So long, and thanks for all the fish

[Buddlespit]

Well, I was googling around one day, trying to find something about KDE and Wayland being developed for Kubuntu and I came across a blog from a developer who said:

This has quite some influence on a possible adoption. I do not know of any kde-workspace developer using (K)Ubuntu. I do not see how anyone would work on it or how we should be able to review code or even maintain code. It would mean all the adoption would have to go into ifdef sections nobody compiles and nobody runs. This is the best way to ensure that it starts to bit-rot. Even more our CI system runs on openSUSE so not even the CI would be able to detect breakage. Of course a downstream like Kubuntu could develop the adoption and carry it as a patch on top of upstream, but I would highly recommend them to not do this as KWin’s source code churn is too high. Also we all agree that downstream patches are evil and we would no longer be able to help in any way downstream’s user from a support perspective.

http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blo...ir-in-kubuntu/

So I started thinking long and hard about what I would think as the best way for me to get my stable OS without too much breakage. Please note the 'I's' and 'me's'. I'm not saying that my actions are the best actions for you. TBH, I really, really like Kubuntu.

I started thinking about the best distro to switch to. After a bunch of Googling, I had narrowed it down to Arch and OpenSUSE. I also had to take into account that my wife would also be running what I was running, on her computer. I decided on, and installed, OpenSUSE. I've been running OpenSUSE 13.1 on my laptop for about a month. I don't use my laptop often, but when I do, it appears very reliable and stable.

As of 8:30pm, 1/12/13, I have finished migrating to OpenSUSE 13.1 on my main computer.

With that, I would really like to thank everybody here who has helped me get, fix, adjust and tweak Kubuntu, both directly (via direct forum help) and indirectly (via google). The staff and users here are wonderful! Who knows... OpenSUSE may sux and I may be back on Kubuntu in a month or three...

[GreyGeek]

I have little doubt that what Martin Gross said about KDE devs not using Kubuntu was true, but they DO use KDE. And, you aren't the first Kubuntu user on this forum to move to another distro. I, myself, am running KWheezy. Others here are using Debian, Siduction ... and who knows what else? I used SuSE for five years, before Novell bought it, and tried it again after openSUSE broke free. It has probably changed since I tried it but when I did try it I found it to suffer from "commercial lockdown". OpenSUSE certainly doesn't "sux". Neither does Arch. They are one of many fine distros. However, you'd be hardpressed to find a better Linux forum than Kubuntuforums.net. Because you stop using Kubuntu is no reason to stop using Kubuntuforums.net ... if you need help. There are some good people with good knowledge of openSUSE here. So, don't say good bye!

[vw72]

Didn't Kubuntu say they were not going Mir and would go Wayland? If so, I'm not sure what the reason to change from Kubuntu would be. As for switching, like many I try numerous distros. I particularly like openSUSE and Fedora, however, after using them for awhile I often find myself back with Kubuntu or UbuntuGnome. While neither is perfect, the overall experience is, how shall I say, pleasant.

As for the blog, it was written almost a year ago when there was a lot of frustration about Canonical's decision to make Mir. Neither Mir nor Wayland are mainstream, so switching now for something that may or may not happen in the future seems a bit premature, particularly since in October, Kubuntu stated they were going to use Wayland for future releases.

That said, openSUSE is a really nice distro. It does take a little longer to set up codecs and fonts, etc. (no kubuntu-restricted-extras to bring in everything), And, it includes Tumbleweed if you want a rolling release. OTOH, it seems a bit slower on my hardware than Kubuntu and Ubuntu Gnome, but ymmv.

[oshunluvr]

Firstly, I want to echo GG and state in no way should you leave the forum. There are many of us who remain active and engaged here even though they no longer use Kubuntu. Alternate perspectives to problems and questions are always a good thing.

As far as distro selection: There is going to be a lot of flux in the "marketplace" next year or so until all this Wayland vs. Mir / The World vs. Canonical flushes out. If I wasn't already swamped with my personal life at the moment, I'd be running Siduction or KWheezy just so I could ride it out more comfortably. I've decided I can move to 14.04 and wait it out there so that's where I'm headed for now. I used OpenSUSE in the past and go tired of RPM hell. I've heard the package management is much better now, but the burn is still remembered so I'm staying away.

[GreyGeek]

..... I used OpenSUSE in the past and go tired of RPM hell. I've heard the package management is much better now, but the burn is still remembered so I'm staying away.

That was exactly my experience with OpenSUSE (and Kanopix and Kannotex and a couple other RPM based distros) which is why I dropped it as well. The deb packaging system, with apt-get, is the best one I've used in 15 years of using Linux. But, I suspect that part of the problem was using packages from RPMBone and such. Since most distros have switched to vetted repositories the problems related to "hell" have largely disappeared.

[woodsmoke]

I'll say also to not leave the forum.

But this really is all about "the interface/gui".

I've posted from KDE on top of Debian on two different versions of Debian, and they both worked fine.

When I said that there was a certain "nuance" to KDE on top of Ubuntu that was not there with Debian I was rather sneeringly told that "KDE is KDE" and you are just an idiot".

Well, I beg to differ, still to this day, to me there is a "nuance" for Kubuntu ....now maybe that is the tweakage that the Kubuntu devs do...don't know...

But Blue Systems is PAYING a developer to work on Kubuntu....

I don't think that Blue systems is going to let "Kubuntu/KDebian" to "bit rot".

And also............whay worry about what "might happen"?

There has been some healthy discussion about "this and that", but multiple people who are in the know, have said over and over that there is "not a problem"..... and if there "is a problem"....that it will be taken care of whether or not Kwhatever is on Ubuntu or Debian...

So...dunno..........but just because "devs" don't use it...I mean they want "lean and mean".....command line, all that.....

No wonder they don't "use it"......they are developing it...

just my thoughts.

woodsmoke

[MoonRise]

Yes, do not leave. With that said, I plan on staying on Kubuntu. I don't foresee issues. Could be wrong, but Kubuntu just fits me.

[Qqmike]

MoonRise -- ditto here. In my old age (64), there's very few things I know for certain. One of them is that you can't know anything for certain. Especially on the social or tech scenes. I plan to stay w/Kubuntu for as long as long is. Fact is, as a Linux user, no matter what happens to Kubuntu, I know that with high probability there will be something to quickly jump into, a safety net (aptosid, Mint both come to mind; some might look at Puppy, or a rescue program, Knoppix, whatever). One day at a time (one HOUR at a time), and ya better darned well enjoy it.

[GreyGeek]

Didn't Kubuntu say they were not going Mir and would go Wayland? ...

As for the blog, it was written almost a year ago when there was a lot of frustration about Canonical's decision to make Mir. Neither Mir nor Wayland are mainstream, so switching now for something that may or may not happen in the future seems a bit premature, particularly since in October, Kubuntu stated they were going to use Wayland for future releases....

... As far as distro selection: There is going to be a lot of flux in the "marketplace" next year or so until all this Wayland vs. Mir / The World vs. Canonical flushes out......

This controversy boiled over when Canonical's owner made disparaging remarks about other distro and desktop projects which declined to jump on board Mir's bandwagon.

IMO, it is a repeat of a similar controversy started by Shutttlesworth when he announced that he was giving Mono apps special treatment for inclusion in Gnome. Mono was being developed by De Icaza, whose software dev company was purchased by Novell, and who was working for Novell. Suddenly, the Linux biosphere was flooded with .NET programmers attempting to peddle their "shareware" apps on distros running Gnome. This included going so far as to call those Linux developers and users who did not support Mono "Faux" FOSS supporters. When Microsoft announced that they were dropping .NET (and SilverLight) the support for Mono (and MoonLight) died over night. The shareware developers evaporated faster than dew on the grass in the morning. De Icaza, the driving force behind Mono left Novell and started another software development company, Xamarin Studio, but this time focused on .NET product for Mac. He recently posted an ad asking C# programmers to apply.

After an uproar by .NET developers Microsoft "relented" and put .NET on the same development path it put Visual FoxPro years before ... slow death by increasing neglect. I was using VFP for development when MS announced they were dropping it. I was one of 250,000 developers on the VFP forum of the UniversalThread, a programmer's watering hole. I immediately went looking for another GUI RAD dev tool and eventually ended up with Qt4. Many others were convinced to make the move to Microsoft's new programming tool, .NET. Nothing like getting the shaft twice.

If Shuttleswoth's objective was to seduce Windows developers to convert their Windows apps to Ubuntu, thus possibly increasing Ubuntu's footprint in Windows user land, he failed. If his objective was to create an Ubuntu walled garden from which to extract revenue and stop the hemorrhaging of the money he was sinking into Ubuntu, that hasn't worked out either.

What I believe his real strategy is: to create a software stack setting just above the kernel, that he totally controls, applied to the tablet and smartphone market. It suggests that Mir would be tuned for those form factors and not necessarily the laptop or desktop. Other distros which adopt Mir would become dependent on it, in exactly the same way distros based on Debian are dependent on Debian. Except that Debian is FOSS, and always will be, but a stack controlled by Shuttlesworth isn't necessarily so. Their modifications of Mir would, of necessity, always be behind the Mir released by Canonical, just like Mono was always behind the .NET development time line.

That a KDE developer does or does not use Kubuntu is irrelevant. What is important is that the Application Binary Interface remains stable as applications version from N to N+1, so that users do not have to install private headers and recompile new releases of applications to achieve stability.

KDE5 is coming soon! Former KDE dev team leader Aaron Aseigo, wrote in his blog, on January 11, 2014, that

Frameworks 5: Timing is everything


KDE Frameworks 5, the next major evolution of KDE's library foundations, has made a series of significant steps forward in the last six weeks. Some of these steps have been more publicly visible than others, which is a bit of a shame because they are all quite exciting.


Firstly, the monolithic kdelibs and kde-runtime modules have been successfully modularized into individual git repositories. You can see the mammoth list of repositories over on projects.kde.org. This is a significant milestone that required a lot of work on the part of numerous people working for the last few years to disentangle the individual bits of KDE's libraries into neatly organized, topically focused bundles. Now people writing Qt and KDE applications can cherry pick precisely what they need and carry only those dependencies, while making contributing to these individual libraries easier to take on for new comers. This is good for everyone across the board ...

...
We're in exciting times when KDE's libraries are fully maturing into a well organized set of discreet components for Qt5 that still work amazingly well together; in fact, while each delivers value on its own, the most value is to be gained from use together. A sort of library synergy, if you will. At the same time, Wayland and QtQuick2 are coming to our desktops, notebooks, tablets and beyond while applications will have a very easy skip from Qt4 to Qt5 thanks to the disciplined efforts of the Qt Project community. 2014 is going to be a fantastic year for releases from KDE ... which probably means we ought to start right now planning on how best to coordinate, announce and ultimately celebrate the fruits of long labor!

The rest of that article is well worth the read.

Things look good for KDE users, regardless of the distro you use. BUT, if you have problems, the best place for answers is here!

[notabug]

I will present myself as a little selfish for a minute, but Bittlespit, if you do leave this forum, you will be depriving people like me who are slow to learn, but still want to learn, of another source of experience and expertise, i.e. you. Hang around awhile longer. We still need you.

[dragonbite]

Firstly, I want to echo GG and state in no way should you leave the forum. There are many of us who remain active and engaged here even though they no longer use Kubuntu.

Heck, then there are poeple like me who haven't yet installed Kubuntu but am lurking in the forum to get a sense of the support, friendliness and little tips so that when I do install it I'll be ahead of the curve!

Currently I am using openSUSE w/KDE and while it work pretty good, I see Kubuntu as having some things to offer as well.

Pull up a chair and stick around! Here, let me get you another coffee!

[Buddlespit]

It's not so much the controversies that surround Shuttleworth, but the very murky future of Kubuntu. I figured that the path of least resistance in keeping a simple and quiet desktop comes in either running an LTS or finding a distro that will most likely have some serious staying power. And to be honest, I'm not good with LTS's. I like to tinker and push.

When Ubuntu goes the way of Mir, what is going to happen to Kubuntu? The only way that any of the *ubuntu derivatives are going to be able to continue to use the Ubuntu base is to hope that A) Ubuntu still has X as a fallback or 2) other de's start porting to Mir. KDE has already said "no" to that. And I like KDE.

openSUSE seems like the best and logical choice for me and my household.

Now, as for me leaving the forums? Prolly not leaving for good for a bit. I still hit the Kubuntu forums speeddial through habit... I do find myself Googling how to do things in openSUSE that work differently than in Kubuntu. And I'm spending a lot of time scouring their forums.

[jlittle]

In these discussions about the future of Kubuntu when Ubuntu moves to Mir, it seems to me that people don't appreciate the benefits of the Ubuntu repositories, packagers, and infrastructure. IME they're comprehensive and up to date. From time to time I see posts in various forums of people having problems that are fixed upstream and I check my version and it's good, an update came through months ago, or I need something esoteric and check in muon and there it is. I know that's very subjective, but it makes me wary of alternatives.

Regards, John Little

[Buddlespit]

OK, this didn't work. I can't see my screens because they're blurry, my games are running to slow (10-15fps vs. 25-35fps on Kubuntu), the forums are full of 'anal retentive' people and, God forbid, if I add a repository, it breaks everything. I've run alphas that were more stable!
I'll be back on Kubuntu before the weekend ends...

[oshunluvr]

TOLD YOU SO!

Ok, not really. I just wanted to be the one to say it!