how safe is it to start running the alpha of 11.04?

[C de-Avillez]

On 12/10/2010 08:58 AM, David Curtis wrote:

> The devil is in the details, so they say. I say, in my most highly
> informed, expert experienced opinion, that Ubuntu has the capability
> to 'break real good'.  Predicting if that's going to happen during
> this cycle requires looking at what is being worked on, what new
> sub-systems/kernel modules/apps are being introduced/upgraded. To
> get that info requires paying attention to UDS/dev teams meeting
> notes etc. So your not going to get more than the stock answer here.
> If you really want to get into testing alpha get on IRC (freenode)
> #ubuntu+1, much discussion and feedback happens there in real time.
> `

Absolute +1 on the #ubuntu+1 channel (and, in fact, to all
recommendations).

On chances of breakups... it varies. As long as one is willing to
accept complete system loss, and as long as one knows how to
recover... the more testers we get the better. But I really do not
recommend a casual user to go native Natty on the single machine
available; instead, try the live option of the ISO, run under a VM.

(I am running native Natty on my "production" laptop; but I know I
can get hit, I am usually able to recover in half an hour or so, and
I *have* a backup laptop I can use if things go really haywire.)

Just for the record, yesterday we had a failure on the new GDM that
caused session startups to fail (you would be back on the GDM login)
-- the backup laptop came in handy, BTW. A bypass was found, and a
fix commited yesterday. But, if you do not follow the #ubuntu+1
(and, in this case, #ubuntu-devel and #ubuntu-desktop) this might
have been a bad one. On my personal experience, during all the time
I have been testing Ubuntu, only twice I had to reinstall from
scratch, but many times I had serious bugs impacting usage.

On Ubuntu being able to "break real good": goes with the territory,
this is what can happen when you are running as near to upstream as
possible. And this, generically, is a given for alphas.

So, a last recommendation: we are, right now, moving over to Python
2.7 (from 2.6). This means that, for the next few days, if you are
running Natty & run an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' you may lose *all* the
packages that depend on Python < 2.7. Be careful, and manually
select what you want updated.

Cheers,

..C..



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