Just as many other Ubuntu users, I could hardly wait with un-bridled enthusiasm for last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s April 24th release of the final version of Ubuntu 8.04 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hardy Heron.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d My anticipation was heightened as this was to be a LTS (Long Term Support) release, and I have several projects pending, especially server builds that I want to install fresh on Hardy.<\/p>\n
Before I launch into my one week review\/opinion of Hardy, a little perspective is in order. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a daily user of Ubuntu (Gutsy and Dapper) and had been working with Pre-releases of 8.04 since about January. During this Alpha\/Beta period, I encountered quite a few annoyances, but easily dismissed them due to the pre-release nature of the product. Those expectations changed however on April 24th.<\/p>\n
Having been an Ubuntu user since Dapper (6.06) I have come to appreciate so many things about this Distro, from it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Debian package management and repos to its fantastic user community and support, there is a lot to like. But perhaps more important then these, has been it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rock solid nature and commercial grade releases. And as much as it pains me, after one week I have to question if Hardy was ready to go golden.<\/p>\n
A Few Areas of Concern<\/strong><\/p>\n Firefox 3 BETA? You put Beta software in a Long Term Support Distro? I know that FF3 is looking good (at this writing Beta 5), but I have already had to go and install Firefox 2 for some web sites to function properly. While this is not Canonical\/Ubuntu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fault \u00e2\u20ac\u201c dictating production on Firefox \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they should have realized this and favored the side of caution. Heck, when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on my Dapper boxes, I still use 1.5 and its no big deal. Yes, I get it, you want to be a bit visionary and cutting edge when working with a release that will be out for 3 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 5 years, but a core piece of software, as critical as the web browser should never go out \u00e2\u20ac\u0153final\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with a beta offering.<\/p>\n Samba Problems. I bugged a couple of SMB (client and server) problems to Ubuntu back in the A6 code, the final product still has critical bugs. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even launch the Gnome Samba GUI tool without a fatal error. Daily I receive 10 or more bug reports on the system-config-samba system from bug tracker \u00e2\u20ac\u201c What the heck? Aagin, Samba is way to critical a part of peoples infrastructure to ship an LTS version with fundimental problems.<\/p>\n Significant FSTAB syntax changes. Just yesterday, I discovered that my NAS units were not mapping (SMB\/CIFS again) due too changed usage of the dmask clause. Ok call it petty, as this is not a full on Bug, but Good Lord, FSTAB fields have been a part of *nix systems for what 40+ years? And file masking \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 777 has been the universally understood convention for full read\/write\/access in *nix since Bell Labs developed it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c why did we feel the need to change the usage of a script I have personally been using for a couple of years now?<\/p>\n Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Fret Hardy Heron will be Uber!<\/strong><\/p>\n My general feeling on this release is that it is just not fully cooked. In a few months, maybe only weeks, Hardy will be patched and ready for broad adoption. But why do this with your Flagship LTS offering? Unfortunately, Canonical\/Ubuntu felt the need to hold the April 24th date, and shipped a product just a bit not as polished as previous builds. For now I will be holding off upgrading my production Gutsy boxes, but will build new systems with Hardy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just as many other Ubuntu users, I could hardly wait with un-bridled enthusiasm for last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s April 24th release of the final version of Ubuntu 8.04 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hardy Heron.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d My anticipation was heightened as this was to be a LTS (Long Term Support) release, and I have several projects pending, especially server builds that I want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linuxunix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.degen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}