Blufin LTS vs. GTS?

General
1

I am not asking about technical differences between LTS vs. GTS, because there are described on GTS and LTS web pages. I am interested who are target users for LTS vs. GTS or what is the main purpose of each one.

On GTS web page is written:

  • “It targets the majority of users. It is slang for “Grand Touring Support”, to signify a faster cadence than an LTS.”
  • "lts for a work machine and stable for your hot rod."

On LTS web page:

  • “Bluefin LTS is a workstation designed for people who prefer Long Term Support.”

I really read the docs, but it is somehow not clear to me who should be main target users or purposes of use between LTS vs. GTS?

ADDITIONALY:
Like I see it, Blufin is for users that need simple to use system like switching from Windows and geeks coming from some other fancy Linux distro and wants to do it the old classic way are not main target, but I see quite complicated to even begin with. On web page there are questions:

  • x86 vs. ARM
  • Interl/AMD vs Nvidia
  • Blufin, Blufin GTS, Blufin LTS
  • and there is developer mode for all of them and GDX (like Nvidia LTS but with AI)
    all this choices may scare people away before even they begin, because have difficulty to even begin with selecting “right” image.
4 Likes
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This is an accident of history. LTS didn’t start until much later. I think LTS will end up being more desirable in the long run.

If we had to do it all over again I’d probably would have gone centos only with the vanilla LTS and then the -hwe branch, which would cover everything.

The website is geared towards people who install Linux on behalf of other people, since normal people don’t install operating systems. We don’t make ISOs of the dx images anymore though.

2 Likes
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I have been using Ubuntu almost 20 years, but there were only two choices:

  • LTS: released every 2 years and supported for 5 years. Intended for serious work → kernel is upgraded few times in lifecycle to get new hardware support.
  • Regular releases: released every 6 months and supported for 9 months. Intended for enthusiasts to see what is new and on the edge.

The issue with above is that Ubuntu LTS is getting older every year and some never apps (released as DEB packages) do not work on it anymore. But this should not be an issue on Blufin, because of flatpak focus that works the same on never or older versions.

I see Blufin has many channels:

  • latest
  • stable
  • stable daily
  • GTS
  • LTS (beta)

More then one choice is nice to have… like going to the supermarket and you have few types of chocolate to choose from. But if there are many many many choices then I don’t see this as benefit, because I want only few good to excellent choices and just eliminate large amount of not so good one, to spare me the time to choose and more importantly prevent me to select bad choice.

What I see now, Blufin has many choices and pretty low number of daily users. To get to some stability, there must be many users to use the same channel, so problems are found out quickly, reported and fixed. Specially before they traverse down the pipe of channels to GTS and LTS.

Like I see it GTS and LTS are going to be intended to similar user base. Is there some vision now, to merge this two channels into single one, like GTS to LTS, probably not in the near feature, but in little bit longer run?

I am now currently on “stable” channel, to see the progress, but in few months I plan to move to more slowly paced version like GTS or LTS, so I am asking the question to see the purpose of each one. Like I understand your answer, GTS is probably good for now, but it will be recommended to use LTS when team is sure it is working fine for few months, goes successfully through some upgrade process etc.

Like I follow on Github, it looks like LTS is going to be using CentOS vanilla as much as possible, if this is true, I see this as a good sign, to be part of much larger user base.

1 Like
4

I would use the one that says “Recommended for most users”.

latest and the dailies are not exposed to users so having those doesn’t hurt anybody. We could remove the LTS beta from the website to make it only 2 options?

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5

Maybe all it is needed in download drop down window is to write beside Blufin LTS Beta in brackets “Recommended for Enthusiasts”.