since i don't mind living dangerously, i'm considering re-installing
on my laptop and putting on the recent alpha of natty narwhal. i
fully expect there to be a few rough edges, of course, as long as
there are no exploding, show-stopper bugs. so as long as i can
constantly update and upgrade to get fixes, any thoughts on this?

rday

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
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Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> since i don't mind living dangerously, i'm considering
> re-installing on my laptop and putting on the recent alpha of natty
> narwhal. i fully expect there to be a few rough edges, of course,
> as long as there are no exploding, show-stopper bugs. so as long as
> i can constantly update and upgrade to get fixes, any thoughts on
> this?

I have used alpha versions of Kubuntu in the past. Usually there were
only minor problems for a few hours / days with individual applications.
However there once was a problem where the X server wouldn't start any
longer after an update. But next day, installing the necessary update
from the command line fixed the problem, even before I had time to
report the bug. From what you wrote here in the past, I would expect
that you can recover from a similar situation without external help.
Therefore, I think it isn't too dangerous for you to install Natty as
long as you don't depend on the machine where it gets installed.


Nils

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On 10 December 2010 06:43, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@crashcourse.ca> wrote:
>
> *since i don't mind living dangerously, i'm considering re-installing
> on my laptop and putting on the recent alpha of natty narwhal. *i
> fully expect there to be a few rough edges, of course, as long as
> there are no exploding, show-stopper bugs. *so as long as i can
> constantly update and upgrade to get fixes, any thoughts on this?

There is absolutely no guarantee of anything with an alpha version.
You _could_ certainly hit an exploding, show stopping bug. Normally
it would get sorted fairly quickly but there is no way you should use
an alpha for anything where complete loss of functionality would cause
you to say anything more than 'oh bother!'.

Colin

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On Fri, 10 Dec 2010, Colin Law wrote:

> On 10 December 2010 06:43, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@crashcourse.ca> wrote:
> >
> > *since i don't mind living dangerously, i'm considering re-installing
> > on my laptop and putting on the recent alpha of natty narwhal. *i
> > fully expect there to be a few rough edges, of course, as long as
> > there are no exploding, show-stopper bugs. *so as long as i can
> > constantly update and upgrade to get fixes, any thoughts on this?
>
> There is absolutely no guarantee of anything with an alpha version.
> You _could_ certainly hit an exploding, show stopping bug. Normally
> it would get sorted fairly quickly but there is no way you should use
> an alpha for anything where complete loss of functionality would cause
> you to say anything more than 'oh bother!'.

trust me, i understand the stock, politically correct answer
regarding the reliability of alpha releases. unofficially, i'm
curious as to the historical stability of ubuntu alpha releases. i
remember constantly running pre-release versions of fedora and, while
i hit the occasional and completely predictable annoyance, i never
lost the system completely, so it wasn't an issue and i lived with
those minor glitches. i'm just curious as to how well ubuntu fares in
this regard.

rday

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http://crashcourse.ca

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On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 7:03 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@crashcourse.ca> wrote:

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010, Colin Law wrote:



> On 10 December 2010 06:43, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@crashcourse.ca> wrote:

> >

> > *since i don't mind living dangerously, i'm considering re-installing

> > on my laptop and putting on the recent alpha of natty narwhal. *i

> > fully expect there to be a few rough edges, of course, as long as

> > there are no exploding, show-stopper bugs. *so as long as i can

> > constantly update and upgrade to get fixes, any thoughts on this?

>

> There is absolutely no guarantee of anything with an alpha version.

> You _could_ certainly hit an exploding, show stopping bug. *Normally

> it would get sorted fairly quickly but there is no way you should use

> an alpha for anything where complete loss of functionality would cause

> you to say anything more than 'oh bother!'.



*trust me, i understand the stock, politically correct answer

regarding the reliability of alpha releases. *unofficially, i'm

curious as to the historical stability of ubuntu alpha releases. *i

remember constantly running pre-release versions of fedora and, while

i hit the occasional and completely predictable annoyance, i never

lost the system completely, so it wasn't an issue and i lived with

those minor glitches. *i'm just curious as to how well ubuntu fares in

this regard.



The devil is in the details, so they say. I say, in my most highly informed, expert experienced opinion, that Ubuntu has the capability to 'break real good'.* Predicting if that's going to happen during this cycle requires looking at what is being worked on, what new sub-systems/kernel modules/apps are being introduced/upgraded. To get that info requires paying attention to UDS/dev teams meeting notes etc. So your not going to get more than the stock answer here. If you really want to get into testing alpha get on IRC (freenode) #ubuntu+1, much discussion and feedback happens there in real time.


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On 12/10/2010 08:58 AM, David Curtis wrote:

> The devil is in the details, so they say. I say, in my most highly
> informed, expert experienced opinion, that Ubuntu has the capability
> to 'break real good'. Predicting if that's going to happen during
> this cycle requires looking at what is being worked on, what new
> sub-systems/kernel modules/apps are being introduced/upgraded. To
> get that info requires paying attention to UDS/dev teams meeting
> notes etc. So your not going to get more than the stock answer here.
> If you really want to get into testing alpha get on IRC (freenode)
> #ubuntu+1, much discussion and feedback happens there in real time.
> `

Absolute +1 on the #ubuntu+1 channel (and, in fact, to all
recommendations).

On chances of breakups... it varies. As long as one is willing to
accept complete system loss, and as long as one knows how to
recover... the more testers we get the better. But I really do not
recommend a casual user to go native Natty on the single machine
available; instead, try the live option of the ISO, run under a VM.

(I am running native Natty on my "production" laptop; but I know I
can get hit, I am usually able to recover in half an hour or so, and
I *have* a backup laptop I can use if things go really haywire.)

Just for the record, yesterday we had a failure on the new GDM that
caused session startups to fail (you would be back on the GDM login)
-- the backup laptop came in handy, BTW. A bypass was found, and a
fix commited yesterday. But, if you do not follow the #ubuntu+1
(and, in this case, #ubuntu-devel and #ubuntu-desktop) this might
have been a bad one. On my personal experience, during all the time
I have been testing Ubuntu, only twice I had to reinstall from
scratch, but many times I had serious bugs impacting usage.

On Ubuntu being able to "break real good": goes with the territory,
this is what can happen when you are running as near to upstream as
possible. And this, generically, is a given for alphas.

So, a last recommendation: we are, right now, moving over to Python
2.7 (from 2.6). This means that, for the next few days, if you are
running Natty & run an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' you may lose *all* the
packages that depend on Python < 2.7. Be careful, and manually
select what you want updated.

Cheers,

..C..



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On 10-12-10 07:03 AM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>
> trust me, i understand the stock, politically correct answer
> regarding the reliability of alpha releases. unofficially, i'm
> curious as to the historical stability of ubuntu alpha releases. i
> remember constantly running pre-release versions of fedora and, while
> i hit the occasional and completely predictable annoyance, i never
> lost the system completely, so it wasn't an issue and i lived with
> those minor glitches. i'm just curious as to how well ubuntu fares in
> this regard.
>
>

Disclaimer: I like Ubuntu.. I'm a fan, really,, but still this needs to
be said.

Your talking about the distro that was bricking expensive hardware
(certain SSD's). for months.. on a *released* version, with no emergency
fix even when the offending package was identified..... So, again, as a
fan, I personally wouldn't expect an Alpha release to not explode in my
face (literally).

Ubuntu is far more aggressive at including experimental software in a
release.. Heck, I think Ubuntu usually includes cutting edge Fedora
innovations before they would even thing of putting it in Beta themselves.





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On Fri, 2010-12-10 at 01:43 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> since i don't mind living dangerously, i'm considering re-installing
> on my laptop and putting on the recent alpha of natty narwhal. i
> fully expect there to be a few rough edges, of course, as long as
> there are no exploding, show-stopper bugs. so as long as i can
> constantly update and upgrade to get fixes, any thoughts on this?

"If it breaks, you get to keep both pieces." Ric

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"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256


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