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I have used Ubuntu for several years now, and it was a very stable and nice system. However, it became really crappy since a few releases, and it's almost impossible for me to work with Ubuntu 11.10. Of course, I could switch to another distribution etc., but I want to help my favourite distribution to get less crappy.

I have commented / reported several bugs and tried to help when I can, but the most bugs are just ignored by the maintainers so I have no hope that these really annoying issues will be fixed.

Do you know other ways how I can help Ubuntu to become useable again?

(Of course I know that it works fine for many people, but that doesn't help me when I need TV-OUT on a separate X screen [which worked the releases before] and the many other things that don't work anymore.)

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amay82 - I'm sure everyone on AskUbuntu would like to help you - please keep you questions very specific - one problem at a time. Try to spend some time asking the question, giving examples of what you have tried, bug reports you may have raised, your hardware, software installed etc. Basically anything allowing us to give you an accurate answer that can help you resolve your question. Thanks. – fossfreedom♦ Jan 10 '12 at 20:33

closed as not constructive by fossfreedom♦, bodhi.zazen, Florian Diesch, Takkat, jrg♦ Jan 10 '12 at 19:52

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1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote

It's a bit rude to say it like that, but I must admit you're right. The latest releases are really buggy, and most of my bug reports got thrown away until they expired. In the end I just switched to Arch Linux (which I don't recommend if you want something user-friendly, by the way).

On the positive side, Ubuntu an open-source project developed by a community. Which means that anyone with sufficiënt programming experience can participate.

If you're not a programmer, you can help to get the bugs out before it's released. You can do that by downloading the latest build here, installing it on a spare computer (or virtual machine), and report every bug you find (if it hasn't already been reported, if it has, just hit the This affects me link at the top of the page). I've noticed the developers take bug reports about upcoming releases a tad more serious.

Note that Ubuntu 10.10, 11.04 and 11.10 weren't LTS (Long Time Support) releases. An LTS version of Ubuntu is released every 2 years (and since a few days this also counts for Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Edubuntu). The LTS releases are much more stable and better tested than all releases between them. Personally I always call the non-LTS releases Beta releases, as they sometimes are of Beta-quality.
In my opinion this should be better advertised on the Ubuntu website.

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Thank you, Maybe I will test the next Ubuntu release in a VirtualBox and then file the most critical bugs. However, most bugs affect hardware support in same way and therefore can't be tested in a virtual machine :( – amay82 Jan 10 '12 at 20:19
Yeah, I know. The RC of Ubuntu 11.10 almost toasted my laptop (110°C). – RobinJ Jan 11 '12 at 12:48

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