Clark, Rob wrote:
just some random thoughts on our release model, etc.. I've been meaning to write up for a while but haven't had time
[+1] :)
Actually, the issue isn't as much with Ubuntu as with Android.
For Ubuntu, I have stopped pointing people at Linaro and always advise them to use official Ubuntu releases because there they at least stand a chance of getting some kind of support - although they often return from #ubuntu-arm saying that nobody would/could help them there... And don't get me wrong, I absolutely do not expect Linaro to provide Ubuntu support, I would actually prefer if Linaro Ubuntu builds were much more less visible to end users :)
For Android on e.g. Pandaboard, there simply is not much else than Linaro to point people to. The original TI Pandroid effort was scrapped when TI found that it is too much work to support a user centric Android release and now TI as well points to Linaro. The only other place one could point people to is plain AOSP, but that lacks stuff like HW accell and isn't the focus of Google any more as far as panda is concerned.
So Linaro is the only viable solution there, but as with Ubuntu, there is no end-customer support and the monthly releases make it a moving target. Again, I do not blame Linaro for the lack of support, it is simply a fact that "Android as a distribution" is way less supported than others, especially on less mainstream platforms. Having e.g. Cyanogenmod on Panda would surely help a lot, but I guess there is no critical mass for that and dev boards like Panda and others are in a way moving targets themselves...
So I guess the only thing that can be done short-term is to state very clearly what Linaro builds are and what they are not and to discourage the average user from going down that road unless they know what they are doing (which will fail as well since users like car drivers all think they are above average..)
Regards,
Vladimir