[conspire] Ubuntu 6.06 LTS "Dapper Drake" has been released

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 10:29:07 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:

> My friend Karsten Self maintains a "Linux" page, pitched at the general
> public, that has many virtues, especially in its section that explains
> the landscape of Linux distributions.  (It's also ended up, predictably,
> too long and too verbose.  <sigh>  But don't they always?)
> 
> The mail forwarded below was my effort to help Karsten improve his page,
> by filling in its gaps -- and I figured it might be of public interest,
> too.
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick> -----
> 
> Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 09:20:17 -0700
> From: Rick Moen <rick>
> To: Karsten Self <karsten>, Karsten Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>
> Subject: Re: Your distros page's Ubuntu FIXMEs
> 
> I wrote:
> 
>> http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Linux/linux-new.html#distros 
>> has some FIXMES.
>> 
>>   Ubuntu
>>   Platforms: FIXME
>> 
>> Platforms are i386, x86-64, and PPC.  All "products" (and editions
>> thereof) listed below are available and first-class citizens on each 
>> CPU platform.
>> 
>>   Ubuntu
>>   Products: FIXME
>> 
>> Products are:
>>   o  Stable release, at approx. 6 month intervals.  
>>   o  Rolling development platform.  In the past, this has been based
>>      on periodic snapshots of Debian-unstable.  Unverified talk 
>>      suggests the latter practice may cease as no longer needed.

In favor of what? That doesn't make a lot of sense.

>>   o  Ubuntu-server:  Separate, 5-year support scale.  Appears to include 
>>      a minimal GNOME destkop by default.

That must be new, as -server did not previously install X by default.

>> The "products" picture is complicated by the fact that the ISOs of the
>> stable release are put out in multiple "edition" flavours (with
>> different metapackages atop the shared Ubuntu core OS, _plus_ the fact
>> that each such edition is published both as an installable ISO and as a
>> live-CD ISO:
>> 
>>   o  "Ubuntu" image:  This is the shared core plus metapackage 
>>      "ubuntu-desktop", which is basically GNOME.
>>   o  "Kubuntu" image:  This is the shared core plus metapackage
>>      "kubuntu-desktop", which is basically KDE.
>>   o  "Xubuntu" image:  This is the shared core plus metapackage
>>      "xubuntu-desktop", which is xfce4 plus a few things, stressing
>>      gtk2 applications.  NOTE:  This is not yet a full sibling of
>>      the other flavours, being still a bit beta-ish but is intended 
>>      to be thus as of Dapper Drake, the release recently rescheduled
>>      to June 2006 (which would make it release 6.06, if it is released
>>      as scheduled).
>>   o  "Edubuntu" image:  This is the shared core plus metapackage
>>      "edubuntu-desktop", which is assorted software for sub-18-year
>>      users.  It's vaguely GNOME-ish.
>> 
>> 
>> It should be noted that these "editions" are strictly a CD-packaging 
>> artifact.  You could start with an installable image of any of the four
>> above, install it, then do "sudo apt-get install" of the other three
>> metapackages:  The resulting system would be identical, regardless of
>> which "edition" image you started with.  

Almost: The settings in /etc/alternatives may vary, as may other files
that are not directly managed with debconf.

>> In short:  Single, unified distribution.  Available as slightly
>> different-looking slices of a single cake, differing only in icing --
>> and with additional slices readily available (one apt-get command away,
>> each).
> 
> 
> So, you'll probably have noticed that Dapper Drake shipped today (on
> schedule).  All five of the "editions" cited above (Ubuntu, Kubuntu,
> Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Server) were included.  The release version
> string is "v. 6.06 LTS":  The "LTS" part stands for "Long Term Support"
> -- five years of free security updates and (optional, a la carte)
> commercial techincal support on the server, and three years for the
> desktop.  
> 
> As always, the numerical part of the version string wasn't official
> until release day, because it's an encoded form of the release
> year/month:
> 
>    6 . 06
>    |   |
>    |   -- June (6th month)
>    ------ 6th year of 21st century CE
> 
> (They admit that this scheme will break in 2100, but figure they'll burn
> that bridge when they come to it.)

Not necessarily. 2006 is also the 6th year of the 3rd millennium, so it
would still fit the pattern to have a 100.10 version in October of 2100.

> Also worth noting:  My explanation of "editions" (above) and my attempt 
> to correlate it to your page's concept of "product" is strictly
> heuristic, a bit dubious, and reflects no knowledge whatsoever of
> Ubuntu's official structure.  However, this Colin Watson wiki page (just
> now found via LWN, not yet grokked by yr. humble and caffeine-deficient
> correspondent) talks about Ubuntu "seeds" (key metapackages) and will
> probably improve my understanding and yours:
> 
> https://wiki.edubuntu.org/SeedManagement
> 
> Hope that helps.
> 
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----