Re: sounder Digest, Vol 81, Issue 56

[Dr W Hunter Blair]

On 11-04-17 04:36 AM, sounder...@lists.ubuntu.com wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Unity: Nothing can go wrong! (Samuel Thurston)
> 2. Re: Unity: Nothing can go wrong! (Fred A. Miller)
> 3. Re: Unity: Nothing can go wrong! (Samuel Thurston)
> 4. Re: 5 Out Of 11 Participants Crashed Unity In Study (Paul Sladen)
> 5. Re: Unity: Nothing can go wrong! (Fred A. Miller)
> 6. Re: Releasing every six months. Unity: Nothing can go wrong!
> (Paul Sladen)
> 7. Re: Unity design vs. implementation: Nothing can go wrong!
> (Paul Sladen)
> 8. Re: GNOME 3 in Ubuntu 11.04 (was: Unity: Nothing can go
> wrong!) (Paul Sladen)
> 9. Re: 5 Out Of 11 Participants Crashed Unity In Study (David Gerard)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:23:02 -0500
> From: Samuel Thurston<sam.th...@gmail.com>
> To: Ubuntu Sounder<sou...@lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: Unity: Nothing can go wrong!
> Message-ID:<BANLkTim=XxRBjtc7Vr7ne...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 3:06 PM, chris<che...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2011-04-16 at 12:50 -0500, Samuel Thurston wrote:
>>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 3:58 AM, David Gerard<dge...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 16 April 2011 09:46, David Gerard<dge...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Nothing can go wrong! Nothing can go wr!"&%!?%"^!%?!"""@@@@@@@@@@@@
>>>>> 5 out of 11 testers managed to crash Unity:
>>>>> http://digitizor.com/2011/04/15/crashed-unity-canonical-study/
>>>>> How far are we from release day?
>>>>
>>>> The rest of the results are pretty dismal too:
>>>>
>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2011-April/032988.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> You know, I wouldn't mind this so much. ?I'm a stubborn user and I
>>> don't mind things being crashy, submitting bug reports, etc.
>>>
>>> However, my concern is the impact this has on the linux desktop in a
>>> larger context. ?This kind of bad press associated with the
>>> most-popular linux distro in this day and age, may be just what it
>>> took to set linux back another 5 years.
>>>
>>> Planning to release a product with an unfinished and under-tested DE
>>> is suicidally irresponsible. ? Much as I hate to say it I suspect that
>>> canonical's days may be numbered as a result of this.
>>>
>> Yes, I have been trying to make this point for some time. ?I personally
>> consider the drive to have a "release" every 6 months", could be an
>> indication of an unstable organisation. ?:-) ?Or as my wife puts it "you
>> insane lot".
> I don't think that this schedule is completely unreasonable. The
> problem is when you make "big shifts" on this kind of timetable,
> without having prepped the work in the background.
>
> When I first heard that ubuntu would shift to unity I was skeptical
> but optimistic that multitouch and other stuff being brought in along
> with a new interface.
>
> When i heard the reasons fedora was dumping unity, i expected ubuntu
> to follow suit. Deeply dismaying that it did not.
>
>> I do personally know several people who have dumped Ubuntu, and moved to
>> Debian stable. ?Their argument being that they want a working system
>> they can use, not something that they have to triage and fiddle with
>> constantly.
> Ugh, never going back to debian stable, having 2-year old software
> isn't why I run linux. but I think we're going to see a mass exodus
> with this release.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 19:46:54 -0400
> From: "Fred A. Miller"<fmi...@lightlink.com>
> To: sou...@lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Unity: Nothing can go wrong!
> Message-ID:<4DAA2A6E...@lightlink.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On 04/16/2011 07:23 PM, Samuel Thurston wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>> I do personally know several people who have dumped Ubuntu, and moved to
>>>> Debian stable. Their argument being that they want a working system
>>>> they can use, not something that they have to triage and fiddle with
>>>> constantly.
>> Ugh, never going back to debian stable, having 2-year old software
>> isn't why I run linux. but I think we're going to see a mass exodus
>> with this release.
>>
> I've stayed away from 11.4 till now. I d'led the 64-bit image, burned a
> disk, and booted it. I had understood that Unity was default. Why did
> 11.4 come up in Gnome 3? Do I have to install 11.4 to test it?!
>
> Fred
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 21:52:22 -0500
> From: Samuel Thurston<sam.th...@gmail.com>
> To: sou...@lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Unity: Nothing can go wrong!
> Message-ID:<BANLkTi=3ka=KWZDsfSR+rE...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 6:46 PM, Fred A. Miller<fmi...@lightlink.com> wrote:
>> On 04/16/2011 07:23 PM, Samuel Thurston wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> I do personally know several people who have dumped Ubuntu, and moved to
>>> Debian stable. ?Their argument being that they want a working system
>>> they can use, not something that they have to triage and fiddle with
>>> constantly.
>> Ugh, never going back to debian stable, having 2-year old software
>> isn't why I run linux. but I think we're going to see a mass exodus
>> with this release.
>>
>>
>> I've stayed away from 11.4 till now. I d'led the 64-bit image, burned a
>> disk, and booted it. I had understood that Unity was default. Why did 11.4
>> come up in Gnome 3? Do I have to install 11.4 to test it?!
>>
>> Fred
>>
> I'm curious if you downloaded the daily build or the main beta image
> from ubuntu.com. Either way this is a baffling development since
> gnome3 was never a serious contender for the 11.04 default desktop in
> my understanding.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 04:04:51 +0100 (BST)
> From: Paul Sladen<ubu...@paul.sladen.org>
> To: Ubuntu Sounder list<sou...@lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: 5 Out Of 11 Participants Crashed Unity In Study
> Message-ID:
> <Pine.LNX.4.21.110417...@starsky.19inch.net>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Sat, 16 Apr 2011, David Gerard wrote:
>> Matthew Thomas' original .. acerb, ... I get the feeling he is ...
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2011-April/032988.html
> In Ubuntu we have the openness and honesty to *do* this kind of
> testing (and do not hide the results). We have the openness and
> honesty to have publicly accessible bug reports. We have the openness
> and honesty to discuss issues on mailing lists.
>
> Starting with facts gives the *possibility* of having informed debate.
>
> Instead of guessing, why not just take the results as factual and at
> face value? They are the input that enables fixing bugs.
>
> -Paul
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 23:06:28 -0400
> From: "Fred A. Miller"<fmi...@lightlink.com>
> To: sou...@lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Unity: Nothing can go wrong!
> Message-ID:<4DAA5934...@lightlink.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On 04/16/2011 10:52 PM, Samuel Thurston wrote:
>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 6:46 PM, Fred A. Miller<fmi...@lightlink.com> wrote:
>>> On 04/16/2011 07:23 PM, Samuel Thurston wrote:
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>> I do personally know several people who have dumped Ubuntu, and moved to
>>>> Debian stable. Their argument being that they want a working system
>>>> they can use, not something that they have to triage and fiddle with
>>>> constantly.
>>> Ugh, never going back to debian stable, having 2-year old software
>>> isn't why I run linux. but I think we're going to see a mass exodus
>>> with this release.
>>>
>>>
>>> I've stayed away from 11.4 till now. I d'led the 64-bit image, burned a
>>> disk, and booted it. I had understood that Unity was default. Why did 11.4
>>> come up in Gnome 3? Do I have to install 11.4 to test it?!
>>>
>>> Fred
>>>
>> I'm curious if you downloaded the daily build or the main beta image
>> from ubuntu.com. Either way this is a baffling development since
>> gnome3 was never a serious contender for the 11.04 default desktop in
>> my understanding.
>>
> I appologize.....I said "3" but it isn't....current Gnome. I can't find
> any option for
> a Unity startup....no options at all. The image is the 64-bit iso from
> the Ubuntu site. The
> file name is: ubuntu-11.04-beta2-desktop-amd64.iso
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 04:12:26 +0100 (BST)
> From: Paul Sladen<ubu...@paul.sladen.org>
> To: Ubuntu Sounder<sou...@lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: Releasing every six months. Unity: Nothing can go wrong!
> Message-ID:
> <Pine.LNX.4.21.110417...@starsky.19inch.net>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Sun, 17 Apr 2011, chris wrote:
>> I personally consider the drive to have a "release" every 6 months",
> The story line in Ubuntu is actually a *two-year cycle* between the
> Long Term Support (LTS) releases. In the intermediate releases are
> prep-work on the way to meeting each of those LTS encapsulations.
>
> In between those is the six-month release cycle aligned from GNOME.
> For developers three months of development and three months of
> debugging is about right---much longer and people get itchy fingers
> because they're bored of debugging and want to write something new.
>
> For users, the six-month development cycle is arguably where Ubuntu
> got its following from. It provided a balance between Debian sid and
> Debian stable; going with Ubuntu meant getting fresh stuff configured
> with sane defaults without being on the absolute bleeding edge.
>
> -Paul
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 04:32:56 +0100 (BST)
> From: Paul Sladen<ubu...@paul.sladen.org>
> To: Ubuntu Sounder<sou...@lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: Unity design vs. implementation: Nothing can go wrong!
> Message-ID:
> <Pine.LNX.4.21.110417...@starsky.19inch.net>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=UTF-8
>
> On Sat, 16 Apr 2011, Samuel Thurston wrote:
>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 3:06 PM, chris<che...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The problem is when you make "big shifts" on this kind of
>> timetable, without having prepped the work in the background.
> Where Ubuntu has been successful is interative development. The Unity
> design is an interation of the design shipped in UNR/Ubuntu 10.10;
> what is unusual in this case is that the *implemenation* has been
> written from-scratch, twice. There are now three Unity codebases:
>
> 1. Unity Clutter/Mutter (aka Ubuntu Netbook ...<= Ubuntu 10.10)
> 2. Unity Compiz (aka Unity 3D ...>= Ubuntu 11.04
> 3. Unity Qt (aka Unity 2D ...>= Ubuntu 11.04)
>
> Of the three codebases, two have been written from-scratch over the
> last release cycle. So whilst the the Unity interface *design* is
> continuing to evolve the code implementations have not had that same
> benefit this time around.
>
> Software crashing is an implementation issue, rather than a design
> issue. The work being done by Ayatana is continuing to evolve on an
> interative basis; and for the next release cycle the Unity 2D/3D
> codebases will also be iterations of what has gone before.
>
>> When i heard the reasons fedora was dumping unity,
> I am not aware of Fedora having planned to ship Unity by default. Do
> you have links/URLs to give better context?
>
>>> I do personally know several people who have dumped Ubuntu, and moved to
>>> Debian stable. ?Their argument being that they want a workingsystem
> Strangely, "having a working system" is mostly the argument why people
> run Ubuntu over Debian Unstable. "Horses for courses".
>
> -Paul
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 04:38:29 +0100 (BST)
> From: Paul Sladen<ubu...@paul.sladen.org>
> To: Ubuntu Sounder<sou...@lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: GNOME 3 in Ubuntu 11.04 (was: Unity: Nothing can go
> wrong!)
> Message-ID:
> <Pine.LNX.4.21.110417...@starsky.19inch.net>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Sat, 16 Apr 2011, Fred A. Miller wrote:
>> I've stayed away from 11.4 till now. I d'led the 64-bit image, burned a
>> disk, and booted it. I had understood that Unity was default. Why did
>> 11.4 come up in Gnome 3? Do I have to install 11.4 to test it?!
> GNOME 3 is not shipped in Ubuntu 11.04; the user needs to explicitly
> install a PPA to use GNOME 3. Eg. unless you actually manually ran:
>
> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
> sudo apt-get update
> sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
>
> ...then you are /very/ unlikely to be running GNOME 3 accidentally!
>
> -Paul
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 08:36:28 +0100
> From: David Gerard<dge...@gmail.com>
> To: Ubuntu Sounder list<sou...@lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: 5 Out Of 11 Participants Crashed Unity In Study
> Message-ID:<BANLkTimNtaPwMaLsncZ5=C+5p1d...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On 17 April 2011 04:04, Paul Sladen<ubu...@paul.sladen.org> wrote:
>
>> In Ubuntu we have the openness and honesty to *do* this kind of
>> testing (and do not hide the results). ?We have the openness and
>> honesty to have publicly accessible bug reports. ?We have the openness
>> and honesty to discuss issues on mailing lists.
>
> This is true, though not directly relevant as a response.
>
>
>> Starting with facts gives the *possibility* of having informed debate.
>> Instead of guessing, why not just take the results as factual and at
>> face value? ?They are the input that enables fixing bugs.
>
> This appears contentless.
>
> Following a true statement with a contentless one does not actually
> say anything.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
Jeeze, you guys whinge a lot. This "contentless" statement is logical
and makes perfect sense to me,,

Hunter

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[Christopher Chan]

On Sunday, April 17, 2011 09:04 PM, Dr W Hunter Blair wrote:

> Jeeze, you guys whinge a lot. This "contentless" statement is logical
> and makes perfect sense to me,,
>

Yeah, we do. Why can't you *trim* your posts? Why can't Ubuntu stop
mucking about between LTS releases and keep certain consumer software up
to date instead? Why...? Why...? Why...?

My "contentless" 2p.

[Paul Sladen]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2011, Christopher Chan wrote:
> Why can't Ubuntu stop mucking about between LTS releases and keep
> certain consumer software up to date instead?

Hello Christopher. Would you be willing to expand on which particular
piece(s) of consumer software you had in mind?

I'd love to try and work with you to get it filed as a bug, reported
and dealt with if at all possible! (And if not, a good explanation as
to why it's not been possible). Do you a link to an existing bug
report if it's already filed in Launchpad?

-Paul

[Christopher Chan]

Hi Paul,

On Sunday, April 17, 2011 10:54 PM, Paul Sladen wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Apr 2011, Christopher Chan wrote:
>> Why can't Ubuntu stop mucking about between LTS releases and keep
>> certain consumer software up to date instead?
>
> Hello Christopher. Would you be willing to expand on which particular
> piece(s) of consumer software you had in mind?

Some old examples: pidgin/kopete in Hardy, OOO (now LibreOffice I guess?)

>
> I'd love to try and work with you to get it filed as a bug, reported
> and dealt with if at all possible! (And if not, a good explanation as
> to why it's not been possible). Do you a link to an existing bug
> report if it's already filed in Launchpad?
>

Lucid appears to be good for now or at least I don't have any complaints
with the small selection of software that I use on Lucid. Right now, I
am just 'whinging'. When I get serious, I'll whinge on -users and
launchpad. But as you can see from the examples, sometimes staple stuff
are just not given any attention once an LTS release no longer has any
priority.

[Samuel Thurston]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 9:16 AM, Christopher Chan
<christop...@bradbury.edu.hk> wrote:
> On Sunday, April 17, 2011 09:04 PM, Dr W Hunter Blair wrote:
>
>> Jeeze, you guys whinge a lot. This "contentless" statement is logical
>> and makes perfect sense to me,,
>>
>
> Yeah, we do.

It's the last thing this list is good for.

> Why can't you *trim* your posts?

hehe. At least when replying to the digest getting it down to the
relevant message seems prudent.

> Why can't Ubuntu stop mucking
> about between LTS releases and keep certain consumer software up to date
> instead? Why...? Why...? Why...?

To be fair, ubuntu has really grown based on "innovation" which is one
of those things thats hard to quantify. But if you go back a few
releases and see the differences, it's clear that this aspect has some
value.

But I have always considered "LTS" to be kind of a joke anyway. I
mean, if you have no support contract, what obligation does
Ubuntu/Canonical have to support you, long term or otherwise?
Contractually, the answer is zero, regardless of which release cycle
you use.

[Christopher Chan]

On Sunday, April 17, 2011 11:47 PM, Samuel Thurston wrote:

> But I have always considered "LTS" to be kind of a joke anyway. I
> mean, if you have no support contract, what obligation does
> Ubuntu/Canonical have to support you, long term or otherwise?
> Contractually, the answer is zero, regardless of which release cycle
> you use.
>

Yeah, my feelings exactly. LTS does not sound what it one might think it
means. You have to find out what Canonical means by LTS.

[Avi]

Samuel Thurston wrote:
> But I have always considered "LTS" to be kind of a joke anyway. I
> mean, if you have no support contract, what obligation does
> Ubuntu/Canonical have to support you, long term or otherwise?
> Contractually, the answer is zero, regardless of which release cycle
> you use.
>

It's not that sort of support; It's providing patches & fixing bugs,
not helping configure software.

There's quite possibly some sort of a contract implied in there through
their having previously advertised three years of patching that'd stop
them just aborting mid-way through, but I imagine that'd be largely
dependent upon where you are, and IANAL anywhere.

--
Avi

[Samuel Thurston]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Avi <li...@avi.co> wrote:
> Samuel Thurston wrote:
>> But I have always considered "LTS" to be kind of a joke anyway.  I
>> mean, if you have no support contract, what obligation does
>> Ubuntu/Canonical have to support you, long term or otherwise?
>> Contractually, the answer is zero, regardless of which release cycle
>> you use.
>>
>
> It's not that sort of support; It's providing patches & fixing bugs,
> not helping configure software.
>
> There's quite possibly some sort of a contract implied in there through
> their having previously advertised three years of patching that'd stop
> them just aborting mid-way through, but I imagine that'd be largely
> dependent upon where you are, and IANAL anywhere.

I'm not trying to muddle the idea of an installation/support contract
and LTS-style application support. What I am saying is that it's
become clear over the years that LTS doesn't guarantee that things
that work at the outset won't be broken in the future, nor that all
security and bugfixes make it back upstream, and that Canonical
doesn't actually have an obligation to ensure that this is the case.
Therefore the "LTS" label is kind of meaningless with the exception
that you'll get *some* security and bugfixes for so many years.