Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

My faith in the ubuntu name is quickly falling.  This time I found an error with php5 and the ImageMagick extension.  Running php on the command line, you'll see the following error message:

PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/imagick.so' - libWand.so.9: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0

Apparently, there's a quick and dirty workaround:

ln -s /usr/lib/libMagick.so.10 /usr/lib/libMagick.so.9
ln -s /usr/lib/libWand.so.10 /usr/lib/libWand.so.9

A conversation about this problem is shown in the link.

Nonetheless, this is pretty disturbing.  The biggest issue here is that the ubuntu community once again had made a political decision to move ImageMagick off and is no longer in the main repository.  Reading the discussion, you'd have several options like using the gutsy repository or even recompiling php5/ImageMagick.  All of these solutions are unacceptable to me.  The two things that could've easily addressed this situation in the first place are:

• Keep ImageMagick 9 in the Hardy repository
• More testing!!!!!

I vote on the later.  Matter of fact, I think the Ubuntu community ought to perform more tests before releasing these distributions.  I can see for minor packages how this type of bug might have little impact.  However, I've had stability issues and now major libraries with irresponsible bugs attached.  You just can't call a distribution "stable" when things are messed up.

I'm all for progress and pushing the envelope, but this things ought to be balanced with stability in a highly reputable distribution.  Having made the switch from Windows to Linux years ago, I made a clear decision to use something that I felt had more stability.  Now, I'm seeing all types of faults in the delivery of this system in favor of marketing and attempting to be cutting edge through sticking with a deadline of 6 month periodic releases.

The thing is that for most of us, we just want something that works, is virus free, doesn't crash and stops giving us headaches.  At this point, I'm starting to get tempted to pick up a Macintosh, despite my long time prejudice against their hardware.  It seems like the last system left that truly is stable.