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Well, an 18-month release is not only perfectly acceptable, but expected for a major operating system.
In fact, if you compare it to Mac OS X or the Windows collection of operating systems, only Mac OS X manages to have had releases within the 18 month time-frame.
People want no regressions, total stability, totally new features every six months with perfect documentation to go with it all for free. I honestly don't believe that that is possible, although I wish it were.
I think you need to establish priorities. My servers are all on stable releases that change every few years. On my company's desktops, I keep also stable releases that change every few years, but never sooner than two.
On my personal workstation, I mess around because I know how to fix things when they break.
In summary, long-lasting stability: CentOS, Novell Desktop Linux, Mandriva Corporate Desktop, RHEL, Debian Stable or Ubuntu LTS.
You want to have fun and can deal with the occasional glitch, regular releases of the above distros are fine.




Member since:
2006-01-23
/quote/But as a desktop platform, there are places where either a new release forgets to maintain backward compatibility compiler flags or old, important bugs are swept under the rug./quote/
And this is the problem with Ubuntu in a nutshell. You have to upgrade to get newer versions of applications and when you do you're left crossing your fingers hoping that there's no regression.
But regression is a mainstay for Ubuntu. I used to run it and features that worked like a champ under Dapper, let's say, were horribly supported or not at all supported under Edgy. The common response is that Dapper was a LTS release and was meant to be stable. But if Ubuntu wants to claim the desktop space *every* release must be stable and have little to no regression. Referring back to a release that is almost 18 months old as the answer for stability is really no answer at all.
Ubuntu and its derivatives need to seriously consider coming out with releases every 9 months or so instead of 6 months. Oh wait, then the users would have to go 9 months before their apps are upgraded.
So we are left with a conundrum: either extend the release times and use older versions of apps longer or release every six months, adding tons of eye candy and hope there is little to no regression.
A bit if a trade off is it not? And we wonder what all the hype is about?
(Typing from a Slackware 12 installation running the latest office apps.)