Kubuntu Backports no longer updating 18.04?

[jglen490]

Sometimes "looking good" and "working good" are mutually exclusive. GTK apps work just fine, because they will bring the basic libraries in with them as dependencies. But they are made for GTK, and will tend to appear less sophisticated than they might in a true GTK environment. But that will not affect function.

[Rod J]

OK, in Manjaro's defence you should note that Manjaro IS NOT Arch!

It is based on Arch and uses the Arch package management system and the AUR but it's quite different. I definitely wouldn't recommend Arch for newbies myself and even Manjaro is a little more technical than Kubuntu in day-to-day use and probably not for newbies who aren't computer people either. Like, I don't think it would suit my brother who's not into computers at all. Although, having said that, there are quite a number of people using it that I would consider newbies.

I think Snowhog had a bad experience with Arch some time ago but Manjaro is a different system with a much friendlier and less "elitist" forum (based on my experience over the last two months or so). I haven't seen any real sign of that "RTFM" attitude so far.

[Rod J]

Looks Interesting. They say they have a 32 bit version, but I'm not finding it yet. I wouldn't mind testing Manjaro KDE on my 32 bit system first. I'm used to the debian package management system and do everything package related via terminal. How hard is Arch's system to learn? And how easy is it to install third party apps like Chrome, Vivaldi, or apps, like Softmaker Office, that normally only offer RPM or DEB based packages? I also rely on PPAs to keep Libre Office "fresh". How does arch accomplish the same?

The Manjaro forum: https://forum.manjaro.org/

Manjaro 32-bit has been officially dropped but there is a community supported 32-bit version here: https://manjaro.org/2017/11/15/intro...-linux-distro/

It didn't take me long to get to grips with the arch package management system. In the KDE version we have "Octopi" which would be the equivalent to the Muon Package Manager. Octopi has a glowing red icon letting you know when updates are available. It works basically the same as Muon or Synaptic in operation.

The command line package manager is called "pacman" and is quite easy to use. The equivalent to "sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade" is "sudo pacman -Syu". Pacman gives quite a lot of feedback on what it is doing which I like.

To install Chrome you need to use the AUR as Chrome is not in the main repository (as is the case with Kubuntu too). You just switch to the AUR in Octopi and search for Chrome or whatever else you want. The way the AUR works seems to vary. Sometimes it downloads the RPM or deb package, takes it apart and re-packages it for Arch and then installs it automatically. Other things I have installed it seems to download the source code and compiles it, then installs it automatically too. It's an interesting process to watch in the terminal as it goes about its business and it's pretty much a hands-off process requiring minimal input from the user using the default settings.

The only glitch I struck early on soon after installing Manjaro was that I couldn't access the AUR in Octopi. After a little research on the forum I found out that you have to install a command line program "yaourt" to do this in the KDE version. I don't know why it wasn't installed by default to begin with. Maybe that omission has been fixed now for new installs.

One of the things I like about Manjaro is that the KDE version is one of the three officially supported versions: https://manjaro.org/get-manjaro/. That's a plus for me and should mean it will be around as long as Manjaro itself. There are also many other community supported desktop versions as well.

Not sure about the Libreoffice question as just now I'm using my deepin install. I'll have to reboot and check what version of Libreoffice is in Manjaro KDE Stable. I couldn't quite make out what this page was telling me about Libreoffice versions in Manjaro: Libreoffice

[Snowhog]

I think Snowhog had a bad experience with Arch some time ago but Manjaro is a different system with a much friendlier and less "elitist" forum (based on my experience over the last two months or so). I haven't seen any real sign of that "RTFM" attitude so far.

No, the contrary. I was already aware of the sternness of the Arch Forums, so I was 'prepared'. I also know how to ask questions 'the right way'. On the Arch forums, asking a "How do I do..." question is the surest/fastest way to get a RTFM response. As I said, they don't hold your hand.

[oldgeek]

I tried to run Manjaro KDE on a virtual machine but I discovered the program does not store any changes nor will it allow you to download except through the command line. My Manjaro got hung up after downloading about half of the 300+ updates, so I gave up on trying it. Yet according to DistroWatch it's the number one Linux distro, so I guess a lot of people like it, even more so than Linux Mint. If you can believe the statistics, that is. Kubuntu and Neon have been fine for me.

[Rod J]

The Manjaro developers recommend doing major updates from the terminal (preferably in another tty session, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F2, etc). Sometimes replacing the bulk of the desktop environment (Plasma 5 in our case) on a running system can cause problems it seems. It's things like this that make me a little reluctant to recommend Manjaro to real newbies.

BTW, I think with Manjaro (and probably most rolling release distros) you really need to download the latest ISO's when installing. Even after a couple of months there have been so many updates that using an old ISO would be a bad idea.

As for the high ranking on Distrowatch, I think you have to take that with a large pinch of salt. I'm not sure it's showing a real reflection of popularity. I was very surprised that Manjaro had overtaken Mint so quickly ... also why is Kubuntu so low on that ranking? I don't completely trust the rankings there.

[jglen490]

Sounds like elitist BS - people who don't want to share experience and success, so that they can look down their noses at the great unwashed.

Good place to stay away from

[benny_fletch]

Yet according to DistroWatch it's the number one Linux distro, so I guess a lot of people like it, even more so than Linux Mint. If you can believe the statistics, that is. Kubuntu and Neon have been fine for me.

As for the high ranking on Distrowatch, I think you have to take that with a large pinch of salt. I'm not sure it's showing a real reflection of popularity. I was very surprised that Manjaro had overtaken Mint so quickly ... also why is Kubuntu so low on that ranking? I don't completely trust the rankings there.

Correct me if I am wrong, but distrowatch's ranking is based on how many times people using said distro goes to distrowatch.com. So, in essence it could mean people who are unhappy with their linux installation . I know there is more to it than that, but I wouldn't say distrowatch's ranking represents the most beloved linux distro at the moment (maybe just the most tried flavor currently?).

I too have been very happy with kubuntu as well as kde neon and have always been surprised on how low they ranked on distrowatch.com.

[oshunluvr]

Benny is right. Distro watch rankings are ranking of people who are on distrowatch, and nothing else. A low ranked distro means it's users are happy where they are or it's too obscure to garner much interest. A high ranked distro means users that are not happy with their current selection are looking for a different one and are considering others, including the high ranked one.

Frankly, I think the Distro watch rankings are so useless as to be misleading and furthermore almost every distro-centric forum has at least a couple people calling for others to go a falsely up their distro's score. It's the mindset of being more popular is more valuable than actually being better.

[oshunluvr]

As far as Manjaro, IMO it's a pretty good distro. When I was having some major Kubuntu vs. nVidia issues, I used it for a while and I liked it and it fixed my nVidia audio problem that was unsolvable at the time in Kubuntu. However, I'm not in the mood to relearn an entire structure and it's tools so I went back to Kubuntu (neon actually) asap.

Back to distro watch; IF and that's a big IF, the numb-nutted jagoffs would stop "click-scoring" their own distros, the ranking might be of some use. I often go on Distro Watch to see what's new and hot in the distro world. Unfortunately the rankings are not a good indicator. I actually read through the Distro Watch notices and then go to the home pages of those I might be interested in.

[jglen490]

Well, not disagreeing with you on Distrowatch rankings, some of those "numbnuts" have come from Kubuntu Forums But I've been called worse

I don't pay a lot of attention to the rankings, but I have used Distrowatch as a source for searching, in addition to Google searches, and other means. In some respects - better or worse - that's how I eventually ended up here a long time ago.

[oshunluvr]

Well, not disagreeing with you on Distrowatch rankings, some of those "numbnuts" have come from Kubuntu Forums But I've been called worse

I don't pay a lot of attention to the rankings, but I have used Distrowatch as a source for searching, in addition to Google searches, and other means. In some respects - better or worse - that's how I eventually ended up here a long time ago.

LOL< I need to learn to tone it down a bit, clearly...

[vtpoet]

Just read that Ubuntu will be supporting 18.04 for ten years. That's good news as far as I'm concerned. I have to wonder, though, whether NEON will be able to track Plasma on an 18.04 base for 10 years. Additionally, I somewhat doubt whether the Kubuntu team will also support Kubuntu for that same length of time.

[acheron]

AFAIK, the ten years is for paid Extended Support Maintenance https://www.ubuntu.com/esm for server/cloud.

Ubuntu desktop will remain 5 years.

Kubuntu and other flavours will remain 3 years.

Neon will/should rebase on 20.04 LTS in 2020, and then drop support for 18.04 entirely when that is done.

[TWPonKubuntu]

Thanks acheron. I'll live with LTS for five years. By then I expect to have moved to a 64bit system and a newer version of Linux and desktop.