What's the Point of New Versions Anyway??

[booksnmore4you]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but what's the point of new versions anyway?

And particularly, it seems a supremely stupid business decision to release a new version every 6 months. Who besides hobbyists who are more interested in continual tweaking than actual productivity are really interested in reinstalling their whole freakin' operating system that often? And which enterprise customers are interested in being several versions behind as it is with a long-term release?

Why can't I install Ubuntu ONCE and be done with it...until my computer dies of natural causes? Why can't all of the updates packaged as a new "version" simply be implemented over time via the update manager?

[ccleanerfan]

It's not reinstalling, more like upgrading. Upgrading Ubuntu is like going to the hospital, to get stuff fixed, to prevent death of natural causes. Perhaps like a check up to the doc?

[Arkitekt]

All software increases its version over time.

Each Ubuntu version is timed 1 month after the release of a new Gnome version, which is timed 1 month after a new X version. Each new Ubuntu version comes with a new version of both Gnome and X. As the packages that make up Ubuntu advance, so does Ubuntu in parallel. As well, each new version of Ubuntu gives it the chance to evolve and take new steps, such as the removal of HAL.

It is very possible to only install one version of Ubuntu and never upgrade to a newer version, I am quite sure that there are a few that do just that. I know there are still users of 8.04 on these forums infact, If a system is stable and doing what it needs to do then why upgrade it to a version where things might not work the same way? If you are looking for version that is supported by updates for a long time, pick a LTS version, if not then the price to pay for the bleeding edge is to upgrade every 6 months or so (I chose not to upgrade as soon as a new version is released so as to let some of the kinks to be worked out before I do). Upgrading is also very easy where as it is just a matter of running 'update-manager -d', there is no need to do a fresh install everytime. It will update your system to the newest version, with the newest software, and the bugs that come along with them.

[hansdown]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but what's the point of new versions anyway?

And particularly, it seems a supremely stupid business decision to release a new version every 6 months. Who besides hobbyists who are more interested in continual tweaking than actual productivity are really interested in reinstalling their whole freakin' operating system that often? And which enterprise customers are interested in being several versions behind as it is with a long-term release?

Why can't I install Ubuntu ONCE and be done with it...until my computer dies of natural causes? Why can't all of the updates packaged as a new "version" simply be implemented over time via the update manager?

Ever upgrade windows?

[wojox]

Technology changes so rapidly. If and when you upgrade to Lucid, by the time it hits EOL your system specs will be obsolete. Not saying that in a bad way. I run a ten year old Dell Optiplex for my server and it's great.

[Soul-Sing]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but what's the point of new versions anyway?

And particularly, it seems a supremely stupid business decision to release a new version every 6 months. Who besides hobbyists who are more interested in continual tweaking than actual productivity are really interested in reinstalling their whole freakin' operating system that often? And which enterprise customers are interested in being several versions behind as it is with a long-term release?

Why can't I install Ubuntu ONCE and be done with it...until my computer dies of natural causes? Why can't all of the updates packaged as a new "version" simply be implemented over time via the update manager?

Iam taking this very serious, your points do make sense.
But, (there is always a "but")
- ubuntu is in development, and is a relative new distro. There are rolling release distro's as archilinux, so there is a choice.
- the upgrade function should be more reliable, and is in development also, but imho this function was not reliable enough to upgrade safely to 9.10.
- other systems as windows do come with major service packs once in a while, these service packs, upgrades, are sometimes less reliable than expected.
- as said there are LTS versions of Ubuntu, reliable, stasble and with long term support.
- this is not a support question.

[presence1960]

No one is forcing you to install the new version(s) when they are released.