Not too long ago Mark Shuttleworth proposed a delay of six weeks for the release of Ubuntu Dapper Drake. Today, after discussion within the community, the delay was approved and announced. “June 1st 2006 is the updated release date for Ubuntu Dapper, Desktop and Server editions, a delay of 6 weeks over the previous release date of April 20.” More information in the release schedule.
Are there plans to have 2.6.16 in Dapper? That’d put it on par with SuSE and RedHat’s upcoming releases I believe. Just curious.
sooooooooooooooooooo
To me dapper is ready to roll!!!
maybe so,
but we are not waiting on YOU releasing it
🙂
gnome 2.14 will certainly be in Debian unstable and Debian testing by May. At that point, ubuntu unstable/prerelease will be more or less on par with Debian in terms of general desktop features.
I concede that Ubuntu puts more polish into their gnome desktop than is usually found in Debian unstable. For a casual user Ubuntu is probably a better choice, but for a hacker Debian > ubuntu because Debian has a tremendous amount of useful tools in its main repository, and the versions of desktop apps in unstable are more or less on par with what is in ubuntu.
Ubuntu is finding out what Debian developers have known for a long time — stability is important. I’m sure today’s fedora release has lots of annoying little bugs in gnome. The next official releases of ubuntu and Debian will certainly be more stable.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
I want Dapper and I want it now!
In all seriousness, one of the cool things of Ubuntu is how its release cycle works like clockwork. I hope this is only a one-time thing and does not set a precedent of delaying releases.
Well download Flight 5 then and give it a spin. It’s basically what you’d get if Ubuntu were to be released on schedule. I for one welcome the extra polishing done before releasing Dapper.
Since Flight5 the install images for i386 no longer fit on a 650MB disc. Does anyone if they plan a “fix” for this before the final release?
They already patched that, its called the 700MB disc…
I am still experiencing trouble booting Ubuntu Dapper from 2.6.15-18 Amd64 from SATA hard disk’s. I have looked up forumes many times. No solution yet. I can still boot using 2.6.12-10 and get latest updates. Has any one else have success?
I am still experiencing trouble booting Ubuntu Dapper from 2.6.15-18 Amd64 from SATA hard disk’s. I have looked up forumes many times. No solution yet. I can still boot using 2.6.12-10 and get latest updates. Has any one else have success?
It’s working fine for me:
(fstab)
/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
(uname -a)
Linux karaquazian 2.6.15-18-amd64-generic #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 9 14:37:22 UTC 2006 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Can you be more specific, like what kind of controller and which port the disk is connected to? It seems some drivers are more buggy then others
This is the controller: “NVidia CK8S Serial ATA Controller”
The Hal device: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_10de_e3_scsi_host_0_scsi_device_lun0
File a bug report
I’m supprised they didn’t hold a competition to guess the release date. I guess Mark Shuttleworth takes release dates seriously then.
For the official release date, I think it’s well worth waiting on additional testing and feature assurance.
Those of us who want the next release early have been using Dapper for a while now.
The only thing that concerns me is the deferral of the “network authentication” milestone here – https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/network-authentication.
I understand Mark et al want Dapper to be the first “corporate” applicable Ubuntu, but cannot understand how they can offer a product that does not support the listed authentication types (AD for e.g.) out of the box.
i second that concern, i would like to see authentication against Microsoft AD out of the box, i’am pretty sure that would be a great feature and help many small company’s intergrate linux into they network with greatly reduced headache.
I guess they’ll call it Ubuntu v6.06 then.
and illustrates something I’ve been saying for years – “finished” is a hell of a lot more important than “Oh crap, it’s Tuesday – I guess it’s time to release…” Having goals is important, obviously, but realeasing what amounts to beta software every 6 months doesn’t really make any sense. Release it when it’s ready. You can do this w/o becoming like debian did between woody and sarge.
I think the idea of time based releases is to release with the features that are completely implemented at the time you want to release. It doesn’t mean you release whatever you have at the time. You actually say, no more new features are going to be included in the next release, and any work towards the release is bug fixing and polish. This means that if you were waiting for a new kernel with a new whiz bang feature, you actually decide not to include that kernel version, but to include an older stable kernel version with less bugs (hopefully). You don’t just take a snapshot of your cvs tree and release that.
Edited 2006-03-21 09:15
is that this is by far the most stable of all the betas I’ve used. I remember breezy, with all the X changes was buggy almost until the end. With this release, which I’ve been testing for some time, and haven’t had a problem for some time.
However, if there are some good reasons I’m all for it.
Good move Ubuntu. While I realise Dapper Flight 5 was a beta it was far from production ready. Many libraries were either not included or not fully available (the GTKLIB 1.2 (I think) libraries required for my Samsung laser printer are typical).
I thought I would take the risk with Flight 5 but after several days of frustration reloaded Breazy Badger and everything is now back to normal.
I really like Ubuntu and for me its much more important to get it right rather than meet some artificial delivery deadline – a bad release will do Ubuntu (and Linux in general) more harm than slavishly meeting unnecessary release schedules.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Peter
True,
I buggy release is definately worse than missing the deadline. However, lets not forget that one of the goals of Ubuntu was to release every 6 months. Now, how comfortable will we be to realized that one of the basix goals of our distribution is compromised. Many people, including me, were waiting for 6.04 release so that we can enjoy new features like XGL and trust me it is very frustrating to have to wait for another 6 weeks. I agree that a buggy release would havefrustrated me further more, my question is why set goals which we cannot fulfil.
In this case why try to include all the latest software at the cost of delaying the release. There is always backports for the latest software.
They could have simply released with a decent set of “polished” software and included the remaining in the backports, when the new software were “polished”.
Commitment is a BIG word.
All said, will this 6 weeks take me away from Ubuntu, actually no- I have Flight 5 running successfully and will wait (sadly) to get the final release.
In this case why try to include all the latest software at the cost of delaying the release. There is always backports for the latest software.
They could have simply released with a decent set of “polished” software and included the remaining in the backports, when the new software were “polished”.
The delay is not about including the latest software, it’s about more time for things like: bug-fix, QA, LSB certification, localisation, and polish.
Mark Shuttleworth considered these points essential, and the 6 weeks delay essential to get things done.
Beeing this the first version that will be supported for 5 years, and fully supported for “corporate use”, i think it should not be compared to the previous releases in terms of release schedule.
Personally, i think the delay is the only decision possible at this time, as hard as it may be for some users to understand it because for them “it just works”.
The commitment to try and make ubuntu dapper (6.06) the best release possible is commendable.
I wonder if Ubuntu will abandon the six-month cycle in favor of something a bit longer but regular (every 8 or 9 months for example). As a Debian fan, I never paid much attention to those who say, “My distro releases regularly, unlike Debian which is crap, blah, blah, blah…”. If Ubuntu is serious about an enterprise ready solution, they can’t turn away potential corporate customers with a buggy first release. Ubuntu can’t rely on Shuttleworth’s money forever, and it is no secret that Ubuntu is looking for a way to monetize their product (service contracts).
While I am no IT guy, I have read that stability trumps all others in the IT world. Releasing every six months would seem to leave open the possibility of reduced stability if new, major features are always added to the release. There has to be an ideal “middle ground” between every six months and the Debian Stable releases for the home desktop/enterprise desktop/server solution that Ubuntu wants to provide courtesy of one ISO.
> Releasing every six months would seem to leave open the
> possibility of reduced stability if new, major features
> are always added to the release.
A true time-driven release schedule doesn’t work that way. In such a schedule, things that aren’t stable enough to make the schedule just don’t make the cut. If that means sticking with an old but stable version of some software or not including some software at all, so be it.
The time-driven release philosophy relies on the belief that, it doesn’t matter if your feature doesn’t make it into this release since if it doesn’t you’ll only have to wait 6 months of it to get in. In the mean time, you can enjoy the other software that did make the cut. This generally is a good assumption to make and it has the benefit of avoidomg the infamous scope creap that is the bane of most software.
The key issue with this release is that it will be supported for 5 years, so if something doesn’t make the cut, you’ll have to wait 5 years for it to get in. That changes the rules slightly.
True, but I have noticed that Ubuntu fans appreciate the rapid release cycle for always staying bleeding edge. The idea of always providing bleeding edge software will pose problems for the IT world because they don’t want new apps, they would rather have bug and security fixes. Stability reigns supreme. Under the current system, somebody will lose out, and I would bet it will be the home users wanting bleeding edge software because they won’t be buying any service contracts.
I see some potential, though not serious, questions with the current direction of Ubuntu. Firstly, the six-month cycle with a five-year service policy will lead to an enourmous amount of actively supported versions over time. Why? This seems like a waste of resources.
Secondly, I have not seen any details (they may very well exist) about how the older versions will be serviced. I am familar with Debian, so I will use them as an example. After the first six months, will Dapper become like Debian Stable? That is, all new features will be found in the subsequent releases, while the only changes to Dapper will be security fixes. This would seem to be the best solution because IT people get their stability, while home users can get the latest and greatest with the following release. Or, will Dapper be like Debian Testing, where new apps/features are added over time after adequate testing? I would guess that once a new version is released, the older, supported versions would freeze except for security fixes. This way, the bulk of Ubuntu’s resources can be used in preparing the next release.
What are Ubuntu’s expectations with Dapper in relation to the enterprise market? Obviously, they expect some form of success, or they would not have had a delay. It is well known that corporate settings are slow to adopt new releases (except for security fixes). Doing so could cost somebody their job if someting should run afoul. What is my incentive in adopting Dapper? Why should I not wait until users run this version through six months of unofficial testing?
Being supported for 5 years, does not mean they can not add features, or that they can only have another release after 5 years.
Whilst it is generally ‘frowned upon’ to add features, mostly for the instability that can cause, if your new features don’t cause problems, then that is fine. Witness how SP2 for XP provided many new features. All you have to ensure is that your customers don’t experience strange breaks in their setups because they have updated their systems. But then again, that hasn’t stopped Microsoft before (again, see XP SP2).
Redhat supports its systems for 5 years, and releases every 18 months, which means they could have 4 systems being supported at any one time.
One thing that many people seem to miss is that Ubuntu is gradualy going corporate. Over the last few months Mark ShuttleWorth has been very busy indeed particularly in Asia trying to market Ubuntu. Now, I am not saying Ubuntu is a bad distro (because some fanboys always have knee jerk reactions if they feel its being criticised) but I always had my sneeky suspicions about all those free discs. The money needs to be recuperated somehow and it seems like Shuttleworth got the people hooked and now Canonical is looking to cash in on support services etc. Lets hope the community spirit remains.
Ubuntu, or any other self sustainable distro, has to go corporate. There is no other way. Going corporate doen not mean that the community spirit will fade off.
Lets look at Redhat, it is one of the well know Enterprise level Distro, even to the extent that Bigwigs like IBM have announced that they are building a Corporate Desktop OS on top of RHEL. On one hand we have this “Corporate” news and on the other we have Fedora 5 release. This aptly demonstrate that Community and Enterprise can co-exist.
On a personal front, I am currently using Ubuntu as my main Desktop OS in my company, having an official support would add to my Ubuntu Experience.
Ubuntu, or any other self sustainable distro, has to go corporate. There is no other way.
Not always true, look at Debian. However, Debian is not your average GNU/Linux distribution.
Ubuntu, or any other self sustainable distro, has to go corporate. There is no other way. Going corporate doen not mean that the community spirit will fade off.
A distro does not have to go corporate. Most distros have no relation at all to corporates and they still innovate and have large user bases although they may not get much notice in the enterprises (Debian being an exception).
As for community, some distros have gone downhill when more focus has been on pleasing the corporate sector hence my comments above. I am not saying that this is what will happen to Ubuntu, I was saying I hope the move into the corporate markets does not harm the commmunity spirit.
There is no denying that Canonical are gradually positioning Ubuntu to be relevant in the corporate world. Whilst Mark Shuttleworth has done an honourable thing and spent lots of his own money developing and marketing Ubuntu, at some point this will no longer be feasible without him getting some sort of return hence the need to improve the product and make some income through providing services. I always suspected such a move right from the beginning because of the aggressive marketing from Canonical (i.e. pour a lot of money into the project, give people free discs, get them hooked and others will notice).
I think Ubuntu is being too aggressive with their release schedule. Even Windows waits years between releases. I would prefer they spend more time on getting it right with each release and move the release cycle to 9 months instead. I may be in the minority, but every release seems to be rushed.
They should have set the date as the 6th of June! It’d be good for a giggle anyway…
They should have set the date as the 6th of June!
B-b-b-but June 6th isn’t my birthday. June 1 is.
(Yes, as far as I’m concerned, Team Ubuntu is giving me a birthday present. They so rock.)
Yeah but they’d be more rock n roll to release something on 06/06/06
Oh I’m sure WW2 veterans will be glad that it’ s released in D-Day aniversary.
Or, do you mean it as…
Aw dude better get some holy water!!!
Edited 2006-03-21 18:47
Six weeks is nothing compared to what Ubuntu might lose over the projected five-year life of Dapper. You only get one chance with most of the corporate lot. Dapper already runs fine on most machines, to judge from the posts here, so for those who want it now regardless there is no delay. It’s on my laptop.
Just my 2 cents, but I am a little worried that Ubuntu is turning out to be both much more complicated and more of a drag on his pocket than Mark Shuttleworth was hoping. Red Hat and SuSE (to a lesser extent) are big corps with strength in depth and offer things that Ubuntu currently doesn’t, like identity management suits and configurators of the YaST kind. What does Ubuntu offer that they do not? Maybe Ubuntu could wait for a while before hitting the business market and in the meantime come up with some good unique selling points or special technology that will get them more noticed. Ubuntu is still only eighteen months old. Red Hat and SuSE have been honing their offerings for a decade and more. It’s a tough road ahead
Anyway, I wish Ubuntu the best of luck. With Linux still developing so rapidly there is really no easy answer to how often new versions should come out. No matter which way you go, some parts of your target markets will complain.
> What does Ubuntu offer that they do not? . Red Hat
> and SuSE have been honing their offerings for a
> decade and more. It’s a tough road ahead
I agree with you, however, there is another thing to consider. In order to have experience and credibility, you have to get experience and earn credibility. The only way to get experience is to actually do things and the only way to earn credibility is to do what you say you will. Red Hat and SuSE have a decade of experience and credibility precisely because they started over a decade ago and they are still around. If they waited ’til Linux was ready for the enterprise desktop as Linux is today, they wouldn’t be what they are today.
Ubuntu Dapper doesn’t have to be perfect since most businesses ignore 1.0 releases anyway. However, it does have to not mess up in any major way and it has to have strong support after 2 years (Ubuntu has already proven it can support a release for 1.5 years). If it can accomplish that, the next enterprise version of Ubuntu will get a lot more interest.
Red Hat and SuSE (to a lesser extent) are big corps with strength in depth and offer things that Ubuntu currently doesn’t, like identity management suits and configurators of the YaST kind. What does Ubuntu offer that they do not?
#Debian as backbone.(certainly not unknown in corporated land)
#Mirrors
#Agility- Two days ago i downloaded a FC5 dvd.To my suprise FC5 runs not near as smooth as Ubuntu.Neither does OpenSuSE.
#Supported (working) platforms
#A far better package-management system with apt
#Better package cohesion,less dependancy errors.
#Better suited for education.
I’ve been trying out Dapper for a while and it is quite nice already, so the extra work on polish can only be a good thing. I’ve noticed a *lot* of updates on the artwork, so that may be one of the things they’re trying to address. Not a bad idea, really, since it’s the first thing a customer will notice (and something that Ubuntu’s corporate competitors are quite good at – SuSE 10.1 is very, very pretty, and Fedora has always looked nice).
Just curious…how exactly is Ubuntu better suited for education?
By the way, I haven’t run into dependency errors for a long time under SuSE (haven’t tried Fedora for a long time, so won’t speak for it). YaST works very well for solving dependencies; not saying that it’s as good or better than apt, but it does work very well.
My last fedora experience was with FC4 back in august. From that and my previous experiences I can say that yum is very good at handling dependencies but the default GUI tools really sucked. (Note I use the term default, i’m not including yumex and other third party tools)
Edited 2006-03-21 16:25
Speaking from Fedora user perspective:
– Pirut is the default package manager repleacing the old system-config-package. Major difference is the use of yum as backend. On the menu, it is called Add/Remove Software). It is still young as an option to add/remove repositories is not included yet but it can uses them from /etc/yum.repos.d/
– Pup (Software Update) replace up2date (this application is suited for RHEL)
– Yum is improved and more plugins are created.
– More Open Java implementation, Azureus uses it.
i agree with a lot of readers, it was total waste of time
Shuttleworth writes that Ubuntu Dapper is their first “enterprise quality” release that will be officially supported for five years. My question is: Are all future Ubuntu releases after Dapper going be similar “enterprise quality” releases or will there be mostly “normal” releases with shorter support and then sometimes a “special” release (like once every two years or so) with the extended support?
If Dapper is a “special” release that is going to be followed by a couple of “normal” releases, then I think a delay to sort out certification, improved localization & extra polish is definitely a good thing. But if every release from now on will be “enterprise quality”, then I think Ubuntu might be in trouble because they’ll now have six weeks less time to make the next release (after Dapper) to match the next GNOME release.
Still, adding XFCE to the official package repository is good news to me — I like XFCE more than GNOME or KDE. 🙂
The release after Dapper will be supported under the normal release policy of 1.5 years I believe. I think these special, long term “enterprise” supported releases will probably be around 1.5-2 years, every 3 or 4 releases of Ubuntu.
This is very good and useful info indeed. I give you one plus point.