Ubuntu 12.04 LTS ‘Precise Pangolin’ discussion thread

[Swathe]

Had a bit of issue getting PS3 media server to play nice but found the following commands and it all worked sweet

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:happy-neko/ps3mediaserver
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ps3mediaserver

[phreeky82]

Originally Posted by IKT

How do you go from the most unstable version of Ubuntu ever released to 12.04 and hate it? This doesn't make any sense at all. It's like you were using the old Gnome 2 GUI included in Ubuntu 11.04 and didn't realise you can easily install it again in 12.04 with sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback ... either that or you're the only person in the world that thinks the unstable pile of crap Unity was in 11.04 was any good...
.

Gnome user. I assume by unstable you mean Unity as 11.04 with gnome has been solid. And yes I installed it on 12.04, but Unity is indicative of the direction they're taking hence looking at other distros. Besides I dont particularly like the way gnome is going either and Mint appear to be addressing that.

[IKT]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...er/+bug/925260

sigh

Update manager icon in the launcher, clicking on it does nothing.

[Menthu_Rae]

Originally Posted by IKT

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...er/+bug/925260

sigh

Update manager icon in the launcher, clicking on it does nothing.

That bug affects me too, it has since day 1. I put it in the "ah, Unity..." category and just end up closing the task and re-launching via GNOME-Do...

TBH the more I use KDE on my laptop the more I am liking it, I've had no issues with KDE... Unity is teh brokens IMO.

[foxmulder881]

Just installed 12.04 just yesterday for the first time. Seems alright so far.

[Mad Mike]

I have abit of a noob question about LTS. Having come from Slackware-current I am use to having my system basically up to date with all the latest and greatest all the time. So my question is this: Does LTS, update in the same sort of way? Is it possible to keep everything current with the latest kernal, software etc. The way I read the Ubuntu LTS setup is that it is a fixed release that only gets security updates, is that right or am I dis-reading how the LTS works.

[HyRax1]

LTS is Long Term Support which means updates including security updates, general bug-fixes and new kernels are supplied for five years straight. The non-LTS releases are only supported for up to 18 months with the same kind of updates.

Of course the updates supplied are the latest stable and Canonical-approved updates, however you can compile super-new kernels like any other distro if you prefer as well.

[Mad Mike]

Originally Posted by HyRax1

LTS is Long Term Support which means updates including security updates, general bug-fixes and new kernels are supplied for five years straight. The non-LTS releases are only supported for up to 18 months with the same kind of updates.

Of course the updates supplied are the latest stable and Canonical-approved updates, however you can compile super-new kernels like any other distro if you prefer as well.

OK, then would I be right in saying that the LTS is more like a 5year rolling release?

[HyRax1]

Sort of - when you first install Ubuntu, the first time the update manager queries for updates, you'll get a bunch of updates to bring it up to date. Unlike Windows, these are the latest updates with no need to download and install Update One, then Update to the Update, then Update to the Update to the Update before you can install Update Two. You simply install the latest update once and if necessary, reboot.

Each year, Ubuntu releases a point release of the LTS which has all the updates of that year rolled into a new ISO, so when you install Ubuntu 12.04.1 you already have the first year's worth of updates already included, saving you a little download time next time.

When the next version of Ubuntu comes out, you have the option to upgrade to the next release of Ubuntu, or in the case of LTS, you have the option to upgrade to the next interim release or ignore it and wait for the next LTS and upgrade then. You can only upgrade Ubuntu to the next release of Ubuntu sequentially - you can't skip versions such as going from 11.04 to 12.04 EXCEPT for LTS versions which can upgrade from one LTS release to that LTS+1, eg: 12.04 to 12.10 or LTS to the next LTS release, eg: 10.04 to 12.04.

Theoretically it's possible to upgrade to each release of Ubuntu as it appears without doing a physical new install each time and do that for years.

[Grant]

Originally Posted by Mad Mike

OK, then would I be right in saying that the LTS is more like a 5year rolling release?

Rolling release sort of means something different (it means if you update at any time you could get new features/apis/breakages), LTS support means you'll eg. get new patches on your current kernel version, so all the APIs should stay the same but you'll have security and bug fixes and very very rarely new features if it doesn't break anything else.

In terms of the upgrade cycle, LTS is supported for 5 years but the release schedule is every 2 years. For normal releases, the release schedule is 6 months and the support period is 18 months. It's only supported to go from one LTS release to the next, so eg. if you sit on 12.04 for 4 years and want to upgrade to the latest LTS, you need to go to 14.04 and then 16.04 (in practise it's usually easier to install a fresh copy of whatever release you want rather than upgrade from something so old).

[Mad Mike]

So to get this straight in my head. Still need to get my head around not running -current setup.
Would it be:
Security updates, kernel updates and bug fixes updated on release point(say every 6ths)
Software updates when ever the repository is updated.

[Grant]

Originally Posted by Mad Mike

So to get this straight in my head. Still need to get my head around not running -current setup.
Would it be:
Security updates, kernel updates and bug fixes updated on release point(say every 6ths)
Software updates when ever the repository is updated.

more like:
- Security updates, kernel updates and bug fixes whenever they're available in the repository
- Point releases just update the ISO to the current version of the release repository
- Software updates when you upgrade - by upgrading, you change repository

In the Debian system which Ubuntu uses, the repository is what's configured in /etc/apt/sources.list (for ubuntu releases they name their repos after the adjective in the release name - so the Debian release name for Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin is "precise", which you can see in /etc/apt/sources.list). When you run an upgrade, 90% of the work the Ubuntu upgrader does is changing the repository name and letting the package manager sort itself out.

The Debian OS maintains their stable repo like Ubuntu's repos, maintaining API and feature stability, but they also have "testing" and "unstable" repos that are real rolling releases (ie. update one day and you get a new version of KDE). Ubuntu forks Debian at the "unstable" level, which they merge when they start planning a new release, and then they maintain stability from there.

[Grant]

I should add - if you want to use bleeding-edge Ubuntu like a rolling release, the way to do it is:
- install 12.04 which is stable
- google how to configure the Ubuntu upgrade manager to update to 12.10
- 12.10 is currently a rolling release but will be stable once it's really released in October
- When 12.10 comes out, configure the Ubuntu upgrade manager to update to 13.04

[HyRax1]

New updates (security, general, bugs) appear in Ubuntu as little as once a day - there is no separate categories of updates. You're not obligated to install them right away either - some people only install once a week or once a month by allowing them to accumulate. If you missed a kernel update and a newer kernel appeared when you finally did your update, you'll get just that latest kernel instead of the one you missed plus the latest.

The point releases simply ensure that the LTS is as secure and bug-free as possible when people do a fresh install. For example, let's say a given RAID controller didn't work when Ubuntu 12.04 was first released, but a kernel/module update that came out later finally included support for that controller. In the next LTS point release dubbed 12.04.1, that newer kernel would be the default-installed kernel instead of the older kernel, thus providing support for that newer hardware "out of the box". Same goes for discovered vulnerabilities in a fresh LTS install generally don't exist in the later fresh installs of LTS point releases.

[Mad Mike]

Thanks guys, I've got a handle on it now.