System 76 and New Ubuntu

[ResumeMan]

Hi folks,

Pardon me if this has been discussed, but I couldn't find it in a brief review.

I recall that back in the spring, the System 76 folks said that their computers would ship with Hardy on Day 1. My first question is, is that the plan for 8.10?

And my other question for those who got S76's shortly after the release: How did that go for you? I know that often when a new Ubuntu comes out there are a lot of complaints till they can get some things ironed out. Did you find that to be the case with your new computer?

I need a new laptop soon (ahem, probably along the lines of the Serval specs...). I'd sooner not get a laptop with an OS that'll be out of date in a few weeks, but I also don't want to be buying myself any problems.

Thanks

[Z_o-s-o]

I'm going to guess that there'll be a period of time for testing once the final version comes out in 25 days.

[Sef]

I need a new laptop soon (ahem, probably along the lines of the Serval specs...). I'd sooner not get a laptop with an OS that'll be out of date in a few weeks, but I also don't want to be buying myself any problems.

Hardy Heron won't be out of date in few weeks. It has long term support, so it will be supported until April 2011 for the desktop and April 2013 for the server. Intrepid Ibex will be supported until April 2010 for both the server and desktop. Hardy may not have the newest applications, but it will work fine.

[jdb]

Hi folks,

Pardon me if this has been discussed, but I couldn't find it in a brief review.

I recall that back in the spring, the System 76 folks said that their computers would ship with Hardy on Day 1. My first question is, is that the plan for 8.10?

And my other question for those who got S76's shortly after the release: How did that go for you? I know that often when a new Ubuntu comes out there are a lot of complaints till they can get some things ironed out. Did you find that to be the case with your new computer?

I need a new laptop soon (ahem, probably along the lines of the Serval specs...). I'd sooner not get a laptop with an OS that'll be out of date in a few weeks, but I also don't want to be buying myself any problems.

Thanks

Another thing to keep in mind is that your not stuck with what it's shipped with.

You can always upgrade to a newer version or reload to an older version.

jdb

[thomasaaron]

Our goal is to release computers with the newest version of Ubuntu as soon as that version is officially released.

To do this, we start testing ahead of time. This allows us to work out most of the bugs in advance.

[ResumeMan]

Another thing to keep in mind is that your not stuck with what it's shipped with.

You can always upgrade to a newer version or reload to an older version.

jdb


Well yes, I know that; I probably should have appended "...or have to deal with changing the OS."

And I know that Hardy won't be "out of date" the way say Win98 is out of date. But the fact is, on my current machine I decided to blow off upgrading from Gutsy to Hardy. And while Gutsy is still supported, etc., the fact is that it's already getting out of date. Quite a few third-party software packages are being released w/Hardy support only (I think it has to do with GTK+ version).

So when I plunk down a grand on a computer I am going to want the freshest OS available. And since I'm gonna buy from a Linux OEM, I don't want to have to do it myself.

So -- thanks for that Tomasaaron. I would like to know how Gutsy worked the first few weeks it was released.

[thomasaaron]

I would like to know how Gutsy worked the first few weeks it was released.

Hopefully customers will chime in with their experiences. But from a technical support perspective, it looks something like this...

About two or three weeks before a new version release, we start testing. We catch and patch most of the bugs, however there's almost always something that falls outside the range of our testing. These usually get reported and patched within a week or two of the version release. Generally, they are non-critical -- annoying more than anything.