The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

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exploder
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The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

Has anyone else noticed that each Ubuntu release has less and less things working? I am asking this because I just checked out Intrepid alpha 6, it still has no system sounds, no usplash at shutdown or restart, and you still can not use your floppy drive if you still have one. Fedora has system sounds, why can't Ubuntu learn from them? The usplash problem is not present in OpenSuse, why can't they learn from this? A floppy drive will work in Mandriva, again why can't they learn from this?

Am I missing something? I thought new releases were supposed to be better?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Husse

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by Husse »

I thought new releases were supposed to be better?
A misunderstanding perhaps :mrgreen:
exploder
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Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

Yes, my mistake. :mrgreen:

Have a look at this.

http://people.ubuntu.com/~sbeattie/regr ... acker.html

Interesting...

Edit: And if that wasn't enough.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bugs?fiel ... -potential
msuggs

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by msuggs »

It's a little harsh to judge a testing release of a distro that's still in the alpha stage. I don't think any valid judgements can be made about intrepid until the final release candidates are available.
exploder
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Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

Ubuntu Developer's favorite responses are:

We are a small team.

We can not fix everyones favorite bug.

I have filed many bug reports simply to watch the priority set to Low or Undecided. It is fair to say that the majority of bugs in alpha 6 will still be present in the final release.
Fred

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by Fred »

I guess this is more of a rant than anything else.

There was a time when I thought and said that Mint should stay with Ubuntu. Leaving them would be giving up a lot of resources. I am beginning to question that position.
Ubuntu Developer's favorite responses are:

We are a small team.

We can not fix everyones favorite bug.
It seems like there are more and more bugs being left in the Ubuntu releases. I am talking about the finals, not alpha or beta. This kind of behavior is what you would expect from a proprietary effort. The pressure to meet deadlines always causes short cuts and work-a-rounds instead of actual fixes. What ever happened to the Linux philosophy of releasing finals when they are ready instead of on a schedule?

This is exactly the kind of thing that has made Windows such an unstable mess. Every release there are new bugs and work-a-rounds to go with the ones already there. After a while you have a house of cards. Nobody even knows where all the problem areas are. One wrong move can cause the whole system to fall down.

I fear that if it continues, Ubuntu will be in the same boat. When you are in the situation that you have so many bugs that you have to pick and choose a few that effect the most people, and forget the rest, you are headed for disaster. It is just a matter of time.

If the coming release of Ubuntu continues on the path of the last two releases, maybe it is time to seriously think about moving back to our roots and looking a little closer at Debian. I know it would be a bit of a culture shock to move to a rolling upgrade distro, but it has a lot of advantages too, especially for a small team like Mint.

Rant off. :-)

Fred
rivenought

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by rivenought »

Fred,
Your observation is something for many Mint enthusiasts to possibly consider. I cannot express my thoughts any better than you have, so I basically second your opinion. I use Mint simply because it IS Mint. I have never used Ubuntu, and if not for Mint's relationship, I would have no interest in Ubuntu at all. Now, "Mint" Debian on the other hand...
Last edited by rivenought on Tue Sep 23, 2008 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
exploder
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Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

Fred, you have an excellent grasp of things and a great way with words. My post was a bit of a rant as well. I just get so darn tired of submitting bug reports for nothing. From my experience the Ubuntu Team just waits for someone "upstream" to fix things. Come to think of it what exactly has Ubuntu fixed? They integrated Compiz into Appearance and Preferences" but I am not sure how earth shattering that really is. When will something get fixed "downstream"? I love developer talk, it makes me feel like I am on a fishing trip for answers! Sometimes I have to wonder if the stream is drying up... Well, I will stop my ranting now. :mrgreen:
msuggs

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by msuggs »

I wonder how viable a move to Debian as a base would really be. To maintain the relative up to date nature of Mint you'd have to look at sid which must compromise the stability of Mint. Surely it would mean that Mint would have to become Ubuntuesque in size as a project to cope with the extra workload of developing a release that is relatively bug free. I don't know what the answer is as you have all highlighted some worrying trends here.
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Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

I keep looking at Sidux for ideas, they are a small team and seem to do the impossible. One thing of particular interest to me is how they build the kernel. The Sidux kernel seems to handle hardware very well and I just don't see very many posts on their forum about kernel issues. Sidux is a very young distribution but they are doing something right.Sidux uses a script for safe updating and they are essentially a rolling release. I noticed that other Debian based distributions are utilizing the Sidux kernel, this says a lot.I find Sidux to be a distribution to keep my eyes on. We might learn a few things from Sidux.
badmotor

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by badmotor »

exploder wrote:I keep looking at Sidux for ideas, they are a small team and seem to do the impossible. One thing of particular interest to me is how they build the kernel. The Sidux kernel seems to handle hardware very well and I just don't see very many posts on their forum about kernel issues. Sidux is a very young distribution but they are doing something right.Sidux uses a script for safe updating and they are essentially a rolling release. I noticed that other Debian based distributions are utilizing the Sidux kernel, this says a lot.I find Sidux to be a distribution to keep my eyes on. We might learn a few things from Sidux.
You said Sidux 7 times in one paragraph! That's good going. :D
exploder
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Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

Wow, I did... :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Fred

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by Fred »

I have been using sidux for about six months, alongside Mint of course. I have found sidux to be very solid and stable. In the time that I have been using and maintaining sidux I have only had two issues with upgrade breakage. In both cases there were fixes posted on their website within a few hours that solved the problem.

Their use of the smxi scripts to do distribution upgrades takes most of the pain out of upgrades that one would normally expect from sid.

I have not looked at the source for their installer, but it is one of the cleanest, GUI wise, and fastest I have ever seen. It puts Ubuntu's installer to shame... really. I just built a new system for my wife and I to use. I splurged a bit. It is pretty fast but when was the last time you installed any system in 2 min. and 27 sec.!? This is the full blown KDE system on DVD, not the lite version.

Yes, I think there is a lot we could learn from the sidux team.

Fred
exploder
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Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

Fred your install time was fast! I installed the Xfce version on my test machine, an old Athlon 1.8, the install took 4.02 minutes to complete. Memory use was somewhere around 80 MB. I will have to check out the KDE version.

I agree that the installer is very clean and the timer is a nice touch too.
rivenought

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by rivenought »

Well, I have been fiddling with Sidux a little bit after seeing the glowing reviews posted in this thread from the rest of you guys. Sidux does function just fine. I have to do some more research, but this does look to have advantages as a base for some Mint applications and a GNOME desktop. This really could be a better choice than pure Debian, but I am not an expert in these matters. Perhaps when Clem spreads out his roadmap for Mint 7, 8, or 9, Sidux might be considered. All in all, this is highly interesting.
bealer

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by bealer »

Fred wrote:I guess this is more of a rant than anything else.

There was a time when I thought and said that Mint should stay with Ubuntu. Leaving them would be giving up a lot of resources. I am beginning to question that position.

It seems like there are more and more bugs being left in the Ubuntu releases. I am talking about the finals, not alpha or beta. This kind of behavior is what you would expect from a proprietary effort. The pressure to meet deadlines always causes short cuts and work-a-rounds instead of actual fixes. What ever happened to the Linux philosophy of releasing finals when they are ready instead of on a schedule?

This is exactly the kind of thing that has made Windows such an unstable mess. Every release there are new bugs and work-a-rounds to go with the ones already there. After a while you have a house of cards. Nobody even knows where all the problem areas are. One wrong move can cause the whole system to fall down.

I fear that if it continues, Ubuntu will be in the same boat. When you are in the situation that you have so many bugs that you have to pick and choose a few that effect the most people, and forget the rest, you are headed for disaster. It is just a matter of time.

If the coming release of Ubuntu continues on the path of the last two releases, maybe it is time to seriously think about moving back to our roots and looking a little closer at Debian. I know it would be a bit of a culture shock to move to a rolling upgrade distro, but it has a lot of advantages too, especially for a small team like Mint.
It's an Agile development process. The danger of releasing something when it's ready is like asking how long is a piece of string. Will Mint or Ubuntu ever be "ready". There will always be a bug or new feature to include.

That's why a deadline and cutoff point is set. It works very well. Anything that isn't ready is usually dropped from the release. And any outstanding bugs then get re-prioritised for the next iteration. I use it at work, and knowing when the next release will be ready is very handy. Also, for me it's the opposite, there are less and less bugs each release (regression bugs that is), and many more features. It's hardly a stack of cards waiting to fall down. For the next release, they'll have a list of features and prioritised bugs to fix. They can't fix all of them, so have to prioritise which ones are urgent.

I still think Ubuntu is a good base to work off. It provides a very mainstream solution, from which Mint can pick up the pieces and make the additions that the community asks for.

Remember everyone will have a different definition for what is right or wrong in a release. For me, static addresses via Network Manager and updated repo's are enough reason for me to upgrade my server. Ubuntu keeps moving forward. If you compare Intrepid to something like Dapper o Edgy you'll see that it has come quite a way.
exploder
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Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

There is a fix for the "eject" bug. A new version of udev in the proposed repo fixes the bug. I tested the fix today and it works like it should now. I found a new bug in "Main Menu". If I go in to edit the menu I found that different applications have multiple icons! Brasero for example had five icons! You would never know the bug was present if you didn't ever edit the menu. The fix was simple enough, just delete the un-needed extra icons. I have asked for conformation on the bug and will report it if a bug report has not been filed.

Edit: Reported the bug with "Main Menu"

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/293401

(I know, my bug description sucks... I never can quite figure out how to word some of these.)
Old Marcus

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by Old Marcus »

Interesting, I've got intrepid installed on the spare space on my harddrive, and haven't had the cd eject problem.
exploder
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Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by exploder »

Do you have the multiple icons when you go in to edit the menu?
Old Marcus

Re: The current state of Ubuntu Intrepid.

Post by Old Marcus »

Not checked yet. I'll edit this post if I do.

EDIT: Yep, I do.
EDIT: Got the cd error as well, only happens with a disk in the drive.
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