Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

As a side note, the same issue persist on Windows with HP current gen EliteBook and Office. Everytime I undock the notebook, MS Outlook gets disconnected and it simply refuses to reconnect. The only option is to close Outlook and open it again - but waiting 30s between closing and starting again otherwise some locks on the PST file are still in place and Outlook would hang on start forever. The only way to fix it then, is by a Windows reboot. That they killed the QA department was the dumbest idea ever, now things are so buggy.

For one thing: Non-LTS versions of Ubuntu have the same problem, just replace "24 months" with "6 months".

For another thing: LTS Ubuntu is the recommended version of Ubuntu: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

New users going into Ubuntu have no clue that going to ubuntu.com and clicking "Download" will give them an incredibly out-of-date OS.

> The entire point of LTS is that things _don't_ change.

That's not the root problem.

The root problem is that people want non-broken software, and updates sometimes break things.

LTS is one workaround, by committing to make as few updates as possible (mostly only high-impact security patches), you limit the likelihood that updates will break things.

But the problem is, not having updates also breaks things. `youtube-dl` is my usual example. Others include that having an old version of Node will break software that expects newer versions of Node.

The solution I'm proposing is to let the user choose whether or not they want up-to-date software on a case-by-case basis. I did not expect this to be so controversial.

> 1. Install stuff yourself

This is not a suggested solution, this is the problem we are trying to find solutions for.

> 2. Use a backports PPA or vendor packages

> 3. Use a more specific package manager (e.g. pip for python, cpan for perl, npm for node, etc)

These are workarounds that are MUCH less usable than just using the distro's built-in package manager. It is true that I can do this (mostly, I just build from source), but what I am asking is a way to make this easier, because it is a common problem that everyone has, and because it's the entire problem that a package manager is supposed to solve in the first place.

> 4. Update your servers more than once every four years

> If you want the latest version of software, you need to not use the LTS version, and you need to update to the newer releases as they're released, because the entire point of LTS is not to do the thing you're asking to do.

Sometimes, you want some of your software to change and other software not to change. The job of a computer is to do what the user wants it to do, is it not?

Like, if I'm using LTS, it's presumably because of something like "wifi works on this exact combination of system software and I don't want to risk it breaking with a random update". So the default would be to install software from a known working system. But I should be able to explicitly opt into installing other up-to-date software; keep my browser up-to-date and all that.

That's why I'm proposing a new command, so you can type in something like `apt-get install-latest youtube-dl` and get the latest version. `apt-get install` would still work the same as before.

I feel like it's very common to want some things to be stable and other things to be bleeding edge. Like, why are my only two choices "everything out of date" or "everything bleeding edge"? Why not make software for actual humans to use? I remember that being Ubuntu's motto.

Like, I presume it's pretty common for an actual human not to want their wifi to be bricked by an update. I presume it's also pretty common for an actual human to want a version of `youtube-dl` that works. It seems user-hostile to force a user to choose one or the other.

And before you say "but PPAs", PPAs are a workaround that have various flaws (you need to use google and copy/paste code, instead of just using your package manager as a package manager) (and they're only available for certain repositories) (and many of them are unofficial). Ubuntu/Debian already maintain up-to-date repositories, why not just allow users to selectively install software from them?

(I wasn't sure what to put for ROLE/AFFILIATION, honestly; I saw other people being vaguely specific and I tried to copy them)

- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop

- HEADLINE: Option to auto-hide the Unity top panel

- DESCRIPTION: The same way you can optionally auto-hide the Unity sidebar launcher, I wish I could do the same with the top panel for not having always go to F11 fullscreen mode to enjoy a distraction-free user experience. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/nmDsOMj.png

- ROLE/AFFILIATION: end user

I don't follow Ubuntu packaging policies specifically but isn't this what the $RELEASE-backports suites are for?