When Should Canonical Release Ubuntu 9.10? (Poll Closed)

Ubuntu's timed release cycle may be nice for developers, but it really sucks for us end-users who expect our computers to work.

The product is shipped out the door on an exact date, no matter whether it's ready or not. We upgrade, lots of stuff breaks, and then we waste countless hours searching and working to find workarounds for all the bugs and regressions introduced with the release. If Canonical just waited to release until AFTER all the known bugs were fixed, we wouldn't all be duplicating effort trying to fix the same already-known issues.

Much better to solve the problem once before release than to solve it thousands of times after the release. Meeting an arbitrary deadline should not be more important than the user experience.

I know there are some fans of time-based releases, but it seems the end-users aren't.

See Ubuntu Brainstorm ideas 6980, 7203, 7254, 7862, 12545, 15228

Can you run a poll and article about this?

Why do you think it is just up to Canonical? Canonical has a strong say, and I love their support, but there is a community making decisions, not just the (again, lovely result of Mark's philanthropy) company backing it officially.

lets face it, if we release it anywhere near windows 7 it will get wayyy drowned out by microsoft

well it's been over two years of awful video and graphics with ubuntu.I have an older intel chipset.Karmic is supposed to fix this lol.I down loaded alpha 4 installs fine I can see the wallpaper but nothing else.Will it ever be fixed on a timed release schedule?over two years of this I think it will never work right on a release schedule.I stopped using it full time.after this release if it does not work properly out of the box I'll be done with it for good no test nothing.I wasted enough time on this os.now if I want a head ache I will download load it

windows 7? come on, you still thinking about it?

there are as usual - even in these comments - people who complain. there is no perfect release time, there is always somebody who does not like it. microsoft does not follow a release schedule like canonical - just THIS fact makes microsoft a randomly working company with windows millenium and vista which took YEARS to develop and they were just plain failure. now people complain about ubuntu which comes each 6 months with a new update/distro release. i find canonicals approach the most advanced and clearly structured schedule. i use a release and when i get used to the features, new ones come up in a new release. my knowledge evolves, my system gets better and i grow with a behaviour that makes me work following schedules and innovation... i was NEVER happy with any operating system for whatever reason, i never felt great using any...i always tried various gnu/linux distros and found them lacking. then came ubuntu and suddenly i found: alright, now i need to learn something and i even like it. i identify with it, i find myself being proud being able to run a computer much better and doing my personal and also job related work in a way i find great. in short, gnu/linux is great, canonical with ubuntu made it perfect for me

"i was NEVER happy with any operating system for whatever reason, i never felt great using any...i always tried various gnu/linux distros and found them lacking. then came ubuntu and suddenly i found: alright, now i need to learn something and i even like it."

I felt the same way... at first. Windows worked ok, but had a few issues, and some small, but neverending frustrations. I tried some Linux distros and didn't have too much luck. I wound up back in Windows after a few weeks every time.

Then I tried Ubuntu and was pleasantly surprised to find that most things worked out of the box and I could actually use it. I ended up switching completely from Windows to Ubuntu.

Then I upgraded. My computer broke. I spent days fixing the problem and continued using it. Six months later, I upgraded again. My computer broke. I was really pissed now, and spent several days repairing the damage. Six months later, it was time for an upgrade. I waited a few weeks for them to get the bugs ironed out, and then upgraded. My computer broke. I started to realize that the bugs that broke my computer were KNOWN IN ADVANCE, and they just shoved it out the door anyway, with no plans of fixing the problems until the next release. So all us users have to waste thousands of man-hours working around the problems on our own machines, when the developers could have spent a few days fixing it for all of us at once. It's disenchanting.

"microsoft does not follow a release schedule like canonical"

Yes, and this is why their products work pretty well out of the box for the vast majority of people.

No, they don't... see Vista. Do keep in mind that nobody buys Windows alone and installs it - they buy them from OEMs, who make *sure* that they work well out of the box.

You know, the thing that Dell is doing with Ubuntu too.

They should release it when they said they will - a stable schedule is something everybody loves. Companies dont like "when its ready", because you cannot plan for that. You can, however, plan for october 29th.

Why do people complain about the new releases every six months? If you don't like it use the LTS edition and upgrade every two years. I really like the new versions coming out so quick. I get to play with all the new technology and get to keep on learning. Sure, it might break, but that is part of the challenge.