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Being an LTS release or not has absolutely nothing to do with the solidness of Ubuntu releases. Some other distros may only "release when it's ready" but Ubuntu follows a strictly time-based release cycle and they will always release on the predetermined date, ready or not.

OK, dapper was delayed for six weeks but that was their first LTS release, so it was a special case. But I don't think that they'd allow a delay like that to happen again, no matter how buggy the release turns out to be.

I disagree.
They will not release on schedule if any glaringly massive bugs show up.
Ubuntu is at the forefront of Linux adoption and people who have never heard of Linux before are watching the progress of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu will not rush it out the door. They are not in business to appease shareholders like Microsoft are.
The delay on Dapper was to get the most stable system for release. The same thing will happen this time, unless it is already perfect...

BTW - Personally, I have had enough of Ubuntu, and have removed it and installed PC-Bsd.

You imply that, based upon historical evidence, Ubuntu will not delay an LTS release to ensure superior quality... bit admit that 100% of their previous LTS releases were delayed to ensure superior quality?

Perhaps your memory on the matter is not as clear as mine is. Dapper was actually "good enough" in April of 2006. Mark Shuttleworth reminded the Ubuntu community that they would be living with that release for a long, long time. And called for a delay as an additional QA measure, and others agreed.

Is there no limit, da_chicken, to the amount of spin you will put on an item in order to be able to make an anti-Ubuntu post?

Ubuntu is not even my favorite distro... but it's obvious to me that it is doing something right to have so many jealous detractors.

Edited 2008-03-22 12:30 UTC

"This is an LTS release. So you can bet that they will not let it out the door until it's solid."

Are you kidding? Am I the only one who's noticed that each successive Ubuntu release has gotten buggier? Perhaps there's a direct correlation to the fact that each Ubuntu release has gotten more ambitious. We all know what comes of overreaching ambition. What The Ubuntu developers need to do is skip a release cycle and concentrate on the myriad of bugs that have never been fixed or have been fixed half-assed by overzealous developers who would rather cram experimental and wow-factor features into Ubuntu rather than make it rock-solid and stable to use. Apparently Ubuntu thinks it's Microsoft.

Yes. (Well, I imagine that da_Chicken has probably "noticed" it, too.)

I was wondering how long it would take you, cmost, to post your usual anti-ubuntu rant in this thread. Such predictability hurts your credibility. I've tested each of the last five Ubuntu releases, on a variety of hardware, and have found each to be of good quality. I have found no evidence to support your claim of reduced quality over time.


And what are these "experimental, wow factor" features you allude to so vaguely? Please be specific.


LOL. You're really grasping for anything to throw at Ubuntu, aren't you. This accusation also hurts (what's left of) your credibility on this topic.

Like I've said in a previous post, I'm more of a Fedora guy. But I know that nothing brings out jealous detractors like success. And I take yours and da_chicken's feeble and deceptive attempts at disparaging it as indications that Ubuntu is doing something very right, and thus threatening those who somehow feel that its doing so casts a bad light on their own favored distros. Yours is OpenSuse, isn't it?

Edited 2008-03-22 14:14 UTC

Psst. Yes, you're wrong.

6-month releases typically focus on a particular area. The boot loader and desktop effects are examples from past releases. LTS releases are intended to be stable, in order to make Ubuntu more attractive in an enterprise environment, which benefits from high reliability and a long update cycle.

That CD is in fact only web-installer with graphical interface. Do not forget about that c.a. 20 gigabytes in repositories. In case of Hardy they fulfil 5 DVDs when downloaded.

Try to use Ubuntu as Windows/MacOS replacement without all that repositories - no matter on-line or off-line.

Try to use Windows/MacOS without installing any additional software. Compare that to what you get with the Ubuntu CD, without any repos. And remember that Ubuntu comes on a CD and MacOS and Windows comes on DVDs.

Edited 2008-03-22 20:56 UTC

Just because it's only one cd, doesn't mean it can't be bloated.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=714858

There's too many things that are installed and turned on by default. And without trying to start a flame war, mono is there and the two useless apps that require it, none of which I care for or want to use. And the second biggest biggest cpu hogging, hard drive churning, piece of alpha cr... err.... code no one wants - Tracker.

Now add restrictive drivers manager, displayunconfig-gtk, not at all bullet proof X and you can see for your self that one can surely bloat a one cd linux distribution if one so desired!

I don't care for Mono either. Only Tomboy is on by default. Rightclick->Remove from panel.


I have tracker enabled for all my Fedora 8 users. That's 60 simultaneous instances on my largest server. I leave it at the default settings. And it hardly impacts the system performance at all. It sips memory daintily. It doesn't hog the CPU. And is not unstable at all. My users love it. I was afraid to turn it on. But once I did, I was impressed. If you've been turned off in the past by the memory sucking, CPU grinding, perpetually unstable Beagle, give yourself a treat and try tracker. (Because I can tell that you haven't.)


The restricted drivers manager is absolutely necessary for new users. Converts invariably have Nvidia cards, wireless cards with nondistributable firmware, etc. This is *definitely* not bloat.

And how can you call a distro with a default install that runs very nicely in 256MB of ram on a 630MHz Celeron "bloated"? I ran it on my eee pc for a while which I was using quite extensively. It comes with 512MB, but I limited it to 256MB for a few days, just to see what would happen. And it did very well, indeed.