up vote -1 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 release in wubi and in normal mode on different hardware and every time I found out many annoying bugs and imperfections. E.g. wubi brakes without any messages; after normal (not wubi) installation gdm doesn’t “want” to load and I have to run it (sudo) manually through repair mode; there are many bugs in “Startup application references” and in “NetworkManager Applet”; Firefox “eats” CPU and memory resources, etc. I told about bugs but there are many strange “enhancements”, such as absence of popularity rating in Software Center and very inconvenient program description and installation (compare with Add/Remove applet in Ubuntu 9.04) The Karmic Koala (9.10) is very immature version in comparison with 9.04. I think that such half-done product discredits the idea of open source software because Ubuntu was most popular and pleasant (before 9.10) Linux distribution. What do you think, should Canonical revise their half-year release policy? In my opinion next Ubuntu versions should be released after comprehensive verification. Not obligatory in April and November.

Edit. I told about desktop edition, not server!

link|improve this question
feedback

migrated from serverfault.com Dec 24 '09 at 15:54

This question came from our site for system administrators and desktop support professionals.

closed as not constructive by David Pearce, Sathya♦, Diago Dec 24 '09 at 18:11

This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

As others have noted already, this doesn't really seem to be serverfault material. That said...

Ubuntu exists partially as an answer to the long, 3+ year development cycle of Debian in the early part of this decade where releases kept getting pushed back in the name of making sure everything was absolutely stable. The end result was that Debian stable lagged far behind every other major distribution, and it was impossible to plan anything around Debian's non-release schedule.

Canonical stepped in, forked the distribution, and committed to a hard timeline specifically to avoid getting into the release creep state Debian was mired down in. You know that Ubuntu will get a new mainline release every six months, and an LTS release every two years. You know that 6 month releases get 18 months of official support and that LTS releases get 3 years. That kind of release schedule was unheard of at the time, and, on the whole, has ended up doing wonders for moving the state of the Linux desktop forward.

Canonical has also shown willingness to break the 6 month cycle if there are show stoppers that need more work. 6.06 was originally slated to be 6.04 before being pushed back for some final polish. They're not going to delay a release for minor problems, because, frankly, every distribution is going to have minor problems and trying to fix everything ends up with insanely long stretches between releases.

link|improve this answer
Bingo. Chasing perfection in something as huge as an operating system (especially when including third-party software like Firefox, as the OP does) means never releasing, ever. – ceejayoz Dec 24 '09 at 16:13
feedback
up vote 3 down vote

Ubuntu has a concept of LTS - Long Term Support - versions. If only want very stable versions, stay with LTS versions and avoid others.

link|improve this answer
Very or not very stable - not such words. Half-done or raw - what it is. – Anonymous Dec 24 '09 at 13:51
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

This is more of a forum/poll question than a real question: but I'll give it a shot anyways.

Zeroth, have you approached Canonical over any of your concerns?

First, applications (such as Firefox) not behaving really says nothing about the platform. FF in particular has a variety of known issues related to memory and processor usage.

Second, the sudo issue is intentional- instead of having root turned-on by default, the initial user does admin activities via sudo (a better route, in my opinion).

Third, why are you not running the LTS editions for your servers?

Fourth, they are not always released in April and October - sometimes there are legit delays (though infrequently).

Fifth, Why are you installing graphical packages on a server? Unless you're planning to run VMware or similar, servers should be installed as command-line only.. which would avoid many of the issues you've described.

Sixth, have you taken any of these concerns/issues up with Canonical? Asking opinions of random internet users is probably not the best way of changing what you see to be an issue.

Seventh, what are you using the machines for? Personally, though I haven't updated in a while, I've not had any of the issues you've described on any of the releases I've run. Perhaps in your particular case you should be looking at one of the less-frequently-released distributions, such as Slackware or CentOS or straight Debian.

link|improve this answer
Where I told about server? - It's a desktop edition. Sudo is not an issue, - issue is gdm, which doesn't run properly at startup. About Firefox: i think that Canonical should check application stability before inclusion to distribution. And about my concerns: make google search about Ubuntu 9.10 bugs – Anonymous Dec 24 '09 at 13:48
Find us an operating system that doesn't have lots of results in a Google search for "<operating system> bugs" and we'll talk. – ceejayoz Dec 24 '09 at 14:32
macropas is right, though, that 9.10 is a step backward from 9.04. ceejayoz, your argument that "well, others aren't perfect" is irrelevant, the point is relative quality. – CarlF Dec 24 '09 at 16:15
Minix, perhaps? :) – warren Dec 25 '09 at 13:51
and about the "server" question, this was asked on serverfault initially – warren Dec 25 '09 at 13:51
feedback