Should Ubuntu use Gnome 3.6 or 3.8 for Raring 13.04 ?

[ronacc]

There are valid arguments to favor both possible paths .Since 13.04 is not an LTS my preference would be to go the 3.8 way , otherwise Ubuntu will be 2 steps behind (as far as Gnome is concerned ) at release . By starting the work of getting things polished with the version of Gnome that will be the current one at release time we will have a head start on getting things right for the next LTS which is the whole point of these testing releases .

[Stinger]

Actually it is Gnome 3.6.1 - 3.6.2 which is in Raring official repos ATM.

However, the git versions of some Gnome 3.7.1 applications can be found from certain PPA's, like Gnome Testing PPA (Ricotz).

Gnome 3.7.1 is the development route leading to the final 3.8.0.

Exacly my point.
Why not have 3.7.1 in the main repos to test ? We already have gnome 3.6 in Quantal.
I feel Unity is holding development back, I don't think we need stability between the long term releases.
Earlier we learned that:
"The Release schedule has dropped all alphas, and the first beta, resulting in a beta and then final release milestone only."
You can see the post here under 'releases'
AFAIK that's not indicating stability.

[ronacc]

exactly the point I was trying to make in my post just above but you stated it better

[dino99]

Why all these comments ? Decisions have been already made:
RR is for bringing quality, getting time to resolve not yet fixed issues with the specific ubuntu archives, like unity, compiz, upstart, ..., and not to be disturbed by bleeding edge stuff asking too much efforts while upstream is still moving ahead.
I fully agree with such decisions, they are needed, and will let go ahead via ppas anyway.

[kansasnoob]

IMHO every final release should be "stable". Quite often we look at LTS as something it's not. LTS means "long term support" - not more stable out-of-box!

As mentioned previously we're changing test cycles drastically, I still don't quite understand "cadence testing", but if Ubuntu is still going to use a "gnome base" then maybe we should also change our release cycle.

Maybe we should go something more like 13.06 / 13.12 / 14.06 etc.

Would that put us closer into sync with Gnome dev

Remember that Dapper was an ".06"

OTOH maybe Ubuntu would rather be far removed from Gnome dev ...... I dunno

[dino99]

If you think and look back a bit, let say, since karmic where we started to do huge changes (hal, udev, apparmor,...) Ubuntu has always used the latest/upstream packages, and sadly have cumulated ton of reports, with alot of "expired" due to lack of time to investigate these bugs, waiting for new version instead of fixing.

So i does not be scared by a little pause using "stable" packages by default; and setting the upstream availlable via ppas is the best choice IMHO.

[Stinger]

Why all these comments ? Decisions have been already made:
RR is for bringing quality, getting time to resolve not yet fixed issues with the specific ubuntu archives, like unity, compiz, upstart, ..., and not to be disturbed by bleeding edge stuff asking too much efforts while upstream is still moving ahead.
I fully agree with such decisions, they are needed, and will let go ahead via ppas anyway.

Well Unity has been along for quite a while now, please tell me how long do we have to put up with 'stabilizing unity' and compiz for that matter.
I think those decisions are wrong and will only lead to further breakage ( and maybe more commercial lenses ), you are just putting off issues that you sooner or later will have to deal with.
As a side effect of that, UGR will have to follow Gnome one release behind too.

[kansasnoob]

Well Unity has been along for quite a while now, please tell me how long do we have to put up with 'stabilizing unity' and compiz for that matter.
I think those decisions are wrong and will only lead to further breakage ( and maybe more commercial lenses ), you are just putting off issues that you sooner or later will have to deal with.
As a side effect of that, UGR will have to follow Gnome one release behind too.

And some package breakage is almost unforgivable:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2074321

Canonical can't use the "stability" excuse when they still release broken packages like that.

The fact is that we've always just played "pick-n-choose" when it comes to what version of what package get's included ............ quite often with inadequate testing.

And I personally believe the new testing sequence is bound to make things much worse

[grahammechanical]

It became Ubuntu policy before the Precise development cycle for the development branch to be stable throughout the cycle. This failed during Quantal. It led me to the conclusion that Ubuntu has Quality Assurance but not much Quality Control.

This would not be much of a problem if there was not an open invitation for anyone to download the development branch. It could lead to the perception that latest release of Ubuntu is buggy even before it is released. And it could also be buggy after it is released if experimental packages from upstream are put in the repositories without being fully tested.

I think that more use should be made of community volunteer testers to put code under test before it gets into the update repositories. I read somewhere, I have tried to find where, but have failed) that during RR packages will go into the proposed repository before being brought into the main repository.

I have noticed that some of us are able to bring in experimental kernels, video drivers, and stuff like that. So, why insist that this be done officially?

Regards.

[ventrical]

I hear a little bit of anti-unity tones here in this thread. I'm not complaining,I'm just making a note. Unity (on my units) has worked exceptionally well. Unity 2D is just amazing (and will continue to be along with the rest of the Precise cycle.) I would have hoped that they would not have to eliminate it from the cycles thereafter but it is something I have to accept. In the meantime I run Unity 3D on all my upgraded testing boxes and it is a delight and through the past two releases has only become better. If and when this fails I always have Kubuntu which I am growing quite accustomed to. If I need to run GNOME I can always use Lucid perhaps well past its EOL cycle. Testing GNOME 3 (as I do from time to time in these cycles) really doesn't show me anything innovative or assistive in the way that whole desktop concept works. Perhaps then GNOME is becoming a preference?

If it were not for Unity I think Ubuntu as a whole would struggle with trying to present itself as a developing OS. GNOME Classic is a great DE. Perhaps some feel rather strongly about gnome-shell and it's development also but taking side-shots at unity to promote more gnome testing is futile at this stage of the game.