Hi, I've been lurking/occasionally posting here for a while, and I would like to bring up an issue that has been a real annoyance in my attempted use of Ubuntu (as well as other Linux distributions, notably Debian) this summer.
In short, while I feel that Ubuntu has made real progress with regards to desktop Linux - comparing Hoary and Feisty (the last release I had used prior to this summer) is like night and day. More works out of the box, it's FAR easier to get all the popular non-free codecs, and it generally feels like a modern desktop operating system. However, in installing Ubuntu I ran into a whole slew of issues that, while not "will make your system explode/lets hackers in/causes data loss" bad, are quite annoying nevertheless. Some examples include: 1. Many USB storage devices can't be properly unmounted using the GUI. One must use the console or use non-optimal workarounds (that are distinctly UNSUPPORTED) to fix this. The bug in particular can be found at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/99538 2. My laptop (a MacBook, don't laugh :) ) won't suspend-to-RAM with the default kernel. To be precise, it will suspend, but it will not resume :) This is fixed in newer kernels (such as those in Gutsy) and can be worked around with a kernel recompile in 2.6.20. However, one must either compile a kernel or use apt-pinning with Gutsy sources to use this fix - a decidedly unsupported and nonintuitive fix. 3. Many other examples that I can't think of off the top of my head - though one may see many of these by looking at the "Howto configure XYZ" wiki pages. Words such as "recompile", "add this repository", etc etc seem to be a constant occurence here. This is especially apparent when it comes to new hardware that has drivers, albeit ones that weren't ready as of the stable release. What these issues have in common is that, under current policy (which calls for updates for security/data loss type issues ONLY), there is little or no chance of having them fixed in the stable release. While I can see the merit of keeping changes to "stable" to a minimum, it seems like the existing policy of Ubuntu (and many distributions - I'm not blaming Ubuntu in particular) is leaving many users out in the cold with regards to their issues until the next release. I can see this policy for a server or enterprise desktop (and thus the LTS releases), but not a normal desktop. For desktop users, it ends up making them fix some bugs/hardware support issues themselves using the command line/third-party repositories/building from source - which is something that should be avoided. Has there been any consideration to easing the stable release updates policy to accommodate issues like these? I'm not necessarily advocating that the stable release receive every update under the sun (certainly not feature-only updates), but it seems like allowing more bug fixes/new drivers to enter the stable release would be beneficial to many end users. I think that many users are probably turned off by the "recompile, add this unsupported software, hack this code, etc etc" (I know this is what always ends up pushing me away from Linux) and this would go a long way towards alleviating this. Any comments? I'm especially wondering what developers think of this issue... Tim
-- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
