Am I missing something?

I'm looking at the latest batch of updates for Ubuntu 8.04, 17 in all. One set of updates is for the kernel. That's right, yet another kernel update. And why are we updating the kernel this time? So that we can shave 3 seconds off the boot-up sequence, from 36 seconds to 33 seconds. Here's the bug (240938). The title of this entry comes from the last comment from Dave Miller:
are we really all going to download updated kernels, with headers and all, just to shave 3 secs off the boot time? am i missing something?
This kind of update, with the disruption to a working system, makes a mockery of one of open sources so-called strengths, which is how quickly flaws are found and fixed. What this update is attempting to correct is no flaw, fatal or otherwise. And it causes me (and others who do the same) to have to manually re-install ATI-supplied video drivers (and possibly nVidia as well, but I don't know). Under normal circumstances this isn't such a problem since kernel updates are usually infrequent as well as necessary. But this makes the forth update since the release of Ubuntu 8.04, and this one caught my attention because of the flimsy excuse for which it was being made.

I've come a long way from the high opinion I once held for Ubuntu 7.04 to the low opinion I now hold for this release. I think this is the last straw. It's well past time for me to move on to Mandriva.

Comments

  1. yep, maybe you should move to Mandriva.

    After a couple of weeks with that Distro you will appreciate that updates are a huge advantage to the Ubuntu Distro.

    But, whatever its a free world...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I decided to accept this comment so I could respond to it.

    First, Mandriva does as good a job of pushing needful and timely updates to its users as any of the other distributions. Your snide comment implying that it doesn't blindingly illuminates your ignorance on top of your arrogance.

    Secondly, updates, especially to the kernel, should be for a damn good reason such as a bug, particularly one that involves security and stability issues. I have no problem accepting updates involving those issues. I'll even accept an update if it includes support for new hardware, or better support for existing hardware. But to shave three seconds off the boot time? Frivolous updates indicate a frivolous, cavalier, and unprofessional attitude on the part of the distribution maintainers. And why is that important? Because Canonical in particular wants me to believe that Ubuntu 8.04 is good enough, professionally speaking, to be both my desktop and my server Linux distribution.

    Mandriva currently succeeds at this, but Ubuntu (at lease with 8.04) does not.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for opening up the debate.

    Sure, Its true that this update is a minor addition to the kernel as a whole.

    It may even be a useless update on the grand scale.

    But, like all distros, no one Linux claims to be perfect, this of course does not apply to Microsoft or Apple whom both claim to have the most secure and stable systems on the market,(but still seem to need updates and patches). Which I'm sure we both agree to be bold false claims.

    So, any update/improvement to a distribution is for the greater good of "that" distro and all distros there after.
    That said if Mandriva or any other distro has not implemented the LPIA into the kernel they will be doing it soon.
    Then you would need to do the upgrade regardless which distro you use.

    Mandriva does spread its updates accordingly, much like other distrobutions do, but this also leaves you waiting until they decide when you should have it.
    Its a preference thing, thats why I suggest using Mandriva, maybe after a few weeks you'll see what I'm trying to say.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bill

    OK I have had it with Eclipse and CDT running on Linux.

    Codesourcery can do this with openSUSE 10.3/11.0 with their G++ Eclipse CDT product. But there is no apparent way to do this from sources downloaded from Eclipse.org or from the repository.

    I need this to work to do ARM linux cross development. I don't feel like paying $2800 a throw for Europa that works fine on some linux's and xp for free but screws up on openSUSE. I too am ticked off because updater downloaded something that made a working Eclipse Europa install 3.3.2 on 10.3 and killed Firefox of all things. No choice but to update to 11.0. So my AMD Turion laptop works great but a DELL Precision M4300 dual core laptop cannot seemingly be made to work.

    So you are not the only one ticked that Eclipse and CDT does not work. Updaters should not knock out Eclipse and certainly should never render any Firefox install non-working and with no way to recover. (IE keep trying to reinstall Firefox get nowhere!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is another area where Mint holds the advantage over it's parent Ubuntu. Mint Update will lockout all but critical kernel updates. It's a revolution for linux usability...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Eclipse is one of the few apps that I never use the distro's version of. I always just install it myself under my home directory. Thankfully, Eclipse makes this incredibly easy by design.

    Another seems to be Firefox, but that's only because Ubuntu/AMD64 seems to not believe that most users would be better served by Firefox/i386 (if only for usable plugin support). (A problem that SuSE didn't have, last I checked.)

    ReplyDelete

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