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bonefry
December 4th, 2006, 07:48 PM
I have an unhealthy love and hate relationship with Ubuntu.

When Dapper Drake was released people said that its the buggiest release ever ... but I was pleased with it.

But upgrading to Edgy Eft was a nightmare.
After the distro upgrade process failed I figured that I should install it from scratch, but boy, I wish I could turn back time and not waist all those hours on solving the stupid problems that Edgy delivered.

Being sick of it, I downgraded to Dapper and waited 3 weeks ... I repeated Edgy's installation process ... and surprise ... some problems (like that annoying font rendering) where still there.

Today I finally upgraded to Edgy, and the problems I had appear to have been solved, but still ... don't you guys feel that new Ubuntu releases are rushed out way too soon ? :-k

I think 6 months is not enough time to prepare and test a distribution. And there should be warnings when you try to download the latest version when that latest version is known to have unsolved problems.

IYY
December 4th, 2006, 07:53 PM
I think 6 months is not enough time to prepare and test a distribution. And there should be warnings when you try to download the latest version when that latest version is known to have unsolved problems.

Actually, there is a warning, and a suggestion to stick to Dapper for machines where reliability is vital. Edgy was always supposed to be a buggy release, so this is not at all surprising.

kuja
December 4th, 2006, 08:01 PM
This is how development tends to go bonefry. Get a lot of serious work done and do a stable release. Patch up (bugs) and make improvements on it until you're happy with its stability and support it for a while. Then do the same thing all over again.

omns
December 4th, 2006, 08:03 PM
.

plb
December 4th, 2006, 08:23 PM
This is kind of why I prefer the debian model of "when it's ready" the stability shows, Debian is rock solid, etch will be a superb release. I tend to agree that 6 months is just not enough time.

weatherman
December 4th, 2006, 08:29 PM
if 6 months is not enough for you, just install every lts release

PurplePenguin
December 4th, 2006, 08:41 PM
If anybody's not comfortable with the latest-and-greatest (and buggiest?), at least there's a stable version with long term support out there. :) I think it's a good way to keep everybody happy.

v8YKxgHe
December 4th, 2006, 09:11 PM
Edgy Eft had 4 months of development time due to the fact Dapper Drake, the LTS release, had 8 months of development time and they wanted to keep sync with Gnome's release cycle, which is every 6 months. That means Edgy was developed in half the time, a lot of changes happened under the hood of Edgy - for what they did in 4 months was amazing.

Just because a next version of Ubuntu is released does not mean you have to upgrade to it now, does it? If you don't want to upgrade, don't - wait until the next LTS release or just the next non-lts release. ;)

Edgy Eft wasn't called Edgy for the fun of it.

mostwanted
December 4th, 2006, 09:21 PM
Edgy is very buggy for me. Firefox crashes all the time, as do Mono programs usually when I log out (I get one of the dreaded "bombs" in my system tray).

burek
December 4th, 2006, 09:34 PM
Just because a next version of Ubuntu is released does not mean you have to upgrade to it now, does it? If you don't want to upgrade, don't - wait until the next LTS release or just the next non-lts release. ;)


What a reply ? :-k
The normal idea is to upgrade to to have better system and bugs corrected no? Am I right ?




wn upgrade -over

Overview of noun upgrade

The noun upgrade has 6 senses (no senses from tagged texts)

1. ascent, acclivity, rise, raise, climb, upgrade -- (an upward slope or grade (as in a road); "the car couldn't make it up the rise")
2. upgrade -- (software that provides better performance than an earlier version did)
3. upgrade -- (a reservation that is upgraded; "I got an upgrade to first class when coach class was full")
4. upgrade, rise, rising slope -- (the property possessed by a slope or surface that rises)
5. upgrade -- (hardware that provides better performance than an earlier version did)
6. upgrade -- (the act of improving something (especially machinery) by raising it to a higher grade (as by adding or replacing components); "the power plant received a new upgrade")

Overview of verb upgrade

The verb upgrade has 5 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)

1. (2) upgrade -- (rate higher; raise in value or esteem)
2. (1) upgrade -- (to improve, especially something that was old or outdated; "I've upgraded my computer so I can run better software"; "The company upgraded their personnel")
3. promote, upgrade, advance, kick upstairs, raise, elevate -- (give a promotion to or assign to a higher position; "John was kicked upstairs when a replacement was hired"; "Women tend not to advance in the major law firms"; "I got promoted after many years of hard work")
4. upgrade -- (get better travel conditions; "I upgraded to First Class when Coach Class was overbooked")
5. upgrade -- (give better travel conditions to; "The airline upgraded me when I arrived late and Coach Class was full")



I just quoted the dictionary and I wont give comments.

I am not complaining at all about edgy. It works more or less for my purposes.Bugs were corrected and software improved from dapper.

v8YKxgHe
December 4th, 2006, 09:40 PM
The latest and greatest does not always mean the best and most bug free. For example Beryl/Compiz - are the latest versions of them always better/more stable and bug free? no - in fact sometimes quite the opposite.

plb
December 5th, 2006, 03:26 AM
What a reply ? :-k
The normal idea is to upgrade to to have better system and bugs corrected no? Am I right ?

Not to mention that LTS releases come along how often again?

23meg
December 5th, 2006, 03:38 AM
I think 6 months is not enough time to prepare and test a distribution.

To quote myself from a previous thread (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=300333):


In any case, putting out an up-to-date distro in 2n months instead of n months doesn't give you twice the time to prepare and doesn't automatically make the distro twice as stable, because more new software and new technologies come into play at more or less the same rate in any given window of time, and to make the distro stable, you have to put in an equal amount of work. In rough terms, twice the bug fixing and stability assuring is needed for 2n months of development time instead of n months, because upstream authors are busy pumping out new releases of their software, and hardware vendors aren't stopping either, so the kernel has to catch up.

If you release the distro every twelve months, people miss the opportunity to use the latest versions of most software that comes and goes between the releases for a whole year, and that's a huge inconvenience. Make it six months and you cut the inconvenience to half in the worst case (there may be better cases because new libraries may not begin to be required by new software in a period like six months, so upgrading may be trivial even for non-technical users). Also, since in-between releases of existing software will not ship with a sparsely released distro, the software will get tested less intensively, get less bug reports and feedback, thus improve at a slower pace.


This is kind of why I prefer the debian model of "when it's ready" the stability shows, Debian is rock solid, etch will be a superb release. I tend to agree that 6 months is just not enough time."When it's ready" is a joke if you take the demands of today's desktop users into consideration: they demand the latest kernels so that their latest and greatest hardware will be supported, and they demand the latest versions of new software. Debian is always there if you prefer it; actually, Ubuntu is good in that it retains many of the virtues of Debian while amending the serious "when it's ready" shortcoming; with some compromises of course. Many people prefer it for its tight release cycle alone.

argie
December 5th, 2006, 04:26 AM
If anybody's not comfortable with the latest-and-greatest (and buggiest?), at least there's a stable version with long term support out there. :) I think it's a good way to keep everybody happy.
Personally, I will upgrade every other release, and only one month after it is released. It gives me this warm safe and comfortable feeling :)

Polygon
December 5th, 2006, 04:34 AM
if you think edgy is too unstable for you (which is should be as it is called EDGY, using new and experimental code and programs) then just roll back to dapper. It is really stable, and it still gets updated frequently (1-2 updates every day). Not to mention most programs support daapper and edgy so you dont have to worry about that

the only time dapper has crashed on me is because of some weird logout thing where when i log out the computer screen gets all messed up and i have to restart, but im pretty sure it has to do with the ati video driver.

Voxxi
December 5th, 2006, 04:46 AM
Edgy has always been stable for me. Pretty much the only time it crashes is when I do something with beryl thats too much for the processor to handle. Other than that, its just some very minor bugs. I like being on the cutting edge, and I'll put up with bugs to be there. ;)

burek
December 5th, 2006, 07:44 AM
we are now world wide beta tester of edgy ... :D :D :D :D

chaosgeisterchen
December 5th, 2006, 07:50 AM
Concerning terms of stability:

Edgy was never concepted to be rock solid, it reflects its own name so I would not rate Ubuntu as a whole after the stability of Edgy Eft.

I am quite sure that Feisty Fawn will be a major step forward in terms of stability. Ubuntu is constantly evolving so it's a rather natural thing that it's going to get better and better from release to release. But these releases, released after LTS-versions are concepted to try out a lot of new things.

One should be aware of the risen likelihood of encountering problems.

Circus-Killer
December 5th, 2006, 07:54 AM
i can never understand why people say edgy is buggy. for me, its been solid as a rock since day 1. i can tell you now with full confidence that i wont need to do a reinstall until feisty release date.

i'm happy with edgy, and ubuntu's progress in general. and message to the ubuntu developers, keep up the great up. ;)

vayu
December 5th, 2006, 08:05 AM
What a reply ? :-k
The normal idea is to upgrade to to have better system and bugs corrected no? Am I right ?


Not when it was specifically stated beforehand that Edgy is for those wishing to experiment with the very latest at the expense of some stability and users wishing more stability should stick with Dapper which has long term support behind it. I'm sure you can find the exact quote on this forum.

burek
December 5th, 2006, 08:27 PM
Not when it was specifically stated beforehand that Edgy is for those wishing to experiment with the very latest at the expense of some stability and users wishing more stability should stick with Dapper which has long term support behind it. I'm sure you can find the exact quote on this forum.

I unfortunately didnt read this before in the forum. If I would have read that, I wouldnt have made the jump on all my PCs for sure and take any risk.
Pitty that was only written only in the forum

I am waiting feisty, and awaiting high stability of the networking specially because it is for my work. anyhow, I hope that the apt-get upgrade will be fixing the networking soon

Kind regards,

drphilngood
December 5th, 2006, 11:07 PM
I almost didnīt switch to Edgy because I liked Dapper so much. However, I finally took the plunge and am very happy with it.:-D