Ubuntu To Turn Into A Rolling-Release Distribution?

[evolution]

Who said you that?!

I have used many a rolling release, Gentoo, Sid, various Debian Testing, Aptosid (Sidux) and a few days with Arch. They all have one thing in common - you spend way too much time on system maintenance. You have to monitor the forums to ensure you do not break something. There is nearly always some package that is not quite right. There can be errors in Ubuntu as well, but generally once you get it right it stays right. Upgrading once every six months is not a chore compared to upgrading every day. Rolling distros are for tinkerers who have the time to devote to just keeping it working, but for those who actually use their computers to do things then some stability is required.

I have given up on various Debian releases because of Samba never really working properly with my WDTV Live and constant fighting with my NAS. Arch seemed pretty good except it refused to print anything from my Canon printer, some Cups issue that I refused to spend days resolving. Arch's Samba did work well with my peripherals and I will try again once the printer issue resolves.

Through thick and thin one thing is always constant. I can install Ubuntu and right click share and the WDTV Live is working in seconds. My networked printer prints, my networked scanner scans, my USB TV stick works just by plugging it in, my Creative Zen is plug and play as is my Vado and my Android phone. With my laptop my 3G USB dongle is plug and play. Most of these things are invented elsewhere at RedHat or SUSE etc, but in one distro they all just work.

To move to a rolling distro is just silly.

Who said you that? If you have a rolling release, if you can stick with the packages you want! (At least this case can be applied, for instance, to Arch).

We can here, for instance talk about the "release cycles". In certain ways, "release cycle" distros could be classified as "rolling-release" distros, with 6-12 month update times.

Personally, I think Ubuntu finally woke up form the illusion 6-month release schedule is a good way to update the system... As it'll mess up your system as much as you would update a "rolling-release" distro fom 6-to-6 months...

My 2c, cheers!

[txwikinger]

The statements of the article are extremely misleading and should be corrected

Phoronix: Ubuntu To Turn Into A Rolling-Release Distribution?

There's been a lot of Ubuntu announcements coming down the pipe lately from ditching the GNOME Shell in favor of their own Canonical-developed Unity desktop to eventually shipping with the Wayland Display Server instead of X.Org. Here's another interesting one: Ubuntu may become a rolling-release distribution...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODgyMw

See http://drupal.txwikinger.me.uk/conte...ibution-ubuntu for more detailed explanations.

[grege]

Who said you that? If you have a rolling release, if you can stick with the packages you want! (At least this case can be applied, for instance, to Arch).

We can here, for instance talk about the "release cycles". In certain ways, "release cycle" distros could be classified as "rolling-release" distros, with 6-12 month update times.

Personally, I think Ubuntu finally woke up form the illusion 6-month release schedule is a good way to update the system... As it'll mess up your system as much as you would update a "rolling-release" distro fom 6-to-6 months...

My 2c, cheers!

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

[V!NCENT]

Who said you that? If you have a rolling release, if you can stick with the packages you want! (At least this case can be applied, for instance, to Arch).

We can here, for instance talk about the "release cycles". In certain ways, "release cycle" distros could be classified as "rolling-release" distros, with 6-12 month update times.

Personally, I think Ubuntu finally woke up form the illusion 6-month release schedule is a good way to update the system... As it'll mess up your system as much as you would update a "rolling-release" distro fom 6-to-6 months...

My 2c, cheers!

Ah... there comes the monkey out of the sleeve

[crazycheese]

Who said you that? If you have a rolling release, if you can stick with the packages you want! (At least this case can be applied, for instance, to Arch).

We can here, for instance talk about the "release cycles". In certain ways, "release cycle" distros could be classified as "rolling-release" distros, with 6-12 month update times.

Personally, I think Ubuntu finally woke up form the illusion 6-month release schedule is a good way to update the system... As it'll mess up your system as much as you would update a "rolling-release" distro fom 6-to-6 months...

My 2c, cheers!

Nope, nearly everything he mentioned was correct.
Arch for the most part is a rolling binary distro. It carries same limitation as Debian Testing does - meaning you HAVE to constantly upgrade. Of course, you might be that lucky to ask pacman to pin the package, but as soon as something depending on it is not compatible anymore you will have to upgrade. Of course it does not touches AUR, but AUR contents were 25% breaking anyway for no quality control, back in times when I used Arch.

Binary is interesting, if you have a package that supports 5 optional features meeting the same flexibility like source-based would require building 5x the package. Multiply this by 3-4 different versions(for those wishing to stay back). You have 3x5 builds already and thats for single package not counting deep dependencies or build environiment versions/settings. Of course there is (rather unflexible) ABS or apt-source, but this would transform the distro into source-based immediately.

Using source-based, like Gentoo, widens this aspect by huge degree, but still sometimes it is not supported anymore per upstream and you have to upgrade. More than that, Gentoo Devs officially recommend keeping system up to date, rather than blocking everything, because you might end will huge mess in 4-5 years(I think part for this reason system profiles were introduced ). And you kinda use-up more diskspace, time and cpu resources as payoff for prefering source.

So, if you have binary-based distro its best bet to agree on version increase condition or tempo and then just follow it.

[TemplarGR]

I have and it doesn't even come close. One word: fglrx.

Nice attempt at trolling...

Fglrx is not part of the official distribution, because it can't keep up with latest kernel and/or xorg versions. It would be the same for Ubuntu if they actually shipped up-to-date code once in a while...

Plus, most of the time the opensource radeon, the version of which is always the latest for Arch, is stable and good enough for daily use.

[Pallokala]

N
Using source-based, like Gentoo, widens this aspect by huge degree, but still sometimes it is not supported anymore per upstream and you have to upgrade. More than that, Gentoo Devs officially recommend keeping system up to date, rather than blocking everything, because you might end will huge mess in 4-5 years(I think part for this reason system profiles were introduced ). And you kinda use-up more diskspace, time and cpu resources as payoff for prefering source.

I agree. A gentoo system left alone for more than two years is impossible to upgrade. Reinstall is needed, because gcc and core libraries are nearly impossible to upgrade at the same time. I once managed to pull that off, but it required a lot of computing time and thinking.

[TemplarGR]

Who says that in order to develop something you need a stable desktop?

All of you "experts" have you actually developed something?

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.

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...

If that was the case, we would not have a single application running on Linux now...

It is funny how most phoronix forum posters have no experience in coding yet they make statements like they were some kind of authority... Stop spreading FUD please.

There are 2 reasons for companies to ignore Linux:

1) They hate the opensource model. They believe it will make them less profitable. They do not want the world to find out it can use opensource applications. Plus they believe that most of Linux users will not pay for software anyway.

2) They do not want to maintain their applications after releasing them. Most of the time they patch whatever cannot be ignored. but in general after they have taken your money for the app they see no interest in spending resources on an app that will not make you spend money again, they move their resources on the next version...

[squirrl]

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.

Who says that in order to develop something you need a stable desktop?

All of you "experts" have you actually developed something?

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.

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...

If that was the case, we would not have a single application running on Linux now...

It is funny how most phoronix forum posters have no experience in coding yet they make statements like they were some kind of authority... Stop spreading FUD please.

There are 2 reasons for companies to ignore Linux:

1) They hate the opensource model. They believe it will make them less profitable. They do not want the world to find out it can use opensource applications. Plus they believe that most of Linux users will not pay for software anyway.

2) They do not want to maintain their applications after releasing them. Most of the time they patch whatever cannot be ignored. but in general after they have taken your money for the app they see no interest in spending resources on an app that will not make you spend money again, they move their resources on the next version...

[XorEaxEax]

The reason Linux isn't an attractive market for commercial software is due to it's small desktop market share, not because it's difficult to support.

Take the exception of the 3D/SFX industry, Linux is huge here, not only as renderfarms but in all parts of the pipeline. This is the reason that despite Linux small desktop market share, it still has up to date versions of high-end 3d/SFX software like Maya, XSI, Maxwell, SideFX Houdini, Nuke, Renderman, etc.

It's a question of demand, not some technical barrier.