Comment 893 for bug 1

> With Debian stable, most of the time, you would find yourself one major
> release behind flagship desktop programs such as Openoffice or Firefox.

I don't understand why these have anything to do with each other. Why can't releases have a stable, bug-free subsystem combined with the latest bleeding-edge flagship apps? I can download the latest versions of things from getdeb.net and run them fine on an older release. I don't understand why providing the latest version of Firefox necessitates simultaneously releasing all kinds of buggy half-baked changes to video, audio, etc.

> You
> don't have to update to every Ubuntu release.

I update because I, like most computer users, expect "updates" to fix long-standing bugs, but lately they have only caused more problems.

> 2) Stick to long term release versions of Ubuntu.

I had a lot of problems after "upgrading" to Hardy, too.

"Blogsphere and forums are full of post saying that hardy is much more buggy than Gutsy or any other previous release." http://www.lazytechguy.com/2008/08/is-ubuntu-hardy-really-that-buggy.html

It seems like there is no difference in bugginess between LTS and regular releases, or even between releases and release candidates, for that matter. Wouldn't it be a better idea to hold only the release *candidates* to a rigid schedule, but delay the actual releases until the known bugs are fixed?

I don't know much about the technicalities or politics of release schedules, but priorities need to be changed if "upgrades" make end users' machines unusable. This is just unacceptable, and you'll never gain any headway on Microsoft this way. I'm a relatively technical person, and I still don't have the time or patience to slog through all this stuff just to get my system working normally again.