Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) – a first look at the… software distribution model of Canonical
Comments(4)
Parts of my day has been dedicated to creating backup routines and gathering enough space to mirror saved data and to download and later burn out the Ubuntu Hardy Heron disc-image.
The problem here is… The software distribution system that Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) just doesn’t work very well in times of a new release. You see, Canonical have local mirrors – and that is all fine, but then when you want to access and download the actual iso-image or perhaps (like myself) get access to a torrent-file in order to actually save Canonical bandwidth, then they rely on local universities out there – universities that just don’t have the infrastructure to even serve the download requests coming in.
So, in the middle of the day I sit and try to get access to the .torrent-file in order to start my download and even help distribute Canonical’s software, but… I can’t!
Canonical need to decide to either switch their distribution model to rely mainly on distributed data models such as bittorrent, or to invest more in the physical infrastructure behind their software distribution to the end-user.
As it is now, it just does not work very well.
Enough complaints for one day, I am now in the process of installing Ubuntu 8.04 (“fresh upgrade”) on one of my laptops, as this machine is really in need of new and improved acpi drivers/settings etc.
(Yes, you guessed correctly – it is a Dell Inspiron that you can’t close the lid on and/or switch off or it freezes up.)
I will give impressions of Ubuntu Hardy Heron in an upcoming post after I have used the system a bit.
See you soon! 
Tags: 6400, acpi, canonical, dell, dell inspiron 6400, Distribution, inspiron, Linux, software, ubuntu
Technorati Tags: 6400, acpi, canonical, dell, dell inspiron 6400, Distribution, inspiron, Linux, software, ubuntu
Just do like smart ppl do, and download the iso a few days before, and then just rsync to make sure that there are not any updates…
Huh? It is not necessarily true that the RC is actually containing the final version. It is likely, but not certain.
Thus, your logic here is flawed my friend.
(and fiddling with rsync for software updates like this is just going through hoops to do a simple task)
I am surprised that the user data was kept intact like it was
umm, how do you NOT have access to the torrent file?
can you not open it?
can you not find the torrent?
google broken?
@ish You are missing the point. The point is that the location of the mirrors are so overloaded that they don’t open in a web browser, and where are the official links to the torrent-files? Yes, on these overloaded mirrors.
A potential user should not have to google search just in order to find where to download a distribution.
Once one has acquired the torrent-file, then everything is smooth sailing, of course. Yet again, this is not the point of argument