Batten down the hatches, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS due in TWO DAYS

Canonical has announced that the latest long-term support release of its Ubuntu Linux distribution will be available in two days. The Linux company made the availability announcement of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, codenamed "Trusty Tahr" on Tuesday, coincidentally alongside chief rival Red Hat holding its Red Hat Summit in San Francisco …

[PushF12]

The desktop deadend.

Trusty is the first Ubuntu LTS release where Canonical gave up on the desktop and the home user. For example...

Ubuntu ONE discontinued. UDS permanently cancelled. The desktop teams defunded or terminated. A notable lack of infighting over the default multimedia stack. Shorter release cycles. Giving up on community recruiting and outreach. Etc, etc.

I hope they put the daft Unity project rest -- because there will never be a profitable 4th place in the mobile platform market -- and find a comfortable place to settle down beside RedHat.

[asdf]

Re: The desktop deadend.

Ubuntu jumped the shark some time ago. At least they provide a decent base for Mint I guess (though I am more of a LMDE user myself).

[frank ly]

@asdf Re: The desktop deadend.

The next Mint LTS release, which is 17, to be based on Ubuntu 14.04 and due in July, will be supported until April 2019. Now would be a good time for Windows-weary souls to think about migrating and having a better life at home.

[Alan Bourke]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

Can I do a major version upgrade of Mint yet without backing up/reinstalling from scratch/restoring? No? Bye then!

[Ian 55]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

It's annoyingly not guaranteed to work - I still want to know why they have broken basic Debian behaviour - but the last couple worked after using apt-get to upgrade.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

I've been running Ubuntu since 6.06 and current have it on about ten machines. I have never, ever managed a successful version upgrade.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

a nightmare!

Get Debian instead, ubuntu is based on it and upgrade between release is easy.

[Stuart 22]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

I've had little problem upgrading Kubuntu since about 10.04 - which included the KDE 3.5 to KDE4 transition.

AFAIK Ubuntu is great - unless you actually choose the Ubuntu desktop of the day.

[Phil Lord]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

Really? I have managed to upgrade many different ubuntu versions to the next. It's generally worked fine on quite a few different machines, although at one point the configuration for my track ball kept on moving around (xorg.conf, then hal, and I forget where now) which was a bit of a pain.

This time might be interesting, though, as I have quite a few packages on PPAs with my 12.04LTS. We shall see.

[AceRimmer]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

I was shot down for this the other day, here is the method for upgrading:

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2014/04/09/windows_8_1_update_review/#c_2160410

Not actually used it myself. I'm on Mint 16 ATM having started on 15 and then reinstalling from scratch (had a new laptop anyway). 17 will be my first upgrade

[eszklar]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) - yes.

[Jim 59]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

Can I do a major version upgrade of Mint yet without backing up/reinstalling from scratch/restoring? No? Bye then!

Just my view but version upgrades are naff, better to wipe and install. A mega upgrade tends to leave behind a patchwork.

[John Sanders]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

If you keep your /home in a separate partition/filesystem installing from scratch is piece of cake.

[paulc]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

unfortunately the standard automagic install does not default to doing that very simple thing. ANything other than default dumps you into the wonderfully cryptic world of the partition editor and it's NOT very friendly for newbies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

>If you keep your /home in a separate partition/filesystem installing from scratch is piece of cake.

Exactly this. Thats the whole reason for partitioning disks, something a lot of people don't seem to understand. Personally what I do is always have a spare partition to install a new release on so I can test it. If it works the old install partition becomes the new spare , if it doesn't the updated partition remains the spare. Good luck trying that with Windows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

I've been doing upgrades in place for every version since Windows 2000, server and desktop. That's the only way to identify the pain points that will have clients come bearing hosed up machines. The #1 pain points is always drivers, then kernel level applications Gee, looks like my list for Linux & al.

[Mostor Astrakan]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

I've got my home directories on a different machine - a cute little Debian-based NAS box by Excito. Mind you, I stripped that thing down and rebuilt it more or less from scratch with OpenLDAP, Samba, Apache, DNS, DHCP, PXE-boot and a few more interesting things. Which might be slightly over-engineered for your average home user.

[Vociferous]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

> Can I do a major version upgrade of Mint yet without backing up/reinstalling from scratch/restoring?

Sudo apt-get dist-upgrade works as well, or more accurately as badly, in Mint as Ubuntu. I've tried to do dist-upgrade on Ubuntu server every time a new LTS has been released, it's never worked; dist-upgrade is just begging for problems. It's always better to back up/format and install from scratch/restore.

[asdf]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

>Can I do a major version upgrade of Mint yet without backing up/reinstalling from scratch/restoring? No? Bye then!

You can with LMDE quite easily but they are are called update packs instead of versions. Still that said honestly LMDE though very very stable does not keep up with security updates worth a darn. Debian testing is much better but sadly they break cinnamon and other mint specific stuff too much. Guess I could try Arch next but have problems for some reason getting many linux distros to install right on old Mac Pro (even verified correct install CDs will freeze at boot screen etc, fuck EFI32 and Apple for pushing EFI in general). LMDE is still the only one that worked right off the bat.

[Jim 59]

Re: @asdf The desktop deadend.

Good news, looking forward to Mint LTS. Install it, get everything working then look forward to several years of stability. I recently started running a business on my PC and regretfully must say good bye to Fedora after 6 years. The bleeding edge is not compatible with business use, where any instability is an utter bloodpressurey nightmare rather than an inconvenience.

[Pete 2]

Long term support - provided you don't change anything.

> Mint LTS. Install it, get everything working then look forward to several years of stability.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that (is there a smiley missing?)

LTS releases are fine, provided you want a system that's frozen in time - or will only have whatever applications the LTS team deign to (back)port to that particular software base.

However if you want a new application, or even a more modern version of an old application: maybe one with a must-have feature or bug-fix, then LTS is no help. You often find that these, desirable, updates are only available from the application provider or from their specialised suppository (!). And that *that* new release requires the latest version of a whole slew of non-LTS libraries and maybe other dependencies. So you end up veering off the "true path" of an LTS release and having to add all sorts of other new stuff. And all that other new stuff can very easily break the old stuff in the LTS release.

So in theory it's a nice idea, for the suits. But in practice I've never had an LTS release that was much use after 12-18 months.

[Roland6]

Re: Long term support - provided you don't change anything.

Agree whilst LTS is to be applauded, 3 years (desktop) and 5 years (server) isn't really long-term, particularly as back in 2012, RedHat and Oracle standardised on 10 years; but even these aren't really in the same space as IBM with AIX...

[pacman7de]

Ubuntu on the desktop ..

@PushF12: "Trusty is the first Ubuntu LTS release where Canonical gave up on the desktop and the home user. For example"...

"Linux Desktop Environments"

[keithpeter]

Re: The desktop deadend.

@PushF12

The article was mainly about servers. And virtualisation. And admin tools. Which Canonical sell support for, thus funding their future developments.

The desktop thing has been discussed to the point where we can all predict what everyone is going to say before they say it.

I'm getting my coat now.

[bill 36]

I bit the bullet yesterday

and put Linux Mint 16 Petra with Cinnamon onto a hard drive partition beside XP.

So far so good. Everything appears to work properly although i had one minor irritant in that trying to install updates kept failing because the default system sources in the States appeared to be down. Once i had worked it out, a quick flip to Killerhorse in Germany, fixed that.

Why not Ubuntu? Unity, in a word.

[James Hughes 1]

Re: I bit the bullet yesterday

I do wonder whether all these Unity haters have ever actually used it for more than 5 minutes.

I get on quite well with it.

[keithpeter]

Re: I bit the bullet yesterday

@James Hughes 1

Good for you! Glad you are finding Unity useful. Others will make different choices.

Anyone got anything to say about servers and the new Ubuntu? Anyone planning to run a test instance? Does anyone actually use the new features outlined in the OA?

[theOtherJT]

Re: I bit the bullet yesterday

I do. In an attempt to become a "one OS shop" (sadly still saddled with a few M$ boxes, but what can you do?) We're running 12.04 on 95% of our servers as well as about 400 of our desktops. It's been good, for the most part, and this looks like a move in the right direction.

The desktops have been fine, but the server end is where we've had problems, and it's actually nice to see them putting more effort into it. Up until now everyone has just said "You should use Debian"... they're not totally wrong, but again - one OS shop.

Puppet is a very welcome upgrade, since we're using that already so better support will be nice, and I've been playing with Ceph on 12.04 and not having a great deal of success with it, so that'll be interesting to try. Could potentially make a serious difference to our storage architecture if that works out.

I'll be throwing this at some test boxes as soon as it's released, then we'll have to do some long term testing and consult the users to decide if we're going to go with unity for the desktop. Seems likely we'll repackage with xfce again, and leave unity as a non default option like we did last time.

[keithpeter]

Re: I bit the bullet yesterday

@ theOtherJT

Thankyou for that interesting and informative reply. Good luck with the testing.

The coat: I'm off out now we are talking about servers and supporting a bunch of users.

[bill 36]

Re: I bit the bullet yesterday

I'm not a Unity hater. It's actually not bad and i used it for several months. But i prefer the look and feel of Mate or Cinammon and currently i'm using both.

They are pleasing on the eye by default and much more intuitive from a management perspective.

Ubuntu admittedly is a bit less hassle to get up and running but you "takes your choice".

[Fibbles]

Re: I bit the bullet yesterday

"I do wonder whether all these Unity haters have ever actually used it for more than 5 minutes.

I get on quite well with it."

I used it for a couple of weeks when it was first released and then again for a week with 12.10. I just can't get on with the concept of searching for everything on my computer. Maybe I'd eventually get used to it but I'd never be comfortable with it. The lack of options for customizing Unity also puts me off. Linux desktops have traditionally offered a lot of options for modifying default behaviours whereas Unity's options are sparse in comparison.

I don't dislike Unity because it's the 'cool' thing to do or simply because it's a Canonical project (which in some circles seems to be regarded as worse than software produced by Lucifer himself). I dislike it because it doesn't do what I want.

Still, the wonderful thing about Linux is that there is a choice between desktop environments. The fact that Unity exists doesn't affect my enjoyment of XFCE one bit. If you like Unity then continue using it, other peoples' opinions shouldn't matter at all.

[DrXym]

Re: I bit the bullet yesterday

"I do wonder whether all these Unity haters have ever actually used it for more than 5 minutes."

I have and I hated it. The global menu is great on a netbook where vertical space is at a premium. It is not good on a larger screen where a global menu is very confusing and increases the amount of mouse travel. The floaty elevator style scroll bars are great when space is at a premium but really terrible when it is not. The always-pinned-to-the-left launcher is fine on a single monitor and when all the icons fit in that vertical space but no good if they do not.

Ubuntu isn't a *bad* desktop these days. It's usable and I can live with it. But it feels to me like they've polished a turd. At least global menus can be disabled which I suppose is a concession that maybe it wasn't a good idea in the first place.

[handle]

To avoid straining their servers

...and your broadband connection, and your time, try apt-cacher. I have it on the plug computer in my airing cupboard and it helps a great deal if you have multiple machines to update.

[HewJay]

Unity

I have to admit Unity is a bit Rubberdubdubish, but there is a gnome fall-back available!

[Stevie]

Bah!

Gotta say, these lame code names that people give various distros of Linux do nothing for the marketing of same to J.Q. Public.

Hey, Canonical, try "Turbothrust Annihilator" or "Hypersonic Avenger". They sound like cool weapons from Halo or the badasses from the next Marvel/DC movie blockbuster, and thus have a much better chance of attracting the attention of the world.

Much better than "Trustworthy Tapir" or whatever it was.

[Teiwaz]

Re: Bah!

So is 'Turbothrust Annihilator' your favourite brand of dildo or what?

Actually, they used to give Joysticks names like those in the 1980's. Usually had a functinal lifespan of about five months (less if you attempted to play 'Combat School').

Seriously, if you want cool names, the 'Satanic' and 'Ultimate' Editions are still around.

[Stevie]

Re: your favourite brand of dildo or what

Note to self: Don't tease the People's Ubuntu Naming Soviet, even with self deprecating humor content built-in. The Umbongo user community do not understand irony and will downvote and feel obligated to point out the obvious unspoken joke as if it were inadvertent slip of the keyboard.

Sigh. Gotta remember this is a community that thinks you *need* an irony tag.

[Anonymous Coward]

5 people who care about Ubuntu

1. Mark Shuttleworth

2.

3.

4.

5.

[agricola]

WHERE ARE ALL THOSE BELLS AND WHISTLES?

"Batten down the hatches, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS due in TWO DAYS!"

Why?

Mark Shuttleworth has already dropped more announced features for 14.04 than will appear. AND, when the bog-standard Ubuntu is flawed, we'll get the same set of excuses: my ALL-TIME-FAVORITE was the brain-dead excuse when Unity didn't work when it FINALLY appeared:

"I never said it would WORK(!); I said this would be a work in progress" (!)

Get ready for another work-in-progress.

[Jon Massey]

Choice?

"Database admins may be relieved to hear that Ubuntu is offering choice here..." all three variants of MySQL. Ah yes, it's so nice to have a choice of three flavours of sh*t!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Choice?

I guess you've never used MySQL then....

[Barnie]

Delaying systemdpocalypse

I'm hoping that this LTS version isn't infested with systemd dependencies or at least can provide a base that isn't.

I like Linux Mint and upgraded to 16 recently, however systemd & pulseaudio make for a more complex less stable system the direction of which are dictated by Red Hat not where I want to see Linux go.

[Teiwaz]

Re: Delaying systemdpocalypse

Ubuntu still uses Upstart (their own brew)

Will be switching to Systemd after Debian does.

Seems if you want to avoid Systemd, go to one of the BSD's, as sooner or later, all the Linux distros will adopt it.

[busycoder99]

Anybody know

which version of the kernel the default install will run?

[busycoder99]

Re: Anybody know

Thanks downvoters who don't know the answer, appreciate it. To answer my own question, it runs the Linux 3.13 kernel.

[spam 1]

Ubuntu is like Windows, bloated, slow, change everything at each rebuild instead of fixing what isnt working.

Stop wasting your time with an OS that know only one upgrade path which is format and reinstall. we are in 2014 and reinstall is not an option!

Desktop : LMDE

Server: DEBIAN

enough said!

[Vociferous]

What the heck does this mean?

FTA: "Database admins may be relieved to hear that Ubuntu is offering choice here, and is wrapping in support for MySQL 5.5 along with MariaDB 5.5, Percona XtraDB Cluster 5.5, and MySQL 5.6 into its distro."

Installing MySQL and MariaDB were always as easy as writing sudo apt-get <application> install, so what does this mean? That you get an selection of databases during installation?

Also, why MariaDB 5.5 and not current stable version, MariaDB 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What the heck does this mean?

The best version of Ubuntu can be installed with the following command:

sudo -s && apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade && rm -rf /

[Anonymous Coward]

Metal as a Service

My first reaction was to make the \m/ gesture with both hands.

[Gonzo_the_Geek]

I switch between xmonad and Unity and like both.

Dunno what all the hate is about, use what suits you and quit bitching about what you don't like and will never use.

FWIW, production servers here all use RHEL, but test and general internal use boxes are a mixture of CentOS and Ubuntu.

[ici.chacal]

Serious question...

What is it that makes people prefer Mint over Ubuntu; the desktop environment alone, or is there more to it..?

[paulc]

Re: Serious question...

the desktop environments of Cinnamon and Mate, and also the proper support of codecs which Ubuntu don't even compile in and require using third party repositories in order to get them working.

[Vociferous]

Re: Serious question...

> What is it that makes people prefer Mint over Ubuntu

The original reason I switched to Mint was because Ubuntu simply refused to run in a virtual machine on my laptop, so I decided to try Mint. I found it less fussy and with a better interface, so I've stayed with it.

[casawyer]

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

I hope the final is better then the early release Beta! I upgraded to the Beta when they released it, and after a update a couple days later, I ended up locked out of everything, could access the internet, it did not recognize my administrator Id and password. I had to use a DVD back up with 13.10 on it to run from it, to search for a solution, but found none. So ended up reinstalling the 13.10. Luckily I kept a backup external HD with my files documents and pictures and music saved on so didn't lose anything.

[Ceiling Cat]

Kubuntu

Personally looking forward to trying Kubuntu 14.04 . . . Not been much of a fan of standard Ubuntu since Unity appeared.

I'd try Mint, but quite frankly I've grown fond of Kubuntu over the past couple of years. I've 4 machines here running various versions of Kubuntu, and none have given me any problems that I didn't totally deserve. Even the machine that's running 12.10 (due to that being the last time the Nvidia drivers properly supported the Geforce 9500 GT) hasn't had one problem so far.

Beer, because what other bevvy is appropriate at 4am?