Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 23rd Jan 2013 18:21 UTC, submitted by Anonymous
"For the longest time Canonical has slapped an LTS moniker on some of their Ubuntu releases. Currently, a new major release of the operating system happens every six months, and is supported for 18 months after release. Whereas in the past when LTS versions received two years support or more, the current model - starting with 12.04 - supports new LTS releases for five years. However, a recent public Google Hangouts session revealed that Canonical has been thinking about switching from the venerable LTS model to a rolling release, starting with version 14.04."
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Member since:2010-01-21
Ubuntu's already the most unstable Linux distribution out there, might as well go all the way with that. They've got nothing to lose, except for their users. It's not as if anyone else takes Ubuntu seriously.
Trust me. It's NOT the most unstable distro out there.
As a skilled Gentoo user, I can honestly say that a rolling-release, build-from-source distro which encourages end-user customization of compile-time flags will always be more unstable on average.
...if for no other reason, because each Gentoo user makes half of the set of decisions an Ubuntu maintainer does and there's no tooling in place to allow us to share information on which configurations will cause instability under which circumstances.
Member since:2005-06-29
I have to agree, though my experience is with Arch and not Gentoo. They share a similar problem with occasional breakage though, from what I understand.
I will say, however, that the Arch maintainers always warn before breaking things and always have a fix either already in the pipe or at least on the way. When I ran it as my main OS, I tried to hold back the urge to type sudo pacman -Syu until I saw the fixes had been implemented.
So if Ubuntu goes for a rolling release model, I hope they are ready for the surge of hate from users too lazy or simply unaware of the need to check release notes before updating.
Member since:2008-07-15
"Ubuntu's already the most unstable Linux distribution out there, might as well go all the way with that. They've got nothing to lose, except for their users. It's not as if anyone else takes Ubuntu seriously.
Trust me. It's NOT the most unstable distro out there.
As a skilled Gentoo user, I can honestly say that a rolling-release, build-from-source distro which encourages end-user customization of compile-time flags will always be more unstable on average.
...if for no other reason, because each Gentoo user makes half of the set of decisions an Ubuntu maintainer does and there's no tooling in place to allow us to share information on which configurations will cause instability under which circumstances. "
Fair point, I don't really think of build from source distributions in the same way I think of pre-built ones like Ubuntu, Debian, etc, so I wasn't including them. On the flip side though, if you know what you're doing, you can get those to be rock solid stable.
Member since:2009-09-03
I don't think Google would choose the 'most unstable Linux distribution out there' as their GoogleOS.
I use Ubuntu most of the time and I honestly think it's currently the best free user experience out there. As a power user you might like better this or that distro, but for the common person, Ubuntu is as stable, polished and well integrated a desktop can be. I've met a few Mac zealots who converted to Ubuntu and in my book, that means quite a bit.
Member since:2010-04-10
Member since:2005-08-18
Features
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Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
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OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/16/13 9:29 UTC
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.More Features »
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Member since:
2008-07-15
Ubuntu's already the most unstable Linux distribution out there, might as well go all the way with that. They've got nothing to lose, except for their users. It's not as if anyone else takes Ubuntu seriously.