Does a newer version necessarily mean it's better?

[Legendary_Bibo]

I mean 9.10 was fine for me, and then I got 10.04 LTS (boots 3.89475186 seconds slower), but does a higher version number necessarily mean it's more stable? The only problem I have with 10.04 is the low res splash/startup/boot/whatever screen, and ever since I messed with steam on Wine it puts text everywhere before it goes to the bootup screen.

[bodhi.zazen]

Absolutely not.

First you need to define "better". Although new versions may contain bug fixes, they, almost by definition, contain "untested" code or code with more limited testing.

With new versions comes new features and foo 1.2 is almost certain to be larger and more complex then foo 1.1.

Better is also somewhat subjective. Take buttons on the left , it that "better" ?

Edit: Moved to the cafe as it does not seem to be a support thread.

[bumanie]

Ubuntu is not a stable release as such, it is more of a cutting edge OS - so for some users, newer versions do not necessarily work better on their particular hardware (although all efforts are made to get it to work on all common hardware). If you want a stable debian-based OS, use the debian stable release - it is very stable.

[sydbat]

Does a newer version necessarily mean it's better?

Yes!!

Otherwise marketing has mislead us for our entire lives and we would actually be much happier with the "old and unimproved" versions of things...[/sarcasm]

Oh, and what bodhi.zazen said...

[TheNerdAL]

Upgrading just means it is a newer or better version, in order to bring the system up to date or to improve its characteristics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrade

[t0p]

No. "Newer" != "Better". Anyone who tells you otherwise is the devil or something! :evil:

[Sealbhach]

Newer usually means we say goodbye to some old friends and say hello to some new ones.

Seriously though, a new release usually introduces new features, more hardware compatibility, maybe support for new filesystems, more efficient use of memory or CPU... there's always lots of good reasons to upgrade but it doesn't always mean your system will be more reliable or stable - at least not in the early days of the new release.

.

[Bachstelze]

No, simply because there is no "one size fits all". What's better for me might not be better for you, and vice versa.

[GuiGuy]

I mean 9.10 was fine for me, and then I got 10.04 LTS (boots 3.89475186 seconds slower), but does a higher version number necessarily mean it's more stable? The only problem I have with 10.04 is the low res splash/startup/boot/whatever screen, and ever since I messed with steam on Wine it puts text everywhere before it goes to the bootup screen.

My love/ hate relationship with linux started way back when. I became a more or less 'regular' user at about Ubuntu 6 point something. Since then linux has gradually become my main desktop and mythbuntu drives our home entertainment system. So I think I am entitled to observe that in Ubuntu's case the next version is NEVER better; it may fix and improve some obscure things from the previous version but it will always, always breaks something else.

And that "something else" is always something that you really, really need.

This time round my whole PHP development system was shot down because it can't play with PHP 5.3. I just didn't pick that up before wildly updating. :(

And my Belkin Flip stopped working. I use it swap between a Windows 7 PC and my main ubuntu desktop. Because, you see, you will always need Windows if you want to play in the "real" world. (Actually I need it to maintain some Windows applications).

In the end I restored from a 9.10 back up image.

Sorry to be so specific, but if I were to offer a general contribution to this thread, I think the problem is that the "upgrades" (hah!) are simply too frequent with not enough time spent on testing AND fixing things that really matter. Like the slow USB file xfer problem.

There. I feel much better now. :)