Ubuntu Cuts Down Non-LTS Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu Cuts Down Non-LTS Support

At yesterday's Ubuntu Technical Board meeting they discussed how long they will support non-LTS releases as well as the rolling release model for Ubuntu Linux...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTMzMTE

[F i L]

So Ubuntu Rolling Release is a sure thing? Sounds great. I've been excited to see Ubuntu advance in different areas. The announcement of Mir did dampen my enthusiasm a lot, but hopefully that doesn't cause to much trouble with graphics-drivers down the road.

[Cyborg16]

So they're just going to immitate Debian's stable releases every two years with "testing" in between? Because rolling releases could easily mean lots of updates and frequent breakages. Think I'd prefer 2-6 point releases a year, though I don't really know how it'll pan out...

[Hamish Wilson]

Up to now the non-LTS releases were maintained for eighteen months but Canonical has been wanting to shorten up this time or even do away with these interim releases in order to free up resources at the company.

To me this is the telling part of the article. Overstretching themselves a bit with everything are they?

[mark45]

To me this is the telling part of the article. Overstretching themselves a bit with everything are they?

+1

Otoh I'm glad they go from 18 to 9 months, those not on LTS upgrade the OS pretty much asap with each new release anyway.

[mendieta]

So Ubuntu Rolling Release is a sure thing? Sounds great.

Yeah, it seems like the main reason _not_ to just go with rolling releases was some OEMs afraid of not being able to give the users the latest and greatest. And I can see that. Imagine you want to release a new laptop, if the kernel + Xorg are old, how do you support it? You need the rolling version to upgrade major components like X and Kernel, but then how can it be stable?

Me? I think it would probably make sense for Ubuntu to have annual releases, and make every other release Long Term. There is always a rolling one, which is latest + updates

Cheers!

[marrusl]

Imagine you want to release a new laptop, if the kernel + Xorg are old, how do you support it?!

You use the LTS Enablement stack [1]. Every point release includes (optional) backports of the kernel and X stack from the following non-LTS releases. You can run 12.04 with the 12.10 kernel and Xorg as of 12.04.2.

Edit: This would have remained in some form even if the non-LTS releases had been dropped. I.e. the LTS will always have some sort of hardware enablement strategy.


[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

[schmidtbag]

Doesn't seem very LTS to me...

I think it'd be nice to ditch the half-year cycles and just stick with the 9 month cycles. I still feel Ubuntu shouldn't do rolling-release. Ubuntu is used in too many servers and the way it is used as a reference for compatibility is too wide-spread. Compatibility will be harder to manage for proprietary software, it might be harder for people to get a version that supports their hardware (for example, how Catalyst ditched support for HD4000 series and older), and software that might become obsolete (such as GNOME 2) will be lost forever.

Now, I'm not against rolling releases by any means, I regularly use Arch. I think rolling releases are fantastic. But Ubuntu wanted to be mainstream and I have yet to ever hear of anything mainstream that is a rolling release, probably because it's a bad idea.

[F i L]

Yeah, it seems like the main reason _not_ to just go with rolling releases was some OEMs afraid of not being able to give the users the latest and greatest. And I can see that. Imagine you want to release a new laptop, if the kernel + Xorg are old, how do you support it? You need the rolling version to upgrade major components like X and Kernel, but then how can it be stable?

Me? I think it would probably make sense for Ubuntu to have annual releases, and make every other release Long Term. There is always a rolling one, which is latest + updates

Cheers!

Well Rolling Release has snapshots... so the OEMs could just install the latest "monthly" (or whatever) snapshot onto the system. Ubuntu needs to be stable, period. And it can get that with rolling release, just look at Chakra. OEMs just need to advertise their products ship with the "latest" or "up-to-date" Ubuntu OS, and they shouldn't really loose any traction marketing wise. Hell, advertising that the system "automatically" keeps all software up-to-date could be marketing gold if presented right. No one wants to use a year-old browser or outdated graphics program.

If Ubuntu wants to keep the marketing buzz that goes along with named version updates, just do what Google does with Android (and what Microsoft sort of does with "Windows Server Pack" upgrades). Keep the core software (kernel and friends) more stable and release "Core Upgrades" with Codesnames every few months or so.

[Ishayu]

To me this is the telling part of the article. Overstretching themselves a bit with everything are they?

Definitely. On the other hand I'd rather they focus tons of development resources on developing software as opposed to repackaging it.