Ubuntu 9.04: Too Little Too Early

[Ken Hess]

I can't say that I've been waiting patiently or otherwise for the upcoming April 2009 (9.04) Ubuntu release and my indifference is justified. There are some updates and OpenOffice.org 3.x is included in this release--blah blah blah. Frankly, this release is a yawn. I'm not disappointed by it--it happens.

Should you upgrade to it? My personal opinion is no. Wait for the October release as there should be more marked improvements in that one. The October releases seem to be better for me--at least from past experience.

Maybe the answer is to go to an annual release pattern instead of the twice yearly one. The releases would be far more anticipated and improvements more advanced. We can get minor updates like the ones 9.04 offers with apt-get or synaptic and they aren't really worthy of a whole new update.

So for all you Ubuntu fans, including me, this release should be called something like Kicked-Back Koala, Kafka-esque Kangaroo or something equally uninspired for the Emotion Cute Animal naming convention for these releases.

Ubuntu 9.04 is a snooze--sorry guys, wake me up in October.

What do you think of the latest beta versions of 9.04? Let me know if you're inspired or impressed--it could be that I'm just a Jaded Jackalope.

[airbourne]

My company standardized on 8.04 LTS, so we probably won't be moving up until version 10. Our only other Linux distro that we primarily use is Fedora Core 8 as some of our solutions were not yet supported on Ubuntu.

Although we have standardized, moving up early would obviously be driven by need, and I have not seen anything that we need in 9.04.

[J.A. Watson]

I do not agree with your opinion of Ubuntu 9.04. I have been using and testing it since Alpha 3, and find significant improvements:

- Boot time has been cut at least in half. My laptops boot 9.04 in about 30 seconds, compared to about 1 minute for 8.10 and most other Linux distributions. For my netbooks it is about 45 seconds compared to about 1:30.

- X server has been upgraded to 1.6. This brings numerous improvements in display performance and reliability.

- VIA Chrome 9 "openchrome" driver has been updated, this was crucial for the HP 2133 Mini-Note, as the previous version did not work properly.

- Notification system has been completely changed.

There are a number of other improvements, but these alone are enough to justify upgrading in my opinion.

jw

[wolfen69]

first off, there a lot of under the hood improvements. i love ext4, and the stability is unlike any other distro i have tried. and i have tried them all. does every release have to set the world on fire? having better hardware support, faster boot times, ext4, new versions of apps, and great stability, is a reason to use it if you ask me.

"Ubuntu 9.04 is a snooze--sorry guys, wake me up in October."

wake me up when you get a real blog. i don't know why lxer even bothered with this drivel. this is 5 minutes i'll never get back.

[khess]

@wolfen69

As I said, there have been some improvements but not enough. Ext4 is too new and unstable for production--fair warning. The faster boot time may be perceived only by hiding the actual boot process in the background...clever but not monumental.

[simon@syd]

I dont agree with the idea that the new version should be massively updated. By having every 6 months, more considered improvements can be released.

[scru]

Once again Mr. Ken Hess demonstrates his awesome sense of humor. As someone who clearly loves open source (and not just caught up in the religious fanaticism that it sometimes can drive), surely he is familiar with one of its most famous traditions: release early, release often.

It would be quite unfortunate if Mr. Hess was seriously suggesting that a project should release only when it makes groundbreaking, revolutionary updates. As someone who (clearly) loves open source, he should know that small incremental updates are far more common for a good reason. It goes back to biting off more than you can chew. Which is one thing I would suggest about this blog entry if I wasn't certain that it was merely for kicks.