Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?

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Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?
by sebas on Monday 08/May/2006, @12:29

> 1. What does 'first-class citizen' mean, and how is being 'less default
> than others' compatible with first-class citizenship?

The default on Kubuntun will be KDE, the default on Ubuntu will be GNOME, the default on Xubuntu will be XFCE, dead simple :-)

> 2. In what way is it reasonable to try to provide the best KDE
> implementation on a system that is not optimized for KDE? Is this just for
> the pure challenge of it?

Kubuntu will be optimized for KDE. The parts that are shared with GNOME will be optimized for both desktop, it's not all that hard to have both, KDE and GNOME running really fine on the same base system. Canonical will embed more KDE developers in their development process to assure that enough expertise for both desktops goes in.

Related Links

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Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?
by cw on Monday 08/May/2006, @12:51

> The default on Kubuntun will be KDE, the default on Ubuntu will be GNOME,
> the default on Xubuntu will be XFCE, dead simple :-)

:-)

Yes, and also dead newspeak, as long as the very name 'Kubuntu' says 'I am just a modification of something called Ubuntu'. Being the default on a non-default version is really the same as being 'less default than others', and this is precisely what I was saying. How can a first-class citizen not be equal to the other first-class citizens? Or do we count citizen classes from zero?

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Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?
by Aaron J. Seigo on Monday 08/May/2006, @13:20

the relevant term here is "looking a gift horse in the mouth"

relationships are built; they don't appear magically in a day. they can be strengthened through cooperation and mutual discussion and subsequent efforts, and conversely they can be destroyed by preventing the same.

this is a step forward for the relationship between canonical and kde which only helps improve our stable of partners. given where we were with ubuntu when it first launched, a ton of progress has been made and the kubuntu team deserves all the credit for this particular set of developments imho. is it perfect right now? perhaps not, but perfection isn't the destination only the goal.

personally, i'm pretty confident that the user base will speak with its feet and that canonical will continue to improve their support of all the projects that are in demand and producing quality software.

meanwhile, Novell, Mandriva, Linspire, Xandros, Arch and on and on and on and on (i saw probably half a dozen kde-centric distros in brazil last month that i'd never even heard of) will continue doing their bit to grow the reach of kde and free software desktops.

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Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?
by cw on Monday 08/May/2006, @13:43

Aaron,

I very much appreciate your friendly and cooperative attitude, and really I neither want to nor am able ( :-) ) to spoil KDE's collaboration with anybody.

> the kubuntu team deserves all the credit

Indeed. I don't blame the kubuntu team for anything.

> a ton of progress has been made

This is what I really feel compelled to challenge. The only progress I can see is that:

A. now I can bring in KDE on Ubuntu through the back door

and

B. now I can order Kubuntu per mail

And B. only happens to be the case because the LiveCD installer has been finished on time. Had the LiveCD installer not been finished, Canonical would have further shipped _two_ Ubuntu CD-ROMs and _zero_ Kubuntu CD-ROMs.

Which proves my point: Kubuntu and Ubuntu are not equal.

Now I am not mad at anybody for this, after all it's not my money (unfortunately :-) ).

But what I really, really cannot understand is why the community is so excited about Kubuntu. I can understand XFCE being excited about Xubuntu. XFCE is relatively small, and it gets exposure this way. KDE, on the other hand, seems to be twice as popular as all other DEs combined. And the KDE community is possibly the most numerous of all Free Software communities. Under these circumstances, it's not surprising at all that Canonical wants to talk. What's surprising is that KDE makes news out of something that is not even strictly speaking promises. Now I don't suggest arrogance, but why not focus the news on KDE-friendly distros (whichever they be)?

This at least until Kubuntu becomes independent (and gets a name, a release schedule and more than one employee of its own).

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Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?
by anonymous coward on Monday 08/May/2006, @14:42

I think you should download dapper drake when it gets released, try it out.
It has really done great things for kde. It simplifies and ties kde closer together. A great desktop.

The only time where I saw that I was using ubuntu packages was when I installed firefox and it had by default some ubuntu bookmarks and no kubuntu bookmarks. Other than that, I've had none of the problems that you suggest should be there.

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Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?
by wiesen on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @01:09

I can understand your scepticism and partly share your view - KDE really deserves a distribution that is build completely around KDE.

A better example is the CUPS trouble that plagued dapper during development. The problem is not that I would expect everything to work flawlessly in an unrealeased distribution, but the mere fact that an (at that time) incompatible unreleased CVS version of CUPS was introduced in Ubuntu because it goes well with GNOME and their tools - it improves the functionality. Unfortunaltey it breaks KDE functionality - a known issue, that under normal circumstances would have to be fixed within KDE before the next stable release of CUPS anyway. The matter is that Ubuntu's choice of CVS CUPS was based on what's good for Ubuntu/GNOME and not Kubuntu/KDE. So that's where I agree.

On the other hand you really should have a look at Kubuntu if you haven't already. The excitement in my oppinion is simply based on the great mix of usability and features that Kubuntu provides. In my book it really is the best KDE distro there is at this time - no matter if it builds upon a GNOME-centric core or not.

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Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?
by Ian Whiting on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @05:53

Why don't you just use Gentoo, SuSE or Mandrake then. Gentoo will give you complete control over what gets built.

I am sure the Knoppix team currently enjoy the exact opposite of what you are trying to say here.

I just think that this arguement is a little pointless. What I am more concerned about is what the Gnome team are doing to try to share technologies. We often hear about KDE making use of some technology that Gnome has been using but not the other way around.

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Re: Is Kubuntu actually feasible?
by Eero Tamminen on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @11:39

Linking C++ libs from C is harder than linking C libs from C++...

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