[ubuntu-uk] [marketing] Intrepid 8.10 Kubuntu - disaster

[Ian Pascoe]

I think we've actually got three different types of user to accommodate.

Those who will upgrade pre release, those who will upgrade at the release
date, and those who will upgrade a period of time into the release.

The first type are normally done by those who have a bit of savvy in dealing
with the breakages and bugs that appear as part of the pre release cycle -
techies if you will.

The release day people are those who like to be at the leading edge, but
either don't have the time, or maybe the inclination to go into the apps to
sort out problems, and have a moderate expectation of it just working from
the release.

The last group of upgraders are those who want to have the latest release,
but don't want the hassles with the release day problems.  It is this last
group of people that I don't think are well catered for at the moment in new
CD images - non LTS releases of course.  Yes I'm aware that of course by
upgradeing you will get all the packages that will address the release day
bugs, but this download can be quite large and time consuming.

Perhaps what should be suggested is a re-base of the CD image some 3 - 4
weeks into a cycle to mop up all the fixes and squashed bugs that have
become apparent since release?  This would then give us a better platform to
give to whomever, and we'd be safer in the knowledge that it'd just work -
well better than some of the experiences described here earlier.

I haven't looked at Brainstorm yet to see if this is floating about there
already.

Would anyone else like to comment on the thought of such a post release
update and the expectations as to what it should actually contain?

Ian

Ian

-----Original Message-----
From: ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
[mailto:ubuntu-uk-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com]On Behalf Of Paul Sutton
Sent: 08 November 2008 17:56
To: British Ubuntu Talk
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] [marketing] Intrepid 8.10 Kubuntu - disaster


gav wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 08, 2008 at 12:41:08PM +0000, Bruce Beardall wrote:
>
>> I think you raise some important concerns, Alan. As a Gnome user, I can't
>> really say I've had much recent experience beyond a cursory glance at KDE
4
>> but I think this leads to an interesting question:
>>
>> If we're to advocate Linux [and as far as this list is concerned, Ubuntu]
>> should we be concentrating our advocacy on the LTS release? It's all too
>> easy for anyone on this list to get carried away with the latest and
>> greatest but the vast majority of those we're trying to introduce Linux
to
>> are used to the years between each Windows release. Should we be
>> concentrating on introducing them to a release which is intended to be
>> around for a number of years and expected to have a certain level of
>> stability and accessibility?
>>
>
>
> As the last couple of releases have had a bumpy start I've been putting
LTS
> versions, currently 8.04.1 Ubuntu on new installs for people recently.
>
> I think I'll stick with the 8.04.1 Ubuntu disc for a while yet.
>
> This does ask the question of why the latest releases have had a bumpy
start,
> is the new features cut off coming too late?  is it not being tested on a
wide
> enough variety of hardware?  Or is it something else?
>
> Everything seems to be patched quite quickly and a .1 release seems to
follow
> shortly that solves most of the release day problems.
>
> Should we be advising people to wait a week, or even a month before
upgrading
> to a new version of Ubuntu?
>
>

I thought this was a matter of course for most operating systems,  wait
a while,  see if there any major issues then upgrade, of course if
everyone did that we would not identify issues, perhaps also as
advocates we should install out selves and be able to fix issues before
giving copies away to users to just want it to work and not worry about
fixing stuff that much.

its a difficult one to call but it looks far better on us if we are told
by a user of a problem and we know how to fix it quickly,  rathar than
having to explain why a simple thing like disc eject is not working
properly.

perhaps once a few issues are fixed the cd image (iso file) should be
updated with these fixes, so 8.10.1 8.10.2 etc,  each month,  until 9.04
is released, this would sound more logical, as that way it would not
just be fixes but updates too,  and once installed it won't be taking as
long to download the updates to fix issues,  the software cd will never
then be more than 1 or 2 months out of date, where as 8.10 in march will
be about 5 months out of date and still carry know issues from when it
was pressed.

I would also guess that 8.10.5/6 would have certain bits in there that
will make any transition to 9.04 much easier,.

just my thoughts really.  I will send off for some 8.10 cd.

Paul



Paul



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