yourself if you think it is suitable for beginners or for people who use their computers to make a living. Last time I looked Arch does not even have a graphical package manager, you have to dip into AUR to get one and then it only maybe works. If computers are your hobby and you want to devote your time to constant maintenance then go for it, but do not pretend that that is the way to go for the majority.

[evolution]

The big monster called command line (terminal console)

This thread is about whether UBUNTU should be a rolling release. And the answer is No. Ubuntu is at the forefront, the distro that new users try, and many old hands use just because it works without too much effort.

It does not matter how much you love Arch or Gentoo or Sid or Aptosid - you are kidding yourself if you think it is suitable for beginners or for people who use their computers to make a living. Last time I looked Arch does not even have a graphical package manager, you have to dip into AUR to get one and then it only maybe works. If computers are your hobby and you want to devote your time to constant maintenance then go for it, but do not pretend that that is the way to go for the majority.

Whoa! The command line! That big monster!

Yes, I agree Arch / Gentoo / Slackware are not distros for begginers, but a certain day, and due to the UNIX structure, you'll likely need to use the command line, whether you want it or not... As Arch says, KISS (Keep it Simple, St****), because hiding the "dirty things", a certain day you'll almost for sure use the command line, and you'll need to know how to deal with it, instead of hiding it from the users (a reason why a lot of people quit from linux is when they need to deal with the command line for the first times).

Yes, GUI package managers are helpful, but a bit slow (in terms of performance). In Debian / Ubuntu distros I prefer to open the console and type "apt-get install program". In Arch it's as easy as typing "sudo pacman -Sy program". Is it so hard to do it?! I don't think so!

Cheers

[evolution]

I upgrade my system constantly!

Of course if you sit an not update then you negate the good side of rolling releases.

Hey, I upgrade my packages more than once a day! I just don't upgrade (constantly) some more problematic ones, such as Xorg Server or Catalyst...
Sorry, but you maybe got me wrong...

Cheers

[grege]

Command line

@evolution

I agree with you to a point. I do not have a problem with typing 'sudo pacman -Sy program', and using apt and dpkg are my preferred method of installing programs. I also know that many of the people who I help with their computing would roll up their eyes at the mere suggestion of opening a term. A graphical package manager is also very useful for browsing what is available when you do not quite know what you are looking for - 'apt-cache search' is not always that helpful. The other approach is just to use a browser to search package lists, then open a term and then type the install command. Graphical package managers have their place and uses.

I do not want to be critical of Arch. From my experience Arch is way more stable than other rolling distros and I may use it myself once I have resolved my printing issue. One big plus for Arch is that you have absolute control of which processes are loaded, and your system is tailored to you and your needs. But I would never give it to a beginner because then I would be constantly maintaining it for them as well. And for a lot of people a computer it is just a computer, to use to do specific tasks, they do not want to spend any time looking after the OS.

cheers

[squirrl]

Sorry, but your post is irrelevant. We are discussing desktop not servers. Do not compare apples to oranges.

A moving target for the desktop is not a big deal, and in reality it requires just a little more maintainance than a stable target, if the devs are competent.

Apples and oranges are fruit from a tree. So what I stated was relevant to the discussion. Moving targets are a big deal for companies. You went off topic spewing forth opinions about the difficulty of software development for a constantly changing platform, desktop,. etc. You asked expert developers their thoughts about how difficult it was to write software.

>>Who says that in order to develop something you need a stable desktop?
>> All of you "experts" have you actually developed something?
Here is the question.

>>The whole of the Linux desktop applications is developed for a moving target, yet it keeps getting better and better. This is done from hobbyists without financial help and enterpraise organisation.

Not exactly mister. Intel and IBM are enterprise organizations. They most certianly do contribution money into the various projects.
Canonical pushed a considerable amount of cash into KDE not too long ago.

>>You want to tell me that professional programmers, working full time and organized in a professional manner, while payed to code, would face difficulties developing for the same system? Yeah right...

YES, that is what I'm telling you. Google is a fine example of a company that froze it's codebase. They can't keep changing based on the whims of kernel developers. Flipping and flopping code around.

Look at the problems introduced by Mr. Tso's Ext4. Regressions for at least 5 kernel releases. You can't lie to your paying customers about performance. You can't hide data-integrity problems.

Another example of rolling release back-peddling was the Intel video driver fiasco. Intel made heavy changes to Xorg, Mesa, and the kernel. They got introduced by every distribution vendor except Redhat. Servers in general run Intel or Matrox integrated graphics.

To date there is still no solution other than running an older distribution.

[TemplarGR]

Apples and oranges are fruit from a tree. So what I stated was relevant to the discussion. Moving targets are a big deal for companies. You went off topic spewing forth opinions about the difficulty of software development for a constantly changing platform, desktop,. etc. You asked expert developers their thoughts about how difficult it was to write software.

>>Who says that in order to develop something you need a stable desktop?
>> All of you "experts" have you actually developed something?
Here is the question.

>>The whole of the Linux desktop applications is developed for a moving target, yet it keeps getting better and better. This is done from hobbyists without financial help and enterpraise organisation.

Not exactly mister. Intel and IBM are enterprise organizations. They most certianly do contribution money into the various projects.
Canonical pushed a considerable amount of cash into KDE not too long ago.

>>You want to tell me that professional programmers, working full time and organized in a professional manner, while payed to code, would face difficulties developing for the same system? Yeah right...

YES, that is what I'm telling you. Google is a fine example of a company that froze it's codebase. They can't keep changing based on the whims of kernel developers. Flipping and flopping code around.

Look at the problems introduced by Mr. Tso's Ext4. Regressions for at least 5 kernel releases. You can't lie to your paying customers about performance. You can't hide data-integrity problems.

Another example of rolling release back-peddling was the Intel video driver fiasco. Intel made heavy changes to Xorg, Mesa, and the kernel. They got introduced by every distribution vendor except Redhat. Servers in general run Intel or Matrox integrated graphics.

To date there is still no solution other than running an older distribution.

You still don't get it:

1) Most changes are mild. I agree that if an application is left unmaintained for years, then making it work on a newer environment would be more work, but if someone maintains an application throughout its lifetime, changes needed to keep up with the rest of the ecosystem are mild. It is not like you need to write code from scratch or something, just because a few libs released new versions...

2) Intel and IBM, are prime examples of enterprises that contribute resources mostly if not entirely to kernel and *server* software, not desktop. We are talking about desktop here, yet you keep mentioning the enterprise while on my first message i mentioned the *DESKTOP*. Repeat after me: D-E-S-K-T-O-P. Get it now?

3)You keep mentioning servers, Red Hat... It seems you are trying to win over me based on false assumptions. No one is implying that Servers should use rolling release models. We are talking about the desktop... I will keep repeating it until you get it inside your head...

4) As i said, and i will repeat this, GNOME, KDE, and other independent desktop software, are the living proof that developing for the desktop doesn't need a stable environment. If you dare to mention one more time servers, server focused companies etc, then you will be officially declared a troll...

5) Ubuntu is mainly a desktop oriented Distro. No one competent uses it for servers. So a rolling release model would be apropriate. It would be far better than the current situation:

Those poor souls who use it add 10s of PPA's each just to use all the latest features... Isn't it less stable? If you are going to PPA the whole thing, while not do it officially?