One big thing Microsoft, Apple, and all CTOs can learn from Ubuntu

[Kevin Hunter]

At 8:26am -0400 Tue, 13 Apr 2010, Cybe R. Wizard wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:26:40 -0400 Michael Haney wrote:
>> There is also the problem that installing a new version of Ubuntu 
>> on top of an older version to upgrade it isn't always a painless 
>> experience.  When you can upgrade Ubuntu as smoothly and as 
>> painlessly as you can Mac OS X or Windows then maybe.  I've seen 
>> a LOT of complaints about upgrades over existing installs without 
>> reformatting going bad on the Ubuntu Support lists.
> 
> I've heard this rerpeatedly but have never yet had a single 
> problem with upgradiing my Ubuntus (two installations on one 
> machine) all t he way from Warty (4.10) to current.  I suspect 
> that most problems in that vein are PEBKAC.

I don't think that's the correct conclusion.  I think it more likely
that you aren't using the same packages, or have the same hardware that
some others may have.  For the upgrade process to be considered a viable
option, it has to work for *at least* 999 people out of 1000.  That's
people, mind you, not computers.  And yes, I've pulled that ratio
somewhat from my rear end, but it's not too far off the mark.  The
upgrade process has to be flawless for pert-near everybody, or it
shouldn't be an option.

I don't claim to be über brilliant, but speaking from experience, the
upgrade process from 7.04 to 7.10 took me over 12 hours (no, connection
speed was not the issue), and borked my X configuration to boot.  I've
done enough X configurations and development work I could fairly easily
navigate my way back to a usable state.  Here's where that 99.9% comes
in: at that point the system *forces* you to a CLI interface, you've
lost 99.9% of computer users.  Maybe not 99.9% of the Ubuntu users, but
then that gets back to the sister-thread email I wrote at 6:59am -0400
this morning: the *Nix ecosphere still has an unacceptable amount of
"figure it out yourself, pansy".

I've had three such upgrade experiences (upgrade didn't work, eventually
forcing a system partition reinstall) on two different hardware sets.
Perhaps I did the wrong thing?  But if clicking the Update Managers
"Upgrade" button is the wrong thing, I claim the Ubuntu developers have
got a fuzzy idea of user-friendly.

As a consequence of those three upgrade-snafus, every cycle since I've
done a system partition reinstall.  I also recommend and educate folks
to keep their system and data partitions separate for just this reason.

Kevin