Ubuntu LTS Experiences X.org Memory Leak 320
MonsterTrimble writes "Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 2 is experiencing a major memory leak due to patches for X.org. 'An X.Org Server update that was pushed into the Lucid repository last week has resulted in the system being slower and slower as it is left on, until it reaches a point where the system is no longer usable. ... In order to make the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS deadline, the developers are looking at just reverting three of the patches, which brings the GLX version back to 1.2. Ubuntu developers are now desperate for people willing to test out this updated X.Org Server package so they can determine by this Friday whether to ship it with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or doing an early SRU (Stable Release Update). Right now this X.Org Server that's being tested is living in the ubuntu-x-swat PPA.'"
Valgrind? (Score:5, Insightful)
How come this wasn't caught when they were profiling? Notice I said "when" - the X.org people aren't seriously deploying patches to such a crucial app without profiling first, are they?
Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's funny how when a FOSS project gets to a certain level of popularity (Firefox, Ubuntu) there seem to be a vocal group of people that try to tear them down. Oh my god, a version of Linux that is nearly user friendly, it's not hardcore enough for me!
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, they are calling you because they want your help to figure it out.
It is a concept known as "Open Source".
Re:What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don’t they have forums for people who are actively working on it? Wouldn’t those be the logical place to get help?
Slashdot is a great place to get wild speculation from armchair engineers, internet lawyers, and the occasional insensitive clod, but I don’t think this is news. Not yet, anyway.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the reason why hard release schedules kill Ubuntu. The devs slipped 6.04 to 6.06 for similar reasons, and the release was great. Contrast that with the scramble to get 8.04 released on time and then look at the mess it was in when it was delivered. It wasn't stable until 8.04.1. Ubuntu needs to be more flexible. Slip a month, fix this problem, then release. No biggie.
Re:Valgrind? (Score:1, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with X.org people. This is purely Canonical's problem. They're backporting patches / fixes / new ideas from upstream / newer releases into "older" versions. Basically, a mini-fork. I never understood backporting. Sure, it gives the illusion of stability, but you're relying on a much smaller set of developers, those for your OS, who may or may not understand the upstream code well enough to make smart decisions and having them glue code in and call it a "stable" release version. One reasons I will always pick Debian - stable over running Red Hat / CentOS with it's 3 year old versions of software that has "backported" fixes. Very rarely due upstream programs break backwords compatibility bad enough that you can't make it work with the new features and security fixes even for servers that are in production for 3 or 4 years.
Re:Valgrind? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you've ever tried to profile a multi-threaded app with Valgrind, you would quickly find out it's not a magical tool.
Release later (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not hold the release until the bug is fixed ?
One of the problems with fixed release dates (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that fixed release dates are useful for planning, but I think Ubuntu has put too much emphasis on them. Software should not be released until it is ready.
The idea of releasing it on schedule, with this big bug in it, and then issuing a quick fix when it is ready (one of the options discussed) is silly and rather deceptive. If what they have on April 30th is only beta quality then don't call it a release just so you can say that you stuck to your schedule.
Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score:4, Insightful)
When I first heard about Ubuntu, I thought to myself, "Great, a user friendly Linux distro!"
When I first heard it I thought "that's the stupidest fucking name I've ever heard".
Then when I first tried it I thought "Man that is WAY too much brown and orange.".
Overall though, if you ignore the name, and change your theme around to something a bit more pleasant, it's really pretty slick. If anything has a chance to get people adopt Linux for general usage, Ubuntu is it.
Either that or LinuxMint, which is effectively "Ubuntu with the ugly removed".
Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh Noes!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
You've all got to help them FAST!
Because the world would, you know, end in a fiery ball of flaming death if the LTS ended up being 10.05!
(This policy is why I replaced Ubuntu on my desktop)
Re:Release later (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that would make sense and break the 6-month rule.
Re:Release later (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, the pressure of a schedule can get people fixing problems sooner than they would otherwise have. Ubuntu is under a time constraint, so they are asking for help with testing, and they are putting pressure on the xorg people. This show-stopping bug may very well be found and fixed sooner than it would have were it not for Ubuntu's aggressive release schedule. This comes back to the old "the perfect is the enemy of the good"--if you wait until all the bugs are fixed you'll never release anything.
Ubuntu has chosen to try to stick to their release schedule, and this occasionally requires some workarounds, mitigation of bugs, and rapid (hard!) work. I think overall it's good for Linux to have a mix of aggressively-scheduled distros (like Ubuntu) and more cautious distros (like Debian).
This is a LTS release... (Score:5, Insightful)
10.04 is supposed to be a LTS release, and they are nearing their deadline. Roll back to the "stable" version of X, and push these patches forward to 10.10. Anyone who cares about having the latest and greatest will roll along with the 6 month release cycle.
Re:One of the problems with fixed release dates (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. Let it slip.
Slips happen in real life. Vendors fuck up. Planes get grounded. The paperwork takes longer than you thought. You're just plain out of Iridium. The inspector wants Euros and you only have...never mind, the point is, Things Happen.
If they don't slip the date, then Ubuntu can never be trusted as a product ever again. What bugs will be in the next release, with a planned quick fix "right away"? I've always said that if your best friend, whom you would trust with your life, says, "I promise that you'll have the software tomorrow," then that software doesn't exist until you have it in your hands. (I started saying this when you'd have software on disks. No, not like CDs. They looked like the "save" icon.)
Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score:1, Insightful)
When I first heard about Ubuntu, I thought to myself, "Great, a user friendly Linux distro!" Then I had chance to actually try and use it.
Not impressed. Not at all. It's user friendly, to a point.
I'm sure the distro you made is much better.
Re:One of the problems with fixed release dates (Score:4, Insightful)
Software should not be released until it is ready.
I believe GNU HURD is following that timetable.
(AC because moderated already)
Re:Release later (Score:4, Insightful)
ubuntu's rocky upgrade road (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't the only video problem in the Lucid Lynx betas. Since upgrading, I've been having a problem [launchpad.net] where x.org sometimes fails to start up when I boot. Presumably this is a separate problem from the one described in TFA, since you wouldn't expect to see a memory leak's effects showing up at boot time.
Jaunty and Karmic were really terrible releases, IMO. The good news for me is that sound, which broke when I upgraded to Jaunty, is now working for me again with Lucid. I'm hoping that Lucid gets nice and stable over the long lifetime it will have as an LTS release. In the past, I'd been upgrading ubuntu steadily rather than waiting for the next LTS, mainly because I wanted my apps upgraded. That was such a miserable experience that I'm planning not to do it anymore; I'll just stay with Lucid until the next LTS.
I like debian and ubuntu better than the other OSS systems I've used (Mandrake, Red Hat, FreeBSD), but this close tie-in between updating apps and updating the OS can really be a pain. The OS-level tweaking has never made my life any better. As a user, I couldn't care less about stuff like OSS versus ALSA. I would really love it if ubuntu would focus more on fixing bugs in the OS while keeping applications up to date, but not gratuitously breaking stuff in the OS just because they want to be on the cutting edge.
Another thing can be a drag about ubuntu is that they aren't very careful at all about keeping Gnome separate from the underlying OS. Anyone who uses a WM other than Gnome with ubuntu is going to run into lots of things that don't work properly, because the developers always seem to feel free to make changes without testing them on any other WM. For example, here [launchpad.net] is a bug in xsplash. It causes problems for people who aren't using Gnome. You know you're in trouble when you have functions whose names begin with "temporary_hack..." This one was not a bug in a beta, BTW, but a bug in a real release.
Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score:1, Insightful)
It is very similar to the Music scene that way. It is very cool to be in the know of some awesome local band, but as soon as they get airplay and make a record all the cool wears off for the hipsters. "I used to go see them at all the local shows, but then they sold out."
Same mentality.
Ubuntu Lucid == Linux Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu developers are now desperate for people willing to test out this updated X.Org Server package so they can determine by this Friday whether to ship it with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or doing an early SRU (Stable Release Update).
They should have thought that before antagonizing over 80% of the tester community with the windows button issue.
Yes, it IS a petty issue, the problem is that everybody said "We don want it, please revert pretty please" and Mark was like "Thank you, your opinions are very valuable, however, just bite it".
So I'm not surprised at all if the tester community feels withdrawn. There is a growing feeling that the opinions of the community are being soundly ignored, for instance these (public) statements from the bug tracker I'm going to reproduce without permission:
Jef Spaleta:
First of all I think you put too much weight behind Brainstorm as a tool
to drive change inside Ubuntu. You actually shouldn't be at all
surprised that Brainstorm popularity has very little influence over
design decisions. It's never had influence in any technical decision
making and no one in a position of authority inside Canonical or Ubuntu
governance has ever claimed that it has. Canonical nor the external
Ubuntu governance structures make it a policy to rely heavily or to even
officially review highly popular ideas in Brainstorm on a regular basis
or part of technical decision making or public governance discussion.
Were highly popular Brainstorm ideas even discussed in an organized
session during the UDS in the run up to 10.04?
The track record of implemented ideas backs up my point. You look
really closely at the ideas marked implemented in Brainstorm and they
are at best mediocre in terms of Brainstorm popularity. None of the
highly popular ideas in Brainstorm get implemented..or even discussed
publicly as a matter of technical decision making or governance. Take
for example the music store idea. It has a negative voting total and is
marked implemented.
It's wishful thinking to suggest that Brainstorm popularity plays an
important role in decision making. It doesn't. At best brainstorm is a
dumping ground for random ideas. There's no evidence that the voting
process correlates with feature development or decision making at all.
The thing is, Ubuntu has dropped the ball massively with this release, there is simply nothing good about the new release, worse still is that it lost contact with its user base, most of the decisions are now either politically or corporately motivated, or driven by the team of Cupertino rejects that Mark appointed to drive Ubuntu development.
But really, this is interesting, I'll get some marsh mellows and enjoy the fireworks. The question no longer is if Lucid is going to be an embarrassment but whether Mark will learn anything from it. If Mark learns a lesson it's well worth it.
I really loved ubuntu, I want to love it again, but right now, I'm just deciding whether to switch to mint or debian.
Re:One of the problems with fixed release dates (Score:5, Insightful)
If they don't slip the date, then Ubuntu can never be trusted as a product ever again.
That's a bit harsh, don't you think? If it is clearly a regression caused by a particular patch, they could release without that patch and just note in the release notes that a particular feature that was promised had to be dropped at the last minute.
Or perhaps you view the errata section in your daily newspaper as proof that it can never be trusted as a reliable news source again. :-)
Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with your sentiment, but I think there is something to be said for small, light software, and that most OSS projects begin small and light for obvious reasons and then mature into huge, bloated pigs like Firefox. People who like small, light software are forced to continuously downgrade to newer, shittier software. This even happened to Scheme, which started out as a programming language whose spec could be printed on a handful of pages but which recently ballooned into three or four documents adding up to about 200 pages. If you believe removed code is debugged code, what's added code?
That said, the main thing I don't understand about the big distros is why they do so much patching in the first place. You often hear about kernel instabilities caused by distro maintainers applying patches that weren't accepted by the kernel team for good reason. Why monkey with stuff you don't understand? This is another reason I've preferred Gentoo and Arch, and, when possible, FreeBSD over Linux.
Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score:1, Insightful)
Kubuntu is a little bit prettier with it's KDE interface and still has the same polish, but I don't think anyone who is trying Linux for the first time would grab it over Ubuntu (as it's not that well advertised, I'm sure partially to not confuse first time users).
If by prettier, you mean it looks like the Canonical Development "team" used the same Fat Crayolas that Microsoft uses for making the UI, then yes, I agree.
And don't get me started on the way the KDE software installer runs as opposed to Gnome... things could get ugly.
Not as much sense as you think.... (Score:1, Insightful)
You might think, just wait for the X.Org thing to be fixed, then release.... but what about every other part of the operating system. If you wait until every single part is stable at the same time, you would never release. So, what you need to do is simply use the most recent stable version. If that means that the latest-and-greatest gee-I-wish-it-was-in-this-version has to wait for next version, so be it.
If you hold up the release for X.Org's latest and greatest, do you hold up for Gnome's, for the kernel's, for Firefox's, for the filesystem.... etc.
It doesn't mean release buggy stuff. It means release what works, even if it means rolling back to an earlier version.
And for anyone who would respond with 'If they don't wait for the bug fix, they are releasing a buggy version', keep in mind that I expect that every major part of any major OS is going to have a bug list. The only software that I know of that waits until all bugs are fixed before releasing is DNF.
Re:One of the problems with fixed release dates (Score:3, Insightful)
"If they don't slip the date, then Ubuntu can never be trusted as a product ever again."
No problem: this very bug is a clear indication that Ubuntu people can't be trusted about software engineering to start with so there's no difference if they trash it a bit more regarding the schedule.
Just think a bit about it.
Why the release schedule is in danger? Because of a serious bug discovered at a late date.
Why such an obvious and serious bug was discovered at such a late date? Because it's due to a...
Feature Patch
Backported
Pushed on a late beta
One week ago
That's why. People making decisions like this should be considered freshmen, not release engineers and while I bow at their efforts I surely don't trust their results.
Re:One of the problems with fixed release dates (Score:5, Insightful)
The two choices are scope-based releases or time-based releases. Scope-based releases allow for long delays, reduced confidence and morale. Time-based releases have been shown to be an effective tool in improving the quality and morale of large, complex open-source software.
But, don't take my word for it.
http://www.cyrius.com/publications/ [cyrius.com]
Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score:5, Insightful)
With Debian Stable I have to install lots of software from source because the supported versions are so pathetically outdated. This causes the system to be... less stable.
LTS release schedules are more stable and less work to maintain because they typically have all the software I need in their supported repositories.
Re:Ubuntu Lucid == Linux Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno about any button issue, but a couple of versions back they pulled the very nice update widget from the system tray, and replaced it with a horrible Apple-style distracting popup and a 'notification area' which is a usability nightmare (big black popup every time my network status changes, for instance, which hovers for about 30 seconds right over my eyespace but is not clickable to say 'yes I know stop bugging me').
Lots of people flagged these 'upgrades' as bugs, explicitly requesting reinstatement of the old, working, behaviour, but Mark himself came on the bug system to say 'no, we're doing it my way'.
It's not an isolated incident. It's a pattern.
Re:Ubuntu Lucid == Linux Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it was supposed to be a "feature" that you get a notification that you have new mail, a download's complete, or whatever, but you can't click on it to open the notifying program. You have to "know" which program is the one that sent the notification, and search for it on the taskbar/window list, possibly on a different virtual desktop. Hard for newbies, and annoying for oldies.
>It's not an isolated incident. It's a pattern.
That's the main point. It's a red herring to say people are upset over a bunch of buttons. The reason they're upset is that it's one more example of not even pretending to respect the community while offering up weird, buggy, decreased functionality, all the while claiming to be so much better because some Mac re-treads say so.
This last month has made me question... (Score:5, Insightful)
my trust in OSS.
I've been an open source user and developer since long before there was a Linux. And, I've been a Linux user for a long time. Used Redhat, Debian, and now Ubuntu. I've been using Ubuntu since 5 something. I like Ubuntu. It is easy to install, gets easier all the time. It works, which is really nice. And, it has very good support for things like Flash and proprietary graphics card drivers. You can complain that it doesn't have some detail covered that is critical to you, but that's OK. I've been very happy with Ubuntu.
Well, I was. I always try to test the alpha and beta releases. In the early days I could down load the first alpha and it would work. It might get a little weird, but it would work. In the worst case I can remember the computer would at least boot up to the command prompt. That is until the 10.4 release. That just plain wouldn't boot until we got to alpha 3. It wouldn't even install. It has been awful ever since. I don't know if it is a problem with X.org, but every time I type in the search field on firefox I get a black screen. After a few seconds the login screen comes up and I can login. The machine did not reboot. It looks like typing in the search field on firefox is crashing the X server. Now, back in the early '90s I helped get a little program called xcrashme written and distributed and after that was around for a few years the X server was damned near bullet proof. What did they do to mess it up so badly? I went to file a bug report. It turned out to be a duplicate. Seems a lot of people have reported the problem. I haven't seen any action on it.
Then there is the little thing about the user interface in 10.4. Nobody in their right mind, at least no body who had any respect for their users, would change something as basic as the location and order of the window buttons. But, Shuttleworth has done just that. The reason? To make room for a "cool" something that will appear in a later version of Ubuntu. The only discussion involved in the decision was the coolness of the feature and the vague technical argument that somehow it reduces mouse movement, because the buttons are now on the same side of the screen as the menus. Oh, yeah, like the amount of time anyone spends opening new apps is worth retraining your hands to find the new buttons. On the bug discussion list Shuttleworth would not even admit that human factors might have some validity in the discussion. Only the coolness and the bullshit argument about mouse movement were treated as worthy of consideration. Shuttleworth even posted data showing his own mouse movement. The data did not support moving the buttons. But, he claimed it did. He saw what he wanted to see. After all, the new thing is so cool we should all be grateful for the inconvenience.
Why doesn't Ubuntu care about the effect the change will have on their customers? Because they have no customers. They are in it to be cool and to score techie points with other people who do not understand why proprietary software actually tries not to piss off their customers. If you don't believe me ask a human factors engineer why purple is an awful background color for a GUI and then ask what percentage of the public can read light gray text on a dark gray background. Then look at the new Ubuntu default theme. It sure is "cool". I used ssh -Y to log in from a computer with a different theme so I could work select a readable theme and move the buttons back to where I'm used to having them.
The backlash from the users has been astonishing. Even more astonishing is Shuttleworth's "I'm to cool to care" attitude.
At least for now you can move the buttons back and choose another theme. What happens when he puts his uber cool new feature into the UI? I guess I am looking for a new Linux distribution.
That was bad enough... But, then I ran into OO.o Issue #956 (http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=956). Have you heard about this one? It was filed May 25, 2001. For comparison current issue numbers for OO.o are now above 110,000.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, my original question was appropriate. I’m not asking why they sent that to their developers; I never was. I’m asking why it’s being reported on Slashdot before anything really is known about the problem.
To answer my own question, and this is something I only realised after reading the other comments on this thread... it appears that this is news and it’s being reported on Slashdot primarily because of speculation that it has the potential to delay their hard-and-fast 6-month release cycle date. I’m pretty certain there’s a certain amount of schadenfreude motivating it...