New Enterprise-Level Ubuntu Due This Week

daria42 writes "According to Ubuntu's official release schedule, the next version of its Linux distribution, code-named "Dapper Drake" is due to be released this week, June 1 to be precise. This landmark release will be supported for 5 years (previous versions were only supported for 18 months) and is being touted as ready for enterprise use." From the article: "Dapper Drake will be supported for three years for the desktop version and five years for servers, compared to 18 months for the current 5.10 'Breezy Badger' version. The code release will come after the development process was extended by six weeks in order to improve the reliability of the software."

Re:when can I get it?

[wallyhall]

1st of July, although you can download and install breezy now, dist-upgrade to dapper and then dist-upgrade on the day (I think you can even get a flight-5 dapper ISO right now...?)

Ubuntu dapper drake is cool

[Rinzwind]

It's the 1st Linux both my PC and my laptop accepted without a hitch during install or usage (past month or so). Bluetooth, Wireless connection, Printer HP PSC 2175 (with built-in scanner), wireless mouse (MX 7000), wireless keyboard, Multimedia keys and hibernate/resume all worked out of the box. Firefox as default browser is very nice. Ubuntu did what several redhat and suse installs didn't do: got me away from XP with a SMILE! *does happy dance*

Re:Enterprise? not again!

[wallyhall]

Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong saying this!! I think you've misunderstood the term enterprise, in this contex. Ubuntu Dapper is 100% free, open source software. No propriety 'enterprise' ties (in that sense of the word). It's stable (like Debian Sarge), reliable and comes with everything you'd need, and it's gunna be supported for 5 years, much like RHEL does, which is VERY important to enterprises/businesses etc. I dunno about you, but I don't see how that can really be a bad thing?

Re:when can I get it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you can get Flight 7 at ftp://cdimage.ubuntulinux.org/cdimage/releases/6.0 6/flight-7 [ubuntulinux.org] G.

VMWare Server Beta, RAID install...

[fnord_uk]

Ah. XP. In case you're missing it, I've just installed the free VmWare Server Beta http://www.vmware.com/download/server/ [vmware.com] on Dapper (AMD64), and am ?happily? running XP on it, mostly for running ham radio programs. I'm also going to set up a 32 bit Dapper VM for those few progs that don't compile or run well on the 64 bit platform.

So far, so good. BTW, anyone trying to configure software RAID for their Dapper BETA install, you need to use the alternative install CD image, for the old-style install routine (no live disk built-in). A useful guide is here for setting up a RAID1 configuration
http://users.piuha.net/martti/comp/ubuntu/raid.htm l [piuha.net]

Enjoy...

Last minute bug reports

[wysiwia]

I happen to test around several boot problems the last few weeks I've summarized just here

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10623 67#post1062367 [ubuntuforums.org]

Since these boot problems are quite difficult and probably mean a no go for anybody not a though expert I really hope they were fixed before release. It probably means another delay for a few days but think it's worth.

O. Wyss

RC1 Available

[kuyaedz]

Dapper 6.06 LTS Release Candidate is available now for download. This is very close to the final release & definitely worth checking out if you're impatient (3 days IS a long time!) http://releases.ubuntu.com/6.06/ [ubuntu.com]

Re:six weeks?

[babbling]

Six extra weeks can help a lot.

Linux distributions are unlike most operating systems in that most of the software they use is already written before they start. Most of the work involves putting all of the pieces (known to work correctly on their own) together and ensuring that they still work. There's other things involved too, of course, but my point is that the bulk of Ubuntu is programs that were created as separate projects, and this is how Ubuntu is able to be put together so quickly.

Ship it

[Life700MB]

Don't forget that you can order some ubuntu cds from at shipit.ubuntu.com [ubuntu.com].


--
Superb hosting [tinyurl.com] 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

Re:Not ready for prime time

[jasonhamilton]

I've been running it on my laptop for the last 4 months.

Almost all the issues I've had have been slowly worked out over time. I don't currently have any complaints. Running both KDE and Gnome.

Just upgraded

[kbahey]

I just did that over the weekend on my test server.

Edit the sources.list file. Put this in it:

## All officially supported packages, including security- and other updates
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted
 
## All community supported packages, including security- and other updates
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates universe multiverse

Run the following commands:

# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade

Then reboot

Done!

Re:You can't see that anywhere else

[akeyes]

3 years on the desktop, 5 years on the server.

Re:Bugs in PPC flight 7

[fimbulvetr]

I think the wpa is better than windows actually - I can hot-undock my dell d800 and the first screen I get is the keyring prompt for the password so it can login to my wpa connection. I can do whatever, come back and hot-dock and my wired is up after a second or two. Just my experience, though.

Re:VMWare Server Beta, RAID install...

[Pedersen]

Actually, there's a few differences worth noting.

• VMWare Server does not require a display, Workstation does
• VMWare Server has a web interface for controlling start, stop, and various configuration bits of vmware. Workstation does not
• VMWare Server is still in beta, and as such, the license keys expire periodically. Supposedly, this will not happen when it is released sometime this summer.
• Using the remote console, you can connect to your vmware server hosted machines across the network. With workstation, this is not possible.
• VMWare Server is free. Workstation is not.
• VMWare Server works with (at least) version 2.6.15 of linux kernel. Workstation requires unofficial patches.

So, why would you use Workstation over Server? Support, for one. You can get an actual support contract for Workstation. Whether or not this will be available for Server is unclear at this time. The snapshot manager for Workstation is much more advanced than it is for Server. And, to some degree, Workstation is more convenient on a desktop/laptop than Server.

So, while not a comprehensive list, this gives some idea of the major differences I've noticed using them both.

5 years is a good start

[Rogerborg]

I have SuSE Linux "Professional" boxen that I have to maintain from a mirror of SuSE's updates because they dropped active support after 18 months and took the files off of their update servers after 3 years. Given that's less than the mean time between reboots that I'd expect for an enterprise system, that was a big mistake on their part; they'll never get a red cent from me again.

Re:Laptop support?

[Amendt]

I know suse 10.1 doesn't support the Broadcom 43xx :( , but if you go to kernel.org the latest stable release finnally supports it. It seems I have been jumping trying to get drivers, for the last few years know they are finally getting within reach.

Re:Not ready for prime time

[dubbreak]

Count me in as well. I've been running it on my gateway laptop for 3-4 months and haven't had a problem, in fact with the inclusion of the broadcom wireless driver in the kernel I've had less problems as I don't have to use NDIS wrapper. All the software packages I use work fine (better than the last release even). The only problem with install I had was the sound "not working", which involved me opening up alsamixer (open terminal type alsamixer) then muting (I think it was mute not unmute) the external amp channel ('m' key does muting), and then it worked. That was the only thing that took me time to figure out (and I've had to do that since previous releases). I have been super happy with this release and haven't missed windows one bit on my laptop.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Something is missing...

[shreevatsa]

Jackal Jackalope Jackrabbit Jaguar Jellyfish.
See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames [ubuntu.com] for all the possible names, such as Irrefutable Ichthyosaur and Kinky Kangaroo.

Re:5 years is a good start

[Dot.Com.CEO]

Suse professional is not an enterprise product. Suse Enterprise server (SLES) is. You used a workstation Linux expecting the reliability and support of an enterprise system. I pity whomever hires you.

Re:Just upgraded

[Knuckles]

Nooo! Please, people, stop recommending this, at least when there is reason to suspect newbies in the vicinity :)

The better way to upgrade [ubuntu.com] is to use the update manager from the System > Administration menu. Once Dapper is released, it will know about it, and offer Breezy users the option to upgrade. As long as Dapper is not yet officially released, you need to run it with the -d switch from the command line to make it upgrade to Dapper: gksudo update-manager -d

Ubuntu has invested quite a bit to make the upgrade patch as smooth as possibly, without requiring users to edit sources.list and such. And there are other problems besides editing sources.list: not every change on the system can be expressed in package dependencies. Sometimes changes have to be made that are too dangerous to attempt automatically during the upgrade, and require manual intervention. E.g., the wiki page [ubuntu.com] for the Breezy upgrade listed several things a user must do (see "Post-Upgrade")

All these things are taken care of now by update-manager

Re:5 years is a good start

[arkhan_jg]

SuSE linux professional was the desktop line. Ubuntu only has 5 years support for the server version, it's less for the desktop, just like SuSE. If you run desktop versions of OS's, you get shorter support times. If you built a server from a £70 workstation disc, then such is life.

You have four choices. Keep doing what you're doing; upgrade to the free SUSE Linux 10.1 OSS, with shorter support lifetime; upgrade to the paid version of SUSE linux 10.1, with an active support time of 2 years, or upgrade to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, lifetimes available here [novell.com]. A new version of SLES is due soon, you may want to wait a month or two, if you decide to go this route, as SLES 9 is a couple of years into its 5 year general support cycle.

Of course, you could switch the server to a different distro altogether. Just go for the server-intended ones, you'll be much happier in a few years time.

Re:Enterprise ?

[Daengbo]

Can't comment about sentral auth or distributed, but just apt-get install ltsp-server-standalone and you'v got the PXE boot diskless terms.

Re:VMWare Server Beta, RAID install...

[pato101]

I'm also going to set up a 32 bit Dapper VM for those few progs that don't compile or run well on the 64 bit platform.

Creating a 32 bit chroot [ubuntuforums.org] might be an easier choice for those apps, and I guess it will give you better performance. I'm pretty happy with it; and I started width warty and upgraded both main 64bit and 32bit chroot to breezy with little trouble. Furthermore, if you have same nvidia drivers installed on both, you will have 32bit accelerated 3D apps in your 64bit desktop.

How depressing

[cyber-vandal]

I have used Linux on and off since 1998 and Kubuntu Breezy was the biggest aggravation since Redhat 5.2. The network didn't work properly and the GUI config tool was useless I had to fuck around a lot to convince it to use the right network card (I've got ethernet and wireless, wanted to use ethernet, it decided to connect to my neighbour's WLAN instead). That sort of annoyance hasn't happened to me since Redhat 6.0, ethernet has just worked automatically without any user intervention, which is the whole bloody point of DHCP. I picked the ethernet card at installation too, Breezy just didn't believe that I wanted that and changed it for me. If I'd have wanted Win98-style crap decisions I would have installed Win98.

Re:I think it's rather nice too.

[john8472]

Hi,

The Ubuntu drop is native; the machines dual boot after it's all over.

The (very) rough details of how to do it are:

1. Grub for Windows and an initrd image are pushed to the Windows Box.

2. The Windows box is rebooted into Linux, and mounts an nfs share, which contains enough stuff to get most of the install working. The hard drive has its NTFS partition resized, leaving space for the Linux drop.

3. The Linux partitions are created in the newly created free space, and then Linux is set up, with the majority of the packages sourced from an Ubuntu mirror (we proxy through Squid, though as we had some snags using apt-proxy) with a custom pre-seed file.

That's the basics. One of the reasons we need to be able to be able to easily control which o/s to boot into is because most of the PCs run Windows during the day (they are almost all Lab resource workstations at the Uni where I work), and there's a desire to run a Beowulf like setup, out of hours, and during holidays.

We did try FAI, but because of the Windows infrastructure, we can't run a DHCP/TFTP setup, and booting from a floppy on each workstation was too hideous a concept. Also, FAI is a cryptic as a cryptic thing on a particularly cryptic day, and is horrendous (IMHO) to set up.

So far, none of it is documented (at all!) but we will be publishing a "how we did it" once the dapper drop is deployed. Right now, I'm not sure where, but it'll prolly go through the Ubuntu website, somewhere or another.

There have been two of us *involved* in getting it all sorted, but to be honest, I can only bathe in the reflected glory of my colleague at work, because it is he who has been the driving force behind this, and it is he who has carried out the vast majority of the (brain) work. I have been peripheral in this process.

Re:how long will universe get security security fo

[crimsun]

Universe and multiverse receive no official core-dev support by default; they're community supported. A few of us have spent time with -updates and -security for universe, but we could use assistance.

Re:Ubuntu dapper drake is cool

[metallidrone]

For getting CPU governing on (and useful), I had to make the following changes to Debian Sid (which more or less tracks Ubuntu nowadays):

Add to /etc/modules (these aren't loaded automatically):
speedstep-centrino
cpufreq_conservative
cpufreq_ondemand
cpufreq_powersave

Install the package 'cpufrequtils' and edit /etc/default/cpufrequtils
I use:
ENABLE="true"
GOVERNOR="conservative"
MAX_SPEED=1700000
MIN_SPEED=600000

(the conservative governor gives it "inertia" to keep from changing speeds for momentary blips in usage)