Cancel April release of Vivid

[life0riley]

Well, I have to disagree with the notion of "non-techie" people only using the LTS versions. I would describe myself as a "techie" ... always have been ... (although I would describe myself as a nerd rather than a geek) It takes me ages to get my everyday system looking and behaving how I want it to, ...

1+

My host is still on 12.04 LTS. Why? I get what I need from it. Everything works as designed and it is still supported. If I need bleeding edge to run programs I don't have or that are not available in this distro I install the latest versions as VirtualBox guests. If I need something that is only available in Arch Linux or Slackware, I'll tough it through the installs to get what I want.

[Qqmike]

lifeOriley
Well, I have to disagree with the notion of "non-techie" people only using the LTS versions. I would describe myself as a "techie" ... always have been ... (although I would describe myself as a nerd rather than a geek) ... My host is still on 12.04 LTS. Why? I get what I need from it.

Absolutely, right on -- that's where I'm at, too. I can be as geeky/techie as anyone, but who cares? THAT is the issue! If you care to do/be so, well ... Linux is choices! Choose something to play with, to be challenged by. OTOH, if you are at a place where you simply want a darned OS that takes you where you want to go, well, there's choices for that, too ... like 12.04 or our 14.04. Simple as that. Choose from the menu of OS choices. No big deal. I'm content with my 14.04; and 12.04 would also do the trick for me at this time.

[vinnywright]

And I still can't get some On Demand TV (with it's damnable DRM) working in Firefox. .

you mite look to hear for that ,,,https://launchpad.net/~mjblenner/+ar...ubuntu/ppa-hal and amazon prime

VINNY

[SteveRiley]

Folks, LTS is not an indication of higher quality or more thorough testing. An LTS release gets six months of prep time just like other releases.

LTS means long term support. Long term support means that updated kernels, drivers, other components, and security patches will be made available.

[kubicle]

Folks, LTS is not an indication of higher quality or more thorough testing. An LTS release gets six months of prep time just like other releases.

There are actually measures taken to ensure a "higher quality" and "more testing":

Release Plan Details

1. We start stabilizing the release early by significantly limiting the number of new features. We will choose which features we package into the LTS release, versus which ones we leave out and allow for users to optionally download and use from a separate archive.
2. Avoid structural changes as far as possible, such as changing the default set of applications, lots of library transitions, or system layer changes (example: introducing KMS or hal → DeviceKit would not have been appropriate changes in a LTS).

Furthermore, we define the LTS to be:

• Enterprise Focused: We are targeting server and multiple desktop installations, where the average user is moderately risk averse.
• Compatible with New Hardware: We will make point releases throughout the development cycle to provide functional support for new server and desktop hardware.
• More Tested: We will shorten the development window and extend the Beta cycle to allow for more testing and bug fixing

and clearly state that it is not:

• A Feature-Based Release: We will focus on hardening functionality of existing features, versus introducing new ones¹, except for in the areas of Online Services and Desktop Experience².
  • 1. Exceptions for priority projects will be documented.
    2. Because these two areas of development are relatively new, they still require new features to satisfy the original reasons for their creation
  
  
• Cutting Edge: Starting with the 14.04 LTS development cycle, automatic full package import is performed from Debian unstable¹
  • 1. This is due to deploying ProposedMigration in the Ubuntu archive.
  
  

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

(Note for the cutting edge part, LTS version prior to 14.04 synced from debian testing instead of unstable)

[claydoh]

Note that this pertains to Unity and the underlying core common to all flavours, Not necessarily to the DE.

12.04 was LTS, but the akonadi migration mess from a late KDE update would not be considered stable.

The kubuntu devs try, and usually succeed, at taking more time as is possible for LTS , but I have to agree 100% with Steve, at least in terms of our desktop.

[SteveRiley]

There are actually measures taken to ensure a "higher quality" and "more testing"

Yeah, I've read that. But my interpretation is that it's mostly hype. LTSes have seen major feature changes.

8.04

• Introduced Tracker desktop search and the underlying indexing scheme
• Added PulseAudio
• Added support for Active Directory authentication
• Introduced Wubi installer
• Added Netbook Remix

10.04

• Added Plymouth
• Swapped out GIMP for F-Spot
• Integrated social networking into various aspects of the UI
• New design theme, including the relocation of window buttons from the upper right corner to the upper left

12.04

• Swapped out Banshee for Rhythmbox
• Dropped Tomboy and Mono
• Introduced the heads-up display, which requires a fair degree of knowledge of what's on the system to take full advantage of it

14.04

• The promise of support for tablets, smartphones and TVs, which never fully materialized. Work on this certainly detracted from work that could have been done elsewhere
• Developer preview for Unity 8 -- again, a distraction that shouldn't have been part of an LTS cycle
• Mobile applications
• A new control center

So, in essence, I don't believe the claims on that wiki page. LTS cycles should not be used to introduce major changes and new components, because to do so necessarily means there's less time available for testing routine upgrades to the rest of the system.

[kubicle]

Note that this pertains to Unity and the underlying core common to all flavours, Not necessarily to the DE.

Yes, the LTS status does not really matter when KDE version is concerned. Usually the latest stable version (that fits the *buntu release schedule/freezes) of KDE is included.

But the DE is only a part of a linux distribution (highly visible, of course), and how it performs depends quite a lot on those "common core" parts, which also by themselves have an effect on the stability and functionality of an installation.

for example, the upstart-->systemd transition would not happen on an LTS release. Big core changes always happen in non-lts releases.

[kubicle]

Yeah, I've read that. But my interpretation is that it's mostly hype. LTSes have seen major feature changes.

8.04

• Introduced Tracker desktop search and the underlying indexing scheme
• Added PulseAudio
• Added support for Active Directory authentication
• Introduced Wubi installer
• Added Netbook Remix

10.04

• Added Plymouth
• Swapped out GIMP for F-Spot
• Integrated social networking into various aspects of the UI
• New design theme, including the relocation of window buttons from the upper right corner to the upper left

12.04

• Swapped out Banshee for Rhythmbox
• Dropped Tomboy and Mono
• Introduced the heads-up display, which requires a fair degree of knowledge of what's on the system to take full advantage of it

14.04

• The promise of support for tablets, smartphones and TVs, which never fully materialized. Work on this certainly detracted from work that could have been done elsewhere
• Developer preview for Unity 8 -- again, a distraction that shouldn't have been part of an LTS cycle
• Mobile applications
• A new control center

So, in essence, I don't believe the claims on that wiki page. LTS cycles should not be used to introduce major changes and new components, because to do so necessarily means there's less time available for testing routine upgrades to the rest of the system.

Most of these are actually quite small changes (switching to another app [or dropping one] installed by default is about as trivial a change one can make...when it comes to stablity, that is). And Unity is exempt (explained in the document, because it's new and they need to release as often as possible). Remixes, developer previews, wubi installers etc. were not part of the default installation.

Also, beta cycle is longer, which should mean longer testing.

Of course, you are correct that these measures don't really guarantee anything, but I still would not say that the LTS is "only about support length"

[SteveRiley]

for example, the upstart-->systemd transition would not happen on an LTS release. Big core changes always happen in non-lts releases.

So you don't think adding PulseAudio, introducing new UI paradigms, and throwing a lot of development resources behind a doomed form factor aren't "big core changes"? I guess you and I have different perspectives here

[kubicle]

So you don't think adding PulseAudio,

That's a big core change, but I don't think the LTS logic was the same back then as it is now

introducing new UI paradigms

UI is not really part of the common core (these depend on the flavor of *buntu)

and throwing a lot of development resources behind a doomed form factor

That's really not a "core change" in my book, and the development resources actually spent and whether this only happened on an LTS cycle (this sort of development usually happens across all cycles and it doesn't make sense to halt it just because LTS cycle starts) is debatable.

[ScottyK]

Before I make the jump to 15.04 I'm waiting for the Dropbox icon "issue" to be resolved. in KDE5 the Dropbox icon won't show up in the system tray. No icon means no access to the program. I've seen a couple of work arounds out there, but it's above my head. 14.10 is happily humming along for now.

[xennex81]

I think 15.10 just feels fancy.

[NoWorries]

I thought I would try the 22nd April iso since it was on the eve of the "release date". I am not sure if others have had this problem, but I cannot launch System Settings. I get the following plasma message.



I have searched on another Vivid system where System Settings works and it does not have the file:

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkdeinit5.systemsettings.so

So I will have a go downloading the 23rd April iso file tomorrow and see if that problem is resolved, rather than bash my head against a brick wall trying to solve it.

What I am aiming to do is copy all my 14.10 home directory hidden files onto the USB Flash memory before installing Vivid to see what would happen if I installed Vivid on my Laptop that has 14.10. Current indications are that this will not happen soon.

[xennex81]

That's the biggest downside for me in installing both Vivid and 14.10 and ideally I want them to share the same home directory and I think particularly the .kde directory is going to be problematic but who knows what else.

So I'm eager to learn of your results Mr. NoWorries.

I'm even thinking of providing an aufs union mount where my "easy shared" files (the ones I craft myself or know for a fact that they have to be identical) are mounted from a dedicated home partition and the rest just sits on the root filesystem of the distribution itself, or similar. It all gets so messy.

Mounting a tree from a partition is also difficult, first you have to mount the partition somewhere, then bind mount it somewhere else, or aufs mount it on top of the regular /home, Linux filesystems are messy in any case.