KDE Neon article in Linux Insider

[Beerislife]

I'm trying to get my head around this article, either my understanding of the English language is wanting or this doesn't make sense:

https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/N...ers-86133.html

Especially this part:

Getting somewhat technical for a minute, KDE Neon is more of a specialty offering than a fully endowed operating system. Other distros support a wide range of applications from the same software format type.

For example, Ubuntu runs .Deb formatted packages from the Debian Linux family. All .Deb packages will run on Ubuntu- and other Debian-based distros. Which desktop environment is used does not matter, be it KDE, Xfce, GNOME or whatever.
Ditto for RPM-based Linux distributions, like Fedora and Red Hat. All you need is a package management tool or knowledge of the commands for apt, yum or pacman, depending on the distribution's Linux family. However, that is a skill set that lots of Linux users never had to learn.

Not so with KDE Neon. Neon runs only a specific category of KDE applications: the latest. Neon's developers assert that their "pseudo" distro does not support most other software. In fact, non-KDE packages most likely will not even install on Neon.

I don't know what the author means but I'm running everything I was using in Kubuntu, including some GTK apps (Bluefish, Gimp, Thunderbird and more) I'm pretty sure everything installed is a DEB file too! (No rubbishy Flatpaks or Snaps here!)

[Don B. Cilly]

Yeah, well. what do you call a deer with no eyes?

What about "You cannot use both systems at the same time. Installing KDE Neon will simply replace Kubuntu once you venture beyond the live session. " then

Not only I have quite a few Gnome/GTK apps on Neon (unstable too) but I also found a way to get rid of the ugly fonts :·)
System settings, Application Style, GNOME/GTK Application Style, Fonts.

[oshunluvr]

The author is covering up his lack of knowledge with FUD.

KDEneon is not a distro. It is Ubuntu (as is Kubuntu) with a "rapidly developed and released" version of Plasma 5 (KDE) as it's desktop environment (DE). It sits on top of Ubuntu just like all the other *buntus do. The difference is the KDEneon team doesn't develop features or tools outside of KDE.

Of course you can't run KDEneon "at the same time" as Kubuntu, or any other distro. That's just a useless and frankly dumb statement. I've never heard of a distro you could install on top of another. That's why we have dual booting.

I'd stop reading anything by that author as clearly he doesn't understand or know much about Linux.

[chimak111]

I'm trying to get my head around this article, either my understanding of the English language is wanting or this doesn't make sense:

The latter! I had read that article and immediately put it out of my mind.

[verndog]

You can leave a comment on his site, unless of course your posting here to get support for your claims.
I enjoy reading Jack M. Germain's reviews. I don't necessarily agree with him, but he is fair.

[vinnywright]

yup ,, more feckless lip smacking without knowing what your(he's) talking about.

at least he was trying to put Neon in a positive light , just not succeeding very well .

VINNY

[Don B. Cilly]

You know what?
From the KDE neon FAQ page:

"KDE neon sits on top of the Ubuntu core foundations, which means the majority of software built for Ubuntu core will work fine, even when not explicitly supported by the KDE neon team. KDE neon is however not compatible with Kubuntu, as there is vast overlap in the base offerings of both Kubuntu and KDE neon. You can not use both systems at the same time. Installing KDE neon will simply replace Kubuntu. "

[vinnywright]

You know what?
From the KDE neon FAQ page:

"KDE neon sits on top of the Ubuntu core foundations, which means the majority of software built for Ubuntu core will work fine, even when not explicitly supported by the KDE neon team. KDE neon is however not compatible with Kubuntu, as there is vast overlap in the base offerings of both Kubuntu and KDE neon. You can not use both systems at the same time. Installing KDE neon will simply replace Kubuntu. "

LOL I think the wording got a bit off in as far as what they were trying to explain , and of course they are correct you cant run both at the same time on the same system and adding the neon repo to Kubuntu will turn Kubuntu into neon , BUT you most certainly can have a bunch of installs including Neon on your HD to boot to , I have 3 Kubuntu's 2 Neons and a debian on hear and all work just fine ,,,, but I suppose it's time for the Kubuntu-14.04 to go ,,,,and the Debian-8 to , some time or another .

VINNY

[jlittle]

Installing KDE neon will simply replace Kubuntu.

Would it be a good idea to use btrfs for this? Snapshot Kubuntu, set up a grub entry that boots into that snapshot, install KDE Neon, and use both?

[vinnywright]

Would it be a good idea to use btrfs for this? Snapshot Kubuntu, set up a grub entry that boots into that snapshot, install KDE Neon, and use both?

you can disregard that and setup your multi boot system as you are accustom to , Neon will not replace anything unless you try to install it on top of your current install .

as to btrfs you would just install 1 of them then rename the subvolume edit fstab and grub to reflect the new naming and then install the other .

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:/media/vinny/ff5d66d4-35b6-4c9c-a64e-8dfbe2aa1e31$ ls
[COLOR=#ff0000]@[/COLOR]    [COLOR=#ff0000]@17.04[/COLOR]        @17.04-2         @-2    @home-1     @home17.04-1snap  @home_171204-203128  @_ro_190728-205753  ubiquity-apt-clone
@-1  @17.04-1snap  @_171204-203229  [COLOR=#ff0000]@home[/COLOR]  [COLOR=#ff0000]@home17.04[/COLOR]  @home17.04-2      @home-2              store               var

@ and @home are old-Neon-LTS , @17.04 @home17.04 is Kubuntu-18.04 (now) I'm just lazy and didn't feel like doing all the editing of grub and fstab just to change the subvolume name the rest are snapshots , I need to do some house cleaning.
and that is just 1 btrfs partition their are EXT4 partitions as well with Neon , Kubuntu , and Debian + a hole disk btrfs (no partitions) SSD with Kubuntu,, this one dose require a custom grub menu entry in the system that controls grub OSprober will not see it and it has no partition to install grub to so was installed without it.

Model: ATA Samsung SSD 860 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
[COLOR=#ff0000]Partition Table: loop[/COLOR]
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start  End    Size   File system  Flags
1      0.00B  250GB  250GB  btrfs

I have 2 Neons and 3 Kubuntus on this box and they all stay in their partitions or subvolumes without jumping out and killing each other

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

jlittle: I installed Kubuntu to my btrfs file system, renamed the subvols @ and @home to @kubuntu and @kubuntu_home, edited fstab and grub.cfg to reflect the new subvol names, and rebooted. Then install KDEneon the same way. Then you can add kubuntu to the kdeneon grub menu or vice-versa.

[oshunluvr]

I have 2 Neons and 3 Kubuntus on this box and they all stay in their partitions or subvolumes without jumping out and killing each other

LOL - good one!

[jlittle]

jlittle: I installed Kubuntu to my btrfs file system, renamed the subvols @ and @home to @kubuntu and @kubuntu_home, edited fstab and grub.cfg to reflect the new subvol names, and rebooted. Then install KDEneon the same way. Then you can add kubuntu to the kdeneon grub menu or vice-versa.

IIUC, that means you installed KDE Neon separately to Kubuntu, so (in the absence of btrfs dedup) the space taken by Linux, Ubuntu, and applications like LibreOffice is duplicated. I was wondering if installing Kubuntu LTS, snapshotting that, then installing Neon into that install, one could avoid that duplication?

The space saved might not be that much initially, but also would be saved in each backup.

[oshunluvr]

Well, that sounds like an interesting experiment. It might work to a small degree. However, I doubt you'll end up saving much space in the end. I haven't actually measured but I think the "Ubuntu" part of either installation is less than 5-6 GB. As soon as you start using either install, that amount of shared space would decrease rapidly. Any files that get updated would become stand-alone. In other words, every update, setting change, etc., would create a new file I think. I'm not actually sure if snapshots are file-to-file or inode-to-inode but even if it's the inodes when you updated Kubuntu it would get larger and then again when you updated KDEneon. You might start out saving space, but I think very shortly you'd end up with two installs 90%+ unique - not necessarily different but existing separately.

[woodsmoke]

The author is covering up his lack of knowledge with FUD.

KDEneon is not a distro. It is Ubuntu (as is Kubuntu) with a "rapidly developed and released" version of Plasma 5 (KDE) as it's desktop environment (DE). It sits on top of Ubuntu just like all the other *buntus do. The difference is the KDEneon team doesn't develop features or tools outside of KDE.

Of course you can't run KDEneon "at the same time" as Kubuntu, or any other distro. That's just a useless and frankly dumb statement. I've never heard of a distro you could install on top of another. That's why we have dual booting.

I'd stop reading anything by that author as clearly he doesn't understand or know much about Linux.

LOL
AS USUAL Oshunluver has hit the nail on the proverbial head or., in this case post by the "talking head" who had to churn out an article to maintain relevance.

Go right ahead ane run Kubu, or go right ahead and run Neon. I run both, on separate machines and the same machine( by switching hard drives) and don't worry about talking heads, your head is working just fine!!!

woodsmoke