
Ubuntu 17.04: The bittersweet Linux release - rbanffy
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ubuntu-17-04-the-bittersweet-linux-release/
======
ungzd
The article is just a reword of release notes[1]. Half of it is listing of
included versions of software. It's not a review, authors didn't even tried to
run it in VM. Don't bother reading this "shareware press".

[1]
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ZestyZapus/ReleaseNotes](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ZestyZapus/ReleaseNotes)

~~~
sp332
From the article: _I tested Ubuntu 17.04 in an Oracle VirtualBox virtual
machine (VM) on my main Linux Mint system. I also installed it on my primary
Ubuntu PC._ They ran it in both a VM and on bare hardware.

~~~
vorticalbox
then did no testing of the features they listed to see how well they worked or
didn't work or did any real review of anything.

~~~
sp332
It's not a review. It's news and commentary. Your link doesn't have any of the
commentary, which I found useful.

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rwmj
_This Ubuntu version has also replaced Unix /Linux's ancient swap partition
with a swap file. The net effect should be to make Ubuntu a bit faster in
situations where the system is overburdened with applications and has to
resort to using drive space in place of memory. _

There are reasons a swap file might be preferable to a partition, or maybe to
get rid of swap altogether, but it's not this.

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pilif
actually, do you know why they changed this? I thought that a partition was
always superior to a file (aside of the usability issues).

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rwmj
The release notes don't say why, but I'm going to go for flexibility. Swap to
a file is slightly slower than swap to a partition, but if you're in a
situation where you're swapping, then you've lost the performance battle
already.

~~~
majewsky
I would also guess flexibility. It's certainly a nice property to be able to
resize the swap without having to move partitions around or deal with LVM.

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smcl
"This means it supports the AMD Ryzen and Intel Kaby Lake processors.
Microsoft, in stark comparison, won't fully support Windows 7 or Windows 8.1
on either high-end CPU"

This is a weird statement - comparing the very latest kernel release on Linux
to older windows versions isn't particularly meaningful. If it was 3.2 or 3.4
then sure, but 4.10 is roughly 5 days old...

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csense
I thought that for x86, backwards compatibility was the name of the game. Why
do these new processors require OS support?

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dom0
On a purely technical level they don't per se, however platform features like
power management, graphics, ISA extensions etc. needs OS support. The latter
part is pretty much just used as leverage by Microsoft and Intel (which also
stopped driver support IIRC) to force people into Windows 10.

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ehvatum
Re the death of touch-everywhere:

" There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right,
that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the
forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need
that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our
side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high
and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas
and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-
water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. "

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senorjazz
Good work getting a HST quote to fit to Ubuntu. Never thought I'd live to see
such a day

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marktangotango
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, for those who are ignorant
as I.

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argonium
Thanks for this. My first thought was Harry S. Truman.

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throw2016
With the privacy concerns about Windows 10 and Apple's diminishing focus on
macOS this was the perfect time for Ubuntu with its desktop focus to thrive.
The only missing link was a hardware focus. Every other Linux thread on HN
confirms the underlying demand for a fuss free Linux hardware experience.

Inspite of the 'organized hatchet job' on Unity by folks never under any
compulsion to use it to explain the 'hatred' it was the best placed to do
this. It was by far the most polished and modern looking Linux desktop. It was
Ubuntu's USP and its tragic they imploded at a time they could capitalize the
most.

I fail to understand all these 'community' spokespeople who have suddenly
cropped up on discussion boards who seek to act as 'gatekeepers'. This is not
how open source works, people have always done their own thing. No one is in a
position to decide what is NIH, fragmentation, duplication of effort or 'good'
for the community. Individuals cannot speak for a community.

What is wrong with having Mir or having an alternative to Android on phones,
all bankrolled by Shuttleworth? These would be welcome and how some have
managed to convert these Ubuntu investments into a huge negative is simply
inexplicable. No disinterested user or observer can be so bitter about other
projects.

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cowardlydragon
Sigh. Windows 8 was the opportunity. That massive incompetent stinkbomb, while
simultaneously OSX was being ignored.

Google could have finished off Microsoft with a death knell investment of a
relative pittance:

\- get LibreOffice to 100% parity and compatibility with office

\- pick and polish a desktop environment to a perfect OSX, Windows-7, and
Ubuntu interface

\- get CrossOffice/WINE to near-100% compatibility

\- near-perfect android app use.

Instead... ChromeOS?

Google could have added a multibillion dollar industry for the investment of
$100 mil.

~~~
Asooka
Maybe they didn't want to be RedHat? As in, all those projects are open-source
and if Google invested in them, they'd be investing in something they can't
fully control. Google's goal is to make money, not fight for user freedom,
after all.

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devoply
I personally did not like Unity all that much, but I think this was not a wise
decision by Ubuntu. Linux is all about the long game. And because of that,
tablets and phones are here to stay. It does not make sense to abandon Unity
it will be useful if not now then in the future. It's a question of time.
Ubuntu should continue with Unity and maybe push it to a community model where
it pays for a few developers to keep working on it and the rest of the work is
continued by the community.

I want to eventually see a powerful Ubuntu tablet that I can use for my daily
use. As it stands I don't trust Android or the manufacturers of my phones
enough to actually put important data on there like banking info and
passwords.

~~~
toyg
How is Linux "a long con"? Who's the conman and who's the conned?

~~~
devoply
It's not a con. I am hijacking the phrase. What I meant was that it's
something that takes a long time to payoff.

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plinkplonk
so, 'long game'?

~~~
devoply
yea i fixed it.

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LeeHwang
Am I the only who likes Ubuntu's latest decisions ?

It seems like they are refocusing their efforts on their core, rather than
being stretched.

~~~
helthanatos
I love their decision. The only problem is I don't really like GNOME. But I do
like that Ubuntu is now targeting projects that are being developed by others
and they are stopping their phone projects. Lately, I've had issues with
Ubuntu in my VM not allowing me to use the tweak tool and some other odd
issues I haven't seen.

~~~
unixhero
Then install something else.

Like any of the 30+ window managers that exist.

The software center is two clicks away.

~~~
Karunamon
This ignores the fact that the default configuration is where most attention,
and so bug fixing work is going to be.

That said, I'm more annoyed that Ubuntu users will now be exposed to GNOME's
user-hostile design. I went looking for a good example or two, but some [1]
kind soul did a lot of the compiling for me.

I still have no idea who G3's target user is. Worse, I don't think they do
either.

[1]:
[https://wiki.samat.org/GNOMEIsAntiUser](https://wiki.samat.org/GNOMEIsAntiUser)

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ColanR
The stuff on that list you linked to seems pretty minor...

(Disclosure: I'm running Ubuntu Gnome 17.04 on my Linux machine)

~~~
Karunamon
How many pretty minor things does it take before a pattern is established?

And of course, they're _all_ minor - until they break your workflow, and the
developers politely tell you where to insert your bug report when you rightly
raise a complaint about it. I'd rather use a UI that has little-to-no danger
of a feature I use daily being ripped out from under me because some engineer
who doesn't know:

    
    
        * What user is using their product
        * What user they are designing their product for
        * How their product is used in real life
    

..decides to make unilateral decisions with no possibility for
reconsideration.

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koolba
From the article, emphasis mine:

> So, in sum while you may not feel compelled to switch to Ubuntu 17.04 on
> your PC or laptop, _on the cloud you might well want to use it_. Its
> improved network speeds look really, really good.

Does anybody use non-LTS Ubuntu releases for servers?

The only time I've come close is when Docker was first released and it
required a newer kernel. And that was only for non-prod experimentation.

~~~
abrongersma
I ran 11.04 in production for Docker, ~100 servers. If you're in an
environment where you know you'll be refreshing servers by the time the LTS
drops it'll be fine. Just don't get stuck running on non-LTS when they end of
life the release. I also had a ton of issues with degraded network performance
while upgrading on a non-LTS release.

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conceptme
I installed yesterday, on the surface there don't seem to be any changes. My
dns stopped working every time after a minute though there seems to be some
issue when dnsmasq is installed.

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reddotX
unity 8 session is a big change
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JxXMEFHz54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JxXMEFHz54)

~~~
Asooka
Ok but apart from the wobbly transparent windows, does it ACTUALLY IMPROVE
USABILITY? I don't see the point of adding in all the animations,
transparencies, etc. if they aren't used to giving you the ability to get your
work done with less keystrokes/mouse clicks and to show you more information
or show you the info you want in a clearer manner. A good example of my gripe
is the window switcher in Unity 7 - it shows window thumbnails (which is
useless when you have a dozen black terminals, so you just get a dozen black
indistinct rectangles) but doesn't show their names, which is really their
only distinguishing feature. If it were built with less shiny graphics,
literally as a list of text entries, it would be more useful!

