Updating the apps whlle maintaining a stable OS coe
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| Author | Content |
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| herzeleid Nov 19, 2009 12:46 PM EDT |
I like the idea - it seems so obvious when laid out as plainly as Steven does in the article. I love ubuntu 8,04 at work, but man, that FF 3.0 is increasingly stale. I've quit using FF 3.0 for the most part, finding google chrome to be quite satisfactory for day to day bowsing, and a lot faster. But I digress. Having the stable ubuntu 8.04 LTS core tied to increasingly stale apps tends to drive desktop uers to the ustable releases just to get somewhat current apps. Fixing this would be a great thing to do, and really shouldn't present all that much of a challenge, if the vendors want to do it. FWIW, Novell SLED is IMHO worse in this regard - stabiity is great in the server room, but do they really think I want to run FF-2.0 on my desktop for the next 3 years? |
| tuxchick Nov 19, 2009 1:39 PM EDT |
A tangent-- sometimes I really really really hate Firefox. Starting with the plugins-- sure, having all those nice extensions to choose from is fun and useful, but they're sloppy with basic information, like the software license and platform support. The descriptions and documentation are left entirely to the authors, and apparently the guidelines for what information to include are non-existent. For whatever reason Mozilla never wants to answer the question "why are they not required to disclose the license, and why can't we search by license." Then the whole security thang- when you install a new plugin you get a scary "install add-ons only from authors whom you trust--
Malicious software can damage your computer or violate your privacy" warning. How the cuss word are you supposed to know? Since installing extensions bypasses the security and protections of a distro repo, we might as well roll out the welcome mat to nasties. Score another one for Microsoftisms contaminating FOSS. Then my pet peeves of 'no man page, no logging, no useful error messages' were reinforced this morning when Firefox would not start. I checked for hung processes, nothing there, it simply would not go. When I started it from a terminal the first thing I checked was the correct command name, it used to be mozilla-firefox. Well score one for sanity, this time it was 'firefox'. I actually get an error message: Could not find compatible GRE between version 1.9.1.2 and 1.9.1.2 What in the name of the seven incontinent gods is that? After some web searching I find that this a conflict between xulrunner, which I think (from more web searching) is a core Firefox engine of some kind. Oh goody, the brakes and the gas pedal are fighting, apparently. The recommended fixes are upgrade to the next Firefox. Dudes. This isn't Windows. Anyway that is a stupid recommendation, why would I want a fresh set of new and different bugs to add to the collection of old and unfixed bugs? So I try the good old remove-and-reinstall two-step, and thankfully that cures it. Exact same versions. Go figure. The good news it was a fairly easy fix. The bad news is this is really stupid. I think the idea (getting back to the actual article) of app version upgrades in a "stable" release is awesome. This business of all-or-nothing upgrades doesn't work very well for a desktop PC. Not only for new features, but since bugfixes are pretty much limited to new releases that's about the only way to get them. |
| tuxchick Nov 19, 2009 1:45 PM EDT |
BTW my main workstation is Debian unstable, so I get the rolling releases. The problem machine this AM was PCLinuxOS. |
| Steven_Rosenber Nov 19, 2009 2:08 PM EDT |
I'll see your tangent and raise you one. Google Chrome (on Windows), Safari (on Mac; Windows version too much of a dog) and even IE 8 (60+ percent of my readers use IE, so I need to test in it) have BUILT-IN DEVELOPMENT TOOLS that in every case aren't half-bad. In Firefox I use the excellent Firebug and Web Developer add-ons, but it sure would be nice to have that sort of thing be an integral part of the browser base. Further tangent: Epiphany with Webkit is running pretty well at present. |
| Steven_Rosenber Nov 19, 2009 2:26 PM EDT |
On topic: I saw the wisdom in Red Hat's decision to update the desktop apps in RHEL 5.x with the point releases, and I further see the wisdom in the company's decision to backport new hardware drivers into the 2.6.18 kernel. Whether or not Red Hat is really ignoring the desktop, the integration of newer versions of the apps into 5.x gave enterprise desktop users a reason to look at RHEL (and, perhaps coincidentally, a reason not to use other distributions, even Fedora but especially Ubuntu and perhaps even SLED, in desktop deployments). It makes RHEL 5.x relevant on the desktop. I strongly believe that Canonical needs to rip this page from the Red Hat playbook and run with it. The LTS release of Ubuntu doesn't usually start out ultra-stable. But what does happen, in my experience is that it grows in stability as the months pass. But once you hit the six-month mark, depending on what's happening upstream you start to feel the release's age. Things like Firefox going from 3.0.x to 3.5, OpenOffice going from 2.x to 3.x, that's the kind of thing that starts the average user thinking about jumping on the six-month-release bandwagon. Now the highly technical user can stick with the LTS (or in the case of Debian, the current Stable release) and through things like apt pinning, backports or PPAs roll some newer apps into their older base. Even I haven't gone this route. It just seems to be less work to upgrade the whole distro. But then the problems start cropping up. If the community could agree that an LTS with either an easy choice of newer/older apps, or a policy of rigorously testing and pushing newer versions of major applications into the LTS at six-month intervals but keeping the same base — that would make the LTS much more attractive to users who are standing pat on their hardware. I know a lot of people replace their PC every two or three years. That's what Microsoft and its many hardware partners want you to do. Same for the Mac. I've got a 2003-era iBook that, to remain relevant needed an OS upgrade. Does everything work perfectly? No, it does not. I only upgraded because Firefox 3.0 and Flash 10 required it. I'm running a Toshiba laptop from 2002. I've got my collection of NICs. The hardware isn't likely to change. That makes me a perfect candidate for the LTS. Never mind that my hardware — mainly a certain wireless adapter — did function better in 8.10/9.04 than in 8.04. (Whatever got fixed in 8.10 for the NIC in question should've been backported to 8.04 ... ). I've pushed this laptop from 8.04 through 8.10, 9.04 and now 9.10 all in the past few months. I'm tired of things breaking. But I also like to be at least somewhat current with apps. I really didn't need FF 3.5, but I wanted it. And OO 3.1 is a great help with all those .docx files that end up in a basket on my doorstep (ok, it's a flaming paper bag, but I was trying to be nice). I think a sane balance can be struck in the LTS between just doing security fixes and upstream patches and doing at least a little rolling with the apps. It's certainly worth serious consideration. Point of order: My last experience with Debian Testing, a rolling release, wasn't the best. Despite the idea that Debian Testing is more stable than Ubuntu's regular releases, I didn't find that to be true. But I'm willing to give Squeeze a try just the same. I have a Lenny laptop all ready to go that I might push to Squeeze just to see how it does in my version of "production." |
| tuxchick Nov 19, 2009 2:42 PM EDT |
So what would be better about having upgraded apps in a regular rolling release, rather than using a backports repo? It has been my belief for lo these many years that Red Hat downplays having a desktop RHEL on purpose, to avoid drawing the eye of Sauron. They have had a desktop edition all along, just not a freebeer one, and they don't hype it. |
| Steven_Rosenber Nov 19, 2009 5:03 PM EDT |
I'm not sure there's anything better about rolling apps. vs. backports. Perhaps either a way to make using backports easier for the average human? Between backports and apt pinning, I know the tools are there. But there just doesn't seem to be enough documentation out there on exactly how to do it. A "How to Forge" on bringing backports or apt pinning into Ubuntu and Debian would be just the ticket ... But I still think the LTS-style distro would be well-served with either a policy of SOME rolling apps, or an easily selected user choice on the manner app by app (with the ability to roll back if things either don't work or the user for some other reason wants to go back). |
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