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View Full Version : A Note on Downloading the Ubuntu 10.10 Final Release



23meg
October 5th, 2010, 12:26 PM
We're approaching the Ubuntu 10.10 final release, and lots of people will be downloading the release images immediately after the release. Which is fine.

What isn't fine is people attempting to download the release images before release. This has been a growing problem in recent milestone releases: it makes the work of the release team harder, and can potentially cause problems due to downloads of broken or superseded images. Hence this note.

Short Version
"TL;DR, just give me that ISO!"

On Sunday, October 10th, lots of people will be linking to blog posts, news articles, ISO URLs, and even various pages on ubuntu.com with the claim that Ubuntu 10.10 has been released, many hours before the actual release. If you believe them, and download images at the links they provide, you can end up with broken or old images, and you'll be making the job of the release team harder. You should refrain from downloading the images before the official release announcement. If you want to be notified about the release via official means as soon as it happens, or just want to check if it's out or not, do one of the following:

Check or subscribe to the Ubuntu Release Blog (http://release-blog.ubuntu.com/).
Join the #ubuntu-release-party IRC channel (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat).
Subscribe to the ubuntu-announce mailing list (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/), or check for the announcement via the web archive (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2010-September/date.html).

Long Version
"Really? Why shouldn't I download an image that's already out there?"

An Ubuntu release is a time consuming, laborious process (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReleaseProcess) that involves multiple steps undertaken by multiple people working in different timezones. A while before the release, the final release images have to be made publicly accessible, since some Ubuntu mirrors that do not have authenticated access to them need to download them, and the synchronization of all mirrors needs to be assured.

The fact that the images are available somewhere on the web does not mean that they are final, much less ready to be downloaded. The images can be changed, replaced or removed until the very last minute; this has happened before, and can happen again. The release process involves much more than building an image and uploading it to a server, and downloading images before it's complete is technically risky (since you risk getting images that are not final and can be broken, and your download may be interrupted), and socially uncourteous (since you'll be interfering with the release process; details below).

Q&A

If the release is not out, why are lots of blogs and news sites reporting that it is?

Because they want to be the first to announce the release, to get more traffic than others, and make more money on ads, and they don't care if they are making the Ubuntu release harder, or giving Ubuntu users a bad experience due to failed, incomplete or broken downloads.


If the release is not out, why does the ubuntu.com home page / some page on ubuntu.com say that it is?

Updating the home page and the various pages related to the release on ubuntu.com is just one part of the release process, and is carried out independently of the uploading and syncing of the images, so you can expect a certain degree of asynchrony. The website can be changed to reflect possible last minute changes at any moment, and there can be a considerable delay between the home page being updated and the release announcement being sent, the latter of which is the definitive sign that the release has happened.


If the release is not out, why are lots of people saying that it is on forums and IRC?

Either because they are informed by the wrong sources (see above) and haven't read this thread, or because they don't care. You can use the "Report abuse" button on the bottom left of each post and report to moderators that a link is posted prematurely.


I don't care; I'm impatient and will download it as soon as I see a link posted! What's the worst that can happen?

You'll be risking downloading an incomplete or superseded image, you'll be delaying the actual release by hammering on the datacenter and using up the bandwidth that's needed for syncing the mirrors, and consequently you'll be making the job of the release team (which consists of volunteers as well as Canonical employees) harder and giving Canonical an unnecessarily bigger bandwidth bill.


What time of the day is it going to be released?

It's impossible to tell when precisely it's going to happen. It depends on when the work that needs to be carried out before publishing the images is complete and on when mirrors complete syncing, which in turn depends on network conditions all over the world. Just wait for the announcement.


So how do I know for certain that it's out?

You can do any of the following:


Check or subscribe to the Ubuntu Release Blog (http://release-blog.ubuntu.com/). The release will be reported immediately with a new post.
Join the #ubuntu-release-party or #ubuntu+1 channels on irc.freenode.net (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat), where the release will be announced the moment it happens.
Subscribe to the ubuntu-announce mailing list (https://lists.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-announce), or check for the announcement via the web archive (https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2010-September/date.html).

A few additional points to remember:

Upgrades (http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/upgrade) are a well supported, official method of going from one Ubuntu release to the next. If you have a working installation of a supported stable release, you don't need to download the release images and reinstall; you can upgrade.


You don't have to download the release images if you have a well maintained testing installation of Maverick. Some caveats apply; see this thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1500648) for details.


If you determine that you need to download the images on release date, please prefer torrents or zsync.

Thanks for caring.