HOWTO get a rolling development release?

[amjjawad]

Hi,

There was a discussing between myself and one of the developers within Ubuntu Community.
We were talking about this post.

Then IIRC, I think we talked about:

just edit /etc/apt/sources.list and replace 'utopic' with 'devel'

and

by setting 'devel', apt always tracks the development release no need to edit sources.list every cycle or run do-release-upgrade etc.

My question here is: have you tired this? if yes, did it work or not?

I have problems with my Oracle VirtualBox (always small screen even after installing the extensions) and I have moved to different place and I just have one machine at the moment .. all my testing machines are not yet here. Until I manage to do it myself, I was wondering if someone has done it before?

Why I need that?
http://torios.org/ - we are working on an LTS release but at the most recent weekly team meeting, we were discussing the ability to have two versions: LTS stable and a rolling release.

Also, because I am a leader of Ubuntu GNOME, that would save my time whenever I want to test

Thanks a lot in advance!

[sudodus]

Some systems get 'a small screen' in VirtualBox:

Maybe you have the following problem and can use the following solution

The screen size is limited to 640x480 unless I activate

GRUB_TERMINAL=console

in /etc/default/grub and run

 sudo update-grub

[Bucky Ball]

Thread moved to Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat.

[craig10x]

Development is not ubuntu's rolling release in the sense that it is geared for TESTERS not the general ubuntu population who need stability and don't want to be concerned about possible breakages...

The general ubuntu population rolling style release will likely come once convergence takes places which will be when unity 8 desktop becomes the default (possibly by 15.10 and definitely by 16.04).
That is when the 6 month version will likely be morphing into it...read this article and especially the paragraph about why unity 8 desktop is so special:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Canon...p-462117.shtml

As far as how it affects the other versions of ubuntu, i am not sure how that applies to them but certainly is worth discussing with the developers about...

[kc1di]

There is not Ubuntu rolling release at this time, the Developemnet repositories are not stable.

[grahammechanical]

My question here is: have you tired this? if yes, did it work or not?

It works. I have two installs of Ubuntu Desktop Next. One updates from the standard Ubuntu vivid archives. The other updates from the devel archive. There will be errors because not all of the repositories are open. This is normal when running any development release. For example, backports is not open. How can it be when the version has not been released yet. The Extras repository is not open either. That will open later on in the cycle. But those repositories is in the sources list so they throw up an error.

With devel you will see messages that apt-get update was expecting devel but got vivid instead. Again it is due to certain repositories not being open in devel. This does not prevent updating/upgrading.

I was running an install of saucy on the devel repositories and it moved from saucy on to trusty without any problems. Keep in mind that the Ubuntu developers see devel as being an update channel for Ubuntu for Devices. But that devel channel is prefixed with "ubuntu-touch." Do not use that prefix.

http://developer.ubuntu.com/start/ub...mage-channels/

Try an experiment. Put in a fresh install of Ubuntu Gnome Vivid and run this command

sudo sed -i 's/vivid/devel/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

Then run update/upgrade as normal and see if you are getting all the updates that Ubuntu Gnome should be getting. Both those from Ubuntu and those from Ubuntu Gnome.

Regards.

UPDATE: I have an updated install of Ubuntu Gnome 14.10. I have just changed the repositories from utopic to devel and update/upgrade brings in 107 MB of updates and this install of Ubuntu Gnome is now

graham@sda11-UGnome:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (development branch)
Release: 15.04
Codename: vivid

Details still has the Ubuntu 14.10 logo but lists the Base system as: Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (Development Branch) 64-Bit

Does that answer your question?

[amjjawad]

It works. I have two installs of Ubuntu Desktop Next. One updates from the standard Ubuntu vivid archives. The other updates from the devel archive. There will be errors because not all of the repositories are open. This is normal when running any development release. For example, backports is not open. How can it be when the version has not been released yet. The Extras repository is not open either. That will open later on in the cycle. But those repositories is in the sources list so they throw up an error.

With devel you will see messages that apt-get update was expecting devel but got vivid instead. Again it is due to certain repositories not being open in devel. This does not prevent updating/upgrading.

I was running an install of saucy on the devel repositories and it moved from saucy on to trusty without any problems. Keep in mind that the Ubuntu developers see devel as being an update channel for Ubuntu for Devices. But that devel channel is prefixed with "ubuntu-touch." Do not use that prefix.

http://developer.ubuntu.com/start/ub...mage-channels/

Try an experiment. Put in a fresh install of Ubuntu Gnome Vivid and run this command

sudo sed -i 's/vivid/devel/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

Then run update/upgrade as normal and see if you are getting all the updates that Ubuntu Gnome should be getting. Both those from Ubuntu and those from Ubuntu Gnome.

Regards.

UPDATE: I have an updated install of Ubuntu Gnome 14.10. I have just changed the repositories from utopic to devel and update/upgrade brings in 107 MB of updates and this install of Ubuntu Gnome is now



Details still has the Ubuntu 14.10 logo but lists the Base system as: Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (Development Branch) 64-Bit

Does that answer your question?

Hi and thanks a million for the detailed answer. Indeed, this is what I was looking for. While I was reading your post, I have done it on one of my virtual machines and

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

is installing now ...

I need to keep doing some tests until I find or get what I need .. we are on the right track, thanks to you

I will try that experiment hopefully later. I found an old virtual machine that I don't use any more and edited the sources list and it just worked

[amjjawad]

Some systems get 'a small screen' in VirtualBox:

Maybe you have the following problem and can use the following solution

The screen size is limited to 640x480 unless I activate

GRUB_TERMINAL=console

in /etc/default/grub and run

 sudo update-grub

Hi and thanks for your post.

Edit:
You're right, it is working now with bigger screen

[amjjawad]

Hi,

I posted on Ubuntu GNOME Mailing List and the Social Media Channels about the idea and people were excited about that so I wrote this:

http://ubuntugnome.org/howto-run-ubu...lling-release/

[Elfy]

Thread title edited to reflect the reality of the situation