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Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
by Aaron J. Seigo on Monday 08/May/2006, @13:28
> Kubuntu broken, neglected by its wider community

i personally run both kubuntu and suse. i have run other distros in the past on my desktop (including mandrake and red hat). with that background my personal take on kubuntu is this: the first release of kubuntu wasn't stellar, but it was promising. breezy was good enough to use, though it certainly had room to grow and lots of polish yet remained to do. when you have limited resources, that's to be expected. the real test is what happens on the next release.

i'm running dapper right now on my laptop and it's a -huge- improvement on the already passable breezy. the time and effort being put into it is pretty obvious release-over-release. the kubuntu channel on irc grows, the number of people i know using it and even working on kubuntu itself grows ......

so i'm not sure if your characterization is accurate. perhaps you got this impression from the start of the kubuntu project, but i think the kubuntu team really proved this possibility false with their consistent and continued efforts (kudos to them)

btw, i too was healthily skeptical of ubuntu when it started out. breaking into the distro game is really hard. i was hopeful but quietly skeptical of kubuntu when it started, too. but it's really hard to make final judgements on such projects that aren't obviously flawed in some way until they've had a couple years under their belt. perhaps you, like me, fall into the more conservative crowd when it comes to "new and improved" distros ;)
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Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
by vexorian on Monday 08/May/2006, @14:14
<p>I am running kubuntu 5.10 and have to say that it is working really well. And KDE is going really well right here. That makes me skeptical about the conclusion that ubuntu is not KDE friendly.</p>

<p>It just got gnome as default desktop. If you download Kubuntu's package from Ubuntu you can install fully working KDE and then upgrade it</p>

<p>It was not hard for me a new user in the linux world to get into Kubuntu</p>

<p>And there are Stand alone Kubuntu CDs that have ubuntu's installer but that defaults to KDE instead of gnome. When Dapper gets into stable I am gonna download Kubuntu directly</p>

<p>Only issues I had with Kubuntu are the default appearance it got. I find kubuntu's splash screen hideous and had to replace it with KDE's I also had to modiffy a lot of things about the colors</p>

<p><i>. Starting with Dapper Drake, the next release of Kubuntu to be released at the beginning of June, Canonical will ship CD sets of Kubuntu in the same manner as it did with Ubuntu in the past. Artwork of the CD sets was shown to the attendants of the meeting.</i></p>

I personally think this is a great step forward.
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  • Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
    by cw on Monday 08/May/2006, @14:52
    > I am running kubuntu 5.10 and have to say that it is working really well.
    > And KDE is going really well right here. That makes me skeptical about
    > the conclusion that ubuntu is not KDE friendly.

    The conclusion is that KDE is not currently a priority for Ubuntu, that Kubuntu is treated as 'nice to have' which is not 'first-class citizenship', and that nothing specifical has been said regarding how this problem will be fixed and whether it will be fixed.

    If you're in doubt, take a look at this:

    https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+specs?show=all

    Ten specifications are tagged 'essential', almost all Gnome specific, neither KDE specific. Even DapperReleaseProcess is Gnome specific:

    "This still allows plenty of time (three weeks) from the GNOME string freeze to ours."

    "Links and cross-references: GNOME 2.13.x/2.14 release schedule"

    Needless to say, Kubuntu happens to be following the same release schedule. So what exactly is the point in being enthusiastic about Kubuntu as a KDE distro, if it doesn't even adjust it's releases to KDE? Is it that it started to work rather well lately? Well, Suse for instance has already worked well for ages.

    Or is it just an irrational fear of being left aside? In that case just stop hyping Ubuntu until it doesn't leave KDE aside. I don't say 'attack', I just say stop giving it gratuitous praise.
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    • Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
      by javier on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @00:47
      Ubuntu choose gnome (probably, but not only) because they have a fixed release schedule. For them it was easy to adapt they own release schedule around gnome's. That's one huge point gnome has over kde: fixed release schedules. Please note that I prefere KDE over Gnome. Since KDE depends heavily on QT (which is a good thing) it's more difficult to them to make a fixed release schedule. KDE is like debian, they release when it's ready. my 2€

      It's too late for dapper to make huge changes in kubuntu. We'll have to wait another release to see if cannonical and mark take KDE/Kubuntu more into account in their releases. Time will tell. AFAIK I'm using dapper on a daily basis. It's very stable/polished and with shipit support it will get kde/kubuntu closer to more people, which is a great thing.
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      • Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
        by cw on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @04:55
        > KDE is like debian, they release when it's ready.

        Actually they release when it's scheduled, and far more often than debian :-)

        > It's too late for dapper to make huge changes in kubuntu.
        > We'll have to wait another release to see if cannonical and mark take
        > KDE/Kubuntu more into account in their releases.

        Several months ago the same 'first-class citizen' story has been told, and it wasn't too late for dapper at that time.

        My suspicion is that the only reason why kubuntu exists is not having to admit that kde is not supported. From a marketing point of view it's understandable, of course.
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      • Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
        by Joe on Wednesday 24/May/2006, @13:16
        "That's one huge point gnome has over kde: fixed release schedules."

        Huge point to you, friend, not me.
        [ Reply To This | View ]
    • Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
      by Joergen Ramskov on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @03:51
      Ubuntu started out as a Gnome distribution. Kubuntu started out as an unofficial "add-on" to ubuntu not too long ago. It can hardly be a surprise that Ubuntu is still more focused on Gnome.

      So far, KDE has been getting more and more attention for each release and that seems to continue. These things takes time.

      I don't quite understand that you're so skeptical. I think Mark has done an extraordinary job so far. He's done nothing that makes me suspicious of his intentions in regards to KDE.

      Ps. I personally use Kubuntu and have done so for quite some time and while it is certainly far from perfect, I still like it and I'll most likely continue to use it.
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    • Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
      by superstoned on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @08:06
      Kubuntu might start to sync to KDE releases. not sure how they will do that, but they intend to have a look at making it possible...
      [ Reply To This | View ]
Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
by cw on Monday 08/May/2006, @14:36
> so i'm not sure if your characterization is accurate.
> perhaps you got this impression from the start of the kubuntu project

As a matter of fact yes. I was quite enthusiastic about the first release, until I got fed with everything crashing around me and dumped it. Then I looked at the second release especially in order to see Adept, and although it wasn't as bad as the first try I suddenly noticed that I'm not impressed at all, especially by Adept (at that stage, however I hope it got better in the meanwhile).

If you say so, then I'll have a look at Dapper (and also at Mepis, especially for girlfriend). I don't question the fact that it might actually be good in spite of being treated as a stepchild. But I do think it's irrational for KDE to make waves around a distro that turns it into the 'other DE available on the other CD-ROM that no one has really heard about'.
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Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
by reihal on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @00:18
Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
"when you have limited resources, that's to be expected."

Mark Shuttleworth has limited resources? Yeah right.
He should put his money where his mouth is.
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  • Re: Encourage KDE developers to join Kubuntu!
    by illissius on Tuesday 09/May/2006, @08:28
    > He should put his money where his mouth is.

    You seem to have missed TFA. It was reporting on a recent meeting of KDE and Kubuntu developers at LinuxTag, where Mark Shuttleworth pledged to do precisely that.
    [ Reply To This | View ]

 
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