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Good, they aren't going to have a release that is a massive regression (again). I was planning on skipping 13.10 because everything so far said it would have wo

Good, they aren't going to have a release that is a massive regression (again). I was planning on skipping 13.10 because everything so far said it would have worse performance and more bugs. OTOH it's a bit scary that their release engineering is making big dramatic structural changes in X servers 3-4 weeks before launch. It should be in frozen locked down beta now... The real solution was that XMir never should have been jammed into their release so forceful while obviously so unready in the first place... Still this is better than launching with it anyways, so half marks Canonical. But this is nothing like the rock solid stability you provided in Beta and Alpha last decade.

Steltek 13y ago
Why not? It worked for PulseAudio, right? Or how about the upgrade between the last two LTS releases? I can't understand Canonical's downright eagerness to force broken software out the door just to appease their roadmap and rigid release schedule. It's pushed as the newbie friendly distro but behaves more like Gentoo when it's time to upgrade. I cringe when I see people installing Ubuntu on to production servers. The track record just does not support that choice.
- Jach 13y ago
  I'm not sure why you're throwing Gentoo under the bus when its upgrade system is completely different. There is no "time to upgrade" because there are no releases to upgrade to -- you just install new versions of the software you happen to use when they come out and you feel like it. My own experiences with keeping my Gentoo systems up-to-date have been considerably more enjoyable than keeping my Ubuntu systems up-to-date. (I can no longer keep my GUI-reliant Ubuntu systems up-to-date because they're still using 10.04 as I refuse to "upgrade" past Gnome2. So it was bye-bye Ubuntu for me for new installs.) I agree with jcastro that Ubuntu Server is good, it's easy. It's a popular choice for Amazon ec2 images. It also represents a different mindset in system administration compared to the classic one that went like "Install CentOS version X and keep it for 5 years, sure the software is old as crap even when version X just came out and we hope we can apply security patches without needing a whole new version that depends on something the package manager can't provide, but it's stable!!!" (Just for fun I googled "centos packages old as crap" and this popped up as the first link. http://scalability.org/?p=6270 http://scalability.org/?p=6270 Notice how it's from two months ago? It's not a new phenomenon either.)
- jcastro 13y ago
  > I cringe when I see people installing Ubuntu on to production servers. The track record just does not support that choice. Wow seriously? Wikipedia, Dropbox, Hulu, NTT, ATT, HP Cloud (Guest AND Host), Comcast. Netflix is moving it's entire infrastructure to Ubuntu. Hate on linux sound all you want but Ubuntu Server is awesome.
  - j_s 13y ago
    This is the Ubuntu equivalent of saying Windows 2000 is great in response to complaints about Windows ME.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      Grandparent specifically said installing Ubuntu onto production servers makes him cringe.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  "I cringe when I see people installing Ubuntu on to production servers. The track record just does not support that choice." I would appreciate a pointer to the track record. Genuinely interested not provoking here. Ubuntu Server LTS has always had a 5 year support period, so 10.04 supported until April 2015 and 12.04 until April 2017. Seems widely used.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  I have zero problem with Canonical taking risks with their non-LTS desktop releases. That's what they've always been for. If you can't abide the issues you'll run into and don't want to contribute to the bug hunting, stick with the LTS desktop or LTS server, that's what they're for. This is a free OS, hence "customers" are also beta testers. Getting new features into their customers/testers hands early and in imperfect condition is the best way to push things forward to the next stable LTS. Learn it, live it, love it.
keithpeter 13y ago
"OTOH it's a bit scary that their release engineering is making big dramatic structural changes in X servers 3-4 weeks before launch" My understanding is that both Mir/xMir and X11 are in there, just X11 is the default now instead of Mir/xMir because latter not ready for prime time. Have I got that wrong?

Steltek 13y ago

Why not? It worked for PulseAudio, right? Or how about the upgrade between the last two LTS releases? I can't understand Canonical's downright eagerness to force broken software out the door just to appease their roadmap and rigid release schedule. It's pushed as the newbie friendly distro but behaves more like Gentoo when it's time to upgrade. I cringe when I see people installing Ubuntu on to production servers. The track record just does not support that choice.

Jach 13y ago
I'm not sure why you're throwing Gentoo under the bus when its upgrade system is completely different. There is no "time to upgrade" because there are no releases to upgrade to -- you just install new versions of the software you happen to use when they come out and you feel like it. My own experiences with keeping my Gentoo systems up-to-date have been considerably more enjoyable than keeping my Ubuntu systems up-to-date. (I can no longer keep my GUI-reliant Ubuntu systems up-to-date because they're still using 10.04 as I refuse to "upgrade" past Gnome2. So it was bye-bye Ubuntu for me for new installs.) I agree with jcastro that Ubuntu Server is good, it's easy. It's a popular choice for Amazon ec2 images. It also represents a different mindset in system administration compared to the classic one that went like "Install CentOS version X and keep it for 5 years, sure the software is old as crap even when version X just came out and we hope we can apply security patches without needing a whole new version that depends on something the package manager can't provide, but it's stable!!!" (Just for fun I googled "centos packages old as crap" and this popped up as the first link. http://scalability.org/?p=6270 http://scalability.org/?p=6270 Notice how it's from two months ago? It's not a new phenomenon either.)
jcastro 13y ago
> I cringe when I see people installing Ubuntu on to production servers. The track record just does not support that choice. Wow seriously? Wikipedia, Dropbox, Hulu, NTT, ATT, HP Cloud (Guest AND Host), Comcast. Netflix is moving it's entire infrastructure to Ubuntu. Hate on linux sound all you want but Ubuntu Server is awesome.
- j_s 13y ago
  This is the Ubuntu equivalent of saying Windows 2000 is great in response to complaints about Windows ME.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Grandparent specifically said installing Ubuntu onto production servers makes him cringe.
keithpeter 13y ago
"I cringe when I see people installing Ubuntu on to production servers. The track record just does not support that choice." I would appreciate a pointer to the track record. Genuinely interested not provoking here. Ubuntu Server LTS has always had a 5 year support period, so 10.04 supported until April 2015 and 12.04 until April 2017. Seems widely used.
SkyMarshal 13y ago
I have zero problem with Canonical taking risks with their non-LTS desktop releases. That's what they've always been for. If you can't abide the issues you'll run into and don't want to contribute to the bug hunting, stick with the LTS desktop or LTS server, that's what they're for. This is a free OS, hence "customers" are also beta testers. Getting new features into their customers/testers hands early and in imperfect condition is the best way to push things forward to the next stable LTS. Learn it, live it, love it.

keithpeter 13y ago

"OTOH it's a bit scary that their release engineering is making big dramatic structural changes in X servers 3-4 weeks before launch" My understanding is that both Mir/xMir and X11 are in there, just X11 is the default now instead of Mir/xMir because latter not ready for prime time. Have I got that wrong?