Ubuntu Derivative Alpha Releases Are Back To Being Questioned

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu Derivative Alpha Releases Are Back To Being Questioned

While Ubuntu itself hasn't participated in the alpha releases now for a few years in favor of focusing on high-quality daily ISOs, Ubuntu derivatives such as Kubuntu and Xubuntu have long been pushing out alpha releases to help with testing by the community. However, for lack of people stepping up to manage these releases, it's looking like they may not happen or with fewer alpha releases...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Alpha-Question

[bug77]

I think there's some self-inflicted pain in there. Almost every time I tried a beta release, I hit some annoying issue. Thus, I started to avoid them. If other users are like me, the maintainers weren't getting significant feedback anyway, because people weren't installing the builds.
And I really don't get the argument about the lack of resources: it far more complicated to manage issues reported on daily builds, than it is to group them around a few set releases. Then again, with the migration to systemd, support for wayland (and pulseaudio before that), I can see how maintaining a Linux distro is becoming more resource intensive.

Fwiw, I'm talking about Kubuntu, but since most problems I saw were not KDE related, I believe they were coming from Ubuntu itself, thus affected all derivatives.

[caligula]

Then again, with the migration to systemd, support for wayland (and pulseaudio before that), I can see how maintaining a Linux distro is becoming more resource intensive.

What? A whole Linux desktop wide standards add more work compared to Ubuntu's own NIH stuff? Don't think so. I don't use Ubuntu alpha/beta versions cause they are badly broken every time. It's a horrible mess to fix it up even as an ordinary user. I'll stick with rolling release distros, tyvm.

[Passso]

Concernng Ubuntu, not only alphas and betas are quite impossible to use daily, but even non-LTS are starting to be hard nowadays.
But TBH all LTS with "service pack" are pretty solid so I only upgrade when Canonical decide it now.

Rolling distros are really cool but only if you do not need specific drivers or exotic softwares. Every distro have strengh and weakness

[Modu]

Concernng Ubuntu, not only alphas and betas are quite impossible to use daily, but even non-LTS are starting to be hard nowadays.
But TBH all LTS with "service pack" are pretty solid so I only upgrade when Canonical decide it now.

Rolling distros are really cool but only if you do not need specific drivers or exotic softwares. Every distro have strengh and weakness

With the application containers in common use, there won't be any point in using distros with archaic software. Rolling-release distros are the future (See CoreOS, Clear Linux, Gnome xdg-app...)

[profoundWHALE]

With the application containers in common use, there won't be any point in using distros with archaic software. Rolling-release distros are the future (See CoreOS, Clear Linux, Gnome xdg-app...)

Snappy, or something like it is more the future. No more dependency hell.

[oliw]

A developer questioned the process. Everybody else involved saw value in it. Nothing changed.

[MoonMoon]

Almost every time I tried a beta release, I hit some annoying issue.

Yeah, you know, the whole point of a beta is for actual users to find those annoying issues and report them, so that they can be fixed.
Having said that, after all, this is Ubuntu we are talking about, so it is not really unlikely that they will release with these annoying issues unfixed anyways, since the holy release date is more important than to deliver quality work.

[bug77]

Yeah, you know, the whole point of a beta is for actual users to find those annoying issues and report them, so that they can be fixed.
Having said that, after all, this is Ubuntu we are talking about, so it is not really unlikely that they will release with these annoying issues unfixed anyways, since the holy release date is more important than to deliver quality work.

That's why I have stayed away from alphas: I was hoping by the time they hit beta, only smaller glitches were left. Unfortunately, these days even final releases look like beta software. But there's only so much I can complain about free software.

[MoonMoon]

Unfortunately, these days even final releases look like beta software. But there's only so much I can complain about free software.

Do not make the mistake to equate the quality of Ubuntu releases with the quality of open source software in general. There are many projects out there that put releasing quality software much higher than Canonical. Just look at Debian or Slackware, with their "it will be released when it's ready" mantra, or even Fedora with not releasing when there are critical bugs. It is sad that for Canonical release dates set half a year in the future (or in case of LTS two years in the future) are more important than to release without critical bugs, but that is Canonical modus of operandi, not open source modus of operandi.