Ubuntu Rolling?

[Jose1965]

I think Canonical likes the LMDE Rolling Release Project.

Ubuntu technical board member proposes monthly Ubuntu release cycle

Ubuntu Technical Board member Scott James Remnant has outlined a theoretical proposal for transitioning the popular Linux distribution to a rolling release model in which new stable versions would be issued every month. He has published his thoughts on the matter in a blog entry to encourage discussion.

Ubuntu currently adheres to a time-based release model with a six-month development cycle. A new version is released in April and October of every year. Ubuntu releases have an 18-month support lifespan, except for the biennial "long-term support" (LTS) releases which are updated on the desktop for three years and on the server for five years.

The time-based release model was adopted early in Ubuntu's history in order to provide predictability for users and OEMs. It was also partly a response to the release lag that has historically plagued the Debian project. Although tight conformance with a well-defined schedule has its advantages, it also has some significant downsides.

Ubuntu's uncompromising commitment to releasing on time and the pressure to deliver all of the planned features in each release have created a mentality where virtually nothing is treated as a blocker. When technical issues come up late in the development cycle, they are sometimes ignored and addressed with point updates after the release.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/09/ubuntu-technical-board-member-proposes-monthly-ubuntu-release-cycle.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

[wb666greene]

I like the idea of a rolling release, in fact its the exact reason I'm trying out LMDE now.

But I'd be royally PO'd if I updated and was running "Unity" afterwards! Even Gnome3 instead of Gnome2 would be intolerable from what I see of them so far.

So far, LMDE rolling is not really working for me. First update breaks Eclipse, been a bit over two weeks and still not fixed. Showstopper if LMDE was my development system (currently Ubuntu 10.04). I'm having no troubles adaptaing to Xfce and could easily live with it. I guess if its good enough for Linus, its good enough for me!

I'm happy to freeze the UI, its current verisons of fast moving libraries like gstreamer, ffmpeg, etc.and the applications that depend on them, that I hope to stay current with by using a rolling release.

OTOH how do you deal with the debacle of application updates like Amarok 1.4 -> Amarok 2? I was able to find a deb of Amarok 1.4 that worked on Ubuntu 10.04, as a work around, but its a pretty fundamental problem, only really solved if someone steps up and forks the old application version as apparently has happened with Amarok 1.4.

[rivenathos]

While I like the idea of "rolling," I do not like surprises. Hence, the majority of my time is spent using Debian Stable.

I am running individual physical drives with Mint GNOME and Xfce based on Debian with success. It takes a little bit of work, but can be done. The Debian-based versions are "almost" ready for newbies. With more people testing and providing feedback, the Debian-based versions will continue to get better and better.

[wb666greene]

As far as I can tell Debian "stable" generally has libraries, on average, as stale as Ubuntu LTS.

[rivenathos]

Debian Stable is "stable." No surprises. Some people need time-tested applications that function in mission-critical situations.

Some of us use Debian Stable + Backports for newer applications, with a focus on those apps built for stability. This way, for example, we can use the newest Iceweasel version while still knowing our system will be stable.

Stale does not equal bad. I have seen this "gotta have the newest and shiniest" mentality in most Windows users. New does not always equal better. Just saying.

With Ubuntu LTS, there are many PPAs that allow for newer versions of applications. The Ubuntu LTS versions are quite good, by the way.

[wb666greene]

As I said, my development systems have been Ubuntu LTS since 6.06. I tried the Lucid PPA for gstreamer and it broke all things multimedia and was a PITA to recover from. Hence my quest for a viable option before 12.04 comes out. If gnome3 hasn't settled into to something I can tolerate, at least my LMDE experiment has proven I could live with Xubuntu and Xfce.

Stability is prefered, but when you are using actively developed libraries about the only answer you get on the developers mailing list is "try the current version".