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New Enterprise-Level Ubuntu Due This Week 331

Posted by Zonk from the nubuntu dept.
daria42 writes "According to Ubuntu's official release schedule, the next version of its Linux distribution, code-named "Dapper Drake" is due to be released this week, June 1 to be precise. This landmark release will be supported for 5 years (previous versions were only supported for 18 months) and is being touted as ready for enterprise use." From the article: "Dapper Drake will be supported for three years for the desktop version and five years for servers, compared to 18 months for the current 5.10 'Breezy Badger' version. The code release will come after the development process was extended by six weeks in order to improve the reliability of the software."
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New Enterprise-Level Ubuntu Due This Week More

New Enterprise-Level Ubuntu Due This Week

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  • Ubuntu dapper drake is cool (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rinzwind ( 870478 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @08:49AM (#15424183)
    It's the 1st Linux both my PC and my laptop accepted without a hitch during install or usage (past month or so). Bluetooth, Wireless connection, Printer HP PSC 2175 (with built-in scanner), wireless mouse (MX 7000), wireless keyboard, Multimedia keys and hibernate/resume all worked out of the box. Firefox as default browser is very nice. Ubuntu did what several redhat and suse installs didn't do: got me away from XP with a SMILE! *does happy dance*

    • Re:Ubuntu dapper drake is cool (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wallyhall ( 665610 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @08:51AM (#15424192) Homepage
      Yeah likewise. I'm on a Dell Inspirion 1150, totally seamless install and use. It's strange, I've actually had a hard time getting away from the terminal! (I've been using Linux for quite a while). Amazing distribution, really is. Excellent hardware support too (in my case, I know that it's all relative). Next major release is said to be more experimental / bleeding edge, XGL / NetworkManager etc. Honestly can't wait!

      • Re:Ubuntu dapper drake is cool (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I've actually had a hard time getting away from the terminal!

        I must say my experience is similar. I've been using various unixes and linux and NeXT boxes since the mid 80s - but almost exclusively using text-mode applicatins runnng X just so I could have multiple xterm windows. (I still find reading large amounts of email in pine far more efficient than any GUI - thanks to its more efficient keyboard commands.)

        Ubuntu is the first time I really appreciate the GUI rather than using it as a smarter versi

      • Re:Ubuntu dapper drake is cool (Score:4, Interesting)

        by spirality ( 188417 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @12:22PM (#15424879) Homepage
        Here here. Similar results for me on a Dell Inspiron 8600 using the release candidate. Everything but the wireless card anyway. The broadcomm wireless card was loaded up with the bc43xx driver, which does not work. I had to do some hand stitching to get ndiswrapper going and ensure the system did not load bc43xx at start up time. Other than that and the total lack of multi-media capability out of the box this is a stunning release.

        VPN worked out of the box. The multi-media keys. Ability to browse samba shares, though I still can't figure out how to login.... I can only browse public ones. What was totally amazing is that I had 3D acceleration out of the box for my ATI Mobile Radeon 9600! The external monitor doesn't work yet. I'll have to hand stitch that one, but still. This is huge step forward.

        It would be nice if by default a chess game was installed, but that is easily remedied...

        After a little tweaking I have full multi-media support.

        What's really nice is the user experience and having just installed Suse 10.1, I notice a huge difference. On Suse it's very confusing as to where I should look for a particular admin task. On Ubuntu, it's under "system". When I want to launch a Terminal on Suse, I go three levels of menus down and then get to select one of four choices. Unbuntu just gives me one adequate choice. Same with web browsers and everything else. Because they are not trying to be everything to everybody they make things very slick. It would be nice to see XGL in Dapper by default, but I much more appreciate the stability and correct by default autoconfiguration. That's really nice.

        I'm very impressed with Dapper. This is the best distro I have ever seen, other than perhaps my hand-crafted Gentoo boxes. :) However, it's certainly the best of out the box one.
      • Yeah likewise. I'm on a Dell Inspirion 1150, totally seamless install and use.

        I've also got a Dell Inspiron 1150, and I've been running Ubuntu Breezy Badger. The install was seamless and all that, but it's got a couple of issues. If you don't mind, I'd like to quiz you to see if they're fixed in Dapper.

        1) Fan control sucks. It'll let itself get so hot that it shuts down. (I know that this is a stupid BIOS issue.) When I was on Windows XP, the motherboard driver (I think) handled this, so I had to write a sc

    • VMWare Server Beta, RAID install... (Score:4, Informative)

      by fnord_uk ( 842775 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:05AM (#15424241)
      Ah. XP. In case you're missing it, I've just installed the free VmWare Server Beta http://www.vmware.com/download/server/ [vmware.com] on Dapper (AMD64), and am ?happily? running XP on it, mostly for running ham radio programs. I'm also going to set up a 32 bit Dapper VM for those few progs that don't compile or run well on the 64 bit platform.

      So far, so good. BTW, anyone trying to configure software RAID for their Dapper BETA install, you need to use the alternative install CD image, for the old-style install routine (no live disk built-in). A useful guide is here for setting up a RAID1 configuration
      http://users.piuha.net/martti/comp/ubuntu/raid.htm l [piuha.net]

      Enjoy...
      • Sorry for the n00bism, but what's the difference between VMWare Server and VMWare Workstation, in practical terms? The product page doesn't say all that much...

        • Re:VMWare Server Beta, RAID install... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Pedersen ( 46721 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:18AM (#15424469) Homepage
          Actually, there's a few differences worth noting.
          • VMWare Server does not require a display, Workstation does
          • VMWare Server has a web interface for controlling start, stop, and various configuration bits of vmware. Workstation does not
          • VMWare Server is still in beta, and as such, the license keys expire periodically. Supposedly, this will not happen when it is released sometime this summer.
          • Using the remote console, you can connect to your vmware server hosted machines across the network. With workstation, this is not possible.
          • VMWare Server is free. Workstation is not.
          • VMWare Server works with (at least) version 2.6.15 of linux kernel. Workstation requires unofficial patches.

          So, why would you use Workstation over Server? Support, for one. You can get an actual support contract for Workstation. Whether or not this will be available for Server is unclear at this time. The snapshot manager for Workstation is much more advanced than it is for Server. And, to some degree, Workstation is more convenient on a desktop/laptop than Server.


          So, while not a comprehensive list, this gives some idea of the major differences I've noticed using them both.

          • Well the reason I'm asking is because at two client sites I just "kung-fu"'ed VMWware Workstation inside Linux just to run some Windows-specific apps (usually something involving SQL Server). It's a hack, even though it's been surprisingly stable (have it start when X starts with auto-login, etc... and simply backing up the virtual disk just r0x0rs). However, it seems from your description that VMWare Server might in the future solve my situation, in other words, make it stop being a hack :)
      • "I'm also going to set up a 32 bit Dapper VM for those few progs that don't compile or run well on the 64 bit platform."

        Most people use chroot to run 32-bit apps on a 64-bit system. An entire VM is a bit much.
      • I'm also going to set up a 32 bit Dapper VM for those few progs that don't compile or run well on the 64 bit platform.

        Creating a 32 bit chroot [ubuntuforums.org] might be an easier choice for those apps, and I guess it will give you better performance. I'm pretty happy with it; and I started width warty and upgraded both main 64bit and 32bit chroot to breezy with little trouble. Furthermore, if you have same nvidia drivers installed on both, you will have 32bit accelerated 3D apps in your 64bit desktop.

  • Reminds me of something Jeff Waugh [perkypants.org] had to say [perkypants.org].

  • You can't see that anywhere else (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kanzels ( 975208 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @08:55AM (#15424207) Homepage
    3 years support for something that is completely free, you can't easily see that anywhere else! Go Linux! I will try to push Linux here.

  • six weeks? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So, six weeks is all it takes to make something enterprise-grade?

    • Re:six weeks? (Score:5, Informative)

      by babbling ( 952366 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:39AM (#15424328)
      Six extra weeks can help a lot.

      Linux distributions are unlike most operating systems in that most of the software they use is already written before they start. Most of the work involves putting all of the pieces (known to work correctly on their own) together and ensuring that they still work. There's other things involved too, of course, but my point is that the bulk of Ubuntu is programs that were created as separate projects, and this is how Ubuntu is able to be put together so quickly.

  • Something is missing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:01AM (#15424227)
    You got 'Breezy Badger' and 'Dapper Drake', but where's 'Crazy Crapper'?

  • With all due respect, how is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gsasha ( 550394 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:04AM (#15424237) Homepage
    With all due respect to Dapper (and a well-deserved one, I'm running it right now and it works fantastically), how is this news? So it will be out in a week - it was known. Don't understand me wrong. The *NEWS* about it getting delayed was news. The *MORE OR LESS NEWS* about it on the release day is news. But this is just publishing a countdown - what will be next? 5 days to Dapper, 4 days to Dapper, ... articles? And again, this is a very fine Linux distro, which deserves a lot of coverage... but come on!
  • Forgot Nelson Mandela and all those other South African icons. Shuttleworth is the man.

  • I think it's rather nice too. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by john8472 ( 256761 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:10AM (#15424254) Homepage
    And we'll be deploying it, automatically, to around 400 workstations, which will be switched on, and running Win XP, all without any manual intervention. And they'll dual boot (Windows/Linux!) afterwards. Which is nice. Eat your heart out FAI. :)

    Oh, and it works nicely under VPC, apart from needing to rebuild the kernel so that the timer tick runs at 100Hz, instead of 1000Hz. Which is also nice.
    • And we'll be deploying it, automatically, to around 400 workstations, which will be switched on, and running Win XP, all without any manual intervention.

      How? Enquiring minds want to know....
    • I'd very much like to hear about how you're doing this. I'd like to hear all the gory details, the pitfalls, mistakes, successes, everything. I thought about doing this too, but I'd have to manually touch every machine, but I only have 80 or so to deal with.

  • Last minute bug reports (Score:5, Informative)

    by wysiwia ( 932559 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:29AM (#15424304) Homepage
    I happen to test around several boot problems the last few weeks I've summarized just here

    http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10623 67#post1062367 [ubuntuforums.org]

    Since these boot problems are quite difficult and probably mean a no go for anybody not a though expert I really hope they were fixed before release. It probably means another delay for a few days but think it's worth.

    O. Wyss
    • I would have to agree.
      I recently switched to Ubuntu and immediately loved it. Everything smooth -- even my printer works! (Something I've had considerable difficulty with in other distros..)

      However the last couple of kernel updates have actually broken my boot. First one I got some kind of "bad ramdisk image" problem, so I switched back to the previous kernel version. (Thank goodness it doesn't automatically de-install the older version.) The next update booted fine but broke my Nvidia driver for some re

  • RC1 Available (Score:3, Informative)

    by kuyaedz ( 921036 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:31AM (#15424310)
    Dapper 6.06 LTS Release Candidate is available now for download. This is very close to the final release & definitely worth checking out if you're impatient (3 days IS a long time!) http://releases.ubuntu.com/6.06/ [ubuntu.com]

  • Ship it (Score:4, Informative)

    by Life700MB ( 930032 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:42AM (#15424343)

    Don't forget that you can order some ubuntu cds from at shipit.ubuntu.com [ubuntu.com].


    --
    Superb hosting [tinyurl.com] 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

  • reliability? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ArbitraryConstant ( 763964 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:45AM (#15424352) Homepage
    "The code release will come after the development process was extended by six weeks in order to improve the reliability of the software."

    I've been using Dapper Drake since March, and I've had fewer problems with the betas than I have with stable releases from other distros (Gentoo I'm looking at you).

  • 5 years is a good start (Score:3, Informative)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:18AM (#15424470) Homepage
    I have SuSE Linux "Professional" boxen that I have to maintain from a mirror of SuSE's updates because they dropped active support after 18 months and took the files off of their update servers after 3 years. Given that's less than the mean time between reboots that I'd expect for an enterprise system, that was a big mistake on their part; they'll never get a red cent from me again.
    • Suse professional is not an enterprise product. Suse Enterprise server (SLES) is. You used a workstation Linux expecting the reliability and support of an enterprise system. I pity whomever hires you.

    • Re:5 years is a good start (Score:4, Informative)

      by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @12:42PM (#15424963)
      SuSE linux professional was the desktop line. Ubuntu only has 5 years support for the server version, it's less for the desktop, just like SuSE. If you run desktop versions of OS's, you get shorter support times. If you built a server from a £70 workstation disc, then such is life.

      You have four choices. Keep doing what you're doing; upgrade to the free SUSE Linux 10.1 OSS, with shorter support lifetime; upgrade to the paid version of SUSE linux 10.1, with an active support time of 2 years, or upgrade to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, lifetimes available here [novell.com]. A new version of SLES is due soon, you may want to wait a month or two, if you decide to go this route, as SLES 9 is a couple of years into its 5 year general support cycle.

      Of course, you could switch the server to a different distro altogether. Just go for the server-intended ones, you'll be much happier in a few years time.

  • More than security updates? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by vginders ( 521915 ) <serge@vangi n d e r a c h ter.be> on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:25AM (#15424494) Homepage
    I hope "Ubuntu Support" means more than only security updates, like we now have with Debian Stable.
    IMHO, Debian sometimes leaves certain packages broken for the sake of stability, which is not always a good thing.
    Support means more than security, functionality is also important.

    Of course I'm not speaking of newer versions of packages, but more of the full range of bugs that apply to a certain package. Dapper having 5 years support, I also expect more backports to become available.
  • So it supports diskless terminals via PXE, centralized authentication and distributed computing out of the box ?

  • I am using Dapper Drake on my laptop and it is fine, but overall I think Ubuntu are trying to do too much too quickly. Their resources and manpower are still limited. For example I much prefer xfce to gnome on this machine, but the Ubuntu implementation has a couple of annoying bugs and isn't that well thought out in design terms. It needs a bit more polishing to be truly smooth and slick.

    I guess Ubuntu's best work is under the bonnet and unseen, in terms of excellent hardware detection and the smooth in

  • How depressing (Score:4, Informative)

    by cyber-vandal ( 148830 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @03:07PM (#15425483) Homepage
    I have used Linux on and off since 1998 and Kubuntu Breezy was the biggest aggravation since Redhat 5.2. The network didn't work properly and the GUI config tool was useless I had to fuck around a lot to convince it to use the right network card (I've got ethernet and wireless, wanted to use ethernet, it decided to connect to my neighbour's WLAN instead). That sort of annoyance hasn't happened to me since Redhat 6.0, ethernet has just worked automatically without any user intervention, which is the whole bloody point of DHCP. I picked the ethernet card at installation too, Breezy just didn't believe that I wanted that and changed it for me. If I'd have wanted Win98-style crap decisions I would have installed Win98.

  • Total Package (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @09:20PM (#15426470) Homepage Journal
    Ubuntu is a great package for desktops, for normal users to get the most out of their hardware and the jobs they do with their computers. I'd love to see an upgrade system that downloaded the new version from the Net, pulled user data (including OS and app configs, installed app lists, email, other Personal Info) from the old install, and burned it all to an archive/installer CD-ROM. All started by a single click, and an up-front set of questions, with the rest 100% automated. Reinstalling to the same HW ought to make installer deductions faster and more correct, and so deterministic that users can reinstall from source whenever they want, for the best fit, and least sweat.

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