Last week I posted about how I’d migrated my laptop to the latest beta version of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). In the post I said:
“So far everything has been working really well and my faith in the OS was rewarded, everything I’ve wanted to do has just worked. Except for a few minor issues with, mainly with Java based applications.”
This morning I read this post entitled “If you have to ask, you shouldn’t try it” on the Motho ke motho ka botho blog. This got me thinking about my previous post and how it was a little irresponsible of me, for as K.Mandla said:
“First, if you have to ask how stable or safe it is, you probably shouldn’t be using it. It’s still development software, possibly buggy, and likely to cause problems for you. Unless you’re prepared to tackle anything that might come your way, you should probably wait until the release candidate, and possibly later.
Don’t pin your expectations on beta software, please. It looks like fun and it probably is, but breakage happens. I’ve been there. And it can be frustrating if you don’t have the know-how to resurrect your machine when it turns crashtastic. I’ve been there too.”
With this in mind then, just remember that because the beta release is working fine for me, it doesn’t mean that it will for you as well. If you’re prepared to deal with the issues that comes from using beta software, not to mention the many package updates every day, you’re probably best waiting until the official release.
My thanks to K.Mandla for making me look at my post from a different perspective.
