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Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

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Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#41

Post by Avshalom »

homeomorphic wrote: post #35
sp332 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PPAs should be for cutting-edge stuff, not stuff that was stable 4 months ago and hasn't been updated in "main" yet.

But "stuff that was stable 4 months ago" is not a trivial case either. Suppose A version 1.1 was stable 4 months ago, but that the version of B that works with A 1.1 is horribly buggy still, and the stable version of B needs A 1.0. Do we upgrade A? I can imagine this becoming very tough to mange with 20k-30k packages. I hope Canonical can deal, but I do fear that the users will suffer.

That problem already exists, except currently there is generally a six month minimum before it gets resolved.

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#42

Post by jff »

yogo wrote: post #27
gtaylor wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the counter argument is based on FUD and bad experiences with OTHER rolling release distros. I'm not sure we can look at Gentoo or Arch as examples of what Ubuntu would be aiming to do (and I say this as an Arch user). Within the proposal, it states that packages would be released when ready, and when stable. This doesn't mean that you are going to live on the bleeding edge like an Arch or Gentoo user may. Y…

I don't think it's so much on the bleeding edge in Arch as most people think and packages are usually upgraded in such a way so that dependencies don't cause problems in other packages (at least from my experience). The key has always been to always do a system upgrade and not upgrade individual packages, i.e. always run pacman -Syu or pacman -Syu . In four years I've never seen anything break (knock on wood) aside f…

My experience with Arch has frequently been:

1. Run pacman -Syu

2. Pacman failed.

3. Go to Arch website

4. Learn that I shouldn't have run pacman just then, and now I have to follow these steps to un-break my system

The most notable instance was when Arch decided that /usr/lib should be a symlink to /lib. Yeah, barely recovered from that... it was also a reinforcement of my position that basic utilities should be statically linked.

I finally gave up on Arch when a GRUB update broke my system and locked me out of my encrypted root.

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#43

Post by dizzystar »

homeomorphic wrote: post #16

I'm sure the decision wasn't taken lightly, and I'm sure Canonical has concluded that an 18 month LTS + rolling makes the most sense for the project. As a user, I am a bit worried about rolling releases though. Maybe someone here can alleviate my worries? As I see it, software has to change. The question for distros is just when? A rolling distro sees such changes continuously, and each package may in principle chang…

>>> As a user, I am a bit worried about rolling releases though. Maybe someone here can alleviate my worries?

As an Arch Linux user, I've had no problems with rolling releases. I know that's not much to go on, but I think with a large known company running the show, there is going to be some responsibility here.

Hopefully others can chime in.

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#44

Post by csense »

zalew wrote: post #3

considering the tipping point of me leaving buntu was being tired of the upbreak release process, I second this idea. they are basically adopting the debian scheme, only the stable releases will be more frequent.

I thought Ubuntu's original reason for existing was because Debian releases don't happen often enough?

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#45

Post by adwf »

jff wrote: post #42
yogo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's so much on the bleeding edge in Arch as most people think and packages are usually upgraded in such a way so that dependencies don't cause problems in other packages (at least from my experience). The key has always been to always do a system upgrade and not upgrade individual packages, i.e. always run pacman -Syu or pacman -Syu . In four years I've never seen anything break (knock on wood) aside f…

My experience with Arch has frequently been: 1. Run pacman -Syu 2. Pacman failed. 3. Go to Arch website 4. Learn that I shouldn't have run pacman just then, and now I have to follow these steps to un-break my system The most notable instance was when Arch decided that /usr/lib should be a symlink to /lib. Yeah, barely recovered from that... it was also a reinforcement of my position that basic utilities should be sta…

Yeah I got caught by forcing the /usr/lib update too. Went away for a month, came back and did a full upgrade, failed. Checked the website, the news had dropped of the front page, forced update, broke it horribly.

Despite the problems, I still find rolling release vastly preferable. If Ubuntu can bring some of the commercial support quality to a rolling release, they'd alleviate a lot of the difficulties that I have with Arch.

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#46

Post by eliben »

I watch Ubuntu's recent steps with trepidation. I love using it for a home Linux machine (indeed upgrading just to LTS-es), and I could not care less about its "convergence" aspirations. I don't want Ubuntu on my phone or my tablet, or at least I don't care.

I worry that eventually its mobile plans will bury the desktop Ubuntu, move it out of focus, so to say. When that happens, I wonder whither I should turn. Debian?

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#47

Post by Wilya »

yogo wrote: post #27
gtaylor wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the counter argument is based on FUD and bad experiences with OTHER rolling release distros. I'm not sure we can look at Gentoo or Arch as examples of what Ubuntu would be aiming to do (and I say this as an Arch user). Within the proposal, it states that packages would be released when ready, and when stable. This doesn't mean that you are going to live on the bleeding edge like an Arch or Gentoo user may. Y…

I don't think it's so much on the bleeding edge in Arch as most people think and packages are usually upgraded in such a way so that dependencies don't cause problems in other packages (at least from my experience). The key has always been to always do a system upgrade and not upgrade individual packages, i.e. always run pacman -Syu or pacman -Syu . In four years I've never seen anything break (knock on wood) aside f…

Arch is very good if you run it as your main system and keep it updated very frequently. Forget it for six months (because it's an unused multiboot, or whatever) and try to do an upgrade, and it might be more painful.

I got burnt by the glibc mess last summer, where you had to run a specific set of --force things in a given order to get through and if you didn't, well, you lost your /lib (at which point it's game over, since freaking pacman isn't statically linked).

Response in forums or irc (I don't remember) was "It's rolling release, you had three whole months to update, too bad for you".

Atomic releases avoid the problem because everyone will do this kind of breaking changes at the same point, whereas with rolling releases, you can't force people to update all at the same time, so you'll always end up losing people, once your migration path inevitably becomes invalid because of the way everything goes forward.

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#48

Post by YokoZar »

homeomorphic wrote: post #16

I'm sure the decision wasn't taken lightly, and I'm sure Canonical has concluded that an 18 month LTS + rolling makes the most sense for the project. As a user, I am a bit worried about rolling releases though. Maybe someone here can alleviate my worries? As I see it, software has to change. The question for distros is just when? A rolling distro sees such changes continuously, and each package may in principle chang…

The decision hasn't been made yet. Canonical's CTO may have decided he likes it, but the Ubuntu project hasn't yet given it a pass.

If you've got workflow-critical programs you don't want updating, use the LTS release. That's what it's for.

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#49

Post by dpearson »

eliben wrote: post #46

I watch Ubuntu's recent steps with trepidation. I love using it for a home Linux machine (indeed upgrading just to LTS-es), and I could not care less about its "convergence" aspirations. I don't want Ubuntu on my phone or my tablet, or at least I don't care. I worry that eventually its mobile plans will bury the desktop Ubuntu, move it out of focus, so to say. When that happens, I wonder whither I should turn. Debian…

I used to use Debian, and I'm not sure I'd go back. On one hand, the stability was wonderful (Debian was pretty much bulletproof for me), but packages were, for stable, quite old. Hardware compatibility isn't quite as good: hardware (including a USB Wi-Fi dongle) that Ubuntu autodetects and has no trouble with became an adventure to get working.

I tracked stable, so maybe testing would be better in terms of package outdating, but hardware compatibility is Debian's achilles heel right now.

Re: Ubuntu Rolling Release Proposal

#50

Post by hristov »

This repeated notion of a truly converged OS is really annoying and it is very disappointing to see Ubuntu continue to pursue it despite the loud complaints of most of their users.

Lets point out the obvious: the user interaction of a small handheld device is very different than that of a computer with a full size monitor and mouse. Thus any os's on those two devices have to have different UI features. That's it.

Of course the parts of the OS that are not UI can be converged. In that sense Linux is already a fully converged OS.

But you are never going to fully converge the UI of two devices that use vastly different UI methods.

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