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7bityesterday at 8:50 AM6 repliesview on HN

I have three Ubuntu servers and the naming pisses me off so much. Why can't they just stick with their YY.MM. naming scheme everywhere. Instead, they mostly use code names and I never know what codename I am currently using and what is the latest code name. When I have to upgrade or find a specific Python ppa for whatever OS I am running, I need to research 30 minutes to correlate all these dumb codenames to the actual version numbers.

Same with Intel.

STOP USING CODENAMES. USE NUMBERS!


Replies

kallebooyesterday at 8:54 AM

As an Apple user, the macOS code names stopped being cute once they ran out of felines, and now I can't remember which of Sonoma or Sequoia was first.

Android have done this right: when they used codenames they did them in alphabetical order, and at version 10 they just stopped being clever and went to numbers.

skeletal88yesterday at 9:00 AM

Yes, I agree, codenames are stupid, they are not funny or clever.

I want a version number that I can compare to other versions, to be able to easily see which one is newer or older, to know what I can or should install.

I don't want to figure out and remember your product's clever nicknames.

daedric7yesterday at 10:42 AM

They can't. They used to, until they tried to patent 586...

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tanelivyesterday at 10:39 AM

Protip, if you have access to the computer: `lsb_release -a` should list both release and codename. This command is not specific to Ubuntu.

Finding the latest release and codename is indeed a research task. I use Wikipedia[1] for that, but I feel like this should be more readily available from the system itself. Perhaps it is, and I just don't know how?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu#Releases

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Sarisyesterday at 4:06 PM

Same problem I have with Debian.

At least Fedora just uses a version number!

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throwaway173738yesterday at 1:38 PM

Try cat /etc/os-release. The codenames are probably there. I know they are for Debian.

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