Next Ubuntu Linux To Be a Maverick 319
VincenzoRomano writes "While the latest version of Ubuntu is still smoking hot, the Ubuntu development community is already working on the next step. Both the wiki and the bug tracking system at Launchpad have already been set up for Maverick Meerkat, which will be version number 10.10. This confirms the usual naming and numbering schema and the fact that the final release should be due in October. This next version, which obviously won't be Long Term Support (LTS), should sport a lighter and faster environment with GNOME 3.0, a.k.a. GNOME Shell, among the main advances. Everything has been explained by Mr. Shuttleworth in his own blog since the beginning of April. The first alpha release is not due earlier than the end of June, so maybe it'd be better to take advantage of the Lucid Lynx while the technical overview of the Meerkat starts getting more details."
Sounds good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Should have aimed for 10/10/10 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ubuntu 6 month cycle (Score:4, Interesting)
From release to release? Yeah, the improvements tend to be incremental so you're not going to see anything Earth-shattering. That's just the "frog boiling in the pot" effect though. Compare Ubuntu today with Ubuntu from 3 years ago, and you'll notice HUGE usability improvements. Despite having been a Linux user in a "dual boot and learn it but still spend most of your time in Windows" fashion since 1997, Ubuntu is the first distribution that fully converted me. I'm still on Windows at work, but at home? It's been 3 or 4 months since I've touched Windows. And for the first time, I really haven't felt much of a need to.
Gnome 3? Don't bother (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Awww... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's because of "mongoose". Shuttleworth was bitten by one as a child and has it in for them. Now, had you proposed "Menstruating Meerkat" on the other hand...
On the other hand... (Score:3, Interesting)
Most notably in my case, was the use of an external monitor at a different resolution than my netbook.
That was horribly broken in 9.04.
As for uptime, I've only had mine running a couple days on and old Eee 701 (albeit with 2G memory), but it's been solid, so far.
Re:Sounds good! (Score:2, Interesting)
...just installed Lynx for my brother, because:
I agree with your first two points, but since does a web browser need repos?
Re:sorry, but Ubuntu failed hard this release (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems like we hear this with every Ubuntu release...
that's probably because only the ones with problems after an upgrade speak up to air their grievances. the ones for which the upgrade went smoothly (i'm one of them, i upgraded with the beta in fact) are invisible because they don't have much to say. i'd give more weight to a percentage number of users who have had upgrade issues.
and i agree with you, GP ditching the distro entirely does sound like a knee-jerk reaction - although i realize the button placement issue did cause much heartburn in the community (i switch between linux and mac so that change was godsend for me).
Re:Ubuntu 6 month cycle (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:sorry, but Ubuntu failed hard this release (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, 10.04 is the first release in a couple of years that has worked without a hitch for me. I installed it on a whim, hoping that it might include a driver with hardware-accelerated 3D for my RV730 video card. I was pleasantly surprised that not only does it include that driver, everything I have tried has actually _worked_, and the experience is a marked improvement over what I was running before.
The only issue I ran into is that GDM would not read my ~/.xsession [launchpad.net], but it's not entirely clear if that is a bug or a design choice, and, regardless, there is a fix for it.
For the rest, it's stable, it's fast, it's beautiful, and it's even an LTS release. It's been a while since I've experienced that from Ubuntu, but they seem to have gotten everything I care about right this time.
Keeping in mind your experience, I am curious as to how people in general fare with this release. I share your observation that Ubuntu has been caring more about new features than quality, and I was hoping that they had found their way back to putting together top quality releases. I would really like to know what the trend is, qualitywise.
Re:The Slashdot Trolls all agree (Score:3, Interesting)
Haha :) +1
I've been using Linux since the early days, and was on the linux desktop back when KDE was 1.x , I've long since abandoned Linux on the desktop since OS X has come out and been strong. (I'm a linux-server junkie, but no chance for using it with my desktop) I just don't have time to deal with all the crap-software and second rate desktop environment. Shitty hardware support, terrible video drivers. (I use dual 30inch monitors on a modern NVidia gfx card). The drama list goes on and on.
I was playing with this release of Ubuntu this weekend on a testing workstation i have at home, and I was thinking for myself for the first time in years. Maybe I'll give Linux a shot again as a workstation replacement at work vs. OSX on my Mac Pro. I love to try new things, but previous linux desktops have just been a steaming pile of shit compared to the fit and finish of OSX.
I write Java software for deployment on Linux servers, I'm hardly a "retard", but from reading Slashdot today you'd think it's the end of the fucking world with this release of Ubuntu. I just found it ironic that it's the first version of linux in 5 years i've considered to let back on my desktop.
Maybe it is the year of the Linux Desktop. :) Great post!
Re:Release early, release often. (Score:4, Interesting)
For me, the big problem with that is that I can't update my apps without updating the OS as well. This is just the way debian/ubuntu is designed. With jaunty and karmic, I had to upgrade in order to get bug fixes in my apps, but then I got new bugs in the OS.
If I'd still been running Hardy until last month, then I would have been running some ancient, buggy version of Inkscape, for instance. On the other hand, by upgrading I got sound completely broken by pulseaudio.
What OS guys don't seem to understand is that end users don't really care about the OS-level features that seem so exciting to an OS guy. We just want the OS to work so that we can run apps.