Canonical needs to hire more Quality Assurance guys for Intrepid Ibex

[verb3k]

Quite simply Hardy was the buggies ubuntu experience I had since I knew about ubuntu (although it was supposed to be the most stable)

why not hire 10 or 15 more full time guys to do the QA and clean ubuntu and make it a viable OS?

The only thing I always keep worrying about is "bugs".

"bugs" is a word that I really started repeating a lot recently.

A Multi-Millionaire like Mark Shuttleworth can afford to hire 2000 full time people. We are not asking for much, huh Mark?

[caryb]

Sorry but I don't agree, If this gets too expensive for Mark he will probably take his bat & ball & go home!

We are the QA


Cary

[verb3k]

Sorry but I don't agree, If this gets too expensive for Mark he will probably take his bat & ball & go home!

We are the QA


Cary

Then can you explain why Hardy is buggier than everyone has thought?

[inportb]

Then explain why Hardy is buggier than everyone has thought.

Because instead of making bug reports, we are making pointless topics like these :)

[verb3k]

Because instead of making bug reports, we are making pointless topics like these :)

Making bug reports? many "reported" bugs (including critical ones) were not fixed before release.

[angryfirelord]

A Multi-Millionaire like Mark Shuttleworth can afford to hire 2000 full time people. We are not asking for much, huh Mark?
Only 2000? If he hires them for a meger $30,000 a year with no other benefits, that would cost him around $60 million yearly. That seems like a rather large price to ask.

Tell you what, if you find a bug, report it! The nice thing about open-source is that your reports don't end up in the trash bin like Mirosoft's reports. Developers don't know what to fix if there are no reports on what to fix, so if you find something, use launchpad to submit a bug.
Then can you explain why Hardy is buggier than everyone has thought?
Who's "everyone"? You'll find there are many satisfied users with Hardy including myself.

[Technoviking]

caryb is right, we (the community)are the Q&A for Ubuntu. While Canonical has many developers working on staff On Ubuntu development most of the work on Ubuntu is done by volunteers.

A Multi-Millionaire like Mark Shuttleworth can afford to hire 2000 full time people. We are not asking for much, huh Mark?


Mark has given a large chuck of time and money to Ubuntu, and it is crude to make such statements as yours.

[Technoviking]

Then can you explain why Hardy is buggier than everyone has thought?

I'm finding Ubuntu 8.04 to be a near perfect computer experience. Have to filed bug or given feedback on bug to help the developers fix your "problems".

[verb3k]

Mark has given a large chuck of time and money to Ubuntu, and it is crude to make such statements as yours.
I am sorry about this statement, I was really bugged up by the fact that I switched back to Gutsy due to driver and stability issues.

[verb3k]

Actually I said 10 or 15 people, the 2000 was not what I intended to say but ....

[tretle]

I dont think alot of the bugs assosiated with this release was canonicals fault. I was using hardy since alpha 1 and had a great experience throughout the entire development cycle.
Unfortunately the month of the rc I had tests and projects for college to finish so I couldnt test hardy during that time.

With 2 days left of tests to go I decided to pull an all nighter and download the final build of hardy when it was released.
When I actually got the time to set up my desktop the way I like it I realized there where serious rendering problems with rendering with compiz and my nvidia 7600gs.The rendering is so frustrating I had to just switch off desktop effects. I tried to troubleshoot the problem in different ways. Reinstalled ubuntu 5 times in one week. Tested compositing with metacity and although the rendering issues seem reduced they are still there.
Is all of this very unfortunate? hell yes. Is it canonicals or the communitys fault? no. Its nvidia's. Alot of the issues people are reporting with hardy are graphics related ati/intel and nvidia.I am one of the victoms of these binary blobs but at least I got to experience the full greatness of hardy before nvidia screwed it up. Yet again, not canonicals fault, and I would like to congradulate them on releaseing a very stable release.

[verb3k]

I dont think alot of the bugs assosiated with this release was canonicals fault. I was using hardy since alpha 1 and had a great experience throughout the entire development cycle.
Unfortunately the month of the rc I had tests and projects for college to finish so I couldnt test hardy during that time.

With 2 days left of tests to go I decided to pull an all nighter and download the final build of hardy when it was released.
When I actually got the time to set up my desktop the way I like it I realized there where serious rendering problems with rendering with compiz and my nvidia 7600gs.The rendering is so frustrating I had to just switch off desktop effects. I tried to troubleshoot the problem in different ways. Reinstalled ubuntu 5 times in one week. Tested compositing with metacity and although the rendering issues seem reduced they are still there.
Is all of this very unfortunate? hell yes. Is it canonicals or the communitys fault? no. Its nvidia's. Alot of the issues people are reporting with hardy are graphics related ati/intel and nvidia.I am one of the victoms of these binary blobs but at least I got to experience the full greatness of hardy before nvidia screwed it up. Yet again, not canonicals fault, and I would like to congradulate them on releaseing a very stable release.

You were lucky, I couldn't even install the video driver.

[ronacc]

we are an essential part of the QA of ubuntu or for that matter any distro. Most of the serious problems people experience are related to specific hardware or combinations of hardware and there is no group smaller than the whole community that can test all the configurations that are out there. participate !
concerning the Nvidia drivers do not try to mix the ubuntu restricted drivers and the propriatary driver from Nvidia.com that is a recipe for disaster . choose 1 and stick with it .

[caryb]

Because instead of making bug reports, we are making pointless topics like these

I must confess to finding launchpad extremely difficult to navigate, I have created bug reports on some apps but others I have given up because it's too hard & waited for someone else to do it & add to the existing one. I have no problem finding the package but the sub package bit gets me (nearly) every time:oops:

Cary

[brownknight]

Actually I said 10 or 15 people, the 2000 was not what I intended to say but ....

I understand what you mean. I also experienced some weird things that was not a problem in Gutsy. Nevertheless, I believe that Mark and the whole Ubuntu community did a lot of good and Ubuntu keeps getting better. As a user, I make it a part to report bugs and help out other newbies in simple problems in the forums. I believe that is the right way to make Ubuntu better.

[roderick]

The majority of issues appear to be in the following categories:

1) pulse-audio
2) Firefox 3
3) Compiz
4) Video drivers (ATI/nVidia)

For 1), I'm not sure if it's widespread or not, but some people had no sound and it was related to pulse audio. Trying Alsa seemed to work for those with issues.

2) While FF3 seems to work fine for most, there are some compatibility issues with older FF2 plugins, and some other small issues (I believe fixed with the xulrunner update). Some reverted back to FF2 in the interim.

3) Compiz (IMHO) should not have been turned on by default. We were hit by a big bug in Compiz and this caused a lot of instability. Disabling Compiz fixed many issues with random crashes. Updates to Compiz have filtered in (not sure if all are in yet) to address these issues.

4) ATI/nVidia - binary only proprietary drivers will continue to be a problem. Personally, I have an Intel, and have had a solid experience (using 855 and 945). The newer 965 is still pretty new and some may have had some minor issues with it. If you have an ATI or nVidia card and have resolved the first 3 problems but still experience issues, try using the nvidia or ati settings gui to adjust your config.

Overall, I have had a rock solid experience with Gutsy and Hardy and as soon as they release Alpha 1 of Intrepid, I'll flip over to it and continue to support the team in tracking issues and bugs.

It is impossible to hire enough people to test all possible configurations, hardware and software, even if they had all the possible hardware to test it on. That's why the community gets alpha and beta releases to trial run. If that succeeds by the majority of early adopters, then issuing a release is the next logical step.

I am curious as to the exact critical bugs referred to, which were supposedly filed. Were they filed before the freeze? Were they confirmed? Were they blockers? It is possible to file a bug and if it does not get confirmed, or is not submitten in time, that the release will happen. If someone cares to point to these mysterious bugs, I would love to look into them further.

I know anytime I have submitted bugs that could be substantiated, they were addressed and in most cases resolved to my satisfaction.

[ronacc]

report it on the main package or as umknown , they will ask for more if they need it . The important thing is to get the reports in early to give the maximum amount of time to fix them , Also discuss them here, there is a lot of talent here to draw on.

[23meg]

Throwing a pack of paid people at a problem doesn't ensure fixing it. Mark knows this well enough (and has talked about it in some blog posts and interviews that you may find with a search). Just like pretty much every "Canonical needs to.." statement I've read, this one doesn't go beyond "I've had problems so this company called Canonical which is responsible from everything with the label Ubuntu on it needs to spend money on what I think is important".

Canonical is a private company. We have no say on where they spend their resources, and the "Canonical should do blah blah" thing, which invariably comes from people who are under the impression that Canonical is the owner and sole controller of Ubuntu in the sense that Microsoft is the owner and sole controller of Windows, is reminiscent of the proprietary software model where people are confined to expecting a company to act in their interests. Things don't work that way in free software: as a community of volunteers, we have a huge workforce, and it's within our powers to constantly develop better ways of utilizing it to fix issues that affect us and everyone else.

Here's where to start:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpingWithBugs

You can also hire people to work on bugs in Ubuntu instead of expecting another company to do so. I'm sure many members of ubuntu-bugcontrol (https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-bugcontrol) would welcome (near) full time employment on making the bug database saner (that includes me).

[nrayever]

hi everyone:

i don't really feel that hardy is that buggy as some say it is. i have being using ubuntu since hoary and i feel that heron is one of the most stable releases.

there's a lot of help that us as user can provide, giving feedback, filling bugs and even if we know how to program an solve those issues. so even right now after the final release we could help, because heron is a LTS so there's a lot of feedback to give.

so if are having issues, bugs, etc... continue reporting them.

this are my 2 cents guys.

nrayever

[Gina]

Agreed. I've found Hardy a lot better than any previous versions too. And I too have found each version an improvement on the last with the exception of Edgy which I didn't manage to install at all.

[ronacc]

and don't scream about bugs until you have tried a fresh install , I have 2 hardy installs , 1 fresh install of gutsy release and udated/ugraded all the way through the hardy dev cycle with many workarounds and hacks , 1 fresh install at late beta (I wanted to wait until release and install but a dying HD hurried the process) and just upgraded , anyone care to guess which is more trouble free ? the 2 boxes are very similar so its not HDW .

[Gina]

I have 6 or 8 installations of Hardy :lolflag: Not sure without counting on all three machines. All work fine except for the well known Network Manager garbage when shutting down. Somewhere between the Beta and final release something happened and I couldn't install the full CD on my old desktop - the mini.iso worked fine though. Even wireless works fine on 2 PCs - one Broadcom bcm4306 and one Ralink rt2500. The other is direct wired. I have fresh installs on each PC - Ubuntu and UbuntuStudio plus updated development versions.

[plun]

Well... Hardy is a dream for an experienced user which knows
Ubuntus secrets.

For a newbie it can be a horror and an evil circle with challenges.

Just to look at every newbie forum around the world including this.


The focus must be on a new "main stream" user.


With this focus every function must be better planned, tested and
documented.


The experienced user survives everything....:)

[Gina]

Yes, I have to agree with that. I think Ubuntu still has a way to go in user friendliness for new users. I think the Wubi idea is a good start for those that don't want to mess about with partitions and would be interested in trying something other than Windows without risking their Windows system.

With a little over a year's experience of Ubuntu and a career in IT and computers I'm not in a position to see Ubuntu from a new user viewpoint any longer, however much I try. I can only install and see if things work OOTB and check out updates for bugs.

Of course, new users of Windows have problems too but with that OS installed on the majority of PCS, new computer users will get to grips with that first. Ubuntu has to be a lot more user friendly than Windows to really win IMO.

But I feel Ubuntu is doing well and improving all the time - we're getting there but it's going to take a while longer yet.

[verb3k]

The experienced user survives everything....:)

True, but would you waste your life struggling against bugs?
OSes exist to save time and effort and serve you, not the other way around.

[ronacc]

some of us enjoy bug hunting , I have a boringly stable install for work and an unstable one (or more) for fun.

[plun]

True, but would you waste your life struggling against bugs?
OSes exist to save time and effort and serve you, not the other way around.

Well, the only way that can solve bugs is more users which leads to more
maintainers and developers.

OpenSource needs users which also are involved upstream and tests new
software before it comes to distributions.

Another interesting suggestion is what MarkS proposed.

The Art of Release

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/146

There’s one thing that could convince me to change the date of the next Ubuntu LTS: the opportunity to collaborate with the other, large distributions on a coordinated major / minor release cycle. If two out of three of Red Hat (RHEL), Novell (SLES) and Debian are willing to agree in advance on a date to the nearest month, and thereby on a combination of kernel, compiler toolchain, GNOME/KDE, X and OpenOffice versions, and agree to a six-month and 2-3 year long term cycle, then I would happily realign Ubuntu’s short and long-term cycles around that. I think the benefits of this sort of alignment to users, upstreams and the distributions themselves would be enormous. I’ll write more about this idea in due course, for now let’s just call it my dream of true free software syncronicity.

A lot of work is done from a few really skilled developers which works for Redhat and Novell. And for Ubuntu, the Debian platform is the key.


But in the "short term" I would go with a newbie focus....

Another problem is that a lot of Ubuntu users thinks Ubuntu is developing a lot of software.. nearly nothing comes from Ubuntu/Canonical.

[Gina]

I totally agree - focus on user friendliness for newbies. I thought that was the principle aim of Ubuntu anyway. There are plenty of distros for the died-in-the-wool Linux aficionados. Let's stick out from the crowd!

[nanog]

GVFS and pulseaudio are basically alphas and there are still far too many annoyances and stability problems for an LTS. Interesting that Mark just offered to change the Ubuntu release schedule to synchronize with other major distros. IMO, there is too much competition to be bleeding edge in major releases. If the majors can agree to synchronize or at least freeze core packages linux will be the better for it.

OT but the impressive new Fedora release now includes a little bit of ubuntu...the upstart init daemon.

[Awalton]

GVFS and pulseaudio are basically alphas and there are still far too many annoyances and stability problems for an LTS.

Interesting note. Why do you think that they are "alphas" (funny too, since they've been worked on for over a year and soon to be 5 years respectively), and why do you care how long Canonical plans on supporting it? If you don't want to use it, you're free not to; Dapper is still under LTS, Feisty and Gutsy are both still supported so you've got choice within Ubuntu as well.

The fact is, neither piece of software is an Alpha, nor a "Beta" (tm Google); both are released products. Both have bugs. Both are incomplete. If nobody used the software, nobody would find the bugs, and they'd never get fixed and remain incomplete forever. And if users never push developers to fix bugs, then they will never get fixed. This is the way Free Software works (see the link at the end of this rant).

If you are "annoyed" by them, file bugs. If you're annoyed that they've been open for a long time, pay people to fix them. Send your favorite developers brownies and thank you notes. Write patches. Get involved, and watch as the annoyances go away. Or just use some other piece of software, the choice is all yours.

Free and Open Source Software is Free as in Freedom, not free as in "Perfect, pristine software for everyone's enjoyment that does everything the user wants at a whim with no effort, and no blood-sweat-and-tears(-or-cash-or-brownies) involved." Leave now if you think this is ever going to change.

Interesting that Mark just offered to change the Ubuntu release schedule to synchronize with other major distros. IMO, there is too much competition to be bleeding edge in major releases. If the majors can agree to synchronize or at least freeze core packages linux will be the better for it.

There's no competition. At all. Ubuntu always releases software every 6 months, they always sync to what's available every 6 months (new GNOME as released every 6 months, every other new kernel which are released about every 90 days, the newest released Xorg, etc), and they always support it based on their schedule, not anyone else's. Ubuntu's not out to compete with other Linuxes, see Launchpad Bug #1 for details.

What every other distro is doing is not being taken in account at the moment; we don't have the time, the energy, or the staff to care. If Slackware or Somenix wants to release every time there's a harvest moon or when someone nearby sneezes that's fine with us. What Mark, and I, and many others want to happen is for people who are really interested in Free Software's growth to release their software on a timely, even schedule. This makes the release process more like the beat of a drum; when everyone hits the drum at the same beat, it's louder and more clear than when people hit the drum whenever they feel like it.

We can't win over everyone, but if we're trying to do that we've already failed and will never succeed. But corporately supported Linuxes in particular, like Redhat and SuSE, releasing at the same time would put out a very loud message which is exactly why Mark pointed them out in his post. Ubuntu (and Free Software in general) has got a bit of Africa in it, after all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_and_response)...

[Gina]

Thank you for that - very well put - covers it nicely :):)

[nanog]

Awalton, I did not intend to denigrate the fine work you and others are doing to make Gnome/Ubuntu better. I already file bugs and you have motivated me to make another financial contribution to the Gnome Foundation (http://www.gnome.org/friends/). I also specifically requested that the money be targeted towards development of GvFS. Nevertheless, it is my opinion that GvFS is not ready for a production environment or an LTS release. I have absolutely no problem with it being included in Ibex.

that does everything the user wants at a whim with no effort, and no blood-sweat-and-tears
I am most concerned about regressions from Gnome VFS and Gutsy/Dapper.

*Launchers, guis, network shares that still disappear on upgrade.

*Functional smb shares (this has gotten alot of negative attention in the press).

*Stable SSH, Webdav, and FTP.

*Fuse mounts that do not crash spontaneously and upon logout.

*Permanent mounting of dead network connections.

*Fuse mounts shown as root in nautilus.

(and this is a very abbreviated list)



"There's no competition. At all."

I respectfully disagree.

What every other distro is doing is not being taken in account at the moment; we don't have the time, the energy, or the staff to care.

I sincerely hope that someone is paying close attention to what other distros are doing.


Ubuntu (and Free Software in general) has got a bit of Africa in it, after all...

It is amusing that the wikipedia link you provided mentions that "call and response" may have originated from scottish-irish protestants (at least in the usa).

[_oOMOo_]

I too have found GVFS to be particularly inconsistent when browsing FTP. Hardy introduced some excellent new features and seriously improved wireless support, but I do think PulseAudio, Firefox 3 and GVFS will be better in a few months than now!

As for bug reporting, Launchpad is excellent, but where to report a problem with GVFS? Is it better to report bugs in Launchpad even if we know the bug is with GNOME? Just curious...

[ronacc]

I sincerely hope that someone is paying close attention to what other distros are doing.


I too hope that we can learn from what other distros do better ( and worse ). I wonder how much time and talent we waste reinventing the wheel ? especialy when the "new " wheel ends up octagonal .

[Awalton]

Awalton, I did not intend to denigrate the fine work you and others are doing to make Gnome/Ubuntu better. I already file bugs and you have motivated me to make another financial contribution to the Gnome Foundation (http://www.gnome.org/friends/). I also specifically requested that the money be targeted towards development of GvFS. Nevertheless, it is my opinion that GvFS is not ready for a production environment or an LTS release. I have absolutely no problem with it being included in Ibex.

You can throw some money my way too ;). But back to the point: GnomeVFS is considered EOL and deprecated. Not shipping it would mean Ubuntu would be the sole supporter of it for the next.. 5 years. GnomeVFS had two active developers before GVFS was invented. GVFS now has 6 that I can count on the tips of my fingers, and we've had patches from probably 20 contributors. Quite frankly, if I had to support something for the time Ubuntu has to, I'd choose GVFS every time.


I am most concerned about regressions from Gnome VFS and Gutsy/Dapper.


As are we, and they're being worked on, on a case-by-case basis. Filing bugs and marking them as regressions is a very quick way to get the upstream to notice. We know that we lost a significant amount of functionality; we went from an old, mostly finished but entirely buggy, to the new, partially finished but a lot more stable system. I've already mentioned this in one other thread, so I better knock on wood before I say it again: We have had no crashes reported to the Upstream GNOME bug tracker of GVFS or its related components since its release. We still to this day get about 10 crashes of GnomeVFS a day, and this is after years and years of work.


*Launchers, guis, network shares that still disappear on upgrade.

Launchers shouldn't disappear, that's not a GVFS issue. GUIs shouldn't disappear either, and again, not a GVFS issue (though it should be noted that there have been changes in the GUI to better support GIO/GVFS features vs. those available under GnomeVFS; changes aren't always regressions).

Network shares disappear because they're completely incompatible with GVFS. GnomeVFS is stateless and shares never were mounted, and were tracked through a bunch of pseudomagical text files. GVFS shares are stateful, and a tracked my mounted locations in a folder, as well as my the mount daemon gvfsd, and by the individual protocol handler's mount daemon (gvfsd-network, gvfsd-smb, etc). I'm not really sure what a "migration UI" would even look like in this case; as long as you kept your server information, it shouldn't be a problem to reenter the information and have a new Bookmark for it.


*Functional smb shares (this has gotten alot of negative attention in the press).

Works for some, not for others. Some aspects of SMB just aren't handled yet. Others are just plain bugs which will be worked out over time. And they may not even be our bugs in all of the cases, we've had some reported issues with the smbclient library we depend on as well. Unfortunately, the person who wrote and understands most of that code is on leave, I don't know anything about SMB and it's a dontcare for me anyways (I'd rather not use Microsoft created protocols for something that can be done much simpler anyways).


*Stable SSH, Webdav, and FTP.

We've had only one or two issues with SSH, which we're tracking. Very odd that some servers don't work... WebDAV isn't done and this is a known regression. And we're using FTP code that we share with Mozilla so essentially, we're either blocking on them fixing it, or on us fixing it together. There's some really great FTP code out there that we just can't use because GVFS is LGPL and not GPL though, and there are some thoughts that we (well, I should say "I", because I'm the person considering this at the moment, though it has been discussed with the author of the FTP backend Benjamin Otte as well) might pull a David Zeuthen and link to it anyways (for understanding of what I mean by this, click here (http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gvfs/trunk/daemon/gvfsbackendcdda.c?revision=1756&view=markup)).


*Fuse mounts that do not crash spontaneously and upon logout.
*Permanent mounting of dead network connections.
*Fuse mounts shown as root in nautilus.

You have three whole bugs there that we aren't tracking. If users don't report them, we don't know about them.


I sincerely hope that someone is paying close attention to what other distros are doing.

Whatever person wants to do this is fine with that person. But Ubuntu, the organization, is not chartered to follow the lead of others with the important caveat of Debian, but that's more out of respect and cooperation and sharing of labor, and in a lot of ways we lead them. Like said, Ubuntu doesn't have the staff to have an "Official Inter-Distribution Communications Council/Liaison" or anything of the like, which is my point on this. If you'd like to do this, please join Ubuntu and start it, and get some help, you'll need it.

Ubuntu talks to upstream in their various components, and various people upstream share information, namely because the upstream components are what's shared between distributions. But that's about the extent of this communication in practice. This is so much to the point, that downstream deltas on pieces of software can get drastic (see the news about the Debian/Ubuntu SSL bug). Point be told, this was what Launchpad was partially invented to solve, but unfortunately the distro-barrier still exists.

It's also factual that there is no competition; Ubuntu doesn't have the energy to say "Haha, we're ahead of everyone else," or to fight to be there. The idea is not to fight with other distributions, because that's a whole lot of wasted effort on everyone's behalf. Ubuntu syncs with what's available, this is a fact, and it's been reiterated by Shuttleworth (http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/150) just today. The fact that Ubuntu has to ship betas every now and again is not because they're trying their hardest to be bleeding edge, it's because that's where the support is.

Firefox 2 will receive very little of the developer's energy, so both Ubuntu and Fedora chose to ship Firefox 3 early. In a year, you can expect there to be virtually no support upstream.

Likewise, GnomeVFS will receive no energy, so all three major GNOME distributions chose to ship GVFS (Debian did not, and we receive a steady flow of duplicated bugs from their users). ESound has been dead for years, so Ubuntu chose to ship PulseAudio. Quite frankly, there wasn't a lot of choice in the issue; if you want audio features like Windows and Mac OS X have, you will ship PulseAudio (and it's been a blueprint to clean up the audio situation in Ubuntu for years now; this is a huge step towards that cleanup).


It is amusing that the wikipedia link you provided mentions that "call and response" may have originated from scottish-irish protestants (at least in the usa).
Because if it's on Wikipedia, we know it to be a fact, right? Call and Response has been practices by African people for hundreds of years now, and is deeply ingrained in African culture and in African music (which, interestingly enough, is how Rock and Blues now has it in America), and that's is all that is meant by it. Free software emulates this Call and Response, as the developers Call, and the users Respond. And I thought it fit the drum metaphor quite well. (That, and I'm of partial African descent and it's one of the parts of my heritage I love to learn about.)

[ronacc]

I think that Ubuntu (and some other distros) sometimes have a bad case of NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) .This is not a stab at ubuntu or the dev's , but to the end user it is disheartening when there are things that work well in other distros that are continuosly problematical in our favorite , Ubuntu . Linux is about open source , is it so terrible to take a peak at open source things that work just because you didn't write that particular string of code , we look down at propriatary software and binary blobs but to refuse to learn from other open source efforts is unforgiveable and also wasteful and stupid .

[mivo]

and don't scream about bugs until you have tried a fresh install

I always do clean installs when a new release comes out and my experience with Hardy is very good (some sound issues lingering), but I don't feel it is reasonable to expect people to do a fresh install twice a year. That works for you and I, and probably quite a few others, but most folks I work with or otherwise know would never be willing to do that (and not yearly or every 18 months either).

I feel that the apparently trouble-prone distro upgrade mechanism may be one of the largest issue that Ubuntu faces (and it's not the only distro that does), at least if Ubuntu is placed as an OS (also) for Joe User.

[ronacc]

I always do clean installs when a new release comes out and my experience with Hardy is very good (some sound issues lingering), but I don't feel it is reasonable to expect people to do a fresh install twice a year. That works for you and I, and probably quite a few others, but most folks I work with or otherwise know would never be willing to do that (and not yearly or every 18 months either).

I feel that the apparently trouble-prone distro upgrade mechanism may be one of the largest issue that Ubuntu faces (and it's not the only distro that does), at least if Ubuntu is placed as an OS (also) for Joe User.

I was aimng that comment mainly at those of us that habitualy run the alphas and betas , the workarounds and kludges we often do to keep going may end up not reflecting the "quality" of the version released to the public .
that aside it is not only Linux that benefits from a reinstall , how often is the first advice out of anyones mouth when there is a problem with that other OS ( all together now ) reinstall w___s .

[MacUntu]

how often is the first advice out of anyones mouth when there is a problem with that other OS ( all together now ) reinstall w___s .

Where the first advice should be: Let an expert do the installation (and maintenance).

[ronacc]

I don't believe it is Ubuntu's goal to be so complex as to require an "expert " to install it .

[nanog]

Awalton,
I think we will have to just disagree.

I don't know anything about SMB and it's a dontcare for me anyways
I think you have a bad attitude about this. In many, if not most, professional, educational, and technical settings smb is crtical. You'll never fix bug #1 (or #2 mac) if you don't play nice with other OSs.

I found active bugs that specifically address all the other issues I listed.

I finally got around to adding a bug for the nautilus "root" issue.
Bug #232040

as the developers Call, and the users Respond

I think it also works with developers and users reversed.

[jethro10]

I dont think alot of the bugs assosiated with this release was canonicals fault.

I'm really happy with my free Ubuntu, totally
But what you say is wrong. Ubuntu chose to include what they did and chose to ship it when they did.

It was their decision.

J

[roderick]

I'm really happy with my free Ubuntu, totally
But what you say is wrong. Ubuntu chose to include what they did and chose to ship it when they did.

It was their decision.

J

The decision based on the alpha and beta tests were used as a basis. Given that the vast MAJORITY or early adopters were satisfied, then that gave no reason to doubt the apps. However, as the old adage goes $h%t happens, and some users had issues with GTK/Firefox/Compiz and proprietary video drivers. Emphasis on SOME.

I for one had a flawless experience on two laptops, both upgraded during the alpha/beta test and as well, I just re-installed fresh using the CD release.

You can only satisfy some of the people some of the time and for sure, you can not satisfy ALL people ALL the time... :)

[caryb]

I think what would help us "plebs" would be some sort of org chart describing who does what. Starting at the top & flowing down to us testers. Then a flow chart with how a package makes its way into *buntu, some sort or process flow? If this was a sticky at the top of the current DEV page this would help folks decide if this is what they want to do!
In doing this it might stop that stupid "I'm running back to Windows" scenario.


Cary

[talkingwires]

Strange coincidence: I'm in Prague right now, where the Ubuntu Developer's Summit is currently being held, and a woman at my hostel asked me to look at her laptop, which was running Ubuntu 8.04 but acting up. She said that a "girl at the shop" installed 7.10 on it for her, but it had prompted her to upgrade to 8.04 and so she did. And that's when the problems started.

First, certain videos would cause her machine (a Dell Latitude m700) to hard lock. Totem would try to play the videos in fullscreen, but machine would completely freeze. Disabling Compiz fixed the problem, but I ended up switching her over to VLC, which worked fine.

The second problem was with her flash card reader. Nautilus would display thumbnails for all her pictures from her camera, but copying them over to the HDD would result in a "file not found" error. Going to the directory in a terminal and trying to list the files would result in the entire terminal's display turning into gibberish, including any commands I tried to input. The only thing I could suggest was backing up the files and reformatting the card.

I felt pretty bad, knowing my way around an Ubuntu system and the only help I could give was kludges and not real fixes. It is strange that these issues didn't exist on an older version, but for a user that "surfs the Internet, imports photos, and watches videos" and suddenly can't do 2/3rds of what they want, it's a showstopper.

[verb3k]

Strange coincidence: I'm in Prague right now, where the Ubuntu Developer's Summit is currently being held, and a woman at my hostel asked me to look at her laptop, which was running Ubuntu 8.04 but acting up. She said that a "girl at the shop" installed 7.10 on it for her, but it had prompted her to upgrade to 8.04 and so she did. And that's when the problems started.

First, certain videos would cause her machine (a Dell Latitude m700) to hard lock. Totem would try to play the videos in fullscreen, but machine would completely freeze. Disabling Compiz fixed the problem, but I ended up switching her over to VLC, which worked fine.

The second problem was with her flash card reader. Nautilus would display thumbnails for all her pictures from her camera, but copying them over to the HDD would result in a "file not found" error. Going to the directory in a terminal and trying to list the files would result in the entire terminal's display turning into gibberish, including any commands I tried to input. The only thing I could suggest was backing up the files and reformatting the card.

I felt pretty bad, knowing my way around an Ubuntu system and the only help I could give was kludges and not real fixes. It is strange that these issues didn't exist on an older version, but for a user that "surfs the Internet, imports photos, and watches videos" and suddenly can't do 2/3rds of what they want, it's a showstopper.

What else do you expect from a distribution that ships with an improperly configured kernel (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/188226)?

It feels really strange, it doesn't seem like the true ubuntu I've grown to know. It's really devastating :(

[msrinath80]

+1

The problem with Ubuntu is that it no longer respects standards such as the Linux Standard Base (LSB). Knowing when and where to stop diverging from Debian testing is the key to a stable distro. Unfortunately, Ubuntu is too over enthusiastic for me.

[caryb]

Ubuntu is too over enthusiastic for me.

Ouch:confused:


Cary

[23meg]

She said that a "girl at the shop" installed 7.10 on it for her, but it had prompted her to upgrade to 8.04 and so she did. And that's when the problems started.

In other words, a non-technical user blindly upgraded her operating system just after the release of the new version, without knowing what exactly she was doing, and expected no problems upon upgrading.

That situation is prone to breakage no matter what OS you use. No practical amount of quality control or standards compliance will fix that globally.

[Gina]

Ubuntu is too over enthusiastic for me.Not for me - I find the enthusiasm very refreshing and uplifting. I've found a new lease of life since getting involved with Ubuntu. I love it! :):)

[jethro10]

You can only satisfy some of the people some of the time and for sure, you can not satisfy ALL people ALL the time... :)

How true, Well I'm satisfied nearly all the time!

J

[plun]

In other words, a non-technical user blindly upgraded her operating system just after the release of the new version, without knowing what exactly she was doing, and expected no problems upon upgrading.

That situation is prone to breakage no matter what OS you use. No practical amount of quality control or standards compliance will fix that globally.

Well...:)

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Aha, "Easy" Upgrade....:confused:

Any bugs :confused: Read release notes perhaps...:confused:

Tons with bugfixes and some of them only proposed....
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/hardy-changes/2008-May/thread.html

Aha, a great sticky thread for "Media".
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683

Perhaps we are doomed to be "crazy nerds"....:)

Or make something better for "newbies", even MS-Redmond understands this
and rolls out knowledgebase articles and fixes.

[ajackson]

Aha, "Easy" Upgrade....:confused:
Easy != problem free, for probably the majority installation is trouble free and easy. It is a case of finding out what causes the problems on other systems and seeing if there are patterns.

Aha, a great sticky thread for "Media".
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683
Are you on a commission for posting a link to that thread? It's just that you seem to do it an awful lot (hint stick it in your signature, saves a bit of typing). Also a fair amount of stuff in that article isn't necessary.

[ronacc]

Easy != problem free, for probably the majority installation is trouble free and easy. It is a case of finding out what causes the problems on other systems and seeing if there are patterns.


Are you on a commission for posting a link to that thread? It's just that you seem to do it an awful lot (hint stick it in your signature, saves a bit of typing). Also a fair amount of stuff in that article isn't necessary.

I thought trying things out on a diverse array of systems was what we are doing . What may be unnecsssary to you in an article may be just the tidbit that someone else was searching for .

[ajackson]

I thought trying things out on a diverse array of systems was what we are doing .
It is and it is very important, the wider the range of hardware the better the support will (hopefully) get for the problematic combinations. But to scoff at the official site saying that installation is easy when for a majority it is (no I don't have figures, I am assuming that is the case or the forums really would be flooded with posts about problems), just strikes me as a bit off.

What may be unnecsssary to you in an article may be just the tidbit that someone else was searching for .
Maybe the article needs rewriting to state the "easy" way of doing some of what it does with the body of the guide for when the easy way doesn't work. If a new user sees that getting a music file playing can be as easy as double-clicking it and saying yes when prompted they are more likely to try but if faced with a large chunk of CLI stuff it could put them off entirely.

[ronacc]

I note that the referenced thread is by a user and not official documentation in any way . the poster probably made the assumption ( which I too would make ) that if someone was looking in the forums for solutions that the "easy" way didn't work ."doubleclick and say yes" is the "windows way" so we are probably safe in beliving that even the newest of newbes can figure that out by themselves .
I cannot speak for the OP of that thread but he would probably not be offended if you added your own section expanding it.

[meborc]

Maybe the article needs rewriting to state the "easy" way of doing some of what it does with the body of the guide for when the easy way doesn't work. If a new user sees that getting a music file playing can be as easy as double-clicking it and saying yes when prompted they are more likely to try but if faced with a large chunk of CLI stuff it could put them off entirely.

well... you suggest the howto-s should be GUI based not CLI based? how about people that use KDE or XFCE or GNOME or FLUXBOX or E...

you see? :) CLI instructions work on any ubuntu based system... GUI ones don't

[23meg]

* updates ignore list *

In case anyone is living in 2005 and the last few releases aren't enough of a proof, Ubuntu does aim to make installation and post-installation easy for newbies. We're not perfect, and we actually suck in some departments.

Feel free to help make it better.

[caryb]

Just to add to 23meg's comments not only are getting better at the installer but we even make it so easy for you by posting CD's out for free (just got my Hardy ones yesterday) who else does that?

BTW I like being a Ubuntu/Kubuntu QA guy.


Cary

[ajackson]

well... you suggest the howto-s should be GUI based not CLI based? how about people that use KDE or XFCE or GNOME or FLUXBOX or E...

you see? :) CLI instructions work on any ubuntu based system... GUI ones don't
Nice to see you didn't read what I said but zoomed in on the CLI bit :).

That how-to should explain the easy way of installing certain stuff, in some cases it is just double click a file and say yes, then if that doesn't work go into the CLI stuff, that how-to jumps right in to CLI which could put off a recent windows exile and force them back where they came from.

[plun]

* updates ignore list *

In case anyone is living in 2005 and the last few releases aren't enough of a proof, Ubuntu does aim to make installation and post-installation easy for newbies. We're not perfect, and we actually suck in some departments.

Feel free to help make it better.

Well its really easy with the Automatix approach.

I want a main stream PC which just works and I am not "software religious".
I don't believe in waiting for miracles..

I don't believe in boycotts...:)

Done !

I also don't want Epiphany or other strange functions such as Metacity just a working PC with 3D eyecandy such as Compiz.

Please install....:)

I am aware of some smaller sidesteps about RMS "dictates"....:)

[smbm]

other strange functions such as Metacity

What exactly is strange about Metacity?

I'm not sure what you're point actually is.

[plun]

What exactly is strange about Metacity?

I'm not sure what you're point actually is.

Well, you have some "Gnome boys" which want to use "non main stream"

technology.

.
"Kill Compiz" and they also believe that Firefox is bad....:)

0.0001 % users worldwide....


And this must be discussed......KDE uses the same stupid approach with Konqueror.

:)

[smbm]

Well, you have some "Gnome boys" which want to use "non main stream"

technology.

.
"Kill Compiz" and they also believe that Firefox is bad....:)

0.0001 % users worldwide....


And this must be discussed......KDE uses the same stupid approach with Konqueror.

:)


Is "Gnome boys" supposed to be derogatory? I don't understand.

How is Metacity "non main stream"?

Who wants to "Kill Compiz"?

What is there to discuss?

[buntunub]

Well, you have some "Gnome boys" which want to use "non main stream"

technology.

.
"Kill Compiz" and they also believe that Firefox is bad....:)

0.0001 % users worldwide....


And this must be discussed......KDE uses the same stupid approach with Konqueror.

:)

Now, its posts like these that make one question the sincerity and intent of the poster. Every single one of those "facts" you bring up here, and in other posts, are 100% WRONG. Not just incorrect, but plain, out and out, WRONG!

Learn first, what Linux is, then learn what FOSS is about, then just maybe, one day, you will understand the decisions which are made upstream. Understand now, however, that 95% of all the decisions that go into GNOME, or Ubuntu, or KDE, really have everything to do with functionality, and quality end user experience. We are all human, and therefor not perfect. Mistakes sometimes get made, some minor, some major, but they all get worked out in the end. Ibex WILL be the best release yet (as every release has been thus far), and if its not, well, there are 500+ other Distro's out there. Take a break from the "Buntu's" until the next release or revert back to Hardy until the bugs get worked out post release.

I do think that more beta testing is needed for each release however, and (based on the last 3 releases) I do think that a 6 month release cycle is NOT working. In general, people want a working, stable system. Everyone I know is more than willing to put off the new, shiny toys for now, in favor of stability and whatever stable new toys (read - new technologies) are possible during the release cycle. A release is ready when the release is ready, should be Canonicals watchword.

[plun]

Is "Gnome boys" supposed to be derogatory? I don't understand.

How is Metacity "non main stream"?

Who wants to "Kill Compiz"?

What is there to discuss?

Well, apparently there is....

Metacity IS non main stream.....

Epiphany IS non main stream

Fire some team leaders perhaps....:confused:

Thats it !!!

[smbm]

Metacity IS non main stream.....


What is non main stream about Metacity though?

It's all very well saying it but could you be more specific?

Sorry, I'm just trying to understand what you mean.

[plun]

What is non main stream about Metacity though?

It's all very well saying it but could you be more specific?

Sorry, I'm just trying to understand what you mean.

Well, there are a lot of talks about changing theme and
the basics for a theme is just what Window Manager, Engine AND Window
decorator you are using.

I find it rather funny when some users thinks this is just about
colours :)

Metacity for me is just "junk".... (compared with Compiz)

live.gnome maybe have some more about this....:confused:

[roderick]

Isn't the whole Linux and F/OSS moto - choice. Who cares if FF is more or less used than Konqueror or whether Metacity is a mainstream WM.

Personally, I like KDE/Konqueror (a fan of Qt) and I hate the look and feel of Firefox (GTK). But I have that choice.

Distro maintainers make some choices based on lots of criteria. If they happen to choose the wrong solution for you, you can simply make the change on your own. Being a maintainer takes a lot of time and effort. You cannot please everyone, and it's about time they get a little more respect.

Great job guys, in delivering a great distro, under seemingly unwinnable odds (you can't please everyone, but you at least pleased me). :P

[yssida]

I hate the look and feel of Firefox (GTK)
Firefox isn't GTK, it's written in XUL. :)

I don't think Canonical has to hire Quality Check people. These people have done a great job, and they can't afford to hire more people. I always say, that's what you get for free. BUt when it comes to distros like RHEL or SLED, then I'd feel differently if things started breaking.

Also, Epiphany was once the default, so it 'must' be main stream/ must have been main stream at some point. Metacity was also once the default, so it must have been mainstream then. My point is that Firefox and Compiz didn't use to be officially part of GNOME project. It was only fairly recently that they started integrating with the whole DE. I personally feel good using Metacity and Epiphany. Oooh, if it weren't for the cube.

[roderick]

Firefox isn't GTK, it's written in XUL. :)

And one of the deps of Firefox/xulrunner is GTK+.. hmmm.... if it walks like a duck...

[buntunub]

Complaining about Metacity or FF being default in a Distro is just petty and thoughtless, considering how easy it is to change out either. Besides, when did this thread get hijacked into a thread about Ibex's theming?

[ajackson]

Complaining about Metacity or FF being default in a Distro is just petty and thoughtless, considering how easy it is to change out either. Besides, when did this thread get hijacked into a thread about Ibex's theming?
When someone who places eye-candy above functionality, stability and performance started giving off wild claims?

Back to the thread title, Canonical doesn't need more QA people (I won't say guys as that implies women aren't welcome :)), they may need to invest in a wider range of hardware for the people they do hire but the community has and always will be the main bulk of QA.

[23meg]

Canonical has actually hired two new QA people very recently; one to work on stable release update verification, and one on automated desktop testing, taking the number of Canonical employees on the QA team from five to seven.

[verb3k]

Canonical has actually hired two new QA people very recently; one to work on stable release update verification, and one on automated desktop testing, taking the number of Canonical employees on the QA team from five to seven.

5 QA people used to work on a gigantic project like ubuntu?
If a project is developed internally and has the same size as ubuntu it would be ridiculous to have 5 QA people, but if the project is this size and is developed externally it would be unbelievable to have only 5. Who is going to squash all those downstream bugs as well as upstream bugs that happen to only affect your project? 7 guys will never be able to effectively handle a consistently sagging and swagging project like ubuntu.

[caryb]

To my knowledge most bugs are not Ubuntu specific, the QA guys forward bug reports to the devs of the specific app that is playing up! There might have to be specific tweaks to "ubuntuize" apps but for the whole we report them.


Cary

[_oOMOo_]

5 QA people used to work on a gigantic project like ubuntu?
If a project is developed internally and has the same size as ubuntu it would be ridiculous to have 5 QA people, but if the project is this size and is developed externally it would be unbelievable to have only 5. Who is going to squash all those downstream bugs as well as upstream bugs that happen to only affect your project? 7 guys will never be able to effectively handle a consistently sagging and swagging project like ubuntu.

Ubuntu is the sum of many parts, all of which have QA, not least from us, the users. For instance GNOME, KDE, kernel team, OpenOffice, Mozilla. 7 may not seem like many but to be honest it's more than I expected, and I'm pleased to see it! :)

[meborc]

Nice to see you didn't read what I said but zoomed in on the CLI bit :).

That how-to should explain the easy way of installing certain stuff, in some cases it is just double click a file and say yes, then if that doesn't work go into the CLI stuff, that how-to jumps right in to CLI which could put off a recent windows exile and force them back where they came from.

ahh... i totally misread your post... sorry :)

but i guess people will just double-click on a file to play anyway... they will not know they have a problem until they have tried to play a file... or?

[23meg]

5 QA people used to work on a gigantic project like ubuntu?

5 paid QA people employed by a certain company to work on the distribution bug tracker and testing (excluding upstreams, who do their own QA). The bug squad (https://launchpad.net/~bugsquad), which is the main community QA force, has more than 1000 members (not all of whom are active all the time) and every good tester is effectively a QA person.

If a project is developed internally and has the same size as ubuntu it would be ridiculous to have 5 QA people, but if the project is this size and is developed externally it would be unbelievable to have only 5.

Indeed, but we have a good few hundred people including developers who are more or less active all the time looking at bugs, not 5.

Who is going to squash all those downstream bugs as well as upstream bugs that happen to only affect your project? 7 guys will never be able to effectively handle a consistently sagging and swagging project like ubuntu.

You seem to have an inaccurate impression of what QA people actually do: they don't squash bugs (some do, but not as part of their involvement in QA); they triage bugs, and perform various kinds of testing. Bugs that only affect Ubuntu are attended by Ubuntu developers, of which we also need more.

My point is that while Canonical will and does employ an increasing number of QA people as needs arise according to their internal procedures and plans, and while their contributions to the Ubuntu ecosystem, the furthering of which would of course be welcome, have been of key importance, seeing more Canonical funding as the first or only solution to problems in Ubuntu is not an approach that demonstrates a good understanding of how things actually work, and not an approach that will scale. If your development community ecosystem does not scale, that is, if you cannot sustain a reasonable ratio of new contributors to development and QA per unit of new users, you are in trouble in any case.

[plun]

5 paidIf your development community ecosystem does not scale, that is, if you cannot sustain a reasonable ratio of new contributors to development and QA per unit of new users, you are in trouble in any case.

Well, maybe it is so....


"Home to Hypocrisy"

http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#43


Wrong approach maybe....:confused:

[toupeiro]

Verb3k,

Understand that Ubuntu is a large project amongst many other GNU/Linux project out there, with mostly the same dependencies. They may implement packages at different versions, and the wrapping may vary from distro to distro, but meat and potatoes is still meat and potatoes. You have millions of people submitting and reporting bugs for various open source and application packages. Some are on payroll to do so, and some are not. How many are on payroll to do so seems irrelevant really.. The more people contribute, the faster problems are identified. Rather than flogging ubuntu and its developers, partake in the submittal and solution to the problems you are encountering and make everyones experience that much better.

If ubuntu is not for you, there are many other distributions. If GNU/Linux is not for you, there is a nice OS out of Redmond Washington with plenty of private QA people on the payroll who would love to help you. I believe their charge for service calls is still $250 per incident without a contract. :)

[meborc]

from ubuntu.com:Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers
not much to add... we are the community... canonical does not develop ubuntu... canonical helps distributing and adds services like help/support to ubuntu

[Herman]

Maybe I can help a little.

Many of you probably haven't noticed, but although my website is called 'Illustrated Dual Boot', I have added some new installation pages and made some other changes.
Now there is more emphasis on multiple booting or dual booting but with two Ubuntus instead of just Windows and Ubuntu.
Maybe we can start encouraging more of our users to install two Ubuntus, one for their everyday operating system and the other for testing Intrepid Ibex.

If more users will take up this idea, we should be able to provide more bug reports.

I hope it'll help at least a little bit. :)

[asimon]

The question implies an interesting attitude. Shouldn't the Ubuntu project aim for more independence from Canonical Ldt instead of crying for more financial help?

[Gina]

Maybe I can help a little.

Many of you probably haven't noticed, but although my website is called 'Illustrated Dual Boot', I have added some new installation pages and made some other changes.
Now there is more emphasis on multiple booting or dual booting but with two Ubuntus instead of just Windows and Ubuntu.
Maybe we can start encouraging more of our users to install two Ubuntus, one for their everyday operating system and the other for testing Intrepid Ibex.

If more users will take up this idea, we should be able to provide more bug reports.

I hope it'll help at least a little bit. :)Thank you for saying that :):) Not for me particularly - I run several Ubuntus on each of the three machines I have working at present - but for others who may not have thought of it and for Ubuntu as a whole.

And while I'm replying I'd like to add that I have found your website very informative and useful, and worthwhile linking to from my own site. Thank you very much :):)

[meborc]

...

And while I'm replying I'd like to add that I have found your website very informative and useful, and worthwhile linking to from my own site. Thank you very much :):)

off topic: hermans dual-boot site was the NO1 site for me when i started dual-booting... it seems like lightyears ago :) although it was in 2005... i have long ago switched from dual-booting to mono-booting (if that is a word) + virtualbox

[scizzo]

This topic almost starts to feel like flaming. I am not saying it is flame but still.

The simple fact is that I myself really like hardy for what it is. I am not sure myself how many people are using Ubuntu/Kubuntu etc. But the fact is that Ubuntu is a community also where people are trying to help other people.

Most of the times there are workarounds. You can never escape the fact that there will be bugs. There is always going to be some bugs in a system as big as this.

However I would encourage people that can and have the time to test to use a dual boot system to test development version out. That is if you are a experienced user of either Ubuntu or Debian. Since the 2 distros work hand in hand.

Keep up the good work and good luck with intrepid.

[ronacc]

we aren't flaming , since there isn't much happening yet with Ibex we are just bantering about anything that pops up to kepp the forum active :lolflag:

[Gina]

Very true :)

[Herman]

That's right, I think Hardy Heron is definitely the best Ubuntu yet and of course Ubuntu is the best operating system. I would never change to any other O.S., I'm a Ubuntu addict.
I also like Debian, I have a couple of Debian installs as well.

We all know that there is new hardware being invented all the time, and people are expecting their computers to be able to do more and more things nowadays, like better support their mobile phones for maybe, just for example.
I wish I was smart enough and had the time to learn how to code and help directly myself, but I can't, so I look for other ways to help.

We all want to help, but some of us only have the resources and skills to complain, I guess they mean well, but that's the only way they know how to help.
However I would encourage people that can and have the time to test to use a dual boot system to test development version out. That is if you are a experienced user of either Ubuntu or Debian. Since the 2 distros work hand in hand.:) My point exactly! I need some help to spread the word and start a culture or trend in the forums where it's seen as fashionable for people to do that - to try out Interpid Ibex safely and help by being good testers if possible.
Lots of people have nice big hard disks nowadays and they have lots of room for a test install. The amount of downloads could be a killer for some people though, depending on their internet deal.
I hope if we can encourage people to install more than one Ubuntu, one for everyday use and one for testing, it will result in more bug reports at an early enough stage for more of them to be fixed. We all realize that it must be a mammoth task to get each new version of Ubuntu ready for release. I don't expect it to be perfect, but let's aim for perfection and do something to help each other. :)

@ Gina, I hope you don't mind, but I added a link from my site to yours. :)

@ mebork, Remember when my site had no indexes, and you gave me the good advice that I should have them? :) That was a while ago!

Regards, Herman :)

[Gina]

...
@ Gina, I hope you don't mind, but I added a link from my site to yours. :)
....
Regards, Herman :)Very happy with that Herman - I'm flattered :):) Thank you :)

[caryb]

I have a web site you can link to (feeling left out) it's not Ubuntu related (aquarium club) but does run on Kubuntu:lolflag:


Cary

[Gina]

:lolflag:

[Herman]

:) Thanks caryb, your website is great! That's an excellent example of something people might want to set up after they install Ubuntu, so I out it in my post-install page. I would like to learn more details about it, I'll PM you later sometime if that's okay. Here's the link to what I have so far to start with, Run a Web Server in your Computer (http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p5.htm#Run_a_Web_Server_in_your_Computer). :)

Regards, Herman :)

[Gina]

Some very interesting stuff there :) Thank you :)

Re. your post-install page Herman, I use Kompozer for website construction and maintenance - I think it brilliant.

[talkingwires]

I think it's safe to say that this thread has been derailed. Could someone please close it?

[Gina]

I think so too - I'm afraid I was partly to blame for that :lol

I think the subject has been exhausted anyway.

[Gina]

Ooops - double post :(

[verb3k]

I think it's safe to say that this thread has been derailed. Could someone please close it?

Forums did not exist to have closed threads!
Leave it open, he who has something to say will be able to participate rather than opening a new thread.