[KDE] New in Kubuntu Backports PPA

[Schwarzer Kater]

I had just applied sudo apt update and there was a newer Plasma in the PPA: 5.18.5!

https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+...s_filter=focal

After already bringing us more recent versions of Elisa, Kdenlive, KStars, Okular, Spectacle and Yakuake end of April, today it was the current Plasma. :-)

Thank you very, very much for your work - I am looking forward to keeping the KDE parts of Kubuntu 20.04 LTS up to date for the next years!

PS: Dear Admins - if this is the wrong sub-forum, please move me…

[oldgeek]

Does that mean that KDE Frameworks will be similarly upgraded through the backports repository?

[Schwarzer Kater]

Well, they did put newer versions in the backports PPA for both 18.04 LTS and 19.10.

I guess that entirely depends on how much time they have on their hands and how much fun it is for them to play with KDE Frameworks…

I am sure the Kubuntu community would appreciate it.

[Beerislife]

I was pleased to see that too. I already had it in Neon but had been distro hopping before settling on 20.04! Looking forward to the next Neon!

[Don B. Cilly]

So... should one add the backports in 20.04? (Yes, it depends on "one's" needs an preferences, but)...
Pros and cons? (Yes, I realise there's a ton of posts - here and elsewhere - on the subject, but)... to summarise?

[Don B. Cilly]

Oh well. I just tried, didn't I :·)

After adding the repo, the upgradable list only went from about 10 to about 50. (I have the text if anyone's interested).
So I upgraded. Rebooted. Now I have:

Neon:


K20.04 without backports:


K20.04 with backports:


So neon is still slightly ahead in terms of Qt and frameworks.
And backporting just made Plasma go up one dot (equal to neon), Qt and FWs the same.

[EDIT] A couple of quips:
a) Everyone says, to add the backports, you
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
then
sudo apt update
But you don't have to sudo apt update, do you? ;·) Add-apt-repository does that for you anyway... :·)

b) Am I the only one who finds it mildly annoying that lsb_release reports Ubuntu 20.04? :·)

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
A couple of quips:
a) Everyone says, to add the backports, you
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
then
sudo apt update
But you don't have to sudo apt update, do you? ;·) Add-apt-repository does that for you anyway... :·)

b) Am I the only one who finds it mildly annoying that lsb_release reports Ubuntu 20.04? :·) […]

Off topic, of course ;-D :

a) I think you are absolutely right. But you can read otherwise everywhere. :-D

b) No, you are not! I always tend to change GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR in /etc/default/grub for that reason. :-D

PS:
To be slightly more on topic and to say something about your question in post #5.

I have only been using Kubuntu permanently since 16.04 / 18.04 beta - since early 2018 that is (in private life I have used macOS a lot and openSUSE occasionally for the 25 to 30 years before that).
But I have used the Kubuntu backports PPA since 18.04 (also on production systems) and I have never had any problems with it.
Hopefully someone who is a lot more experienced than me will answer your question eventually…

[Don B. Cilly]

I always tend to change GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR in /etc/default/grub for that reason.

To... what?

[Schwarzer Kater]

Off topic:

E.g. on my laptop to something like "Kubuntu 18.04.4 LTS (on /dev/sda4)", as this usually is my main Linux OS there and writes GRUB to the boot drive.

You can put in there whatever you like (and I suppose there are much more sophisticated ways to do that than simply putting the text you want to show in the GRUB menu within quotation marks…).

[Don B. Cilly]

Yeah well...
I put
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="Kubuntu 20.04 LTS"
in /etc/default/grub.
Updated grub. Rebooted.

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Release:        20.04
Codename:       focal

[Schwarzer Kater]

Still off topic:

I think you didn't understand what I tried to say - sorry for not being clear enough:
I changed GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR because of lsb_release. The information of lsb_release is fetched by /etc/default/grub and used to make the first entry in the GRUB menu otherwise. Which would be: Ubuntu … :-)

[Don B. Cilly]

Yes, it's off-topic. Not a big deal unless we make it one. I mean, it's still about Kubuntu, it's the Soapbox...
I'll just doctor my conky like I've always done and all good.

I still find it mildly annoying that lsb_release reports Ubuntu 20.04, that's all

[jglen490]

So, are you also mildly annoyed that the repos self-identify as "ubuntu"

[Don B. Cilly]

Well, for one thing, my backports self-identify as "ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/"...
For another I give a flying fig what they identify as.
What mildly annoys me is what my distro identifies itself as when queried.
So that I get this sort of thing:



(not that it was that difficult to get... )

[claydoh]

I still find it mildly annoying that lsb_release reports Ubuntu 20.04, that's all

Well, the OS is Ubuntu, so this is correct. There are situations where this matters. Try installing the latest HPLIP software as supplied by HP on Neon and other respins, for an example off the top of my head.

Well, for one thing, my backports self-identify as "ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/"...

This still depends on plasma and kubuntu packaging from the main Ubuntu repos in order to be useful/installable