Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Continues Prepping With The Linux 4.15 Kernel

[DanL]

Agreed. I migrated to Arch a long time ago but haven't been able to convince people at work that this is the way to go.

Arch has its good points, but it's not the end-all, be-all distro that everyone should be using (especially in a corporate environment). Don't be an Arch elitist/preacher.

[GizmoChicken]

I've seen various remarks made of how "Ubuntu 18.04 should ship with Linux 4.16" on the basis of either better Spectre/Meltdown support, Linux 4.16 will be out in time and neither 4.15 or 4.16 are even LTS releases, better hardware support, or users simply wanting all the goodies in Linux 4.16. But that's simply foolish given Ubuntu 18.04 is being a Long Term Support release and how close the timing ends up being as is.

Michael thinks that my suggestion is foolish.

Oh well, because he does so much to promote Linux and the open source community (yes, I'm serious), I'll forgive him.

[Michael]

Michael thinks that my suggestion is foolish.

Oh well, because he does so much to promote Linux and the open source community (yes, I'm serious), I'll forgive him.

I meant the overall concept of an Ubuntu LTS release shipping with a brand new kernel being released so closely to the release date, and saw multiple people suggesting such, the article wasn't motivated by anyone in particular.

[GizmoChicken]

I meant the overall concept of an Ubuntu LTS release shipping with a brand new kernel being released so closely to the release date, and saw multiple people suggesting such, the article wasn't motivated by anyone in particular.

What? You mean not everything is about me?

I know. I was being a bit facetious. (Except for the part about you doing so much to promote promote Linux and the open source community. I meant that!)

Also, I wanted take the opportunity to send more traffic to my suggestion on community.ubuntu.com. I still haven't given up tilting at this windmill.

For what it's worth, I still say that anyone wanting stability will wait for 18.04.1 (or later) anyway, and so no harm would come (to most) if 18.04 were released with sub-optimal testing of the kernel.

[jacob]

People need to stop using Ubuntu and migrate to some proper distros like Archlinux for their desktops

People need to stop preaching. Seriously, zealotry, fanboyism and the constant urge to "convert" someone to use something is one big plague in the FOSS community. Ubuntu has its flaws, it also has its advantages and those who use it usually have good reasons to do so.

[vito]

People need to stop preaching. Seriously, zealotry, fanboyism and the constant urge to "convert" someone to use something is one big plague in the FOSS community. Ubuntu has its flaws, it also has its advantages and those who use it usually have good reasons to do so.

In 99% of cases, the reason why someone might be using Ubuntu is because they are novice and could not figure out how to install the NVidia driver in another distro they tried and Canonical has a deal to include their binary blob drivers in the proprietary repo.

With the latest improvements in AMD GPU drivers that work out of the box, hopefully this reason goes away sooner than later.


The huge problem with Ubuntu (Canonical in general) is that they always try to do their own proprietary version of everything that conflicts with what the community is doing, in an attempt to lock in the users so they have no choice but use their product. For example, Canonical pushed Mir instead of Wayland, Unity instead of Gnome, Snap instead of Flatpack, etc.

And therein lies the problem: because of this, there are software packages coming out that are hardcoded for Ubuntu and their propriatery crap, which makes it impossible to run on anything but Ubuntu. Take a look at NVidia's embedded SDK or AMD's ROCm for example.

This can make it a real pain if you already have an infrastructure that does not use it (for example). The end result is that Ubuntu (really Canonical) is fragmenting the Linux community.

Bottom line: Ubuntu (Canonical) needs to become better citizen or die. Until then, I will keep telling people that they can use any distro they want, as long as it is not Ubuntu.



Using Ubuntu is like drinking cheap tequila - yes it might seem okay now, but you will have huge hangover in the morning and everyone will be pissed at you for having to clean up the mess you made while you were passed out.

[caligula]

The huge problem with Ubuntu (Canonical in general) is that they always try to do their own proprietary version of everything that conflicts with what the community is doing, in an attempt to lock in the users so they have no choice but use their product. For example, Canonical pushed Mir instead of Wayland, Unity instead of Gnome, Snap instead of Flatpack, etc.

Indeed the list goes on and on.. bzr, ubuntu one, launchpad, upstart, ... all the crap protected by CLA..

All the things I learn by using Ubuntu on some machines is the proprietary Ubuntu tech that will soon become obsolete. It's sad to see that most other distros develop compatible, open standards and software while Ubuntu develops NIH proprietary software which doesn't work on other distros and nobody wants to adopt it due to the CLA.

[jacob]

In 99% of cases, the reason why someone might be using Ubuntu is because they are novice and could not figure out how to install the NVidia driver in another distro they tried and Canonical has a deal to include their binary blob drivers in the proprietary repo.

Or it could be because whether "novice" or not, they have better and more interesting things to do than spending time configuring a distro or learning how to configure a distro. They - rightly - expect their computer to Just Work, all the while being a FOSS platform. Ubuntu is currently the closest thing to this ideal there is. Far from perfect, of course, but nothing comes close - except perhaps Mint and similar distros, which are themselves Ubuntu derivatives.

The huge problem with Ubuntu (Canonical in general) is that they always try to do their own proprietary version of everything that conflicts with what the community is doing, in an attempt to lock in the users so they have no choice but use their product. For example, Canonical pushed Mir instead of Wayland, Unity instead of Gnome, Snap instead of Flatpack, etc.

Mir was a mistake but ultimately, it hurt no one except Canonical themselves. Unity was and still is IMHO the best Linux desktop UI available and switching back to GNOME, if anything, was a big step backwards in usability and user friendliness. Projects like Mutiny and UBPorts are trying to keep the concept alive, so presumably they are evil too, no to mention those who prefer Budgie, KDE or XFCE? Snap sees vastly more developer activity and third party support than Flatpak and beats it hands down in terms of number of available packages, so there. At any rate, none of these projects that you mention are proprietary, so your belief is not only inaccurate but also completely mistaken.

And therein lies the problem: because of this, there are software packages coming out that are hardcoded for Ubuntu and their propriatery crap, which makes it impossible to run on anything but Ubuntu. Take a look at NVidia's embedded SDK or AMD's ROCm for example.

Once again, which part of Ubuntu exactly is proprietary? Obviously I'm not talking about proprietary third-party packages like the NVidia driver.

This can make it a real pain if you already have an infrastructure that does not use it (for example). The end result is that Ubuntu (really Canonical) is fragmenting the Linux community.

It's hard to come by some accurate stats but since most people agree that Ubuntu is by far and large the most widely used distro on desktops and laptops, you can hardly blame it for "fragmenting" the Linux community. If anything, it would be marginally less nonsensical to blame Fedora or Manjaro for fragmenting the community by not being compatible with Ubuntu. But you know what? I think that some fragmentation is a good thing. Yep, let me say it again: SOME FRAGMENTATION IS GOOD(tm). The whole point of a distro is to provide some added value in terms of usability, software support, hardware support and so on. A distro should aim to become a bona-fide OS in the same way as Windows or OSX (of course with a large degree of interoperability between Linux distros, that goes without saying), not just a me-too installer with the same exact packages and the same exact user PITA as everyone else. That was the case back in the days of SLS and the first Slackware releases. Been there, done that and I'm not missing it. In fact you will find that many of what is today considered granted across distros originally appeared as an innovation in one distro (often Fedora, but not always) that none other had.

Oh, incidentally, AFAIK Oracle is only supported on OEL or RHEL and SAP only works on SLES. Many tools in Kali won't work on other distros either. Meanwhile, Arch doesn't use RPM or DEB. Raspbian has its own kernel and firmware update tools, different from the upstream Debian. Gentoo and Devuan are not using systemd, which is not "what the community is doing". So these are all guilty of Fragmenting The Linux Communityt too, are they?

Bottom line: Ubuntu (Canonical) needs to become better citizen or die. Until then, I will keep telling people that they can use any distro they want, as long as it is not Ubuntu.

Use whatever you like and whatever works best for you. More power to you, but I wouldn't expect to find many people interested in you lecturing them about what they "can" use.

[vito]

Or it could be because whether "novice" or not, they have better and more interesting things to do than spending time configuring a distro or learning how to configure a distro. They - rightly - expect their computer to Just Work

Just want to point out, this is the exactly same reasoning that people use to explain why they use a MacOS or Windows instead of Linux. You are free to pick your poison of course.

But seriously, I help manage large number of Linux workstations and servers at work and I can tell you with confidence that the biggest problem people run into on Linux by far is the nvidia driver. Second biggest is installing 3rd party software.

Unity was and still is IMHO the best Linux desktop UI available

I'm afraid I have to disagree, but that is not the point. The point is that Unity was Ubuntu only and had things that broke apps on other distros (like indicators for example). It also made it a pain to port apps that were tied into Unity. I've actually heard cursing from the dev team when they were porting some Unity-based app.

Projects like Mutiny and UBPorts are trying to keep the concept alive, so presumably they are evil too, no to mention those who prefer Budgie, KDE or XFCE?

I never said anyone was evil. And I also never said that there was anything wrong with any other desktop that plays-well-with-others, so please don't "put words in my mouth". :-)

But for the record - Budgie, KDE and XFCE are all fine in my book. I actually use one of them on my laptop. ;-)

At any rate, none of these projects that you mention are proprietary, so your belief is not only inaccurate but also completely mistaken.

All Canonical projects require the contributors to sign their controversial license agreement (CLA) which effectively makes it impossible for other companies to contribute without giving up their rights. So you can sugar coat it any way you want, but at the end of the day lets call it what it actually is - proprietary.

See here for more info: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/29160.html

Snap sees vastly more developer activity and third party support than Flatpak and beats it hands down in terms of number of available packages, so there.

By that logic, we should all be using Windows because it sees the most developer activity and third party support. :-)

I think that some fragmentation is a good thing.

And this is why Linux does not own the desktop!

Seriously though, difference between distros is okay, as long as it is interoperable. And that is the point I was trying to get across in my earlier comment.

Use whatever you like and whatever works best for you. More power to you, but I wouldn't expect to find many people interested in you lecturing them about what they "can" use.

I agree that people are free to use whatever they want to use. And I wasn't trying to lecture you on what you can and cannot use - its a free country!

What I am doing is trying to explain that the animosity against Ubuntu and Canonical is often not due to zealosy or fanboyism (as you put it in the comment regarding TemplarGR's comment). Instead, there are several very serious reasons why some of us are genuinely concerned with what is happening.

Canonical is following exactly the same tactic that Microsoft used back in the day to take established standards and change it enough to make it incompatible with other systems - so called "Embrace, extend and extinguish": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrac...and_extinguish



In the words of Morpheus: "I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."

[jacob]

Just want to point out, this is the exactly same reasoning that people use to explain why they use a MacOS or Windows instead of Linux.

Which certainly makes sense as far as they are concerned. I want the same, but I also want it to be FOSS, and Ubuntu is great in that regard until something better *from this point of view* comes along. And for those who prefer Windows or MacOS, then why wouldn't they use it? I don't care about "getting" them to switch to Linux and I care even less about "getting" Ubuntu users to switch to Arch or Debian.

But seriously, I help manage large number of Linux workstations and servers at work and I can tell you with confidence that the biggest problem people run into on Linux by far is the nvidia driver. Second biggest is installing 3rd party software.

I can think of a couple more problems but yes, these two are up there. And not coincidentally, they are precisely the two things that Ubuntu does better than other distros, hence its popularity.

I'm afraid I have to disagree, but that is not the point. The point is that Unity was Ubuntu only and had things that broke apps on other distros (like indicators for example). It also made it a pain to port apps that were tied into Unity. I've actually heard cursing from the dev team when they were porting some Unity-based app.

So Unity is Bad(tm) because it had features that others didn't at the time, and developers dared using them? I think I need a moment.

Seriously, I believe that it is this mindset, more than anything else, that holds Linux back on the desktop. Developers must be able to assume and require certain functionalities (if you prefer, hard system dependencies). Say a personal contact management app is IMHO much more valuable if it has a polished UI including indicators and others bells and whistles (e.g. Unity dependency) and can automatically synchronise with a cloud at predefined intervals (systemd timers dependency), rather than if it doesn't do any of these things, but is able to run under twm and expects users to write a crontab. The fact that in the latter case it woudn't "fragment" anything would be a meagre consolation and certainly wouldn't get anywhere near making Linux competitive on the desktop.

I never said anyone was evil. And I also never said that there was anything wrong with any other desktop that plays-well-with-others, so please don't "put words in my mouth". :-)

But for the record - Budgie, KDE and XFCE are all fine in my book. I actually use one of them on my laptop. ;-)

Unity didn't break anything. Everything worked fine under it and it introduced a few things that were embraced by upstream devs, which is the very definition of a successful project. Some of them are now finding their way into other desktops as well. And I'm glad to hear that KDE is fine in your book, but I presume that you know that it has many more "own" functionalities than Unity ever did, don't you?

All Canonical projects require the contributors to sign their controversial license agreement (CLA) which effectively makes it impossible for other companies to contribute without giving up their rights. So you can sugar coat it any way you want, but at the end of the day lets call it what it actually is - proprietary.

Except it isn't. Firstly, not all Canonical projects require CLAs. Mir did, but LXD for example doesn't. Secondly, a CLA comes into play if you want to contribute code back to Canonical to be merged upstream. But of course you don't have to. You can happily fork the project and distribute it on your own, re-merging from upstream at any time, without being bound by anything other than the code's actual licence. One Canonical project that requires a CLA (as far as I know) is snapd, but that doesn't stop Debian, Arch and a number of other distros from distributing it modified and adapted for their own purposes. The fact that we didn't really see Unity outside of Ubuntu had nothing to do with any CLA, it was because it required patches in Mesa that other distros didn't want to support. But there was at least one other distro that did, in fact, offer Unity. I don't remember if it was Arch or Gentoo.

By that logic, we should all be using Windows because it sees the most developer activity and third party support. :-)

By that logic, many people indeed use Windows for that reason. Which probably means that the Linux world should look and see if there is something to be learned in terms of developer-friendliness (without compromising on its FOSS nature, obviously). I confess I'm not entirely clear what is the point you are trying to make: snap may have better support (not just on Ubuntu, mind you) but is bad because reasons, and Ubuntu would be better if it dropped it and tried to ride a dead horse instead?

What I am doing is trying to explain that the animosity against Ubuntu and Canonical is often not due to zealosy or fanboyism (as you put it in the comment regarding TemplarGR's comment). Instead, there are several very serious reasons why some of us are genuinely concerned with what is happening.

As mentioned above many of these reasons seem little more than gratuitous prejudice or myths. Whatever you believe that "is happening" (spoiler: nothing whatsoever), if you are so concerned about it then you can hopefully find peace of mind knowing that Linux will always be FOSS and Ubuntu nor anyone else can ever change that even if they wanted to. SCO tried, with Microsoft's deep pockets at hand, and, as the cliché goes, the rest is history.

Canonical is following exactly the same tactic that Microsoft used back in the day to take established standards and change it enough to make it incompatible with other systems - so called "Embrace, extend and extinguish": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrac...and_extinguish

With the small difference that whatever little Canonical does, it's open source, available for anyone to merge it in (and yes, there are numerous Canonical developments that land in other distros as well, contrary to a popular talking point) and that Canonical can't even extinguish their own abandonware (Mir), let alone anyone else's project.


In the words of Morpheus: "I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."[/QUOTE]