Comments on: Dell Shows Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Some Love

By: perspectoff

perspectoff — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:42:56 +0000

The problem is, indeed, old hardware and new kernels.

When Intrepid came out, my PCs with Intel integrated graphics stopped working.

That was fixed with Jaunty, but then my PCs with Nvidia stopped working.

That was fixed in Karmic, but the my PCs without temperature/fan sensor Linux drivers stopped working.

Each time the problem was with the kernel.

So, my company sticks with long-term server releases for this reason. Once all the hardware bugs are worked out, we don’t update the kernel. There is too little hardware QA from the Linux kernel developers (not that Windows is any better, and we like neither the interface nor price of Apple).

By: Leo

Leo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:20:49 +0000

@littlenoodles: good point. However, you can statically link these libs if needed. You’ll get a fatter binary, but I am sure very many people would not care a bit about it. In the Windows world, you re right about API stability, also simplicity (try to write sound in Linux, what API should you write about? Pulse Audio? Alsa? ESD? OSS?). But I think, also most software packages are mostly self contained.

I prefer, personally, the Linux way and keep my computers updated to the latest release. I just happen to notice that a large chunk of the population seems to prefer a different model (with less risk and less reward), and maybe we can adapt for them

By: littlenoodles

littlenoodles — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:20:40 +0000

Leo’s right about rolling updates to a LTS release, with a focus on Firefox and the other ‘major’ apps. But keeping an app like Firefox back-ported is a lot harder than it sounds. Because Firefox uses GTK+ for its GUI, newer versions tend to go with the flow and adopt the latest GTK+ stuff. So when you want to back-port to an older distro, you’ve got to upgrade GTK+, which will probably push you to upgrade GNOME, and so on.

Also, there are apps that embed bits of Firefox. Unless the API’s for this are constant, there’s gonna be breakage.

The truth is that the desktop toolkits for Linux are just not ‘done’ enough to be able to backport apps to an older distro. This has always been and remains Windows’ biggest strength. Not that their API’s are particularly good, but that they’re pretty comprehensive, and they don’t change much. I don’t know that there’s a solution for this in the Linux world (but don’t tell Dell that…).

By: Links 24/11/2009: KDE Icon on TV, Ubuntu Netbook Remix Reviewed | Boycott Novell

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:01:46 +0000

[...] Dell Shows Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Some Love As Canonical prepares to launch Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) in April 2010, there are signs Dell will show considerable love to the Long Term Support (LTS) release. Here are some preliminary details about Dell’s look at Ubuntu 10.04. [...]

By: me

me — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:40:51 +0000

I hope they get their video drivers sorted out then
See this Dell owner’s struggle to get a usable refresh rate for his CRT – http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1334462

By: Ryan Dunn

Ryan Dunn — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:47:07 +0000

I think a rolling LTS that has updated userland applications is a very good idea. I have converted several people (my mom with a mini 10v n-series, my gf’s pc, my gf’s mom’s pc, my 1420n, and my desktop pc), all of which run 8.04. All of these pcs are setup and running just fine. I’d love to be able to put the latest firefox on using official repos, but I don’t want all the hassles that come with a full distro upgrade. I have another PC I use to play around with all the new distros, but for the PCs that I use daily, I have the LTS. It’s served me well for a year and a half, and I don’t want to screw that up.

By: Rich on Linux and FOSS! » Blog Archive » workswithu.com : Dell Shows Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Some Love

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:22:04 +0000

[...] Full post here! [...]

By: Steven Rosenberg

Steven Rosenberg — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:52:43 +0000

I find the idea of a rolling LTS very intriguing, and wrote about these very comments here: http://insidesocal.com/click/2009/11/workswithu-dell-cozies-up-to-u.html

By: Capnkirby » Blog Archive » Dell Shows Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Some Love

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:15:23 +0000

[...] Read the rest [...]

By: aikiwolfie

aikiwolfie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:35:49 +0000

“… due to Dell’s own internal hardware transition schedules.” That’s quite an odd excuse. Dell doesn’t stop selling Windows PCs entirely purely because of a hardware refresh.

If the hardware refresh is the reason then either Ubuntu just wasn’t a big enough priority to ensure that hardware refresh didn’t effect the quality service to customers or somebody at Dell really needs to work on their forward planing skills.

@Leo: Canonical releases kernel updates all the time. They’re mostly security updates. But it does happen regularly. The Linux driver model also doesn’t get in the way of a rolling release.

Updating the kernel isn’t a problem. It’s just another binary file. For the change to take effect the user simply reboots the PC. Kernel updates are one of the few times where Linux users need to reboot after an update.

It’s also possible to use drivers that exist out-side the kernel. Rather than being compiled into the kernel they simply link to the kernel.

There is however one very important reason not to use the rolling release model. Maintainability. The code fixes and changes and updates become messy and unwieldy for the developers to handle. Every now and then they need to do a clearance and consolidate the changes. Which is basically what new versions of a Linux distribution are.

Then we have feature creep. With a rolling release it becomes very easy to overlook feature creep. Before you know it your OS is bogged down with stuff you just don’t need any longer because better methods have been implemented. Planned roll outs help avoid this because they give developers an opportunity to focus on specific goals and clearly defined objectives.