Ubuntu

Before I start I should point out that I love Ubuntu and think its one of the best Linux distros out there.  I still use it one many of my PCs and will do so for the forseeable future……but…….

I think that Karmic was a very bad release for Ubuntu.  Its been, unfairly, called Ubuntu’s Vista, because of the many issues there have been with it.  I have been stung by the nasty problem it has with SSD based systems with my EEEPC, which was a bit scary.  But I don’t really see that as a problem so much as the approach taken my various employees to these issues.

I very much disliked the attitude of some.  The most moronic comment to come out was went along the lines of “this just shows how popular Ubuntu is”.  WTF??  It won’t be popular if there is another release like this.

If Ubuntu is truely Linux for the masses then the idea that the “community” should help test and find the bugs has got to go.  Can’t believe I’m saying that, as I really believe in it, but to run a company hoping that this approach will ensure you product will be solid is not gonna fly.

The best route Ubuntu can take is to stop the 6 month upgrade cycle insanity.  No one cares that much, outside of the hardcore set (and they can handle this by themselves).  At most a 12 month upgrade is enough, but I’d be tempted to move that to 18 month, with core applications such as Firefox and Openoffice being kept relatively up to date within the time frame.

Why?  Well, there just isn’t enough time to fix all the bug, and issues that there are in the current Karmic release, so they get labelled won’t fixed, or take just too long to fix.  With a saner time frame there would be more time for people to spend fixing these issues, without having to worry about the next release.

The other option is to be more honest about what the 6 months releases are.  If they are developement releases, call them as such so people know what they are installing and therefore are not shocked when it doesn’t quite work correctly.  This reduces the negative opinions as you have told them that this is a not-quite-there release.

Most people just want they PC to work.  My LTS system does this fine, it just works and does everything I want it to do (although sound has just broken…again).

So, in a nutshell, Ubuntu please stop worrying about having the latest bells and heavily concentrate on building a truely quality system that everyone who loves Linux really wants.  Forget the 6 months cycle, it’ll kill you off.