What's interesting is that they are in part re-creating the original problem they were trying to solve.<p>The complaints about Debian were that they only cut a release like every two years. The Debian response was that people who wanted more timely updates could run the "testing" branch, which was a "rolling" release.<p>Ubuntu promised to solve the slow release cycles and the instability of a rolling branch by cutting stable and well-composed releases on a rigorous six month schedule.<p>This announcement sounds a lot like the original Debian model they were trying to get away from.
I think that's a very well reasoned proposal and I'd be very happy to see it implemented. I might be unusual, but I find myself in both of the user groups that the proposal identifies. For my 'utility' machines (home server, XBMC host, web servers) I prefer the stability of the LTS series, but for my laptop I'm happy to trade that stability for getting new stuff sooner, particularly new usability features that are getting baked into Unity and other components.<p>One minor nit: in the section on benefits for Core/MOTU developers it suggests that only 2 releases would need to be supported. I think in reality that would actually be 4 releases, as with a 5 year support commitment for each LTS release there could be up to 3 LTS releases that are still being supported at any point in time. May be just a minor wording thing though - I'm sure the author knows what he's talking about.
I'm sure the decision wasn't taken lightly, and I'm sure Canonical has concluded that an 18 month LTS + rolling makes the most sense for the project. As a user, I am a bit worried about rolling releases though. Maybe someone here can alleviate my worries?<p>As I see it, software has to change. The question for distros is just <i>when?</i> A rolling distro sees such changes continuously, and each package may in principle change at any point independently of any other package. Doesn't that mean that at any point, my workflow-critical programs may change their behavior or even stop working together? Sure, I can do upgrades more seldomly, but then I'm left without security updates. The main benefit I feel that non-rolling distros offer is <i>predefined breakage points</i>. I know that Ubuntu Quantal will work the way it works now until I upgrade to the next release. Even simply knowing in what way software <i>is</i> (and will remain) broken is useful.<p>Now of course, one can stay with LTS and get the same behavior. I guess I'm simply complaining because the 6 month cycle was perfect for me.<p>At any rate, I would guess that most users only really desire rolling behavior for a few (dozens?) of packages. Ubuntu has that nicely covered with PPAs (and also "special status" rolling packages like Firefox).
This repeated notion of a truly converged OS is really annoying and it is very disappointing to see Ubuntu continue to pursue it despite the loud complaints of most of their users.<p>Lets point out the obvious: the user interaction of a small handheld device is very different than that of a computer with a full size monitor and mouse. Thus any os's on those two devices have to have different UI features. That's it.<p>Of course the parts of the OS that are not UI can be converged. In that sense Linux is already a fully converged OS.<p>But you are never going to fully converge the UI of two devices that use vastly different UI methods.
I'll miss the bi-yearly fun with trying out a new release, and the name alliteration, but I think overall it's a smart move for Ubuntu. Does anyone have any reasons why they shouldn't move toward this? I'm curious.
I definitely support this. Having a rolling release was the primary reason why I decided to go with debian (unstable) vs (x)ubuntu a few weeks ago. My previous install (oneiric; non-LTS) was about to become unsupported, and the last time I decided to ignore the official support status (years ago... I think it was dapper?), the main repository upped and vanished one day. That was not a fun morning.
I suppose derivative distros like Xubuntu and Edubuntu will need to follow suit.<p>I've had pretty bad experiences with non-LTS versions of Xubuntu. The last time I had a go on it on my laptop, things broke unpredictably, a little at a time. When I say unpredictably, I mean totally by surprise, not even after performing an update. First, Pulse audio stopped working. Spent a few days trying to fix it, then gave up and reverted to Alsa. Then the graphical login got stuck in an endless loop cycle. So reverted to text login, starting X manually after I'd log in. When wireless stopped working, I gave up. I run the LTS Xubuntu on two other machines and neither of them have had problems like this. I put my laptop on the LTS Xubuntu and it's been good since.<p>I'm guessing mainstream Ubuntu gets more QA and is more stable than Xubuntu. It might be harder for derivative distros to keep up with a rolling release. Or maybe not... this might give them more flexibility to QA stuff as needed instead of trying to keep up with a new release every six months. As long as Cannonical keeps the LTS cycle going, moving to a rolling release sounds reasonable.
considering the tipping point of me leaving buntu was being tired of the upbreak release process, I second this idea.<p>they are basically adopting the debian scheme, only the stable releases will be more frequent.
I watch Ubuntu's recent steps with trepidation. I love using it for a home Linux machine (indeed upgrading just to LTS-es), and <i>I could not care less</i> about its "convergence" aspirations. I don't want Ubuntu on my phone or my tablet, or at least I don't care.<p>I worry that eventually its mobile plans will bury the desktop Ubuntu, move it out of focus, so to say. When that happens, I wonder whither I should turn. Debian?
I wonder how much this proposal is driven by Ubuntu's push into the mobile space versus improving the Ubuntu project at large. Clearly it's possible rolling releases would aid both.<p>I guess what I'm really asking is what are the possible negative implications of the plan for the more "traditional" Ubuntu users? Many of whom are likely sysadmins trying to maintain consistent package versions across their infrastructure. Sticking to the LTS versions is the first step. But then you would be delaying access to newer package versions without the interim releases.
One thing I'd add as a suggestion: if they do a rolling release, hot-rebuild the package so that if you download an "Ubuntu rolling" ISO, you get a 100% up to the minute copy with all the latest security patches and so forth. This so that <i>starting</i> a new Ubuntu install is not annoying (which it would be if you basically had to throw away and redownload the whole OS as updates as soon as you installed).
This could work, rolling-release + LTS. Archlinux seems to be doing quite well under the rolling-release auspice, so why not.<p>Of course, never in my experience has rolling-release ever worked in anything close to production environments - it's what killed FreeBSD in the data centre, however, if you're a techie with some time on your hands it could be cool.
I'd like to see them balance out dropping the interim releases with doing slightly more frequent LTE releases. Maybe every 1 or 1.5 years instead of 2. But obviously there might be manpower issues there. I just think they're abandoning a middle ground of stability that's still a very valuable space.
This seems like a reasonable proposal to me. I've starting using the LTS releases exclusively for my desktop and server systems. I'm planning to use the Ubuntu phone heavily, and would love that device to be on a rolling-release schedule.
Canonical should just wait until the 64 bit of 14.04 LTS for ARM is ready before they put it on mobile. Should greatly simplify their lives when it comes to upgrading later.
I can't use Ubuntu, I've tried countless times, the experience sucks. I'm trying mint, and i can't even access latest libraries, everything is old, no partition resizing during installation, lack of distro tools and lack of polish; in mageia everything is fresh and if it not the free support quickly updates them.<p>Mandriva had rolling releases with cooker and mageia has also with cauldron. Sorry for looking like a troll but i never got the hype with this ubuntu distro, i wish HN supported mageia more since distrowatch even reports mageia as the number two more popular distro.