Ubuntu: "We're not Linux"

[GreyGeek]

Upstream (Meaning KDE itself)....

"Upstream" to me always refers to the distro being forked, not a DE. Thus, Ubuntu was forked from Debian. To go "upstream" of Ubuntu is to go to Debian. KDE is not a distro, obviously.

[dequire]

I agree. I expect to be using Kubuntu & KDE until I begin drooling on my shirt and can't zip up my pants. But, according to my wife, that could be tomorrow!

Obviously, that's her way of keeping you in line!

[claydoh]

I agree with you, but when Canonical speak to the market they also speak to the developers. Branding might be one thing, but when I speak to friends who say "PC" when they mean "windows", might have heard of "Linux" but they've never heard Ubuntu. I don't think that it's especially wise to distance yourself from the one brand that upholds the philosophy. If Canonical don't want to be "Linux" they're biting their tail, both towards the devs and the market/branding. This said I also is happy with all that Shuttlesworth contributed with, for Kubuntu. My experience with Ubuntu OS is not what made me keep GNU/Linux but KDE and KFN. I wouldn't complain one bit if Kubuntu went upstream with a real user and developer funded infrastructure, I'd chip in with all I could.

B.R

Jonas

Upstream (Meaning KDE itself) will very likely for political and realistic reasons, not sponsor an official 'KDE' distro. Though the idea is a good one especially as Kubuntu have done early work in the Mobile sector and have a bit more experience with Arm architectures.

[claydoh]

. I suspect that sometime between now and 2012 he will probably drop the infrastructure support as well. When that occurs I feel confident that others will step in and help, and that Kubuntu will move upstream to Debian. This forum is as much about KDE as it is Kubuntu (that's what the "K" stands for) and its mission won't change.

Why do you suspect that? And what about Xubuntu, Edubuntu, and any project using launchpad?

[MoonRise]

Kubuntu always here. No need to change unless they do falter, which will not happen. So, kubuntu it is. They keep up with KDE perfectly well and the way I like it. As soon as 12.04 is out, I'll install. As soon as 12.10 is out, I'll install. nuf said.

[bra|10n]

... I suspect that sometime between now and 2012 he will probably drop the infrastructure support as well. When that occurs I feel confident that others will step in and help, and that Kubuntu will move upstream to Debian. This forum is as much about KDE as it is Kubuntu (that's what the "K" stands for) and its mission won't change.

Absolutely agree. But I'd advocate the move to occur sooner rather than later.

I chuckled when I read a irc snippet from [RIDDELL] proposing to poach Pino, suggesting the time was right to pull him into the Kubuntu fold. Thinking they could meet him a@Debian HQ for a little arm-twisting and quick upstream proposal

[GreyGeek]

I agree. I expect to be using Kubuntu & KDE until I begin drooling on my shirt and can't zip up my pants. But, according to my wife, that could be tomorrow!

[dequire]

Kubuntu and the state of free consumer software

Kubuntu is going to be just fine. The sky is not falling. in the long-run, I think we'll look at this as a good thing. Or at least one with as many posititves as negatives!

[Jonas]

As far as that article goes, I agree with the opinion that it was just a page hit generator.

All Canonical is doing is creating a marketing niche that differentiates its distro from the other 300+ that are out there. Anyone who knows anything about Ubuntu and its children KNOW that it is Linux to the core, regardless of the market-speak from Canonical. The rest of the article complaining about passing fixes upstream is just pure, recycled anti-Canonical nonsense.

I, for one, appreciate the contributions that Mark Shuttlesworth made to FOSS by creating Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Those that don't agree can get every penny they spent on purchasing Kubuntu refunded. So, even though he is no longer paying Jonathan Riddell to work on Kubuntu, and its development now depends on the other 11 dev volunteers and other contributors, he IS supporting the infrastructure necessary to the development of Kubuntu. I suspect that sometime between now and 2012 he will probably drop the infrastructure support as well. When that occurs I feel confident that others will step in and help, and that Kubuntu will move upstream to Debian. This forum is as much about KDE as it is Kubuntu (that's what the "K" stands for) and its mission won't change.

I agree with you, but when Canonical speak to the market they also speak to the developers. Branding might be one thing, but when I speak to friends who say "PC" when they mean "windows", might have heard of "Linux" but they've never heard Ubuntu. I don't think that it's especially wise to distance yourself from the one brand that upholds the philosophy. If Canonical don't want to be "Linux" they're biting their tail, both towards the devs and the market/branding. This said I also is happy with all that Shuttlesworth contributed with, for Kubuntu. My experience with Ubuntu OS is not what made me keep GNU/Linux but KDE and KFN. I wouldn't complain one bit if Kubuntu went upstream with a real user and developer funded infrastructure, I'd chip in with all I could.

B.R

Jonas

[GreyGeek]

As far as that article goes, I agree with the opinion that it was just a page hit generator.

All Canonical is doing is creating a marketing niche that differentiates its distro from the other 300+ that are out there. Anyone who knows anything about Ubuntu and its children KNOW that it is Linux to the core, regardless of the market-speak from Canonical. The rest of the article complaining about passing fixes upstream is just pure, recycled anti-Canonical nonsense.

I, for one, appreciate the contributions that Mark Shuttlesworth made to FOSS by creating Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Those that don't agree can get every penny they spent on purchasing Kubuntu refunded. So, even though he is no longer paying Jonathan Riddell to work on Kubuntu, and its development now depends on the other 11 dev volunteers and other contributors, he IS supporting the infrastructure necessary to the development of Kubuntu. I suspect that sometime between now and 2012 he will probably drop the infrastructure support as well. When that occurs I feel confident that others will step in and help, and that Kubuntu will move upstream to Debian. This forum is as much about KDE as it is Kubuntu (that's what the "K" stands for) and its mission won't change.

[ardvark71]

i really like stability and am still waiting for canonical to get version 6.04 finished - they seem to have just left it. Lol

(Something is wrong with the smiley function, guys...)



(Here we go)

[Ole Juul]

I am no Ubuntu apologist, but this is all a big ado about a beta release note, if you ask me. A page hit generator.

I too think there's a lot to do about little here. In my opinion, the blog comments on the article, although intelligent, lack insight and basically go off on a discussion of little relevance. To me this "We're not Linux" statement is just another version of the old "beware of imitation" sales pitch. It's perfectly fine and simply states that "we think we're special". It's a statement of commitment.

As for the discussion about Debian, I've installed it on various machines over the years and really like the installer. The graphics are clear and easy to read. My preference for installations is to install the basic system and then pull in the bits that I like. For Debian there is a nice installation file that brings you to the command line and a great system already - just like FreeBSD. To me that is a real plus, OS wise. As for the DE, such as KDE, I have never understood why that gets so mixed up with the OS in regular talk - that is really confusing. The reason I started using Kubuntu was because I wanted KDE, not because of it's OS.

As for Debian being "behind" I do think that's a plus in most instances. Like dibl's wife, I really like stability and am still waiting for Canonical to get version 6.04 finished - they seem to have just left it. lol Is it true that nobody likes perfection? Or is it the case that the attention span is so short that when something new comes along the previous version gets forgotten? OK, that's a fanciful view of the world on my part. Nevertheless, even Debian lacks long term stability. I did run into a serious problem with Debian "being behind" when they didn't have SATA support and I was unwilling to pay extra for an IDE drive that was going out of style. In fact, that's when I installed Kubuntu 6.04 which has since been regraded to 8.04.

[claydoh]

Has anyone noted (other than a very brief comment on the blog) that the official release notes for 11.10 quite clearly state a Linux kernel as a heading??

I am no Ubuntu apologist, but this is all a big ado about a beta release note, if you ask me. A page hit generator.

[Flip the Switch]

At first blush I'd say it is an excellent distro. I plan to add more stuff and play around in the days ahead, but Debian 6.0.4 with the KDE 4.4.5 as the DE is an excellent option and is now on my list of goto's should something happen to Kubuntu.[/QUOTE]

Well, that's worth knowing so thank you for the info.
I might d/l it and have a play, as you say, just in case somat 'orrible 'appens to Kubuntu.

[GreyGeek]

Debian Report:

I downloaded the Debian amd64 bit KDE iso. It weighed in at 640MB, and features KDE 4.4.5.

I used the latest version of VB to create a guest host with 20GB of virtual HD.

It immediately found my wifi connection and established a download rate of 1.8MB/sec.

The install was not graphical. One is presented with a series of blue console screens featuring red background for highlighting. Being console based the install interrogation went very fast. It sets up BOTH a root account and a user account. After the 640 MB on the iso was used up it made a fast internet connection and pulled down over 900 more applications. The total time of install was about 25 minutes. Using the 1GB iso would have probably bypassed the necessity of doing a live install of downloading apps, but I don't know how much faster it would be.

The sudo command is not used. However, when I "su"'d to root to install the latest version of VBoxLinuxAddtions.run, I was told that I didn't have permission. The "whomai" command said I was root. I have to figure that one out.

The KDE 4.4.5 DE presented itself very nicely. Being 4.4 it shows the age, but the DE was, during the limited time I've used it so far, without bugs or failures of any kind that I could notice.

At first blush I'd say it is an excellent distro. I plan to add more stuff and play around in the days ahead, but Debian 6.0.4 with the KDE 4.4.5 as the DE is an excellent option and is now on my list of goto's should something happen to Kubuntu.