What is the future of Kubuntu?

[alokmahor]

Dear all,
I am using kubuntu since last 7-8 years. It give me good look, sophistication, control and ease of use. It was fantastic till there was sponsorship from canonical till 2012. After that I am observing huge degradation in Kubuntu.

What is the future of Kubuntu? Is it going to die in some years? Every new release is full of deadly bug. Please someone tell me what is going on internally?

Thank you

[oshunluvr]

I have no clue what the future may be for Kubuntu. You might get better answers if you went right to the developers.

If you're experiencing issues, you might consider KDEneon instead of Kubuntu. Same familiar base as Kubuntu, but faster development, newest toolkits, and releases of bug fixes. Jonathon Riddel is the project leader. A few of us here have moved over to it with no regrets.

There's a User version, LTS User version, and Developer versions, both stable and unstable.

[Qqmike]

As for the future of Kubuntu, in general terms, and regarding various issues, there's lots of threads around here on that. Search with Google:
site:kubuntuforums.net future of Kubuntu

Exs.,
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...ure-of-Kubuntu
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...buntu-s-future
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...ure-of-Kubuntu
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...u-s-New-Future
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...Kubuntu-future
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...re-14-04-14-10
... etc. ..

[clivejo]

Many have speculated on the future of Kubuntu and many have been very wrong. The truth is that the future depends on the Kubuntu community, the likes of you and I who use Kubuntu and want to continue to use it. It is time to step up and give back to the community, see a problem, then do something about it! Many make excuses that they don't have technical know how, but the fact of the matter is that there are many ways to help out, testing new software, even submitting bug reports or writing/reading documentation. There is a saying "every little helps" and this holds true. As long as there are people willing to invest their time and skills to create Kubuntu, it will keep going. But I can tell you one thing that's for sure, treating developers as if they owe you something and are an employee not doing their "job" is a sure way to discourage them. There are plenty of more rewarding and pleasant ways to spend one's free time!

I am curious as to the deadly bug you talk of? Can you be more specific?

[Snowhog]

But I can tell you one thing that's for sure, treating developers as if they owe you something and are an employee not doing their "job" is a sure way to discourage them. There are plenty of more rewarding and pleasant ways to spend one's free time!

Well said.

As is the nature of most human beings, we find it easier to criticize and complain than to praise and compliment. In the case of Kubuntu development, developers are (to?) often seen as aloof and 'doing their own thing' without (seriously) listening to input|suggestions|comments from actual users. I'm reasonably sure that that is far from being true.

Kubuntu developers are genuinely interested in and dedicated to creating a top notch Linux operating system that the broad base of users want. Input is desired; is needed. Development doesn't happen in a vacuum, and the most needed (IMO) element of the process; one the developers alone cannot provide; is testing; lots of testing. That is were users come in.

Kubuntu, like every other flavor of Linux in existence, is and always will be 'works in progress'; never finished; always being improved. And with very few exceptions, all by unpaid volunteers! Every one of them deserves our, the end users, heartfelt thanks. We all benefit from their labors, and the most we ever had to do was downloand and install.

A lot of undetailed complaints get posted here (and else where) that might be categorized as 'pissing in the wind' for all the good they'll accomplish; vents and rants. But until relatively recently (to the best of my knowledge anyway), Kubuntu developers either weren't members here and probably didn't visit, and that's not a dis against them. We (KFN) aren't an official support venue for Kubuntu Linux. The official support venues are where they 'hang out' and from where discussions about Kubuntu occur. None of these venues are 'secret' or 'closed club' affairs. You can join in, sometimes directly; sometimes through request; but join you can. All it takes from you is the desire to help and the time to actually do so.

[clivejo]

It is also worth noting that Kubuntu is KDE software on Ubuntu. Many of our problems are trying to merge these two projects, which have vastly different goals/plans (ie MIR/Wayland).

We often get users telling us what they really think of Plasma 5 and that is is not as good or as stable as KDE 4, but this is something that Kubuntu developers can do little about. We are providing the software as KDE intends. KDE4 is no longer supported, people don't like that, but this is way of the world.

[oldgeek]

One of the things that impresses me about Kubuntu and other free distributions is the fact that much, if not most, of the work is done by unpaid volunteers. Why would someone want to give up their free time to help design an OS, especially given the amount of bad press I've seen around the internet? That is dedication. I've been using Kubuntu since around 2008 or 2009 and have had an obviously more than a satisfactory experience with it. Last year I turned Kubuntu 16.04 into Neon by adding the repositories, and it has worked very well for me, too (except for Discover, which often crashes when I try to shut it off). I don't know what the future of Kubuntu will be, either for me or for the rest of the user community, but I agree that a huge Thank You is in order to all the people who have made this OS possible and continue to keep it going. So, thanks a million from an ex-Windows user!

[GreyGeek]

alokmahor, I like KDE Neon because I love the latest and greatest of Plasma 5 which, IMO, blows every other desktop out of the water. As I understand it Neon is built on top of Kubuntu 16.04 LTS. My installation is rock sold stable and I have yet to encounter any "bug" in any of the desktop apps or 3rd party apps that I use. Current Kubuntu releases include Plasma 5 and another excellent subsystem, systemd which, in fact, is PID #1. There are some apps I do not like and so do not use. Discover is one. I prefer Muon or Synaptic. I've tried out Thunderbird. It works OK, but after 6 months I've decided to go back to KMail, which worked OK for me.

Sometimes a "serious bug" is merely a user problem that need adjustment. When I first installed Neon apps opened up lightening fast. Lately, however, I began getting 15-30 second delays before the app' GUI would display. Also, the app's icon would appear in the panel, then disappear for 20+ seconds and then reappear, followed shortly by the app's GUI displaying. I decided to see what was taking all the time and watched in KSystemGuard as I opened the browser Vivaldi. Several Vivaldi threads appeared but each had "disk sleep" associated with them. Eventually disk accesses resumed and the browser appeared. I right clicked on Vivaldi in KSysguard and gave it a higher priority, usually between 6 and 7.
I also gave systemd, kdeinit5, and my disk drivers and nvidia PID higher priorities. After doing that my apps now pop open as they used to do.

[AHoneybun]

Current Kubuntu releases include Plasma 5 and another excellent subsystem, systemd which, in fact, is PID #1.

Any Ubuntu flavor or that uses it past 15.10 has systemd either way.

[jlittle]

... . It was fantastic till there was sponsorship from canonical till 2012.

I don't understand that. My understanding is that Canonical "sponsored" Kubuntu from the beginning, in that they employed the lead developer, until about about 2013 (plus or minus 2 years), and still support it with infrastructure (repositories, launchpad and so on). IMO a lot of people under appreciate how helpful that stuff is, 70,000 packages ready to go, and easy to base PPAs on.

After that I am observing huge degradation in Kubuntu...

Well, my experience was that up 14.04 it was good (no, brilliant) but then struggled for a while; on my old hardware I should have cut my losses after 14.10 and gone back to 14.04 LTS. 15.04 and 15.10 were terrible for me. But with new hardware and 16.04 I was back to brilliantly good. If you're still having problems with 16.04 or 16.10 I suggest a clean reinstall, using btrfs.

What is the future of Kubuntu?

Is it going to die in some years?

No-one knows, IMO it depends on quite a few things. How the display stack, Wayland vs X, the evil would-be monopolist with closed drivers, and smartphone integration are all murky.
Canonical's future is murky too.

John Little

[AHoneybun]

We get a lot of backbone support from Canonical still and like you say that is VERY useful and helpful to have. The move to Plasma 5 from KDE4 during 15.04 was rocky at best and I believe with Plasma 5 now very stable and strong we have a great OS and even better community.

[MoonRise]

To all the Kubuntu Devs... Thank you! Without you we wouldn't have the freedom on our systems we enjoy!

[Qqmike]

MoonRise: To all the Kubuntu Devs... Thank you! Without you we wouldn't have the freedom on our systems we enjoy!

Yes! Thank you for Kubuntu. For me, Kubuntu--"as is"--is far out in the lead of back-up choices (maybe Mint KDE, maybe NEON, etc.). Been here with Kubuntu since circa 2006-2007.

[GreyGeek]

+1

[Goeroeboeroe]

I don't react often, as I don't have much to say about Kubuntu. But I'm really thankful Kubuntu exists, so: thank you!