I think interim releases would be fine if the upgrades were "bullet proof"...If you could be assured that it would all go perfectly, then i think it would be fine...but unfortunately that is not the case right now... BUT nobody is ditching interim releases? They are here to stay and the exact same thing will still be true. And i don't believe rolling will improve this because a lot of upgrades to new release problems are related to binary drivers and this won't change and probably it will make things worse. How would you deal with upgrades you are 100% sure will brake binary drivers in rolling? You would brake them and there is no way around it ATM. Maybe in the future if display server used would change this drastically then this would not be the problem anymore but ATM it is. And software does brake in rolling too. I don't believe everybody will/would follow rolling tempo and when some updates that brake software will occur how will you deal with that? You couldn't you will/would brake it and until it's fixed it would not work properly and this could easily lead to frustration. With the development release, always pointed to each new version, you would not need to upgrade to continue as you do now...so aside from the testers, i think there will probably be quite a few that will want to use it... Yes tester will use the release that is different form interim release and it doesn't make sense to me. Why exactly would you do that? The whole point of development release/cycle is to develop/test it not to use it daily for surfing the internet for example. As i previously mentioned, i had far more problems running mint's LMDE pointed to debian testing, then i have on this 13.04 development release...my "impression" is that quality control is way better here then it is in debian testing... How would putting more effort on rolling improve interim situation? It doesn't make sense to me but i could be wrong but somebody should explain this to me first to see if it's valid. I also recall getting FAR MORE updates each day on debian testing, then i generally get here...with far greater chance of breakages on there...and LMDE is not a testers distro... BUT "rolling" is something small margin of users will/should use or do you think the plan is to test it and if it works to ditch interim releases? I expressed my opinion in previous thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2121105 P.S. And in this thread and i will just wait and see what happens and i just hope something impulsive and foolish doesn't happen too soon (before some things change in a way to enable Ubuntu and all built on top of it to go faster and not making a mess while doing it)! And i am not quite sure if it's the best strategy i still think LTS releases with long support cycles are the key/value and to enable new ways for all that is built on top of LTS releases to go faster if they choose to go faster.
Last edited by EgoGratis; March 24th, 2013 at 04:26 PM.
Ditch everything non LTS and do LTS every 18 month. Enable ways to get new software, kernels, drivers in USC. Testing for stuff like UnityNext/Mir use developer PPAs for it for interested parties and don't care if it brakes sometimes this is not the stuff for regular users anyway. Don't do development release. 18 months is fair cycle to push developers to introduce new polished great stuff like UnityNext, maintenance burden would be only for LTS release and i would not call it a burden because everything fixed would benefit end users of Ubuntu. Fix more stuff in LTS releases after the release!
I don't know if any one followed the discussion on the mailing list, but quite a few developers are looking forward to whatever we call the release type, as it will give them a chance to fix bugs without any time limit. Currently, they are in a rush to repair as many current bugs as possible before the release date, and then they move on to repairing bugs for the next release, this type of schedule doesn't give them the chance to go back and fix any of the older bugs. The new release style should give them a chance to fix some long standing bugs that have been ignored up until now.
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If u are referring to cutting down the time interim releases are officially supported and rather working more on fixing bugs instead of "wasting time" supporting interim releases 18 months then it does make sense but i don't exactly understand what is the connection with new "rolling release" model and why it is needed if interim releases will not be ditched. About time limit i don't know if i agree it will make much difference. I think it will take the same amount of time to produce polished UnityNext and it doesn't make much difference if you do it in 3 Ubuntu interim releases bit by bit and it's ready for LTS or do it between two LTS releases or to built it on top of rolling release in 2 year times. It takes let's say roughly 2 years time but i doubt time limit will be this long or extended beyond let's say 2 years for this goal. It will still be tight schedule and it doesn't make much difference if it will be built for interim/LTS/rolling Ubuntu.
Last edited by EgoGratis; March 25th, 2013 at 12:10 AM.
Go faster by reducing the time LTS releases are made to 18 months and by ditching everything in between. Do development on latest LTS release and testers should use developers PPAs. This way latest LTS would get latest UnityNext + future option for running UnityNextNext and that would add additional value to it. Developers could work on latest LTS to produce UnityNextNext and to fix UnityNext bugs for solid 18 months after that additional support (few years) would be security updates and backporting few but very important bug fixes if it would make sense to do it. 12 month after LTS would be released LTS NextNext would be made in 6 month cycle from upstream components and bug fixing would start + UnityNextNext porting to UnityNext and starting of developement of UnityNextNextNext... This way a lot of maintenance burden would go away developers and users would use the same release for at least 12 months (yes the whole year) and both would focus on that same release for 12 months (yes the whole year). Users using it and developers fixing it after they thought it was ready (and boy/girl, where they wrong) and probably this way bugs would become the thing of the past (not really) and making UnityNextNext could get more attention. OEMs would get 18 month window to properly support their hardware and 3rd party developers would have more time to think about their app and not to think about (daily) if it runs on latest LTS or rolling Ubuntu or that other versions between them a lot of Ubuntu users use too.
Last edited by EgoGratis; March 25th, 2013 at 12:44 AM.
The new method of being able to have it just "point" to the next development version instead of having to upgrade (or re-install) to get it, is a major improvement for development... I would think it will be highly appreciated by both the "testers" who will continue to aid in discovering and reporting bugs which help the developers... In addition, i think it will also attract a certain percentage of regular ubuntu users (not all who currently use the interim and LTS releases) who will look at this as essentially a chance to have a rolling style ubuntu that hopefully, they would not have to re-install or "upgrade" every 6 months...and would give them all the latest ubuntu "stuff and software" (lol) as it comes in... And thanks to the high reliability that the development branch has reached in regard to the updates you receive each day, an apparently FAR MORE RELIABLE rolling release then you'd get using most of the others that "roll" (including LMDE which runs on debian testing)... That is what is attracting me to it, i've been running 13.04 about 2 months now and have been amazed how stable and reliable it's been with very few real problems... I just hope they get the new system set up in time for me to be able to start "rolling" with my currently installed 13.04
Last edited by craig10x; March 25th, 2013 at 12:45 AM.
The new method of being able to have it just "point" to the next development version instead of having to upgrade (or re-install) to get it, is a major improvement for development... I would think it will be highly appreciated by both the "testers" who will continue to aid in discovering and reporting bugs which help the developers... This would make sense if interim releases would be ditched. Because AFAIK interim releases are here to stay i don't see how it would help interim releases to have developers and testers on "rolling Ubuntu"? In addition, i think it will also attract a certain percentage of regular ubuntu users (not all who currently use the interim and LTS releases) who will look at this as essentially a chance to have a rolling style ubuntu that hopefully, they would not have to re-install or "upgrade" every 6 months...and would give them all the latest ubuntu "stuff and software" (lol) as it comes in... I see it more like experiment what might happen yes and the whole reason it exists is to test just that BUT for foreseeable future if interim releases will stay it will be a mess. USC should solve this problem (latest software on LTS) not making the earth move faster and braking the moon by doing it. And thanks to the high reliability that the development branch has reached in regard to the updates you receive each day, an apparently FAR MORE RELIABLE rolling release then you'd get using most of the others that "roll" (including LMDE which runs on debian testing)... I wonder how much effort is spent on this yes. Having development release that should not brake and how much bugs more woudl be fixed if it would brake occasionally. That is what is attracting me to it, i've been running 13.04 about 2 months now and have been amazed how stable and reliable it's been with very few real problems... I just hope they get the new system set up in time for me to be able to start "rolling" with my currently installed 13.04 I bet you would not have problems turning on PPA for UnityNextNext and reporting bugs you find on stable LTS release at the same time. For LTS and UnityNextNext.
It's funny to think that Quantal is going to be supported for 3 months past Raring's support period. Strange days indeed...
So how exactly does one utilize rolling releases. Does software updater download, or should I use apt-get dist-upgrade? I'm using 12.10 and have a second partition for 13.04.
Originally Posted by pfeiffep So how exactly does one utilize rolling releases. Does software updater download, or should I use apt-get dist-upgrade? I'm using 12.10 and have a second partition for 13.04. In the developer's comments on the decision, it wasn't mentioned exactly how they are planning on implementing it...they said they had to work out the "details".... One mentioned something about a "symlink"...if they used that, you would probably have to enter 2 commands (i think) in the terminal to add it...or perhaps they would add it as an optional "software updater" sources option to check (i don't think it would be activated by default as some might just want to ride 13.04 into a final release and not continue to the next version).... I hope we will see information in this section about how it will be done before 13.04 goes "final"... Basically, the plan is to make it so that you would not need to do an "upgrade" in development to move to each new development version....you would simply get "pointed" to the updates for the next version when they starting sending them...essentially, making development "roll" though they are not going to call it that As time goes on and we get closer to 13.04 release, it would be appreciated if anyone who sees any articles, or gets any information on it, will hopefully post here to my thread about it (with links to any information)...
Last edited by craig10x; March 26th, 2013 at 06:34 PM.
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