Not the Runty Raccoon, the Rufflered Rhino or (even) the Randall Ross
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012The dash to Copenhagen combined with a dash across the Atlantic has me righteously ramfeezled, but the roisterous reception we got at the OpenStack summit (congrats, stackers, on a respectable razzmatazz of rugible cloud enthusiasm) made it worthwhile. A quick shout out to the team behind the Juju gooooey, that puts a whole new face on cloud agility – rousing stuff.
Nevertheless, it’s way past time to root our next rhythmic release in some appropriate adjective.
The challenge, of course, has been the number of entirely inappropriate adjectives that presented themselves along the way. Go read the dictionary. R is just loaded with juicy stuff we can’t use without invoking the radge wrath of the rinky-dink chorus. Sigh.
Nevertheless, somewhere between the risibly rambunctious and the reboantly ran-tan, the regnally rakish and the reciprocornously rorty, there was bound to be a good fit. Something radious or rident, something to rouse our rowthy rabble.
So what will we be up to in the next six months? We have two short cycles before we’re into the LTS, and by then we want to have the phone, tablet and TV all lined up. So I think it’s time to look at the core of Ubuntu and review it through a mobile lens: let’s measure our core platform by mobile metrics, things like battery life, number of running processes, memory footprint, and polish the rough edges that we find when we do that. The tighter we can get the core, the better we will do on laptops and the cloud, too.
So bring along a Nexus 7 if you’re coming to Copenhagen, because it makes a rumpty reference for our rootin’ tootin’ radionic razoring. The raving Rick and his merry (wo)men will lead us to a much leaner, sharper, more mobile world. We’ll make something… wonderful, and call it the Raring Ringtail. See you there soon.
Update: for clarity, this ringtail is no laconic lemur, it’s a ringtail raccoon. However, for the sake of sanity, it’s not a raring ringtail raccoon, just a raring ringtail. There.
October 17th, 2012 at 11:44 pm
So, like usual I go to Wikipedia to decipher the curious animal you’ve chosen us to focus on for the next six months…and this time I’m still confused.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringtail
October 18th, 2012 at 12:02 am
not my first choice but…. WOOOHH LETS DO THIS!
ps- bring back dodge windows 🙂
October 18th, 2012 at 12:16 am
You could have reached out to me and required a resplendent name such as Ravenous Rojosaurus (a creature I revealed in my writings) – but I love Ringtails, so run along, congratulations.
Make sure to get some rest and relaxation, and don’t get roped into any rubbish any reporters happen to reap :)!
October 18th, 2012 at 12:37 am
I don’t care what adjective you use, but considering that 13.04 will (probably) be released on my birthday, I’d appreciate it if you did use “raccoon” as the animal. (I know, slim chance of that happening, but hey, a guy can dream….)
October 18th, 2012 at 12:40 am
You might want to update the Ubuntu Wiki to include an entry for the “Raring Ringtail” version of Ubuntu (and move the “RReleaseSchedule” to “RaringRingtail/ReleaseSchedule”), since there currently is none.
October 18th, 2012 at 1:13 am
Argh, you might want to be a bit more specific on the Ringtail part.
Maybe this is obvious to English natives but I am struggling to choose from this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringtail
I have no difficulties with the raring part btw, I guess the community has enough “raring” for all the platforms to come. 🙂
October 18th, 2012 at 1:37 am
ra RING RING tail.
Sorry to say so, but I find this to be the most annoying release name ever.
It’s just RINGing too much and I’m really not a fan of RINGing.
October 18th, 2012 at 1:51 am
I will have my Nexus 7 as a I remotely participate with the community in Copenhagen 🙂 cheers to another good release cycle!
October 18th, 2012 at 2:13 am
Love it! Looking forward to start testing 13.04.
October 18th, 2012 at 2:21 am
Nexus 7? Mobile world? I’m really looking forward to what Ubuntu 13.04 has to offer.
October 18th, 2012 at 2:32 am
I think “Rustling Raccoon” should be the title.
October 18th, 2012 at 3:09 am
Prefers Roaring Ratatouille
October 18th, 2012 at 3:13 am
[…] a hacer algo… maravilloso, y vamos a llamarlo Raring Ringtail», asegura en el anuncio Mark […]
October 18th, 2012 at 3:53 am
I’d like to bring my Nexus 7 with Ubuntu for Android on it. Too bad I can’t, eh?
October 18th, 2012 at 5:01 am
Ring ring? Ubuntu phones? Seriously? rofl
October 18th, 2012 at 5:48 am
Wow, try reading that when you have rehydrated on a few rumbustious rustic bRewskies. 🙂
October 18th, 2012 at 5:57 am
The funny thing is that raring is also an norwegian word. Translate it to english and it means weird/strange. 😛
We use the word raring as like “she is so strange (raring)”.
October 18th, 2012 at 6:07 am
Was Rambunctious Raccoon not an option?
October 18th, 2012 at 6:07 am
Not only will there be dragons – but also possums.
This is the marsupial Aussie version of the Ringtail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ringtail_possum
Keep up the good work !
Cheers from down under.
October 18th, 2012 at 6:19 am
I would be raring to go if somebody could explain to me why OSX86 is faster than Pangolin or Quantal on the same kit?
October 18th, 2012 at 7:07 am
[…] justo sale para descargar Ubuntu 12.10 y Mark Shuttlewoorth, padre de esta gran distribución, en su página oficial nos comenta que Ubuntu 13.04 se llamará “Raring Ringtail” (lemur ansioso o lemur con […]
October 18th, 2012 at 7:16 am
What’s a Ringtail? A squirrel? A raccoon? A dragonfly?
October 18th, 2012 at 7:23 am
[…] Shuttleworth, acaba de anunciar en su blog el nombre en clave que llevará la versión 13.04 de […]
October 18th, 2012 at 7:29 am
[…] Shuttleworth has announced the codename for the next Ubuntu release (13.04): Raring […]
October 18th, 2012 at 8:10 am
Hello,
as a Ubuntu user I’m really concerned about Unity’s performance and games performance, specially on ARM processors. At this moment I’m working on x86_64 processors, and I’m hoping for Steam, “Planetary Anihilation” and the next chapter of “Broken Sword” for Linux (I’ve made a “donation” to increase the effort on performance issues). But I’m worried about energy consumption and I want to move to ARM processors when my computers broke in the future. Actually the LLVM Pipe doesn’t work well on ARM processors, what about it?
October 18th, 2012 at 8:23 am
I was thinking of rasta rabbit because software center and unity were so slow… oupps ! 😉
October 18th, 2012 at 8:43 am
Can we please start choosing names that give Ubuntu a little bit of dignity. Better yet, just drop the double rhyming noun all together.
October 18th, 2012 at 8:52 am
[…] Shuttleworth anunció ayer el nombre en clave de la futura distribución de Canonical: Ubuntu 13.04 será Raring Ringtail, un […]
October 18th, 2012 at 8:59 am
What does Raring Ringtail mean?
October 18th, 2012 at 9:34 am
@ElectricPrism
A word to the less literate: it’s an adjective and a noun. They don’t rhyme, they alliterate.
October 18th, 2012 at 9:35 am
@Andreu
Yes, performance is a priority in ringtail, especially in low-power environments. We’re focused on the graphics stack with that goal in mind. The good news is we are working with both the games producers (Valve, Unity) and the silicon vendors. So I’m confident we will nail it.
October 18th, 2012 at 9:39 am
@Corfy – I did indeed mean “ringtail raccoon”, so happy birthday in advance 😉
October 18th, 2012 at 9:58 am
[…] W wielkim skrócie i wolnym tÅ‚umaczeniu – w najbliższym czasie developerzy Ubuntu spojrzÄ… na system pod kÄ…tem parametrów mobilnych jak np. czas pracy na baterii, ponieważ sÄ… przekonani, że pomoże im to w podboju telefonów, notebooków a nawet telewizorów. ŹródÅ‚o: Not the Runty Raccoon, the Rufflered Rhino or (even) the Randall Ross […]
October 18th, 2012 at 10:16 am
“”Ringtail” is a common name for tail necrosis in rats and other rodents” — Wikipedia
Darn… I hope thats not “tail /var/log/syslog” 😉
October 18th, 2012 at 10:40 am
[…] A nota informativa do Mark Shuttleworth pode ser acedida através de link. […]
October 18th, 2012 at 11:08 am
Ah, the Regularly Repeating Recurrence whereby Mark names the Result of his Respectable Reverie, and has everyone speaking in Resplendent Rhymes, Repleat with Rolling Alliteration. 🙂
But, Regardless, I’m thrilled to hear that the Ubuntu base is going to be receiving some TLC. Not because I think that it’s particularly necessary, or beneficial to Ubuntu or the Linux community or anything along those lines. But simply because, as a Kubuntu user, I also use the base, so this move will benefit me much more directly than improvements to… pretty much anything else. Guess I’m just selfish that way. X3
October 18th, 2012 at 11:14 am
[…] teras, lebih baik kita akan lakukan pada komputer riba dan peranti awan juga.” – MarkRaring bermakna ‘penuh semangat atau kesungguhan’ manakala Ringtail adakah:Sumber: OMG! […]
October 18th, 2012 at 11:43 am
I like the alliteration – a lot. Nice name, well done!
October 18th, 2012 at 11:53 am
nice name!!
QUESTION: When you are selecting an adjective and a noun, are unique and undocumented name options high on your consideration list?
October 18th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
> let’s measure our core platform by mobile metrics, things like battery life, number of running processes, memory footprint, and polish the rough edges that we find when we do that.
+1
Will install again.
October 18th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Raccoon? Since you’re from Africa, Mark, I naturally assumed you were going for the Ring-tailed Lemur of Madagascar. It looks like King Julian from the Madagascar cartoons.
October 18th, 2012 at 2:04 pm
I prefered Rampant Ratel myself…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger
October 18th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
I was hoping for the Raccoon…reminds me of The comic character Rocket Raccoon…Guardian of the Galaxy! Like the focuss, nice balance of show and substance:) Raccoons have excellent hearing….apparently they can hear earthworms underground:). Look forward to the fresh energy of this release
October 18th, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Thanks for the mention. Looking forward to working with you and the fabulous community of Ubuntu contributors to make the Raring Ringtail the best (and most widely used) Ubuntu release ever. See you in Copenhagen.
October 18th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
I will still use Ubuntu 12.04, and with Gnome2.
October 18th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
@Mark:
“So I think it’s time to look at the core of Ubuntu and review it through a mobile lens: let’s measure our core platform by mobile metrics, things like battery life, number of running processes, memory footprint, and polish the rough edges that we find when we do that. The tighter we can get the core, the better we will do on laptops and the cloud, too.”
I personally think that Ubuntu should aim to be more attractive platform. It’s how people perceive the operating system is comparable to the way people perceive media formats, such as VHS and DVD discs etc. The operating system differs that OS is seen as the “glue” that has four key interfaces:
-User interface
-Storage (file systems and fileformats what the platform uses)
-Communications (network protocols)
-Appilication program interface
In order to be a successful platform, these interfaces should have stability. In practice, these should have backwards compatibility assurance witch spans two LTS releases back. So, for example, when Unity is now in use, it shoud not have big change earlier than 18.04 LTS. Software made to 12.04 LTS should still be a binary compatible with 16.04 LTS etc.
Red Hat has a very nice document how they promise compatibility: http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/rhel/RHEL6_App_Compatibility_WP.pdf
Ubuntu desperately need this kind assurances to compatibility and UI stability, to be attractive platform to it’s users. Ubuntu gives at the moment feeling that it is moving target. Peoples (ISVs, consumers, IT managers) don’t want to invest their time and money if everything changes too rapidly.
When this kind of basics are done, it’s ok to start optimizing.
October 19th, 2012 at 4:04 am
I’ve been a long time ubuntu user (+6 years) and I just want to say that I love what you guys are doing with Ubuntu. Unity is a much bigger improvement over other UIs and love using it daily. With that said the fact that unity is much slower and that it’s not contributed upstream concerns me. I also feel that a lot of bugs filed in launchpad in ubuntu get ignored because they’re upstream issues or canonical is waiting for them to be fixed upstream without telling them. It would be great if you could address these concerns to make sure that Canonical and Ubuntu remain as great as they are.
October 19th, 2012 at 4:58 pm
@Andrew
Thanks for the compliments, I’m glad you’re loving Unity. Performance is critical. We’re working with the graphics chip companies, and the game companies, to make it amazing. In 12.10 we needed to accommodate a wider range of hardware than we had previously, so for safety purposes as an interim step we structured things in a way that’s a bit slower under certain (limited) circumstances than it was in 12.04. But this is a bridging step, and we’re confident we’ll have the fastest as well as the slickest experience in due course.
Also, we’re working with the game companies for a reason – they are bringing their games to Ubuntu. Of course, they care about performance too. So we have every reason to make it amazing.
October 22nd, 2012 at 6:06 pm
@Mark:
Hmm.. for me, performance is a good feature, not critical. Related to performance, what I keep important is UI latency. Goog guideline is to keep total latency <1s when user cliks some button. And for scrolling and "real time" data manipulation, <100ms total latency (note for screen update, USB latency etc.) from input to screen is where to target. This kind of work requires optimization and it is important for usability (it is good idea to define hardware requirements based on this kind of measurements). Another thing related to performance, is energy consuption in mobile devices, including laptops, is important.
Performance optimization on other areas is not important to me. I understand that in software, there is a lot more important things to consider, like reliability.
November 24th, 2012 at 2:35 am
Wish I could be in Copenhagen, unfortunately not this time. I’m also a Ubuntu veteran and like the interface, look forward to seeing it taken to the mobile world!
@mattik: great post.