Troy Dawson wrote:
>  - Ubuntu creep -
> How many labs are seeing this?
> Do they see this as a problem?

Hi guys,

I've been meaning to mention something like this for a while, but the
above comment was the eventual catalyst! Unfortunately I won't be at
Hepix, so it'll have to be an online-only comment/discussion.

I'm not speaking as any sort of lab (or even department) spokesperson,
but the Ubuntu creep issue sounds very relevant to me. In Durham we are
currently trialling Ubuntu on two desktops, with plans to eventually
roll it out as our main desktop deployment. It's already widely used on
staff laptops. We largely get away with this because it's a theory group
and so compatibility with LHC experiment / LCG software (which is often
non-portable because of dumbness rather than any fundamental
incompatibility) isn't an issue.

The reason for our planned move to Ubuntu (and here I paraphrase, since
I'm not our computing manager) is that while SL is an okay stable
platform for Grid and batch farm nodes, the slow release cycle and
resultant outdated application/desktop software are extremely
frustrating for desktop use. (I also find that ensuring that HEP
software works on both SL and Debian-esque platforms is a good way to
cross-check for subtle bugs.)

As one of our desktop trialees, I've found Ubuntu (Gutsy, so far) a much
more pleasant experience than SL4, and actually the range of packaged
scientific software is larger. That's (genuinely) not meant as a
criticism of Troy and Connie, who obviously work very diligently on SL,
but 2 people attempting to maintain an entire distro is naturally less
sustainable and dynamic than the whole Debian community + Ubuntu
community + Mark Shuttleworth's semi-bottomless pockets. I'm mindful
here that I don't want you to think of me as a "troll" --- the work
you've done on SL is great, but for me it just can't compete with what
Ubuntu has done for desktop Linux in the last few years.*

With that in mind, and given that the SL team is so stretched, what
happened to the suggestion (a year or so ago) of moving to a model with
SL as an extra yum/apt repository on top of specified commodity Linux
distributions? The current way looks to me like very hard work by
comparison!

> Do they see this as a problem 3 or 4 years from now when users are
> still running Ubuntu 7.0.4?

I know that some of our laptop users have upgraded at least once since
their initial installation. Since Ubuntu's stable releases occur at
predictable times, and the installer alerts suitably privileged desktop
users that an upgrade is possible, I suspect that being stuck on old
versions of Ubuntu is less likely than with SL. But I have no data on that!

Andy

[*]  To be honest, I also use Ubuntu on my HEP servers now,
(www.hepforge.org, and friends) by preference, so it's not just desktops
and laptops where "Ubuntu creep" is happening.

-- 
Dr Andy Buckley
Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology
Durham University
0191 3343798 | 0191 3732613 | www.insectnation.org