Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Ubuntu – Long Term Support
One item of particular interest with Ubuntu is their development schedule. Because a typical Linux distribution is composed of many applications from many different parties, the Ubuntu developers do not directly control or develop a lot of the software included in Ubuntu. Furthermore Ubuntu tries to be a complete desktop environment rather than just an operating system, which means it includes a wider variety of software than what’s found in Windows and Mac OS X.
What this amounts to is that Ubuntu needs to both provide future patch support for included applications, and it needs to compensate for the fact that they don’t develop many of these programs. Coupled with this is the fact that 2nd party application development is not necessarily synchronized to Ubuntu’s release schedule and some applications (and the kernel itself) can have a rather rapid development rate.
Trying to deal with all of these factors, Ubuntu has settled on two classes of releases. Every 6 months – in October and April – Ubuntu takes what’s ready and releases a new version of the OS. For 1st party material this is tied with some goal for the release (such as replacing the audio daemon) while for 3rd party software this may be as simple as grabbing the latest version. This puts regular Ubuntu versions in an unusual position when trying to classify them – it’s significantly more than a Mac OS X point update, still more than a Windows service pack, and yet a single release generally encompasses less than a new version of either OS. But at the same time, there’s no guarantee that any given release of Ubuntu won’t break software compatibility or binary driver compatibility, which puts it up there with major OS releases.
Furthermore because of the need to provide security updates for all these different programs in all of these different versions, Ubuntu has a very short support cycle, and in that cycle only bug fixes and security updates will be issued, software is not otherwise changed as it’s intended to represent a stable platform. A regular release is only supported for 1.5 years; which for example means support for 7.10 Gutsy, the immediate predecessor to 8.04 Hardy Heron, expired in April. This pushes new versions of Ubuntu back towards the idea of them being closer to a service pack or a point release. In essence, it’s intended that everyone using regular versions of Ubuntu will stick to a relatively rapid upgrade treadmill.
But this obviously doesn’t work for everyone, which results in there being two classes of Ubuntu. What we’re looking at today, 8.04, is what Ubuntu calls a long term support (LTS) release. Every 2 years a version of Ubuntu is labeled as a LTS release, which entails a much greater effort on the developer’s part to support that edition of the OS. The standard support period is 3 years instead of 1.5 years, and for the server edition of the OS that becomes 5 years.
This makes the LTS releases more comparable to Mac OS X and Windows, both of which have long support periods in excess of 3 years. This is also why we’re starting with a review of Hardy, in spite of it being over a year old now, because it’s the current LTS release. Regular short-support Ubuntu releases have their place, but they are not intended for long-term use. Coming from Windows or Mac OS X, a LTS release is the comparable equivalent.
| Operating System | Mainstream Support | Extended Support |
| Windows | 5 years | 5 additional years |
| Ubuntu | 1.5 years | None |
| Ubuntu LTS | 3 years | None |
| Mac OS X | So long as it's the newest OS | So long as it's one version behind |
Unfortunately, in spite of the LTS designation, not all of the applications in a LTS release are intended to be used for such a long period of time, or are their developers willing to support them for that length of time. If we take Firefox for example, the last Ubuntu LTS release, 6.06 Dapper, shipped with Firefox 1.5. Mozilla very quickly ended support for Firefox 1.xx after Firefox 2 shipped, and now you can’t even get support for 2.xx now that 3.xx has been out for quite some time. This leaves the Ubuntu developers in charge of supplying security updates for the older versions of Firefox they still support, which while better than the alternative (no security patches) isn’t necessarily a great solution.
The Ubuntu developers have done a good job of staying on top of the matter (they just published a new 1.5 security patch as recently as last month) but it highlights the fact that the Ubuntu developers do not always have the resources to maintain both a stable platform and the necessary security updates. So while an LTS release is supposed to be supported for 3 years, in reality not every component is going to make it that long.
Digging through the bugs list for Dapper and Hardy, I get the impression that these kinds of cracks only occur on less-used software (particularly that which is not part of the default install, such as VLC), so an option for users who need to stick with the base OS for the entire life of a LTS release, but don’t mind upgrading a few applications can go that route and cover all of their bases. Unfortunately this is easier said than done, and we’ll get to why that is when we discuss the package manager.
What this amounts to is that if you’re the kind of person that intends to run a computer and an OS for a very long period of time – say on the scale of XP, which turns 8 this year – Ubuntu likely isn’t a good fit for you.
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Kakao - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Ryan, nowadays you don't need to dual boot. You can just set up a virtual machine. If you are a gamer use Windows as host and setup a Linux distro as guest. If you have enough memory, 4GB is very good, you can have both perfectly usable at the same time. I'm using Virtual Box and it works great.VaultDweller - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
"Manufacturer: Canon"I think you mean Canonical.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
It wasn't in our DB when I wrote the article, it was supposed to be added before it went live. Whoops.Thanks you.
Proteusza - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I havent been able to read the whole cos I'm currently at work, but so far it seems good. Some people have been saying you should be testing 9.04, and I can see their point, but on the other hand, I agree that since 8.04 is the latest LTS release, it should be pretty stable still.Nonetheless, perhaps you could compare a later non LTS release to a service pack for Windows? I mean, there is some new functionality and some fixes. Granted, new versions of Ubuntu contain a lot more few features than Windows service packs.
I agree that the 6 month release cycle is too fast. I dont develop for Ubuntu myself, but I imagine a lot of time will be wasted on preparing for release twice a year. I mean, theres a lot of testing, bugfixing and documentation to be done, and I would think if you would only did that once a year, you would have more time for development. Although, I guess the more changes you do in a release the more you should test, so maybe thats invalid.
I've also never really liked the Linux filesystem and package manager idea. Granted, package managers especially have improved a lot lately, and personally I think we have Ubuntu to thank for that, with its huge focus on usability, which historically Linux hasnt cared at all about.
I also dont like over reliance on the terminal/CLI. I dont like that there are certain things that can only be done with it. Its easier and faster for me to do things with a GUI, because we are visual creatures and a GUI is a much better way of displaying information than just plain text. I think until a lot of the Linux developers get over the idea that the CLI is "the only way to go", the GUI will be underdeveloped. As I said, its only recently that some Linux developers have actually bothered to try to get the various desktop managers up to scratch.
The other thing I find interesting about Ubuntu, is the nerd rage that some Debian developers exhibit towards Ubuntu.
Anyway... when 9.10 comes out, I would love to see your impressions of the difference.
R3MF - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
i thoroughly approve of AT running linux articles..........however i didn't bother to read this one as anything from Q2 2008 is of zero interest to me now.
may i suggest a group-test to be published around Xmas of the following Q4 2009 distro releases:
Ubuntu 9.04
opensuse 11.2
fedora 12 (?)
Mandiva 2010
that would be awesome AND relevant to your readers.
CityZen - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I was one of those waiting for this article. I do remember getting excited when it was promised back in ... (can't recall the year, sorry, it's been too long :) ). Anyway, the wait seems to have been worth it. Excellent article.A suggestion for part 2: install LinuxMint 7 (apart from Ubuntu 9.04) and see which of the problems you found in part 1 with Ubuntu 8.04 are solved in LinuxMint "out of the box"
captainentropy - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
I totally agree! To hell with Ubuntu, Mint7 is the best linux distro by far. Before I settled on Mint I tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, PCLinuxOS (my previous fave), Mepis, Scientific, openSUSE, Fedora, Slackware, CentOS, Mandriva, and RedHat. None could come close to the complete awesomeness, beauty, out-of-the-box completeness, and ease of use as Mint7.I'm a scientist and I'm using it for sequence and image analysis, so far.
haplo602 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
so I got to page before installation and I have so many comments I cannot read further :-)I am using linux on and off as my main desktop system since redhat 6.0 (that's kernel 2.2 iirc) so some 10 years. my job is a unix admin. so I am obviously biased :-)
1. virtual desktops - while this heavily depends on your workflow, it helps organise non-conflicting windows to not occupy the same space. I used to have one for IM/email, one with just web browser, one with my IDE and work stuff and one for GIMP and Blender. while this is my preference, it helps to kill the notification hell that is Windows. I hate how Windows steals focus from whatever I am working on just because some unimportant IM event just occured.
2. package manager and filesystem. given my background, the linux FHS is my 2nd nature. however you failed to grasp the importance of the package manager here. it effectively hides the FHS from you so you do not need to clean up manualy after uninstall. all directories you should ever go into manualy are /etc, your home dir, the system mount directory and whatever the log directory is. If you need to acccess other directories manualy, then you are either a system developer, a programmer or too curious :-)
also you can usualy one-click install .deb packages and they appear in the package manager as usual. just you have to manage dependencies manualy in that case. repositories are nice as you need to set them up ONCE and then all your updates/future versions are taken care of.
3. missing executable icons - this has a lot more background to it but it is a mistake to use nautilus in the default icon mode. you basicaly cannot live withour ownership/permissions displayed on a unix system. trying to hide this in any way in a GUI is a capital mistake. that's why a windows explorer like file manager is not usable under linux. good old MC :-) anyway an executable file can be anything from a shell script to a binary file. you just have to have the correct launcher registered in the system and you can open anything. basicaly same as windows just not that much gui friendly.
4. NVIDIA/ATI drivers - this is a story in itself. use NVIDIA if you want easy of use. use ATI if you want to learn about kernel and X :-) dig through phoronix.com for more info.
ok I will post more comments as I read further :-)
haplo602 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
so I read the whole article. I would have some more comments :-)1. installation - for me this was never a problem on any linux distro I was using. my partition scheme does not change much and it is usualy the trickiest part of the whole installation process. try out the full gentoo 3 stage installation if you want some fun (ok it is not avaiable via normal means anymore).
2. fonts - as you mentioned with codecs, there are software restrictions and licensing policies governing linux distributions. ms fonts are licensed under different terms than GPL software. yes even FOTNS have licenses. so they are generaly not included in linux distributions by default.
What I missed from the article is the amount of customisation you can do with a typical linux distro. just ubuntu has 3 main variants and you can mix and match them at will. you can even have all 3 installed and switch between the window managers by user preference.
Since you did not like the package manager anyway, you missed on the main Linux strength - application variability.
From a common user perspective however, the article is quite correct. I would expect more from a seasoned windows user and AT editor.
n0nsense - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Ubuntu 8.04 is 14 months old creature.2 versions released after it and the third one should arrive in October.
In terms of Windows it's short time, but for Linux it's a lot of time.
I suggest your next review should be done on Ubuntu 9.10 instead of 9.04 (which IMHO is better than 8.04 but still lacks some polish).
As mentioned before, the advantage of CLI instructions is that it will work on any Desktop Environment (Gnome, KDE, XFCE etc.) if it's not related to the DE itself. Moreover it will work on different versions (older/newer).
For example in Vista/7 i couldn't find Network Connections in GUI.
But who can stop me to type "Network Connections" in Explorer's address bar ? Sometimes GUI changed and even if only a little, most people will fail to follow screen shots. not to mention that most desktops are so customized (on real geek's computers) that it looks too different. I'm not talking about icons or desktop background. I'm talking about panels (if any at all), docks, menus, context menus etc. in Linux almost everything can be changed. And old-school geeks that had their Linux installations for years do this things so each DE is probably unique. (I have Gnome and apps settings/tweaks for over 7 years. Some of them probably never changed). The trick is that even when you reinstall the system, your personal setting may stay with you. (I jumped form Debian to Ubuntu to Gentto back to Ubuntu to Ubuntu x86_64 and finally to Gentoo x86_64). After all this, i have not lost any user customization/setting. On the system level it's harder since Debian and Gentoo are very different. All this gives you motivation to change and to tweak to make it better. Windows users are not really can customize and when they do, it's only valid until they have to reinstall/upgrade their OS. Since most of the Windows users I know reinstall at least once a year, after few cycles they will stay with defaults for both OS and applications.
Switch to Linux is not the easiest thing. It's usually not "love from first sight" story. But if somehow you stayed around and get to know it, you can't be separated after :)
Even on Windows 7 i feel handicapped in terms of usability and effectiveness/productivity. (I spend more time in front of Windows then Linux computers)