What is the deal with Neon?

[SpecialEd]

I started using Linux about two months ago. I started with Mint KDE, then Kubunto, and after about two weeks I was using Neon and have been since. I'm not dumb but I'm fairly inexperienced with Linux. Neon works great for me, any problems I've had were due to my mistakes, nothing wrong with Neon or Plasma. According to other forums and on Facebook, Neon is the buggiest, most unstable distro, almost impossible to install. What gives? (Oh and people are losing their minds over the whole Dolphin/Root changes. One person said "it's not open source if we can't access Dolphin within root!") Critical thinking skills seem to be in short supply. It's always nice to come here where reason and cooler heads are the norm.

[Snowhog]

Issues with any distribution are almost, if not entirely, caused by hardware incompatibiliy -- IMO -- followed by incompatible software (applications installed from sources other than those from the supported 'official' repositories).

[wizard10000]

(Oh and people are losing their minds over the whole Dolphin/Root changes. One person said "it's not open source if we can't access Dolphin within root!")

Then that person is an idiot.

I had a conversation with the KDE developer who proposed this change and he's caught one heck of a lot of flak for improving security.

I really don't care much for the change either but I do understand the logic behind it. Running a Qt application as root exposes the entire Qt framework to exploits - and I could be wrong, but it's my understanding that Wayland will not allow privilege escalation for GUI applications. As the developer told me there are ways around almost everything.

There are plenty of file managers that will still happily run under the root account, dolphin just isn't one of them any more. You'll see the same issue with kate if you use it as a text editor.

So - if I need to do something as root I don't use dolphin or kate. The developer recommended using sudoedit instead, and that will work, but only addresses the text editor issue.

BTW, krusader will still run under the root account

[clivejo]

Sure it is open source, that user is free to grab the dolphin source code and have it opening as root 24/7 or do whatever he/she pleases with it.

But as in everything in life you always get the ones who want everything their way, because they say so! It does not matter if there are good reasons for doing so, the world owes them everything for free and for all time.

Regarding Neon, one of their primary objectives to to have a developers edition which is for development purposes, of course this version is going to be unstable, hence the name! If anyone takes five minutes and reads the Neon website this is made very clear, but no, they rather take to social media and "share" their opinions with the world. Just like the people who add experiential PPA's to their systems, despite all warnings not to do so, and they complain that it doesn't work, or breaks stuff.

It is the very same people that need warnings on hot water facets/taps saying "Caution Hot Water" and will still manage to burn themselves and everyone else is to blame.

[oshunluvr]

According to other forums and on Facebook, Neon is the buggiest, most unstable distro, almost impossible to install. What gives?

All of these claims are patiently and demonstrably wrong.
If you care to retort to these trolls, consider:

#1. KDEneon is not a distro. "KDE neon is a rapidly updated software repository" built on top of an Ubuntu base. The Neon team provides nothing other than KDE Plasma 5, KDE frameworks, and QT. When you install it, you're install Ubuntu and the latest and greatest Plasma 5 desktop available.

#2. KDEneon is the least "buggy" installation I've ever (this includes Kubuntu) had except for my servers which do not run a desktop environment, are always LTS, so bugs (at least notable ones) are exceedingly rare. In my experience, Canonical provides a well tested and solid base (especially when you use an LTS base like Neon does) and the Neon team is well ahead of most (if not all) distros using a Plasma DE. Bugs? of course - find an OS without any. But we get our bugs fixed first.

#3. I have installed KDEneon several times as others here have, including you. I've never had an installation fail. I can't say the same for other distros.

Seems likely to me that none of these people have actually installed or tried to use KDEneon. It's perfectly OK to just ignore trolls and FUD.

As far as the Dolphin change;

I too have read a lot of complaints and I understand the push-back against "locking down" functionality we've had in the past. However, Dolphin is the property of the person(s) developing it and no one else. It's theirs to do with as they see fit. Anyone has the option of re-compiling it with their own code changes or using another file manager instead. This is the way of FOSS.

Having said that, I personally think it a good idea. I cannot count how many times I've read a post here where someone mucked up their install by inappropriately using sudo with a GUI program or caused other more serious problems with root powers. In my world - I pray that Linux grows it's user base exponentially before I'm too old to care. This will bring development and solidity to the core. The only way to do this will be to start thinking about the average person and what they need to be able to use Linux without frustration and defaulting back to Windblows. IMO, anyone who's freaking out about this change likely shouldn't be able to use Dolphin as root in the first place. They clearly don't know enough to have that power.

When you add in the upcoming change over to Wayland, I think the Dolphin devs have made the correct choice.

[GreyGeek]

...

It is the very same people that need warnings on hot water facets/taps saying "Caution Hot Water" and will still manage to burn themselves and everyone else is to blame.

Spilling hot coffee and whining to a sympathetic jury is how at least one person got millions


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SpecialEd]

Sure it is open source, that user is free to grab the dolphin source code and have it opening as root 24/7 or do whatever he/she pleases with it. >>>>>

Yeah, I tried to explain that they didn't understand what open source meant, I even posted a copy of Bruce Peren's Open Source Definition, but apparently, I know nothing.

[wizard10000]

Spilling hot coffee and whining to a sympathetic jury is how at least one person got millions

OT, but she didn't get millions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebec...7s_Restaurants

Fascinating read. Apparently she was hospitalized for eight days, required skin grafts and originally asked McD's for $20k to cover medical expenses and her daughter's lost wages. McD offered $800.

[GreyGeek]

The jury awarded her $2.7 Million, but the judge cut it. It finally ended up at $600,000. The sad thing is that McD could have settled for $20K. Once it got to court the evidence revealed that they had paid $500K in previous burn lawsuits. I wonder what their coffee temp is now?

[oshunluvr]

Spilling hot coffee and whining to a sympathetic jury is how at least one person got millions

FYI: https://www.treehugger.com/corporate...e-lawsuit.html

Oops, ya'll beat me to it...

[wizard10000]

...I wonder what their coffee temp is now?

Lower?

[oshunluvr]

Yeah, I tried to explain that they didn't understand what open source meant, I even posted a copy of Bruce Peren's Open Source Definition, but apparently, I know nothing.

Sounds like you might consider not hanging there any more, just sayin'.

[SpecialEd]

Sounds like you might consider not hanging there any more, just sayin'.

r

Yes the level of discourse is terrible. Almost every post eventually turns into a popularity contest, or as I refer to it: My diskstro is bigger than your dickstro. (my apologies to the easily offended).

[oshunluvr]

r

Yes the level of discourse is terrible. Almost every post eventually turns into a popularity contest, or as I refer to it: My diskstro is bigger than your dickstro. (my apologies to the easily offended).

[vinnywright]

When you add in the upcoming change over to Wayland, I think the Dolphin devs have made the correct choice.

I have done my fare share of whining over this ,,,,,,, But will concede it is the correct direction to go ,,,,,I just really think that they should have had the policy-kit integration work done first.

supposedly ,,, if I understand correctly ,,, when it is done we should be able to do root things in a user dolphin and get a password prompt for the admin password and it happens.

VINNY