[OT] Re: <OT> ubuntu bad press

[NoOp]

On 08/24/2011 09:40 PM, Ric Moore wrote:
> Seems Ubuntu is getting kicked around in the online media. 
> http://www.technewsworld.com/story/72773.html
> 
> One thing I have to agree with is that when you dink with your userbase,
> it's a recipe for disaster. My peeve is that the LTS version isn't
> getting package upgrades to some key applications. Sun Java is falling
> way behind in release upgrades. The standard Firefox package for 10.4
> has mold on it. I don't want to rely on personal repo's in order to get
> a recent package... I'd feel more secure if they were vetted into the
> Universe, or whatever. Just' saying I'm having a bad hair day, finding
> that I have to go outside the usual channels to get something updated. 
...
This one gave me a laugh... particularly since your previous post
regarding Firefox 4 also stated:

Thanks, I got it running later on... plus I have java 7 installed. It's
quite a speed improvement over the Ubuntu standard sun-java install,
too. I used this howto...
http://codeslinger.posterous.com/how-to-install-java-7-on-ubuntu

http://java.com/en/download/faq/java7.xml
<quote>
Why is Java SE 7 not yet available on java.com?

The new release of Java is first made available to the developers to
ensure no major problems are found before we make it available on the
java.com website for end users to download the latest version. If you
are interested in trying Java SE 7 it can be downloaded from Oracle.com
</quote>

Installation instructions are here:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/webnotes/install/index.html

<http://download.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/webnotes/install/linux/linux-plugin-install.html>
<http://download.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/webnotes/install/linux/linux-jre.html>

But of course you most likely will encounter issues with J7 in
OpenOffice unless you set the paths properly *and* ensure that such
applications don't barf on J7.

I'm sure that you also read all of the release notes:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/jdk7-relnotes-429209.html
<http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/compatibility-417013.html>
<http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/jdk7-relnotes-418459.html#knownissues>
Items like this catch _my_ attention:
<quote>
Area: HotSpot
Synopsis: Ubuntu 10.10 and newer has a new default security policy that
affects Serviceability commands. This policy prevents a process from
attaching to another process owned by the same UID if the target process
is not a descendant of the attaching process.
The new security policy affects the following components:

    Serviceability Agent (SA)
    jinfo
    jmap
    jstack -F

You can revert to the more permissive policy in one of two ways: 1)
temporarily (until the next reboot) by changing the value to 0 in
/proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace_scope, or 2) more permanently by changing
the value to 0 in /etc/sysctl.d/10-ptrace.conf and rebooting. Option 1
does not require a reboot and option 2 does require a reboot.
RFE: 7050524
</quote>

But hey... if you're happy to run Firefox 4.0 and Java7 on an LTS have
at it. I wonder how long it will take before you're back complaining
about Firefox 4 and Java7.

Note: the standard subject change for OT is [OT] not <OT> - unless of
course I'm mistaken... I'll try to find an RFC or some other to cite
when I have time.