Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

[bsniadajewski]

I am reading (at Slashdot) that the Ubuntu Technical Board leader, Scott James Remnant, has proposed a monthly release cycle. I'd say this is as close to a "rolling" release as possible, whiole hopefully keeping the 2-year LTS cycle. The proposal would have alpha, beta, and normal (final) releases handled at the same time. If I recall correctly, this would be like what Debian is going to have with its "rolling" branch (I wouldn't know, never tried straight Debian). I like it, but I'd have an LTS branch for those who want to have that stable releases (for servers and the like).

[GreyGeek]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

The problem that a 6 month cycle has is that if that after distro is installed late in the cycle there are several months of updates to install, making it more difficult and problematic to adopt for both the SOHO and corporate user. This can take a lot of time and can give rise to compatibility problems among versions of various libraries. So, the best time to adopt a distro version is when its ISO is first released. Then, the update features can keep the patches and security fixes flowing, almost in the background with little, if any, user attention. I switched from Kubuntu 9.04 to 10.04, in February of 2010, when 10.04 went BETA, because it was an LTS. I experiment with later releases by running them as guest OSs under VB. I have been using 10.04 for the last 18 months and plan to continue using it another 8 months, until the 12.04 LTS goes gold, if such an event happens.

By releasing monthly Ubuntu will be putting out ISOs monthly, which will make it easier to adopt, or to reinstall if a prior release was problematic. However, most users would install an ISO and then rely on the update mechanism to keep their installation current with app fixes and security patches. Once installed, the promise is that it would never have to be installed again. It would be like my current 10.04 installation, except that I wouldn't have to install a subsequent ISO in order to gain the use of KDE 4.7. When 4.7 finally appeared in the repository the update mechanism would install it.

I suspect that Canonical has an economic reason for considering this move. They compile ISOs every day for several kinds of architectures, so a monthly compile & release could allow cutting back on the dailies, and, it wouldn't require so many package deadlines to be fulfilled at once. It certainly would be a lot more flexible. The purpose for the dailies is to get folks to test them... the "release early, release often" paradigm.

I plan on staying with Kubuntu as long as it retains its quality as a KDE distro.

[perspectoff]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

I've actually now gone almost exclusively with Long Term Releases.

When a system has lots of packages, too-frequent releases makes many packages incompatible with each other.

It is very common for me to find packages that are no longer compatible between 6-month releases; I can only imagine what will happen with 1 month releases.

I generally stay one release behind, because a release does not become stable for a few months (and several package updates) after its release.

This is because each package is changing (sometimes in major ways) at different rates.

For a barebones OS, it matters not what the release schedule is. If a user installs many packages that are not core to the distro, frequent release cycles become a nightmare.

I have frozen the majority of my systems at Kubuntu Lucid, which is a pretty nice, stable release.

I also note that a large number of major packages maintainers now only release major upgrades to be compatible with LTS releases, as well. They also aren't bothering with even the 6-moth versions.

Although I have one or 2 Natty systems, the incremental benefit is minimal, and there are a lot of changes in Natty that are actually inferior to Lucid (such as KPackageKit hiding the actual names of packages by default, displaying their descriptions only, instead). Further, 3 of my packages still don't work in Natty because the package developers had a stable release and weren't willing to sort out all the library changes that appeared in Natty.

I can see those compatibility losses occurring more frequently with more frequent releases, so I personally am against it.

Every 6 months there is some expectation that a majority of packages are compatible, yet it still doesn't happen. How the heck are the MOTU's going to do it every month?

As to having lots of updates to "catch up" on, that's silly. It only takes about 15 minutes to install all the updates.

I do see an advantage to a monthly release schedule, though. It gives more opportunities to get together and drink beer at release parties. Maybe I'll brew up a batch of "Rolling Ubuntu" beer.

[dibl]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

I run aptosid. We get a version upgrade every 6 hours.


(but never a release party .... )

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

As to having lots of updates to "catch up" on, that's silly. It only takes about 15 minutes to install all the updates.

That depends on the speed of your connection and how far along in the cycle you (re)installed the OS. If you installed, say five months after the release install two weeks on a 700 Kb/s connection; it'll take much longer than if you had even a 5 Mb/s connection.

If it were up to me, I'd have whatever the current release repository(s) be labeled or aliased as, well, "release". That way, you won't need to go though a do-release-upgrade if you are able to have the sources.list done correctly. (BTW, I wonder how that would work if they did decide to go for that.)

Edit: I guess that is how it would be done. (I should have read the summary better)

[jpenguin]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

http://www.twm-kd.com/editorials/rol...elease-ubuntu/


http://arstechnica.com/open-source/n...ease-cycle.ars

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

A suggestion for a "rolling"-style Ubuntu:

- LTS - like the current LTS, every two years (or one year maybe),
- release - the monthly with Ubuntu-specific patches.
- beta - pre-release versions (alphas, betas, RCs, etc.) of programs/packages,
- PPA's - for experimental packages from individuals

If a guy is using an LTS (12.04 e.g.) install, he can enable one of the other channels to a specific package or package group(a newer version of LibreOffice than what came in the LTS), then disable that channel after he's done. I believe OpenSuse has a something similar with Tumbleweed and Factory.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

I anticipate a rolling-release model primarily because it's an easier way to always stay up-to-date. Consider the kernel. Canonical makes a decision on a kernel pretty early in the development cycle. Once the cycle is complete and and a Ubuntu hits the intertubes, the kernel's already behind. We're stuck with 3.0 -- and probably will be for the life of Oneiric -- while 3.1 is now out and already creeping into other distros. Yes, we can obtain newer mainline builds, but I'm reluctant to do that because of this warning on that page:

Do mainline kernel builds include Ubuntu specific drivers?
By definition the mainline kernel builds are made from virgin unaltered mainline kernel sources and therefore do not, and should not, include any Ubuntu patches or drivers. There are also no binary drivers for these kernels.

3.1 is of interest to me primarily because of the new cpupowerutils project -- anything to help my computer run cooler and more efficiently is good! And also the requisite improvements to KVM. Since I have to run a Windows VM for work, at some point I'd like to ditch VirtualBox (which is really just an extra layer) and go directly to KVM. But from what I've read, KVM is not yet well-suited to client OSes.

Wikipedia, unsurprisingly, hosts a wonderfully-detailed description of rolling release, including lists of distros that fully or partially adopt the model. The page is filled with interesting nuggets: for instance, I was surprised to learn that Chromium OS is Gentoo-based. And this is a particularly noteworthy bit of counter-intuitiveness:

Although it may be argued that non-rolling distributions make better starting distributions for your average newbie, it is worth noting that unlike most software distributions rolling distributions do not force the user to reinstall in order to run current software. For newbies that are inexperienced with re-installs and lack an experienced user to turn to, a 'newbie friendly' rolling distribution might be viewed by some as worth considering.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

Dude, you left out Wii controller support is in 3.1!

There's often a kernel backport available down the road. I run 10.04 on my server, but it's upgraded to the 2.6.38 series kernel.

My first distros were Mandrake (Mandriva) which was scheduled. Then PCLinuxOS which was rolling for a while and then they'd do a new full new release every 2-3 years when something changed that wasn't easily handled in a rolling way.

Personally, I view the Ubuntu method as the best. A new release every six months in case you want to be bleeding edge, but a long support cycle if you want stability. Typically, I wait a month into the new releases for my desktop/laptops for the major problems to be exposed/fixed. I skipped 10.10 altogether since the installer wouldn't detect my drives correctly. It appears I may be in that boat again with 11.10.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

Oshunluver makes a good point, in my estimation, about stability and bleeding edge.

woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

Dude, you left out Wii controller support is in 3.1!

I might be over 40, but I'm still able to control my Wii all by myself, thankyouverymuch

Oshunluver makes a good point, in my estimation, about stability and bleeding edge.
woodsmoke

Indeed. It would be a mistake for Canonical to force everyone onto a rolling release. I'd love to see it offered as a third option: LTS, 6-month, and rolling.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

I think the idea is to use your wii remote as a bluetooth mouse - think Media Computer like MythTV or Boxee.

Hmmmm, I think I just hijacked this thread... DELETE DELETE DELETE!

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

Oshunluver makes a good point, in my estimation, about stability and bleeding edge.
woodsmoke

Indeed. It would be a mistake for Canonical to force everyone onto a rolling release. I'd love to see it offered as a third option: LTS, 6-month, and rolling.

A guy then could use the 6-month + rooling release as a sort of semi-rolling release (a "stable" kernel base plus updated package suites like LO and KDE apps not tied to KDE release like Amarok).

[wizard10000]

Re: Monthly Ubuntu Releases Proposed

Oshunluver makes a good point, in my estimation, about stability and bleeding edge.

Yup. Kubuntu provides me with a good balance. Debian Testing is too bleeding-edge for me (this is the main reason I abandoned Fedora for Debian after Core 6) while Debian Stable doesn't give me the newer packages that I'd like to have.

Debian did teach me about apt priorities and I did run this nightmarish mix of Stable, Unstable and Testing for awhile but ended up going back to Kubuntu because Stable was just too old and Testing tried to kill my netbook

These days I run the current version with x-swat, Kubuntu and backports PPAs enabled and it seems to give me a good mix of stability plus I get a bunch of the new stuff too