<OT> ubuntu bad press

[Tom H]

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 7:13 AM, Graham Todd <grahamtodd2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:43:35 -0400
> Ric Moore <wayward4now at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> The fact remains that some people have up and left and told us about
>> it. Ergo, some have up and left and said nothing. Then that article
>> came out. It all is worth ~noting~, and it may be cause to reflect if
>> we're doing the right thing by the average Joe Lunchbucket user, or
>> the system Admin who wants to install Linux as the default for a
>> small/large office setting. Are we there still? I see no crime in
>> expecting packages to be upgraded to the latest STABLE version of an
>> application, especially when they are as widely popular as Java and
>> Firefox and possibly Libre Office, ...if that is stable yet. I don't
>> think that is too much to expect from an LTS version. Again, just my
>> two cents. Ric
>
> As has been said, the latest versions go to the developers first so
> that they can test them for stability.  I don't know the situation with
> Ubuntu developers, but in general, developers in the open source
> environment are volunteers and I would assume that with all the flack
> flying about at the moment regarding the Ubiquity interface in the
> latest version, it would have a higher priority than LTS upgrades.
>
> I cannot be sure about this of course, but it seems to me to be logical
> that when a perfectly able set of applications that are however LTS, do
> not get automatically upgraded to the latest version or near-latest
> version (perhaps as a result of the effect it might have on the
> dependencies of other packages).
>
> Again, as has been noted, perhaps Ubuntu is not the right distribution
> for your purposes.  There are now some very decent Debian Live .iso
> downloads you can get, test and then burn them to CD or DVD if they
> are right for YOU, if you don't want to leave the apt tools formula that
> Ubuntu uses.

I've been following this thread off and on and it seems to me that the
purpose of an LTS isn't understood (with apologies if someone else has
already explained this in an email that I've missed or deleted
unread!)

Ubuntu LTS releases mimick the behavior of Debian stable and RHEL.
It's meant to receive mostly bug and security patches through its
lifetime. For example, all three are running 2.6.32 and won't be
upgraded to a more recent version. Another RHEL example is that RHEL 6
was released in November 2011. If you install the desktop/workstation
version (through one the rebuilds like CentOS or SL if you don't want
to pay RH), you'll have Firefox 3.6. RHEL 7's unlikely to be published
before early 2015 so you'll be "stuck" with a patched Firefox 3.6
until then.

If you want a more up-to-date Linux release, you have to use (first
since we're on an Ubuntu list) a non-LTS Ubuntu, non-LTS Mint, Debian
testing/unstable, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, ...

As for the suggestion to use Debian Live (or install from a Debian
Live CD), you'll end up with a system that's pretty much equivalent to
Ubuntu 10.04, unless you then upgrade it to Wheezy or Sid.