News at nine: Canonical manages another PR nightmare

[kubicle]

While a trademark holder may need to react to obvious trademark infringements (it's not necessary to react to all infringements) to avoid abandonment, reaction is not necessary when there is no infringement such as non-commercial (which seems to be the case here) or nominal fair use.

The EFF seems to agree with me :
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet

[GreyGeek]

.... I forgot whether nano is installed by default, or not. I always install it -- my old brain cannot memorize the vi keyboard and with nano that is not necessary....

I exhibit that "old brain" syndrom as well, which is why I gave up on vi and emacs, and use a mouse instead of just the keyboard. By the way, while using the cli I've found that mc (midnight commander) is dolphin for bash. It also has a nano-type editor.

[SteveRiley]

glittering generality

What a deliciously evil term

[sithlord48]

wanting muon is really more for the people whos machines i support not all of them are happy to install via the cli.. althought i bet apper would work good for them i just don't like its interface.

ill have to look in to packagesearch too..

thanks dibl

[dibl]

For some multi-user situations, giving users sudo permission is a perfectly reasonable thing to do -- Debian wiki has a "how to".

I forgot whether nano is installed by default, or not. I always install it -- my old brain cannot memorize the vi keyboard and with nano that is not necessary.

BTW, the debian packagesearch package is a pretty handy way to look up packages and their capabilities, prior to installing anything.

[sithlord48]

synaptic i really would only use to find package names mostly i always do updates via apt-get. muon is more useful for the others whos machines i maintain.

i didn't have to enable sudo but i did because for some reason i always forget to su. on a side note why install sudo if they don't put a user on the list? if i have to manually add users to the group why even install it by default?

the main reason i would want to disable root is because its a known account for people to brute force (if a net facing service) . then again most dont' allow root login anyway so maybe its not important to disable it

oh i forgot the other BIG difference is that i had to install nano for editing . why cause im just used to nano (im sure that there is a cli text app included by default maybe vi or emacs?)

[dibl]

... what im missing the most is muon i have to use synaptic ....

You can probably get by with using synaptic to install user packages, although that is not recommended by the siduction developers. But don't use it for dist-upgrades -- you could bork your system completely if some types of system packages are updated.

its mostly little things like having to enable sudo for your users and having a Root account (Btw anyone know how i can disable root account>?)

Well, you don't HAVE to enable sudo for your users -- right? Debian is designed to let root do the administrative tasks, and users to do their user tasks. You're kind of fighting nature to try to make Debian behave like *buntu, in that regard.

However, that and related subjects are covered here, but I don't think it is possible "disable" root entirely (it is not really disabled in *buntu, btw). With a secure root password, why would that be a desirable thing to do?

[sithlord48]

Kubuntu has one thing i can't seam to get (from the repos) in debian MUON!

Apper is almost unuseable to me because it uses the "software center" model instead of the "package manager" model. basicly i want to be able to select more then one package for install / removal at a time.

im using siduction/aptosid with kdeNext enabled i've recently installed on my netbook and other then a few things not installed by default, like NetworkManager is not installed by default so no nice panel icon for my wireless , there is a tool and was easily able to get network manger working . but what im missing the most is muon i have to use synaptic and even the synaptic in debian is a bit different then one here in ubuntu i can't figure out how to add a quick search (filter) to the tool bar.

its mostly little things like having to enable sudo for your users and having a Root account (Btw anyone know how i can disable root account>?)

[GreyGeek]

......We should also understand the velocity at which these various derivatives move;.....

A similar "velocity" is demonstrated by what I've called in the past the "Window of compatibility" that slides along the timeline. The leading edge of the window is where new kernels establish compatibility with recently released hardware. The trailing edge of the window is where old hardware falls out of compatibility because kernels that supported them are no longer supported and are replaced by newer kernels. The width of the window depends on the hardware involved and its popularity.

[dmeyer]

Sure, there are examples to the contrary of any "general rule of thumb". But, how many open bug reports are there against KDE 4.8.4?

I wll plead guilty to making (or attempting to make) my point with a glittering generality. We tend to value "stable" highly, but when considering the desirable attributes of productivity software, it is often the case that we would trade some stability for the improved features and functions of the newest released version.

That's a good point but open bug report count does not always give an accurate account of stability because if you see 70+% of resolved bugs this is the outcome: "Bug fixed in next version." or "Bug fixed in Master." Therefore that metric isn't very good as almost all the resolutions are only applicable in the next version.

Still, I think you are getting me wrong. I am saying that newer KDE versions are more stable than older ones. I am not saying that 4.8.x is unstable - just less stable than 4.11.x.

[dibl]

Sure, there are examples to the contrary of any "general rule of thumb". But, how many open bug reports are there against KDE 4.8.4?

I wll plead guilty to making (or attempting to make) my point with a glittering generality. We tend to value "stable" highly, but when considering the desirable attributes of productivity software, it is often the case that we would trade some stability for the improved features and functions of the newest released version.

[dmeyer]

100% concur.

Debian stable offers old, and VERY STABLE software. OLD = STABLE. Sorry, that's just a kind of self-evident proposition. But you don't have to be limited by the version of KDE included with stable, if you want newer. NEWER = LESS STABLE. You pays your money, and you takes your chances.

I don't think older = more stable in all cases. At least with KDE newer has always tended to be more stable for me. KDE has stabilised as a whole very beautifully since 4.8 but I feel that 4.9 was a substantial improvement in stability especially with respect to Akonadi/Nepomuk and Kontact. On top of that, KDE 4.10 did a lot for the stability and performance of Nepomuk. Only with KDE 4.10 to 4.11 do I not see the usual noteworthy increase in stability but at the same time I did see a nice improvement in memory usage and Kwin has a few important bug fixes when it came to mulitple monitors. I think sometimes newer does mean more stable, but as a general rule of thumb I think your statement does hold true.

Another example of newer = more stable was Gnome in the early 3.x series. Each new version although it broke every customization and extension did as a whole improve stability a lot.

[dibl]

The point of all this is that the claim "KDE on Debian is strong" can be argued positively or negatively. A better discourse would be to avoid broad claims and instead consider the specifics.

100% concur.

Debian stable offers old, and VERY STABLE software. OLD = STABLE. Sorry, that's just a kind of self-evident proposition. But you don't have to be limited by the version of KDE included with stable, if you want newer. NEWER = LESS STABLE. You pays your money, and you takes your chances.

[dmeyer]

Well, not to be argumentative, but that's not necessarily the case:

don@e6500:~$ inxi -v3
System:    Host: e6500 Kernel: 3.12-0.towo-siduction-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) 
           Desktop: KDE 4.11.3 (Qt 4.8.6) Distro: siduction 13.1.0 Firestarter - kde - (201305211844)

Sorry but I should have justified what I said with some specifics. Most Debian users I've met say Stable is good for servers (most definitely not good for desktop when using 2+ year old software) and that you can get away with testing for general desktop usage (1+ year old software which is kind of acceptable.) Most of the people I've met say don't use Unstable or Experimental because things do occasionally break (don't know what Debian users' definitions of break is.) Furthermore, when it comes close to release time then Testing/Unstable/Experimental all fall quite far behind and stay behind for 6 to 12 months. SteveRiley nicely demonstrates by referencing specific package versions.

I'm not saying Debian is a poor distro, in fact it's an exceptional distro but I do not find it, personally, to be a very good KDE distro and I am not a huge fan of it as a general desktop distro. I have used it server side before and loved it but when it comes to most of my server needs then 12.04 just seems easier to use and more than capable of meeting my needs. Still, Ubuntu relies very heavily on Debian for packaging, and it is one of the most important distros out there...

[SteveRiley]

What we have here is a perfect example of where details matter when making claims. The claim under consideration is: "KDE on Debian is strong." OK, but because there exist so many different Debian derivatives, and there exist so many different states of packaging across these derivatives, that the claim by itself is useless. Before making judgments, it's important to get a better understanding of the facts.

• Debian 7.2 stable offers KDE 4.8.4. Several releases behind current, and therefore missing a number of important bug fixes and useful new capabilities.
• Debian 7.2 testing offers KDE 4.10.5. An improvement over stable, but still not current.
• Debian 7.2 unstable offers KDE 4.11.3. This is the current released KDE version.
• Debian experimental, interestingly, is one release behind testing; it offers KDE 4.11.2.
• Debian's KDE packagers appear to have abandoned their separate effort, because http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/ is down; last time I checked, they were offering either a late 4.9 or an early 4.10. But perhaps the maintainers have simply decided to do their work inside unstable rather than in a separate repository; http://lists.debian.org/debian-qt-kde/ shows regular activity.
• KWheezy, being based on Debian stable, offers 4.8.4.
• Siduction 13.1 is based on Debian unstable as of May 2013, which offers KDE 4.10.3.
• Siduction's KDE next repository offers 4.11.3, the current released version of KDE.

And the above is just a moment in time. We should also understand the velocity at which these various derivatives move; typically, Siduction plus their repositories moves slightly faster than Debian unstable, so if being as close to up-to-date as possible is your goal, then Debian unstable by itself shouldn't be your long-term choice.

The point of all this is that the claim "KDE on Debian is strong" can be argued positively or negatively. A better discourse would be to avoid broad claims and instead consider the specifics. Oh, and yes, I'm fully aware that I'm using the KDE-on-Debian topic as a proxy for why better discourse on all topics is a worthy practice.