Not Good News
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 10:03 AM EDT |
This is not a good news, at least for me. When I dropped Suse, due to Novel's covenant agreement with MS, I looked at various replacement KDE based Distros (Kubuntu, Mepis, Mandrake, Aptsoid, etc.), I decided to go with Kubuntu for multiple reasons. 1. I am an ardent KDE fan and at the time, it had the best KDE implementation. It always made the latest upgrades and updates from KDE available. 2. It uses Debian apt-get/Aptitude package manager, which I consider it to be the best and complete among many. 3. It is supported by a commercial company, which supposedly meant good long term support. Well, with such news, so much for that. I am not sure what triggered this development, but I believe Canonical is trying to protect their investment. Concentrating on Unity only for Ubuntu and abandoning Gnome created a huge controversy for them. One would think that they would support Kubuntu even more especially when KDE did right. KDE kept the Classic Desktop Interface and added multiple other interfaces, which users can switch to anyone on the fly without rebooting or re-login. I guess they see it as a threat instead of being a strength. May be due to the latest news from KDE about releasing the Spark tablet, which could be strong competitor. Or may be it is just a matter of cutting cost. Who knows! I just hope Kubuntu will survive and continue to flourish. May be Chakra and Kubuntu could join forces and resources to create a new top notch Distro. based on Debian. |
| Steven_Rosenber Feb 07, 2012 12:16 PM EDT |
I think Canonical did the right thing for Canonical. They need to focus everything on their main desktop. I've used a few KDE systems over the years, and other great KDE distros include: Fedora KDE Spin OpenSUSE with KDE Slackware Kubuntu isn't going away. It just won't have a paid developer. Singular. Yep, read the LWN article: it's one developer. If the community wishes to continue supporting Kubuntu it will thrive. Xubuntu never had a paid developer, as far as I know. |
| Jeff91 Feb 07, 2012 12:32 PM EDT |
"May be Chakra and Kubuntu could join forces and resources to create a new top notch Distro. based on Debian." Wait.... Err.... What? ~Jeff |
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 1:06 PM EDT |
Quoting:Wait.... Err.... What? Sorry, what was your question !? |
| gus3 Feb 07, 2012 1:10 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh: He already has done exactly that, based on Enlightenment. And done a spectacular job of it, I might add! |
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 1:25 PM EDT |
Thanks Gus3, but I was being facetious. Besides, that is what he thinks and I happen to think otherwise. In my opinion, Enlightenment is no way even close to KDE 4. |
| Khamul Feb 07, 2012 1:27 PM EDT |
WTF? This just figures. Kubuntu's a really good distro IMO, and I'm running it on my main desktop and my wife's laptop with great success. So they want to cut the one guy who's supporting it, so they can concentrate on their Unity POS? Goodbye *buntu, I guess I'll just switch over to the new Linux Mint 12 KDE. I'm currently running LM10KDE on my own laptop, and it works well; the few problems I have should be fixed now with the much newer KDE version 12 has.Quoting:One would think that they would support Kubuntu even more especially when KDE did right. KDE kept the Classic Desktop Interface and added multiple other interfaces Obviously, Mark S. doesn't think that's "right"; he wants to force everyone into using his POS touchscreen-esque UI, whether they like it or not. Now it looks like Linux Mint needs to pull out the stops and work harder on rebasing their distro on Debian instead of Ubuntu. |
| Jeff91 Feb 07, 2012 1:42 PM EDT |
My comment simply based on the fact that this: "May be Chakra and Kubuntu could join forces and resources to create a new top notch Distro. based on Debian" Makes zero sense. Why would an Ubuntu based distro and an Arch spin off combine to build something off of Debian? ~Jeff |
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 1:49 PM EDT |
Quoting:I guess I'll just switch over to the new Linux Mint 12 KDE. I like Linux Mint but, unfortunately the treatment KDE gets is as bad as the treatment Cinderella receive from her stepmother. :-) It takes them a year or more to release a KDE version with the latest Ubuntu. I would rather use Chakra. It is better than Kubuntu in performance and features except it doesn't use Debian apt-get/Aptitude, which I prefer over anything else. |
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 1:59 PM EDT |
Quoting:Why would an Ubuntu based distro and an Arch spin off combine to build something off of Debian? Because Chakra no longer depends on Arch and Debian is better supported and has much larger user base as a core instead of Arch. Besides, both are pretty much totally KDE based. |
| gus3 Feb 07, 2012 2:28 PM EDT |
Fettoosh wrote:In my opinion, Enlightenment is no way even close to KDE 4.But guess which runs better on my netbook? And if that isn't good enough for you, guess which one I'd rather file bug reports on? |
| Khamul Feb 07, 2012 2:32 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh: The problem with non-Debian distros, and one of the giant advantages of Ubuntu, is the software selection in the repos. With some other small-time distro like Chakra, I'd have to spend all kinds of time compiling software, any time I wanted to use or try something that isn't in their very limited repositories. That's a giant time-sink. Whereas with the Debian-based distros, I just type "sudo apt-get install package" and I'm done, as just about every obscure piece of software is in there. LM12KDE is using all the latest stuff (almost; 4.8 probably wasn't quite ready when they were developing it, so they're using 4.7.4), and with the exodus from Ubuntu, maybe they'll bump up their release rate for the KDE version. The "treatment" isn't bad either; it's no worse than the treatment KDE gets from Kubuntu, and probably a little better. |
| kikinovak Feb 07, 2012 2:35 PM EDT |
I'm an IT consultant specialized in Linux and FOSS, and my company (http://www.microlinux.fr) installs networks for professional clients like small town halls, public libraries, schools and the likes. I've been working with about any Linux distribution under the sun: Slackware, Debian, CentOS, RHEL, Fedora, openSUSE, Pardus, Arch, Gentoo, Ubuntu and its derivatives, etc. On servers, I've been using mostly CentOS, Slackware and Debian, although I tend to favour Debian lately. Recently I gave the Debian Squeeze/KDE a shot on the desktop, and I must say, I was very positively surprised. I've been using a trimmed-down KDE 4 Debian Squeeze desktop on my main workhorse machine, and it's just perfectly bug-free and extremely reactive. Plus, with an el-cheapo NVidia video card, I get all the Compiz-like KWin effects. Sure, I've done a lot of tweaking, but the end result is as "sexy" as any openSUSE or Fedora install. But it's rock-solid, AND it's supported for much more than the usual 18 months. Another benefit: I can be lazy and use the same distro on both servers and desktops. Cheers from the freezing South of France! |
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 3:20 PM EDT |
Quoting:But guess which runs better on my netbook? Gus3, it is all good and dandy, but it is a personal preference after all. Quoting:The problem with non-Debian distros, and one of the giant ... Agreed, and don't forget that Ubuntu repositories also originate from Debian's. My whole point is, Kubuntu needs help and resources which the Chakra Team could furnish. It would be more advantageous and beneficial for both to combine resources. Any ways, I have no evidence but a hunch. I believe that Canonical is pissed at the KDE team because of the Spark. I hope the Spark works out but, like many who voiced their concerns, I also have concern about the initial hardware they are going with. I think they will be better off announcing at least two hardware configurations, even if the cost is higher for the high end. There will always be some who need better hardware and happen to have and would pay for better one. |
| jdixon Feb 07, 2012 3:23 PM EDT |
> ...but it is a personal preference after all. "which runs better on my netbook" is not really a matter of personal preference. |
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 3:28 PM EDT |
Quoting:LM12KDE is using all the latest stuff ... @Khamul, True for this recent release, but their history of supporting KDE is not impressive. I have been checking them out for couple years and their support hasn't even been adequate. |
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 3:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:"which runs better on my netbook" is not really a matter of personal preference. Aah, a Netbook not desktop! It is when you run the proper KDE interface built for a Netbook, like Plasma Netbook or Plasma Active |
| Jeff91 Feb 07, 2012 3:47 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh KDE vs E17 on a netbook is more a matter of KDE being a resource hog, not simply the layout of the desktop. A traditional desktop setup works AOK for most everyone I know on a netbook. ~Jeff |
| Khamul Feb 07, 2012 4:04 PM EDT |
Fettoosh wrote:Any ways, I have no evidence but a hunch. I believe that Canonical is pissed at the KDE team because of the Spark. Excellent point, and I'll bet it's this exactly. Mark is pissed because the KDE team has stolen his thunder. He wanted his crappy Unity UI to become the premier Linux UI and part of that was to be used on tablets, and then the KDE beat him to the punch with a much better product. |
| Steven_Rosenber Feb 07, 2012 4:05 PM EDT |
The thing about KDE in Debian is that it's a more pure KDE, meaning it the doesn't contain all the little GNOME bits that are in Kubuntu like NetworkManager, Synaptic, etc. I believe that the KDE spin of Fedora includes many of these same things, so you might have a more Kubuntu-like experience in Fedora with KDE than with Debian/KDE or Slackware. |
| flufferbeer Feb 07, 2012 4:49 PM EDT |
@Steven_Roseberg, It seems to me that if you want all the K-advantages in an up-to-date distro now that KUbuntu is disappearing, then Linux Mint KDE and PCLinuxOS are definitely the way to go! Admittedly, I don't know about the KDE spin of Fedora, pure Debian's KDE, or Slackware's KDE though. Maybe KDE Debian and Slackware are a bit harder to get correct & super-optimized? Personally, I keep on having superb low-bloat results with Xfce and LXDE myself -- buntu-based or not -- so I rarely even USE KDE. 2c |
| tracyanne Feb 07, 2012 4:52 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh, huh?, I'm running KDE on Linux Mint, seems fine to me. |
| kikinovak Feb 07, 2012 4:58 PM EDT |
@Steven: my highly customized KDE contains quite some GTK bits. In fact I always start from a minimal install (servers and desktops alike). On a desktop I install and configure sound and graphical server, then I add a core KDE desktop, and finally all the apps, in a best-of-the-breed logic, and only those needed. And since this is quite some work and I do it on many machines, I've scripted most of it. Check it out:$ svn co svn://svn.tuxfamily.org/svnroot/microlinux/config Take a peek in the scripts/ directory. The installation script reads package names from a file, like this: # Installer les paquets supplémentaires PAQUETS=$(egrep -v '(^#)|(^s+$)' $CWD/paquets) aptitude -y install $PAQUETS And here's a list of the packages I install for a complete desktop experience: # Paquets à ajouter pour un bureau Debian à la sauce Microlinux # I also have another script that "sands down" some incoherences in the menu entries. The result is a quite polished and highly enjoyable KDE desktop. Cheers, Niki |
| Fettoosh Feb 07, 2012 5:26 PM EDT |
Quoting:I'm running KDE on Linux Mint, seems fine to me. I know and I have no issues with Linux Mint, I like their latest release. My issue is with their history of not supporting KDE as good as Gnome. KDE is an after thought in comparison, or so it seems. May be that was by plan since KDE was in flux for a while. I am hoping they treat it a good as Gnome now it has stabilized quite a bit. I would use Linux Mint when they do. Edited: One more thing, KDE Linux Mint is nothing more than Kubuntu with their own tools and configurations, is it going to be the same even after losing the support from Canonical? I am not sure about that. |
| Steven_Rosenber Feb 07, 2012 5:48 PM EDT |
@kikinovak That is a very good list. |
| tracyanne Feb 07, 2012 5:49 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh, I don't really think it matters, if I don't like what's happening, I'll just move to another distro, no skin off my noes.</p> |
| lcafiero Feb 07, 2012 6:40 PM EDT |
For those of you who are in the process of burying Kubuntu, you can stop now. Actually, if you go back to the link and read the story again -- surprise! -- he got it wrong and he admits it. Kubuntu isn't dead -- Canonical is just going to treat it like any other official 'buntu. [Wait. Did I just defend Canonical? Nah.] In fact, I remember reading somewhere (and I wish I could remember where) that the Kubuntu folks are going to gather at UDS in Oakland in May to discuss how to fund the project in the absence of Canonical's funding. While that, to me, sounds like bad news for Kubuntu, it doesn't sound like a death knell. |
| tracyanne Feb 07, 2012 6:41 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh, from this article http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/news/canonical-pulls-funding-on-k... Quoting:But is funny.. just when linux mint has firm a full time KDE developer and a sponsorship with bluesystem… :D |
| BernardSwiss Feb 07, 2012 8:38 PM EDT |
@FettooshQuoting: "which runs better on my netbook" is not really a matter of personal preference. Quoting:Aah, a Netbook not desktop! It is when you run the proper KDE interface built for a Netbook, like Plasma Netbook or Plasma Active Thanks for the links -- I am finally about to break down and get a netbook, so I'll bookmark both of those for future reference. But I'm still not clear -- is the Plasma Netbook KDE a low-resource environment, or just a small-screen environment? |
| flufferbeer Feb 07, 2012 9:56 PM EDT |
@tracyanne, Good link to that Linux User article. It seems to me that Shuttlebigworth is sure putting his bigmoney where his mouth is, and officially letting KUbuntu fly away from Canitbecomical (Canonical) into void known as "The Community"!! Before your snippet is the comment-question from Phil:"how can you expect some success to Kubuntu with the little love Cannonical always show to KDE? Kubuntu always had a lot of problems and bugs not related to KDE that other kde-friendly distros never had..." Whew, says it all! Double +1 to Khamul and others for the shift to Linux Mint KDE and other distros. You just KNOW that it's going to happen sooner or later. -fb |
| Khamul Feb 07, 2012 10:57 PM EDT |
@Bernard: From everything I've read, KDE4 is lower-resource than KDE3 was, except for the whole Nepomuk thing. Turn that off, and it should be faster. They've got videos showing KDE Plasma Active being used on a touchscreen phone (N900 I think), and it looks quite speedy. If it can run on a freakin' phone without performance problems, then I don't think "bloated" is an accurate term. |
| mbaehrlxer Feb 07, 2012 11:07 PM EDT |
kikinovak: did you have a chance to look at Foresight linux yet? you will find that the conary package manager toolchain greatly reduces the effort to make a customized distribution. i'd be interested to know your opinion about it. greetings, eMBee (member of the Foresight development team). |
| Jeff91 Feb 08, 2012 12:22 AM EDT |
I need to give the plasma desktop another try - but unless it is optimised in some serious ways the desktop KDE is lacking it will be just as slow on my netbook with only 1gig RAM. KDE was taking over 400MEGS of RAM at startup last I checked. E17 and LXDE both use under 100. ~Jeff |
| Koriel Feb 08, 2012 3:49 AM EDT |
Im loading up Linux Mint KDE at the moment on a VM so I can see what it consumes in the way of resources, I have 2GB of ram but that quickly dissapears when like me you use a VM to which I normally assign between 724MB - 1GB of ram so I need a DE that uses as little resources as possible or I end up in swap hell when moving between DE, Netbeans and VM Even if KDE4 doesn't measure up in ram resource dept. I may still use the distro, remove KDE and use XFCE on it instead. The best i've ever acheived with a tweaked KDE4 is 356MB from a cold start on PCLOS so I will soon see if I can better that, Ive never found KDE4 to be a CPU hog so it has that going for it at least, I have an ancient 4Gh X2 Athlon, an NV6800 graphics card and it runs quite speedily on that with effects. Hopefully its going to be a better experience than Linux Mint Debian Xfce which I have found to be buggy, and has far to many broken packages. Update 1: The news is good with only some basic tweaking on Mint KDE, from a cold start ram usage is 271MB cant wait to see what I can get it down to with some serious tweaking. Its a vast improvement over KDE 4.6.5 shipped with PCLOS wonder how much an upgrade to 4.8 will improve things by. Update 2: With further tweaking and an upgrade to KDE 4.8 on Mint I have got RAM consumption down to 256MB from a cold start this is definately the best I have ever achieved with any KDE distro. The tweaks were as follows: Disable nepomuk module and nepomukserver. Disable akonadi and akonadi tray. Disable bluetooth (i never use it) Disabled all printer support, cups and printer applet (I dont have a printer) Disabled mintupdate autostart. Disabled synaptiks touchpad support. And thats it. Looks like im going to switch to KDE4 based on these figures still nowhere close to what I get with Xfce (150mb cold) but considering the amount of useful functionality that comes with KDE4 I think the trade off may be worth it. Will do a proper install and see if I run into any swapping hell issues when used under my normal operating conditions. |
| JaseP Feb 08, 2012 10:53 AM EDT |
A couple of things: 1) Canonical is not pulling the plug on Kubuntu. They are pulling the plug on FUNDING Kubuntu, and turning it over to the community. 2) One can always install Ubuntu, and pull over the desktop *.deb's for Kubuntu, as you can do with Xubuntu, Lubuntu, or any of the other major respins. In fact, I've done exactly that (with Xubuntu) on the install of a 10.04 machine I have where any of the *ubuntu 11.10s failed to recognize a monitor (LCD TV) I use, and forced a 4:3 desktop. So while even rats leave a sinking ship, it's premature to call for abandoning Kubuntu, if you like KDE. I rather think that being a community distro will actually make it more responsive to the users' needs. |
| Fettoosh Feb 08, 2012 12:55 PM EDT |
Quoting:from this article @TA, Thanks for the link, I found these couple links related to this sponsorship BlueSystem & this KDE Mint and that is good news Quoting:But I'm still not clear -- is the Plasma Netbook KDE a low-resource environment, or just a small-screen environment? I don't have any metrics, but I recall some time ago that Plasma Netbook interface was created by removing various features that were not needed, and optimizing some code to work faster and better on lower resources devices. I am not sure how long this interface is going to be supported because the way I see it, and I could be wrong, it seems that the KDE team is going with Plasma Active for small form factor computers (Netbooks) & handheld devices (tablets & smart phones). A lot of code optimization has been done in the Plasma Active Two Interface. In addition, many new Qt enhancements have already been used to make the interface faster, more feature rich, and reliable. As I recall, all these improvements are planned to be backtracked to the other Plasma interfaces, especially to the Plasma Desktop classical interface. Though that might not be until KDE 5. Quoting:E17 and LXDE both use under 100. KDE might use more resources than any other desktop, but the fact is there is no other desktop that has the features and functions that KDE offers. It is a matter of needs, requirements, preferences, and trade offs. Besides, with hardware resources getting more powerful in new computers & devices, yet prices going lower, it really doesn't matter any more. Quoting:Its a vast improvement over KDE 4.6.5 shipped with PCLOS wonder how much an upgrade to 4.8 will improve things by. I am running KDE 4.8 and I can tell you, without any figures, that 4.7.x & 4.8 are much more improved and streamlined. One thing one needs to be careful about when evaluating KDE performance is what @Khamul said about Desktop Symantec search. In KDE 4.8, most of the performance issues were fixed, but initially, when the indexing is being done, one does notice a bit of drag. If you aren't going to use Symantec search, you can easily disable Nepomuk and its related utilities or limit its indexing scope. Quoting:So while even rats leave a sinking ship, Personally, I wasn't planing on that any time soon. :-) In the last 12 years of using Linux, I only used two distros continuously , Suse & Kubuntu and I am not going to easily give up on Kubuntu yet. But KDE Mint is an option depending on their improved support of KDE and treating it just like the treat Gnome based Linux Mint. |
| gus3 Feb 08, 2012 1:04 PM EDT |
Features? A motorcycle can go where very few cars can. Yet the car has more "features". |
| Fettoosh Feb 08, 2012 1:38 PM EDT |
Quoting:Features? A motorcycle can go where very few cars can. Yet the car has more "features". So true and even cheaper but, on a rainy day, good luck on your motorcycle. :-) |
| caitlyn Feb 08, 2012 1:58 PM EDT |
I agree with Steven_Rosenberg. Canonical did what is best for Canonical. That often is NOT what is best for the community. This is one such case. OTOH, one developer won't break Kubuntu. It will continue. The Debian/apt package management system is not something I particularly care for. I've always preferred the way rpm packages are built. To me the only advantage at all for Debian and Ubuntu in regard to packages is that they have an awful lot of them in their repos and most (but certainly not all) are well maintained. The solution is to build packages for your favorite distro that's short in that area. If everyone who could did just a handful of favorites the repos in question wouldn't be short stocked at all. I like the way a few Slackware derivatives (SalixOS, VectorLinux) have handled the package "shortage". They built graphical tools to make download, compilation and packaging point and click in most cases. I'm particularly impressed with Sourcery. Add that to the SalixOS repos and suddenly the package selection doesn't look bad at all. Oh, and yes, SalixOS has a very nice KDE version :) |
| mbaehrlxer Feb 08, 2012 2:15 PM EDT |
caitlyn: packaging with conary is also very easy. in most cases it just takes 2 or 3 lines to write (the name, the version and the baseurl for the download of the source) greetings, eMBee. |
| mbaehrlxer Feb 08, 2012 2:16 PM EDT |
Quoting:on a rainy day, good luck on your motorcycle thanks, but i'll be okay (actually this or this one is a more common vehicle if i don't want to or can't get a 4-wheeled taxi) greetings, eMBee. |
| cr Feb 08, 2012 4:00 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh: I've commuted on motorcycle through LA winters (intensely rainy at times); you put up with the rain filling up your knee-boots and chill winds through the passes while you look forward to some hot coffee at the end of the ride, but you get there. It's snow and ice that's dangerous. |
| Fettoosh Feb 08, 2012 4:06 PM EDT |
Quoting:thanks, but i'll be okay I said rainy not sweltering sunny day. The third one I guess would work OK, but it is ugleeey taco-truck!?. Any way Thanks for the ideas. :-) |
| Fettoosh Feb 08, 2012 4:33 PM EDT |
Quoting:I agree with Steven_Rosenberg. Canonical did what is best for Canonical. I guess I tried to the same in my original comment, yup, I did "I am not sure what triggered this development, but I believe Canonical is trying to protect their investment." Quoting:The Debian/apt package management system is not something I particularly care for. I do, and Debian apt can generate a .deb file out of an .rpm file. I haven't used rpm since the days I used Suse and I am not sure if it is possible to generate a .rpm file out of .deb. |
| Fettoosh Feb 08, 2012 4:44 PM EDT |
Quoting:I've commuted on motorcycle through LA winters .... It's snow and ice that's dangerous. You remind me of my father. He commuted to work every day all his life on bicycle in the Mediterranean climate (much more rain than LA). And you are right, snow & ice are more dangerous. I ought to know that since I live in Michigan. |
| Koriel Feb 08, 2012 5:12 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh I believe Alien can do .deb to .rpm and vice versa. |
| JaseP Feb 08, 2012 6:52 PM EDT |
@Koriel Alien's hit or miss as to whether it can get a particular package to work. Actually, from my experience, more miss than hit. |
| mbaehrlxer Feb 08, 2012 11:47 PM EDT |
fettoosh: although i have never come across anything as odd as the first one, i did use the second one when it was raining. (ok, it was light rain, i wouldn't use it in a storm) greetings, eMBee. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 09, 2012 12:25 AM EDT |
Now I know what Mary Poppins would drive. |
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