Ubuntu Releases 13.04, Sticks To 6-Month Release Rhythm 177
Barence writes "Ubuntu has shelved the idea of moving to rolling releases, and will continue to release a new version every six months. Earlier this year, Ubuntu developers discussed the idea of moving to rolling releases, with new features added to the OS as and when they were ready. However, In an interview with PC Pro, Canonical CEO Jane Silber said the developers had taken a 'cold, hard look at our long-standing practices' and decided to stay with twice-yearly releases. It has, however, cut support on non-LTS releases from 18 to nine months." Today, the Ubuntu team have released the latest iteration of Ubuntu, 13.04 ("Raring Ringtail"), along with variants like Kubuntu 13.04.
Next release codename? (Score:5, Informative)
Might I suggest "Simpering Spyware?"
I for one dropped Ubuntu over that (and Unity)... yeah, I know its removable, not the point.
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Re:Next release codename? (Score:4, Informative)
Kubuntu doesn't. As a bonus, it has KDE.
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Kubuntu basically just gives you something else as the default. It's the same distro.
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Enable the canonical repo (it's there but disabled in your sources list) and you are free to install it if you wish.
Re:Next release codename? (Score:5, Informative)
I think the spyware has been a radioactive enough issue that any derivatives are going to make a point of cutting it out.
That said, I don't see the need. As much as I don't like what Ubuntu did with the shopping lens, I've long switched to Xubuntu anyway, which is more sanely managed. (The original reason was to get away from Unity, and their avoidance of subsequent Canonical brain damage cemented the deal.)
Significantly, when you use [KX]ubuntu, you still benefit from all the release engineering work of Ubuntu proper, including security updates---a point on which I'm a little more wary of derivatives like Mint.
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People complain about the spyware in the lenses, but the lenses only work when you use Dash, so it's not all the time. You need to remove zeitgeist to eliminiate the pervasive spyware, also whoopsie to be safe.
whitelists, not blacklists (Score:2, Insightful)
A good distribution will be based on good thinking. And the right way to approach the problem is to ask: what users are asking for spyware?
The answer is: none.
If the answer had been yes, then the next question would be: which of their use cases are addressed by the spyware?
The answer would still be: none.
Windows and Mac OS X are places where decisions to oppose the interests of users
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And the right way to approach the problem is to ask: what users are asking for spyware?
The answer is: none.
If the answer had been yes, then the next question would be: Dammit, Kosh, we're trying to get work done here!
FTFY
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THIS! Switched from Fedora to Ubuntu back in 2007, but with the steaming, stinky, slimy turd that is Unity, and now this spyware b.s., I've moved to MintDebian.. Just as easy to use, and NO Canonical/Shuttleworth to deal with... Ubuntu is DEAD TO ME... (ya I know... no one care..)
Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been very nice to follow Ubuntu. Few other distributions have been better at making Linux available for so many. Congratulation Ubuntu. Well done!
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It *had* been nice to follow Ubuntu.
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I'm not saying that I especially like Ubuntu, but overall I like what they are doing. It has clearly been more successful than most others in getting Linux to people's desktop.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not saying that I especially like Ubuntu, but overall I like what they are doing. It has clearly been more successful than most others in getting Linux to people's desktop.
Maybe this is the year.
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They made the right decision on this one. The rolling release strategy is interesting, but mainly for hobbyists. If they want their OS to be taken seriously in a production environment, they need official, thoroughly-tested, supported releases.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like their https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS [ubuntu.com] versions?
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Not that I disagree with you (because I don't)- but isn't Microsoft going with rolling releases on "Windows Blue"?
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No. Microsoft is merely moving to scheduled releases (yearly), not rolling releases.
Rolling releases basically means you never have ANY releases, individual components are updated on their own schedule, and any complete package of the OS you would ever put together is merely a snapshot of the current set of packages.
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Fair enough. I was basing this off of a conversation I had a week or two ago with a Microsoft Consultant (from the Office side of things). He was talking about how Office 365 is (according to him) moving to rolling releases rather than formal year-based releases, and that (he thought) Windows was moving in the same direction with Blue. But that wasn't his specialist subject, and nor was it a particularly in-depth conversation, so I wouldn't read too much into it as insider knowledge. I may have even misunde
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Well, you could argue that going from "infrequent big releases once or twice a decade" to "frequent small releases every year" is moving in the direction of rolling releases, but I don't think it means that they're moving TO rolling releases. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach (yearly or occasional), and I think Apple has had pretty good success doing frequent releases with OS X (9 releases since 2001). It's easier to convince people to upgrade in small chunks when it's (say) $20 for an
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Non-LTS. But it's still shorter than other distributions.
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It's amazing how much Linux tastes can vary. I like Kubuntu, I have another colleague who likes Unity Ubuntu. Another one goes for Mint, another some version of Linux I can't remember, some go for plain Fedora, etc...
nope (Score:2)
With the 12.* releases I saw loads go up to 10+ loads after I upgraded my laptop from 11.
It was... *trumpets please* zeitgeist going nuts at random intervals.
Sorry Ubuntu... no more. Ubuntu-based, yeah I'll still go for that, but for me the everyday version if the distro is history. I need an OS, not a advertisement engine.
Seed the Torrents! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you don't use Ubuntu, seed the torrents for a few hours. It is one way we can all contribute to Open Source - no dev skills, documentation skills, etc. required!
Re:Seed the Torrents! (Score:5, Funny)
Even if you don't use Ubuntu, seed the torrents for a few hours. It is one way we can all contribute to Open Source - no dev skills, documentation skills, etc. required!
So, you are telling me to waste my bandwidth, downloading something I don't want, just to help others out? Socialist.
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Even if you don't use Ubuntu, seed the torrents for a few hours. It is one way we can all contribute to Open Source - no dev skills, documentation skills, etc. required!
So, you are telling me to waste my bandwidth, downloading something I don't want, just to help others out? Socialist.
It would only be Socialism if the government forced you to do it. Otherwise, it is called charity.
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ubuntu is too cheap of a for profit company developing behind closed doors to rent couple of seedboxes, while I can download debian from a hundred different 100mbit ftp's?
anyways, just this week shuttelworth admitted that no matter if it's ready or not they will do the release! can't get on board with that.
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Not for those with crappy Internet services like slowness, caps, etc. :(
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Mostly, more seeders are needed for the kinds of torrents that *aren't* seeded a whole lot. Usually, it's some obscure pirated album/game/anime that hardly anyone knows about. Ubuntu is popular enough not to have this issue.
Yeah, obscure stuff like Game of Thrones is the only stuff that needs seeding. That's why I reach a 10x ratio in only a few hours.
Thanks Ubuntu, but I'll stay with 12.04 for now. (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one don't like a lot of change. Esp. when I have to change every nine months, and accept whatever change comes up. I got 10.04 running really nicely on an old computer, and I was happy. Esp. when I read about Unity (and now that I've tried Unity, I have to say I'll stick with Gnome).
And now 12.04 is almost setup perfectly (a few issues I'm working on, I'll get there), and I'm not aiming on changing for years.
One reason is that once something is working, I know it is working. But, if I have to update, it's likely to break something. Whether I do a fresh install or not.
Cheers.
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Honest question then. Why are you using Ubuntu? I can't think of a distro that changes more with the exception of Arch. Why not go with Cent or Scientific and have a more stable setup with fewer changes? Or better yet, go with FreeBSD or PC-BSD and have an even more stable setup. Even plain old Debian will do a better job of it.
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No kidding. Not to mention, that now that they've ironed out some of the bugs in the current Unity, the plan is to completely rewrite it in Qt/QML, and this release is only supported for 9 months. This is pretty much the most pointless release of Ubuntu to date.
Re:Thanks Ubuntu, but I'll stay with 12.04 for now (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me list the ways:
1) Debian was too much work (Ubuntu, an African word meaning "I couldn't get Debian to work properly").
2) I really like apt-get.
3) Ubuntu works (mostly, after some fiddling).
4) The LTS won't change much and so is going to be stable.
5) Fuck RPM. Also, Emacs sucks, and so does your haircut.
Re:Thanks Ubuntu, but I'll stay with 12.04 for now (Score:5, Informative)
1) Debian was too much work (Ubuntu, an African word meaning "I couldn't get Debian to work properly").
I've installed Debian. I really don't see how it's "more work" than Ubuntu. It's like three mouse clicks and some typing and you get a fully functional gnome desktop.
2) I really like apt-get.
Available on Debian. Not seeing your point. There are better package managers out there now too, like Pacman and RPM has leapfrogged deb in recent years in my opinion.
3) Ubuntu works (mostly, after some fiddling).
This totally negates your first point. Debian and others work after some fiddling too. You're just fucking lazy.
4) The LTS won't change much and so is going to be stable.
Ubuntu's LTS changes a thousand times more than Debian or even FreeBSD does.
5) Fuck RPM. Also, Emacs sucks, and so does your haircut.
Yeah, fuck delta updates and a sane package manager. Emacs does suck, yes. I shave my head, not sure if that is a haircut or a lack of hair altogether.
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Debian can get in the way of easily installing some proprietary stuff and, also, because it focuses on stability, it might make you impatient if you're expecting packaging of new versions of software.
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I get basically the same desktop either way but Debian requires more fucking around and I have to add third party repositories to get decent video card drivers, codecs and font rendering. Debian also doesn't include decent app armor profiles and most packages aren't even compiled with stack protection and PIE.
Get over it. There's a reason why Google and most tech companies go with Ubuntu over Debian.
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Regarding Debian vs Ubuntu.
Ubuntu automatically worked with no issues with wifi, with my touchscreen, with my sound, and a couple of other things I can't just recall. The only thing that worked better on Debian on a fresh install was hibernate. So, fiddling for Debian = getting basic stuff to work. Fiddling for Ubuntu = installing and configuring Gnome to my liking (Unity worked with no issues, except I don't like it as much).
So, yes I'm lazy. But when I don't have easy access* to a wired network, I'll tak
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RPM has leapfrogged deb in recent years in my opinion.
Err, must be very recent then. I use Fedora on many of my work systems for lib compatibility, but every update is a nightmare of .rpm dependencies. I've never seen that happen with .deb
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You're doing it wrong
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5) Also, Emacs sucks, and so does your haircut.
You're a dick. Emacs did my haircut, and now it feels sad.
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Why the heck are you complaining? It's the non LTS that is getting cut in half, if you don't want to upgrade to latest and greatest, stick with LTS and you will be fine for a long long time!
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Yeah, that's annoying. Another thing that sucks are the bugs, security holes, etc. Have to stay with the latest versions to get those. :(
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Yeah, it's fun to tinker with each new Ubuntu release using a live CD or VM, but a pain in the ass to need to upgrade the OS on a production computer every six months. Something inevitably gets altered, broken, removed or replaced. You can never fully get used to everything. Canonical likes to adopt new technologies before they're ready and then drop perfectly functional ones on a whim, and that's fine for people who like to have the latest and (arguably) greatest.
So, I stuck Xubuntu 12.04 on my laptop, got
Rolling out bugs every 6 months. (Score:2)
Other amusing features in 13.04: a button that shows the desktop, and a workspace switcher (disabled by default) that l
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Wow, Ubuntu. Unity is on pace to have all the desktop features that Gnome 2 and Xfce have had for years by 2016.
Yeah but in Gnome, they didn't have integrated features to send your usage statistics and online presence to Amazon. Let's think about the bottom line here, guy!
Hmm .. This release... (Score:2)
Just has a bad feeling... starting with the name.
Raring Ringtail is just too close to Raring Ring Piece... and for some reason has me thinking of a bad night on the curry. I really hope they use better names in future..
Highlights included in this release, for the lazy (Score:5, Informative)
Biggest client updates:
-UbuntuGnome (featuring Gnome 3.6 by default) is now an official flavor
-Unity 7
-LibreOffice 4
-Improved support for CUPS
-Software Updater simplified
-Friends service replaces Gwibber
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-Unity 7
Is it just me or is Unity progressing in version numbers faster than Firefox? I'll wait til tomorrow for Unity 8.
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Did you use any of the early versions? They needed to make a lot of fixes, and fast!
Actually, I did just look this up- this is already the 5th version of Ubuntu to ship with Unity, so even progressing at just one version number at each release, this would still be up to 5. That makes me feel like time is moving too fast, and I want to get off.
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Yeah, I think i've tested every version since the Ubuntu Netbook remix days. I've never settled on Unity as an actual day to day desktop though. It's just too foreign to me.
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I've got a wide-screen display so have no prob with having the Unity strip with 30%-reduced icons taking up space. I took out some stuf I don't want or use too infrequently to be useful there, and lock often-used programs instead. For me, it's a handy thing.
The first think I do with a fresh install is to get classicmenu-indicator. I want everything to be in the drop down menu. Then I adjust some of the fonts and restore scroll bars.
Biggest complaint I have is that each version lately has been making it m
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I used to use Gwibber on Fedora until the developers started to believe the hype of NoSQL databases and had the non great idea to use the CouchDB as the backend database, never tried it again when they switched the default to SQLite. Lets see if the "Friends service" is another monster or something light
Better distro's out there (Score:3, Interesting)
Just off the top of my head and in no particular order:
openSUSE
Sabayon
Fedora 19 (when it comes out)
Mint
Manjaro
All of the above will get you nearly the same hardware support and often a better desktop experience. Manjaro is an up and comer based on Arch, still has some bugs. Sabayon, based on Gentoo is actually pretty damn good now. The others have been great for a while. I honestly don't understand why people are so hung up on Ubuntu, it doesn't offer anything the other distros don't.
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I honestly don't understand why people are so hung up on Ubuntu, it doesn't offer anything the other distros don't.
Steam?
Re:Better distro's out there (Score:5, Informative)
Steam works on non-ubuntu distros. In fact it's even bundled with Manjaro
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Then Valve is going to lose out on Linux because most people are moving away from Ubuntu, not toward it. Personally I couldn't give a shit less. I've never used steam and I grew up a long time ago, I don't play games anymore. All you kiddies that care though should write to Valve and explain they are making a mistake going with a distro that refuses to work properly with the rest of the community.
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That's funny, son. I guarantee I'm older than you, as are the majority of my friends, and we're all pretty avid gamers.
Your choice of hobby has nothing to do with your age. Apparently you didn't grow up as much as you thought.
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Or you're a loser that's going through a mid life crisis. You guarantee you're older than me, and you prove it by calling me "son." Fascinating. I somehow doubt you actually have friends but int he event you do, good for you. You're an old man that plays video games. Want a cookie? I'll get back to my work and family life, thanks.
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Valve said some time back that they were _starting_ with Ubuntu because it was the largest desktop distro outside of mostly-biz-only distros and because Ubuntu committed to working with Valve in getting things working right, and that they would be adding other distros as they got to them. I think we could presume Debian-based distros early on.
Kiddies? Truman was in the White House, hadn't been elected prez yet, when I was born. My life happens to have room for a few games, but to each his own.
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Works perfect on both OpenSUSE and Fedora. I'm assuming the same is true of Mint since it's Ubuntu based. I hear it's no big deal to get it running on Arch as well. It's not like Ubuntu has a lock on Steam or anything.
Re:Better distro's out there (Score:4, Insightful)
In many ways, I see Ubuntu and Mozilla in similar positions. Not the latest fad, but always there to provide a balance.
Re:Better distro's out there (Score:4, Insightful)
Red Hat's contribution far out weighs Ubuntu's. I also hardly think Steam came because of Ubuntu. Steam came because of Microsoft. Ubuntu just happened to be the flavor of the month. If not Ubuntu it would have been openSUSE or something else.
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The same can be said about ANY other distro.
Arch is awesome but I wouldn't recommend it to newcomers. I would recommend Mint or Ubuntu for them though. So far, Ubuntu is visually very pleasing and its default state is usually preferred by new people (over Mint).
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Manjaro is just Arch with a better installer. To that end, it has a pretty big community as it's fully compatible with the Arch repos and Aur. You should try the latest Sabayon. It's pretty damned mature now. openSUSE however is probably the best candidate.
new feature: shortened support (Score:5, Interesting)
I.e. you'll have to upgrade to 13.10 after that no matter what. And if, god forbid, you'll have a hardware compatibility problem in 13.10 - you'll be screwed.
On another hand, if you're on on 12.10 now - you have the option to what till 14.04
Re:new feature: shortened support (Score:4, Informative)
No, you won't have to upgrade to 13.10 "no matter what". The recommended way to do upgrades is to always go to the next version (as that's what gets the majority of testing), but 13.04 makes no major changes (like replacing upstart) that would prevent it from directly upgrading to anything to which 12.04 or other recent versions could directly upgrade.
You won't 'be screwed" if you have hardware compatibility problems in 13.10; you simply boot an older kernel (since that's where the hardware drivers are). I've done it with several previous alphas - but users are unlikely to discover major problems by the time it gets to a final release. I already have one system using the 13.10 (saucy) repos now (though they have no updates beyond what's in the raring repos). Expect me and the others that enjoy the bleeding edge to find/report the problems so that you don't have to.
I'm not sure why any of this would be an issue anyway: When the OS keeps all your app settings in /home (which you should put on a separate partition), complete re-installs of newer/older versions take no more time than the upgrades.
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No, you won't have to upgrade to 13.10 "no matter what". The recommended way to do upgrades is to always go to the next version (as that's what gets the majority of testing), but 13.04 makes no major changes (like replacing upstart) that would prevent it from directly upgrading to anything to which 12.04 or other recent versions could directly upgrade.
The point was that with a nine month support window there won't be any other release than 13.10 released in that window. So it's either that or go unsupported.
You won't 'be screwed" if you have hardware compatibility problems in 13.10; you simply boot an older kernel (since that's where the hardware drivers are). I've done it with several previous alphas - but users are unlikely to discover major problems by the time it gets to a final release
I think if you interpret "hardware compatibility problems" to be anything below the application layer then there's plenty running in userspace that could cause things to not work. And yes, people do get bitten by them from time to time.
I'm not sure why any of this would be an issue anyway: When the OS keeps all your app settings in /home (which you should put on a separate partition), complete re-installs of newer/older versions take no more time than the upgrades.
And nothing ever goes wrong when upgrade scripts don't run and packages get a config file they don't expect. Many of
We hate success! (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's just face it, here in Linux Land, if any distro achieves a measure of success, we just hate it! It is as night follows day.
The majority of the hate-posts here betray a deep lack of knowledge of what's going on with Ubuntu. All they know is that it's cool to hate Ubuntu, good for your geek cred.
This is nothing new with Ubuntu - it's been true since the dawn of Linux and distros. I'm not sure why it is, but it's appears to be some basic human social-driven flaw.
Ubuntu has done a helluva lot for Linux, and people who don't understand that haven't been using Linux for very long. They claim to want Linux to "succeed", but as soon as it begins to, they pile on. Because it's not exactly what THEY want. It's pathetic, disgusting, and discouraging.
Re:We hate success! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure why this is modded 'insightful'.
People used to love Ubuntu, because it was Linux that 'just worked'. It was only when Ubuntu pushed Unity and other such nonsense that we all started switching to saner distros and stopped recommending Ubuntu to our non-techie friends.
Re:We hate success! (Score:4, Informative)
While I agree with several of your points, I think it is not a "We Hate Success" problem, but more of a "We hate what success has done to you!" problem. Yes many people are quick on and off the bandwagon, and those people were not to be considered true fans to begin with. Yes Ubuntu has done a lot, by giving us a standard platform, and originally giving us a good repository, and a good start for many forks (Mint, etc.) which can be created.
The main issue was, their decision to push Unity. In the Linux community, if something comes as a drastic change, you fork the development and someone can pick up the abandoned fork (the GNOME 2.X developed interface) within their community. Ubuntu did not do that. They gave us a universally panned GUI, designed for cell phones and tablets, to be used on servers and desktops. Worse yet, they gave us no option but to make this major switch with them if we wanted the latest patches, etc. Bad move.
So my point is that they grew so successful, they forgot their roots, and decided to make changes, regardless of what they were "supposed" to do based on the community they were in. The OS communities version of "Too Big to Fail." The Linux User Community got them where they were, and they abandoned them by making this one time, decision. This has caused the hatred for Ubuntu, not that they are successful.
Good... (Score:3)
BVU195 Functionality? (Score:2)
Given increased secrecy, 14.04 has a name (Score:2)
Why not just call the next release Secret Squirrel by how its being closed up like Ringtail?
Shuttleworth is a coward in front of his critics and is lucky enough to be able to withstand it - for now.
Re:let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
then disable sending your queries to remote sources. Yes, it is enabled by default, but no, you don't have to use it. I disabled it as soon as I typed in "jockey" to find the additional drivers tool in 12.10, and got ads for underware. Yea. No.
Re:let me be the first to say (Score:5, Funny)
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ehh I think I also have a laptop with xubuntu.
Re:let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
I did just did that, as a response to reading this thread.
Open the Systems Settings (called gnome-control-center if you want to run it from a terminal)
Click Privacy
In the first tab "Search results" disable "Include online search results" and "Record Activity"
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...and got ads for underware.
Is that yet another layer between software and hardware?
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The GP calls it "spyware", and I think that's a reasonable word for it.
Well, yeah. I'm personally fine if I can disable it post-install, but the fact is that Ubuntu is not completely free software (free as in freedom) until this feature is unambiguously enabled only per user request.
Re:let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So when is it finished ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Software is engineering, so when will they solve the problem ? at what point do they say "finished" ?
It is finished once bug number one has been resolved.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 [launchpad.net]
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Software is engineering,
Bullshit, it's alchemy. Half of the software engineers are meeting with their covens and trying to transmute lead into gold.
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Software is engineering, so when will they solve the problem ? at what point do they say "finished" ?
Building a city is engineering, so when will they solve the problem? At what point do they say "finished"?
Well, never, obviously. The city will keep taxing and charging you so they can keep building. Private companies will keep billing you for renovating and maintaining existing buildings. They'll also try to sucker new people into it. It's all a big scam! First they invent this "entropy" thing, and on top of it they keep om gradually introducing new stuff, such as running water, electricity, "broadband" In
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NON-LTS releases. As in "releases that are not LTS are now limited to 9 months".
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13.04 is not an LTS.
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Furthermore, 12.04 is the first LTS to be supported for 5 years instead of the former 3 years.
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I was using Mint 13 for a good while, and loving it, but have now switched over to the newest Mint LMDE version. This is based on Debian's testing respository, not Ubuntu, so is more of a rolling update model. This puts me back to an improved version of what I had with my old stock-Debian desktop, having added some "just works" niceties from Mint.
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Second, ALL of the UI changes and tie-ins that people are complaining about are COMPLETELY OPTIONAL.
Yeah, you can run XFCE instead.
Buf if you're going to do that, why would you run Ubuntu, rather than a distro that comes with a sane UI in the first place?
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Indeed, why does anybody run Ubuntu, when they can run Xubuntu...
But if you ask, why anything from Ubuntu family, then a good reason is, most of the non-distro-specific stuff comes with installer/installation instructions for Ubuntu. So, if you want that stuff to just work without hassle, an Ubuntu-family distro is safest choice.
Only exception I know of is mono .NET stuff, for that OpenSUSE is a better choice, IIRC, unless things have changed recently.
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