Late Vista, Timely Linux

[Jza]

"Why does Microsoft constantly fall on its face when it comes to operating system deadlines, while Linux continues to cruise along popping out one release after another...?"

Another post by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols where he highlight the fact that Vista and M$ suck so far for deadlines. After previous delays where the operating system apartently broke most of their costumer baseline favorite proprietary apps.

The complete article here

[Gomer_X]

"Why does Microsoft constantly fall on its face when it comes to operating system deadlines, while Linux continues to cruise along popping out one release after another...?"

Another post by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols where he highlight the fact that Vista and M$ suck so far for deadlines. After previous delays where the operating system apartently broke most of their costumer baseline favorite proprietary apps.

Before we pat ourselves on the back too much, Fedora and Ubuntu have both slipped their latest releases at least once. Granted, a few weeks or months isn't that much, but when your release cycle is 6 months and you slip 3 months, it's still significant.

From what I'm hearing, Microsoft may be moving away from emphasis on Vista and concentrating on it's web services in order to compete with Google. They seem to be getting a clue, and not betting their entire future on Vista. In fact, Bill Gates commented that Microsoft made a mistake by not keeping up with the times in the browser market.

Strange times we live in.

[Tsuroerusu]

Before we pat ourselves on the back too much, Fedora and Ubuntu have both slipped their latest releases at least once. Granted, a few weeks or months isn't that much, but when your release cycle is 6 months and you slip 3 months, it's still significant.

Just to point out that I'm not a zealot fanboy, I can tell you that SUSE had delays as well, I think they slipped the 10.1 release a litte more than a month, because when they were at beta 3, they decided to incorporate huge changes into the distribution, such as a rewrite of the package manager, and other changes which would make sense when you consider that there is a SUSE Enterprise release set to mid-summer. The openSUSE project (The folks that develop SUSE Linux, openSUSE is not a distribution) will be moving to an 8 month release cycle, since it would better keep up with some internal stuff etc., when you look at the whole picture, pretty much all the major distros had delays this time, why is that?

[Chess]

when you look at the whole picture, pretty much all the major distros had delays this time, why is that?

I don't know for sure, but my guess is a combination of the following:

-Kernel 2.6.15 & no more hotplug
-Udev changes
-Xorg 7
-Incorporating XGL

[Tsuroerusu]

I don't know for sure, but my guess is a combination of the following:

-Kernel 2.6.15 & no more hotplug
-Udev changes
-Xorg 7
-Incorporating XGL

XGL might have been an issue for SUSE, the problem is that the driver support for the accelerated desktop stuff (Let's just point out that I would prefer AIGLX, because XGL basically just does a fulscreen Xnest-like thing) is so so so horribly poor, I just hope NVIDIA releases an update to their driver so it will work soon.

[thetza]

"Why does Microsoft constantly fall on its face when it comes to operating system deadlines, while Linux continues to cruise along popping out one release after another...?"

Another post by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols where he highlight the fact that Vista and M$ suck so far for deadlines. After previous delays where the operating system apartently broke most of their costumer baseline favorite proprietary apps.

The complete article here

Your problem is that you consider Microsoft a software company. Its not. Its a monopoly company. If vista is delayed, its most likely because they figure they can milk XP for a little longer. Maybe leave a few more security holes in the next service pack so that the user feels its time to upgrade. Never underestimate the strategists at microsoft.

[Gomer_X]

I don't know for sure, but my guess is a combination of the following:

-Kernel 2.6.15 & no more hotplug
-Udev changes
-Xorg 7
-Incorporating XGL

Considering how big some of these changes are, I think we still look pretty good. We also have the problem that Gnome is on a pretty strict 6 month cycle. If a distro is also on a timed cycle and gets off a bit, do you slip to get the next Gnome or ship an old version? Most distros won't ship a gnome version upgrade after release.

Looking back, the 6 month release cycle Ubuntu and Fedora use is still a pretty new idea and all the bugs haven't been worked out.

[Patrick]

Now that the next release of Ubuntu is postponed the interview with Mark Suttleworth is a little more timely. We'll be talking to him a couple days before the release. Should be good.

[jsusanka]

Before we pat ourselves on the back too much, Fedora and Ubuntu have both slipped their latest releases at least once. Granted, a few weeks or months isn't that much, but when your release cycle is 6 months and you slip 3 months, it's still significant.

but lets compare what you get with fedora or ubuntu to windows out of the box. fedora and ubuntu have a HECK of a lot more testing to do than windows does. you don't really get very much with a the retail version of windows.

[snarkout]

Before we pat ourselves on the back too much, Fedora and Ubuntu have both slipped their latest releases at least once. Granted, a few weeks or months isn't that much, but when your release cycle is 6 months and you slip 3 months, it's still significant.

but lets compare what you get with fedora or ubuntu to windows out of the box. fedora and ubuntu have a HECK of a lot more testing to do than windows does. you don't really get very much with a the retail version of windows.

To be fair, you don't really get a hell of a lot in the supported repos either. For 90% of the questions I see asked, the answer is "enable universe, multiverse and marillat and..." or "Download automatix and..."

[Tsuroerusu]

Considering how big some of these changes are, I think we still look pretty good.

Of course, no arguing with that. A problem with XGL is that the NVIDIA proprietary driver doesn't support it, and I think some NVIDIA guys said that they won't support XGL or AIGLX before they become more stable.

We also have the problem that Gnome is on a pretty strict 6 month cycle. If a distro is also on a timed cycle and gets off a bit, do you slip to get the next Gnome or ship an old version?

That's a really good point, an example of this can be seen with Fedora and SUSE, Fedora Core 5 ships GNOME 2.14, while SUSE 10.1 will ship with GNOME 2.12.x

Most distros won't ship a gnome version upgrade after release.

A few do, SUSE does have some unsupported, up-to-date GNOME packages available, samething with KDE. The user community around Mandriva are good at creating packages so most likely you can find good, community-created packages.

Looking back, the 6 month release cycle Ubuntu and Fedora use is still a pretty new idea and all the bugs haven't been worked out.

There's always room for improvement, and that's how it should be.

Now that the next release of Ubuntu is postponed the interview with Mark Suttleworth is a little more timely. We'll be talking to him a couple days before the release. Should be good.

Yeah, that's correct, maybe you should grill him with this :

1. What advantages does Ubuntu offer over Fedora, SUSE or Mandriva for that matter? Why should anyone use Ubuntu over the other guys?

We all have our tastes when it come to distro, but it would be interesting to hear what Mark has to say.

but lets compare what you get with fedora or ubuntu to windows out of the box. fedora and ubuntu have a HECK of a lot more testing to do than windows does.

I don't know if t hey have more testing, but I know they have better testing, the free software- and open source development models are just superior to the proprietary ones, period!

you don't really get very much with a the retail version of windows.

Do you actually get anything useful? I don't think so.