KDE's Version Timing Drops It In Ubuntu Support Priority

News.com is reporting that the next version of Ubuntu will see KDE unsupported, but only for the time being. Because of the dramatic changeover from KDE 3.5 to 4.0, Ubuntu sponsor Canonical is unwilling to initially support the popular Linux GUI. Gnome will still be supported, and the company expects to return support to kubuntu soon. "Developer interest is focused on KDE 4.0, but it's not mature enough yet to use in the next KDE-based variation of Ubuntu, called Kubuntu, Scott James Remnant, leader of the Ubuntu Desktop team, said in an explanation to a Kubuntu mailing list. But most Kubuntu developers adding features "upstream" of today's products are focused on KDE 4.0, meaning that it's risky to release a long-term support version based on 3.5."

Comments

News?

[dropadrop]

I don't get the point of this article. So it's not time for a new release of kubuntu, and this is news?

Re:News?

[BlueParrot]

Previously kubuntu release have been synchronous with the ubuntu releases, this decision breaks that pattern which is why it is news. It looks as if ubuntu and kubuntu may actually diverge enough to become separate distributions.

Re:News?

[h4rm0ny]

Oh fantastic. No kidding - guess what I decided to install on my new computer this afternoon! :D

Re:News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows? Mac OS X? Fedora? Ubuntu? Mandriva? Slackware?

Not suprising

[proudfoot]

The next version of Kubuntu/Ubuntu would have been an LTS, which means that it would be aimed at those who expected a long life out of an operating system, such as enterprise users.
KDE 4.0, in its current, and rather buggy state, does not fit the bill.

Re:Not suprising

[FudRucker]

ubuntu is trying to run the latest bleeding edge too much, kde-3.5.8 is still plenty good for several more years...

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Kubuntu will definitely be supported, but only for the regular 18-month cycle. The other flavors (Ubuntu and Xubuntu) will be LTS editions, which means that they'll be supported for 3 years (desktop software), and 5 years (for the server edition).

Re:Not suprising

[Fri13]

KDE4 starts KDE 4.x series and it isn't in that condition that everyone could use it like they can use KDE 3.5 on it current state. So, then when KDE 4.1 comes, it should be then in state it is good for anyone. Now when in few weeks KDE4 comes out, it is mostly for application developers and users who knows how to submit wishes and use KDE3.x applications in KDE4 too etc.

LTS support didnt come to kubuntu because KDE 3.5.x series support will be ended before LTS support and KDE4 isn't in shape it could be supported time what LTS needs. So, Kubuntu dont get LTS support, mayby next time when LTS version is coming from ubuntu.

But for those whole like to have supported KDE, can turn for other distributions like Mandriva, SUSE etc.

(im not developer but this info i have got from KDE blogs and it is UOM)

Re:Not suprising

[phoenix.bam!]

KDE 3.5 will be perfectly usable for many more years, but people working on the Kubuntu project have moved to KDE4 for the most part. Considering they are volunteers it is perfectly reasonable for them to do so. But without anyone working on the packages, Kubuntu can't release a long term support version of Kubuntu with KDE 3.5. There just isn't anyone around to maintain it.

Re:Not suprising

[Locutus]

considering that Ubuntu's LTS means security fixes and not application updates, you'd think that they could swing a deal with KDE people or even the Kubuntu people to ship KDE3 and just provide bug fixes as REQUIRED. Missing out on such a large market is not going to be a good thing for KDE. After all, many of the 'big' distro's are gnome based now and losing any more ground could hurt.

That is if Canonical is really moving anywhere with the LTS kits. Three years is a long time to miss out on.

LoB

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

QT3 isn't supported by Trolltech anymore, faggot. KDE3.5 is not viable for years anymore, no one has the resource to maintain QT3.

Re:Not suprising

[nurb432]

But it also says they wont support 3.5.x which really is irritating for us KDE users.

Good thing FreeBSD 7. will be out by then.

Re:Not suprising

[Simon80]

I recently wrote a patch to fix a particularly egregious bug in Kopete 3.5 (the history search feature being totally and unnecessarily slow), and the response I got when I submitted the patch to the mailing list was that it would be pointless to apply it, they're not making any more releases of that branch. So there are people around to maintain stuff, but apparently nobody around to release it.

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should the KDE crew "make a deal"?

If they've (KDE) decided that its better to focus their limited resources on 4.0, that's their right. Or, as better stated in TFA:

Canonical, which sponsors Ubuntu and is trying to make a business of selling the support contracts

...

"LTS' is a commercial-support commitment provided by Canonical, who shoulders the financial and administrative burden of doing so; as such, it is entirely their decision as to whether or not they provide that support for a particular release," Remnant said. "It is difficult for this decision to be made by the community because the community's stake in Kubuntu is one of personal achievement and pride, whereas Canonical's is financial and of commercial commitments."

"fter all, many of the 'big' distro's are gnome based now and losing any more ground could hurt."

There's no such thing as a "gnome based" distro - they're "linux" or "gnu/linux". The window manager is only a small, easily replaced, component. Every once in a while I'll try the gnome desktop, but it doesn't take long to realize that almost any other desktop is just better - either less bloated, or better-featured.

Re:Not suprising

[Almost-Retired]

I agree this will be unfortunate for KDE.

However your inference that LTS is of limited utility misses the point. 6.06 was chosen as the host platform for emc, precisely because by using 6.06, the emc developers were guaranteed a stable platform and could then concentrate on improving emc, and boy howdy have they ever. It is, I believe, the fastest moving development I've ever seen for an OS product in the field of computer numerical control software. It has gone from a somewhat twitchy & difficult to tune 3 axis milling machine driver to a stable 6 axis platform (9 is being discussed) capable of operating either a mill or a lathe. It can now bore a hole, then swap bits and thread both the bolt to fit that hole, and the hole itself on the milling machines table, I've done the threaded hole operation myself. Or to do the ornate carving in 3D of a beds headboard on a production line basis in a major high quality furniture makers factory.

When the next LTS comes out, emc will have to chose which of the realtime additions to the next kernel will be used, and adapt emc to live with it, and once done they can get back to the real project, that of making emc the accepted king of such applications. It is not far from that status now as commercial controllers are being ripped out, and emc put in their place to control machining centers as the older machines are being rebuilt, both due to wear in the machine, and bit rot in the controlling software which is no longer supported.

So the LTS versions do have a place in this world, very much so.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a fan of KDE (ie, everything else sucks), but I'm less and less impressed with the KDE devs. 4.0 is shaping up to be a huge pile of shit, and there are no plans to maintain 3.5 even for a little while? Unbelievable.

Re:Not suprising

[mabhatter654]

why promise to support a dead release for 5 years 6 months after the upgrade is released? in 2 years nobody will care about 3.5 and simply tell you to upgrade because those bugs are fixed.. Canonical doesn't want to do that by themselves. 4.0 isn't ready for betting your company on just yet, so the solution was to put both in the 8.04 under standard support, then commit to 4.0 under 8.10 forward... that seems the best course, had KDE gotten their stuff out in October so it could be in 7.10, they would have made the 8.04 release.. it's not like the plans for Ubuntu's support schedule are secret or unpredictable.

Re:Not suprising

[msuarezalvarez]

If you think that gnome (or kde) is "a window manager, a small, easily replaced component", you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, he should have said "a desktop environment, a small, easily replaced component".

It's so annoying when people don't get the difference between WMs and DEs.

Re:Not suprising

[msuarezalvarez]

Hm. If you think that a DE "is a small, easily replaced component", you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

pfftt. It is just a click! Or 29 typed letters: apt-get install gnome-desktop.

Re:Not suprising

[jilles]

So basically you are telling all those companies out there considering to switch to linux that in 6 months there is going to be noone around to support whatever they are installing now?. Pretty tough message either they install stuff that is pretty much untested and might become usable over the next year or they install stuff that is pretty well tested but that nobody wants to support anymore. Sounds like Microsoft stopping support for XP when they were still beta testing Vista (which some people might argue is still ongoing). Building good quality software is about more than tossing the next version over the fence: you need to have a credible plan for the most loyal users of the old version.

The KDE people are not willing to support 3.5 for five more years (the duration of LTS support contracts of Ubuntu). That's understandable. Even Microsoft plans to end commercial support for XP before then. But at the same time, 4.0 is in no shape to make it into a LTS supported release either.

The problem here is fundamentally that release schedules of various OSS projects are poorly aligned and that that occasionally leads to regrettable delays in getting software in the hands of people. Only a small portion of users ends up using the latest and greatest. For something like a major desktop platform release, the transition period is measured in years. KDE 4.0 will take quite some time to get adopted. Now is not a good time to stuff it into a LTS distribution.

Re:Not suprising

[delt0r]

What is emc? I assume its some CNC controller software. Google did not bring up anything that looked like what you are talking about.

Re:Not suprising

[JohnConnor]

That only shows that Kubuntu/Ubuntu is not ready for LTS. You don't decide that you will provide Long Term Support at the exact same time as one of the most used widows manager gets a major version change. What are they thinking? They should wait and make 8.10 the next LTS. At that time kubuntu will be able to use KDE4 and it will be well supported.

Re:Not suprising

[Almost-Retired]

Go to http://www.linuxcnc.org/ or to http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/ and I believe you will be enlightened.

There is also a well manned irc channel, on freenode, #emc. I've had problems due to my lack of knowledge, or actual gotcha type bugs, fixed in 5 minutes. Or less. These guys are sharp coders, who also make a living with whats inside all that swarf on the floor or catch trays. Follow some of the links in the wiki to see the machines themselves which these guys use, which range from table toppers like mine to locomotive sized stuff. Some of which is serious production line stuff. From metal shavings, to foam cutters (wing forms etc), Electronic Discharge Machining (which I've also done with my little machine), any sort of material carving or forming, emc can do it.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
You will be called upon to help a friend in trouble.

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE4 starts KDE 4.x series and it isn't in that condition that everyone could use it like they can use KDE 3.5 on it current state. So, then when KDE 4.1 comes, it should be then in state it is good for anyone. Now when in few weeks KDE4 comes out, it is mostly for application developers and users who knows how to submit wishes and use KDE3.x applications in KDE4 too etc.

None of the press releases mention this. This only seems to be mentioned when somebody complains that KDE 4.0 is buggy; i.e. it's an excuse rather than a well-publicised strategy. Can you find any mention of this in any end-user documentation or press? How are non-power users and non-developers supposed to find out that KDE 4.0 isn't suitable for them?

Re:Not suprising

[mrchaotica]

So basically you are telling all those companies out there considering to switch to linux that in 6 months there is going to be noone around to support whatever they are installing now?

No. Canonical is telling all those companies to use the GNOME version, which will be a long-term-support version, instead, or to use the older Kubuntu LTS version (6.06).

Re:Not suprising

[Locutus]

I didn't think I was saying or inferring that Ubuntu LTS was of "limited utility". I don't know how successful Canonical has been with it in the market or how the market views it. Obviously, there is someone who has seen it's value( linuxcnc.org ) but one does not a party make. If Ubuntu's LTS is what is getting looked at in the general market, not shipping a KDE supported LTS version for the next release is not going to be good for KDE's marketshare.

You didn't state if the EMC development is using Ubuntu LTS or Kubuntu LTS. If it is Kubuntu LTS than you've got another issue to deal with since there isn't going to be a Kubuntu LTS for this next cycle.

BTW, I'm very pleased that LinuxCNC.org/EMC is moving along and providing a very workable/usable product. I only wish I had a CNC machine so I could try it out. Power tools and building 'things' are my 2nd love. :-)

LoB

Re:Not suprising

[Almost-Retired]

The Ubuntu/Kubuntu 6.06 installs are, as far as emc is concerned, equivalent. Xubuntu/Kubuntu will probably work just as well too.

I happen to like KDE, but if push comes to shove I could probably learn to tolerate and ignore gnomes &^%$# holier than thou attitude and use it. But it has nowhere near the configurability facilities that KDE has. In my case, the gfx card is as much a limiting factor as anything else, its your basic 4 megabyte elderly Diamond Speedstar, an oxymoron on a par with military intelligence. But its stable and it works, just at not over 1024x756. The monitor can do 1600x1200.

If and when I re-install for the next LTS, I will probably switch that card to a 9250 SE I have laying about as that will allow me to run at a higher screen resolution more closely matching what the monitor, a Samsung Synchmaster can do.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
A lifetime isn't nearly long enough to figure out what it's all about.

Re:Not suprising

[Locutus]

Maybe I didn't say it clearly, the reason they should make some kind of deal is because Ubuntu is a very popular distro and has a supported KDE version. If LTS support is a key point in the decision process for many businesses/users/etc picking Ubuntu over others, not having a KDE version for the next 3 years is going to lose KDE many customers/users.

but hey, if they do what they do for the fun of it and don't care how many use their product(s), go ahead and don't provide security and major bug fixes for the latest stable release and let Ubuntu/Gnome customer base grow. Let the Ubuntu/KDE customer base shrink or stagnate for 3 or more years.

Do you see my point now?

"gnome based".... You don't understand what THAT ment in the context of the writing? Or maybe you don't understand that while it can be very easy to install and setup KDE on standard Ubuntu and maybe even SuSe, RedHat, etc, it is far easier to NOT do it. And doing so might not get you support from the company you originally got the distro from if that is important to you. You know we are talking about a support issue here( LTS - Long Term Support ). The fact that a Gnu/Linux distro defaults to a Gnome desktop manager means it is "gnome based" as far as the desktop, user interface, and default application list is concerned. That means alot IMO and there is going to be a threat brought against all users of Gnome based distros in the near future if Microsoft keeps on its current course if IP threats. But that's another story. Yes it's easy to install another desktop and I've done it many times but that has little to do with Ubuntu/Canonical skipping LTS(support) for a KDE version for 3 years. Remember, I'm still talking about the LTS release here. Ofcourse, IMO.

LoB

Re:Not suprising

[Locutus]

I don't think moving to an ATI card is something you want to do if you are going for stability. Atleast if you are also going to go with ATI's drivers. Maybe the open source radeon driver(xorg.conf => DRIVER=ati) is fine though.

You do know that you could very well just swap the video cards at any point after changing the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to use the ati driver instead of the svga one if it is what the Diamond Speedstar is using? Backup the original just incase the modelines are not compatible( though they should be since the Diamond is not that special and the monitor is the same ). IE, there's no need to wait to upgrade the card if it'll get you the higher resolution you want now. It can also be easier on the head to limit what is changing when large software updates are going to happen. There's enough to worry about in a major update to go and throw in a hardware change too.

LoB

Re:Not suprising

[Almost-Retired]

ISTR that card did run at 1600x1200 during an earlier install of Brain Dead Install, but this has worked moderately well.

The main impediment to doing it right now is my age & diabetes, by the time I'd get it done now, my feet would be screaming cuz there's no heat in the shop, at least not enough to be comfortable. There is a heater, a small electric set to keep it above freezing if it can and which is currently attempting to also dry some 3x8 white ash planks I have clamped to a steel framework so they won't curl up like a swatted spider as they dry from native cut stuffs that has been laying out in the weather for about 2 years now. The building itself wasn't really built to be insulated and only has any over about 15% of its inside surface. When I built, it was from a kit, quick and warm weather. :( Once again hindsight is 20/10. :) So it will wait till warmer weather now...

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
A lifetime isn't nearly long enough to figure out what it's all about.

Re:Not suprising

[Locutus]

I've spent some time in 20 deg and even negative numbers so I know where you're coming from. The other health issues can only make that memory pale in comparison so I understand. Good luck with the work when it's warmer.

Re:Not suprising

[Almost-Retired]

20 degrees F is actually pretty balmy. Many years ago I got up at 4:45 am to go put a tv station on the air, and found only one of the 3 vehicles in the drive would start, the thermometer nailed to a pine tree in the front yard confirmed the extra nip in the air was caused by a -39F reading. OTOH, I'm not hankerin to move back to that country in my dotage either. But, living where one might find a deer grazing in your yard, and fish jumping into the boat, did have its upsides at the time. Unforch, that was 40 years ago, and that country has doubled or tripled in population density since, so its true, you can never truly 'go home' again. That 'home' doesn't exist anymore.

Have a Happy New Year, for the whole year.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Re:Not suprising

[balazsbela]

Same here. I submitted a patch on kopete's sourceforge page to block messages comming from people outside the contact list. There was no option to ignore people for the Yahoo protocol. This feature was on their wishlist for a long time. Still I got no response. Looks like everyone is working on the kde4 version.I think that is good though, but they could have done some bugfix releases, like Amarok did, before strictly concentrating on kde4 development.

Re:Not suprising

[Simon80]

I don't think the sourceforge page is used by anyone, kopete.sf.net redirects to kopete.kde.org. If you want a response of some kind, I suggest submitting it to their mailing list, see https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kopete-devel

ubuntu shmoobuntu

[FudRucker]

ubuntu wants to kick a release out the door every 6 months, i think it would be wise to release once a year and no more frequent than that, the rest of the Linux distros & community works at a slower pace than ubuntu wants to run at...

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[phoenix.bam!]

Ubuntu feature freezes all releases. For six months nothing about your desktop changes, at all. Only security and bug fixes are released. If they moved to a one year release cycle they would either end up hopelessly out of date, or would have to sacrifice desktop consistency without a given distribution. Ubuntu doesn't want to surprise users with an update to their desktop that changes functionality.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[empaler]

They're aiming at releasing twice a year with enough new features to catch the interest of the public, and only release STABLE every now and then. Next scheduled release (April 08, 8.04) is the upcoming stable branch.
KDE4 will probably be backported to 7.10, and will most certainly be included in 8.10.
The reiterate how above relates to your comment (sorry, I get carried away sometimes), the point of the twice-a-year release schedule is being able to make press releases and submit a lot of stories to Digg and Slashdot. Seen Slashdot's BSD coverage lately? That's fewer stories for all the major BSDs (save for Mac OS X) than for one Linux distribution in the past year. Novelty is key if you want attention. By the time the same (matured, stabilized) features are added to BSD and Linux distributions that aim more at stability, it'll seem stale compared to the newest (not-quite-stable-yet) features in Ubuntu.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[ditoa]

Personally I like Ubuntu's approach. IMHO Linux for the desktop can lose momentum very easily but Ubuntu seems to be keeping things rather stable. I have seen more improvements in Linux for the desktop since Ubuntu became popular than any time before. Perhaps it is just coincidence, perhaps not. Either way 6 months isn't an outrageously quick turn around time, I feel yearly releases would just cause everything to slow down.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[Wowsers]

Mandriva / Mandrake went from a yearly release back to 6 months due to user demand. When it went to the yearly release people didn't like it.

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/21/2348253

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[smoker2]

And in related news, my car has been running a lot better since I started wiping my arse with the other hand.
P.S. Linux doesn't need "momentum". It's not a race, it's an operating system. It gains nothing by "beating" the opposition. If anything, I have found the 2 main desktop environments have become LESS usable recently, presumably to cater for the newbs. Ubuntu is 1 distro, out of hundreds, and the only thing noticeable about it, is it's preferred by lusers rather than users. I guess some people are genetically disposed to become fanbois.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[ditoa]

Your comparison is idiotic, momentum is needed regardless of if there is a "race" or not. Momentum is needed just to get things done in general. I am surprised you do not understand this.

As for the pointless attack on "lusers", what exactly is your point? That the default configurations are too simple? How is this a bad thing? You can change it however you want so why complain? Because it is not how YOU want it? Linux still has many rough edges, making it simpler is important not just for wider adoption but also just to make lifer easier for people. Providing I can still change it, I don't care how it is by default. Having everything complex from the get go is just stupid, why make things harder than they need to be?

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[petermgreen]

ubuntu releases every six months BUT three out of four of those releases have a short support life and are aimed at those who want/need to be on the bleeding edge. One release in four is supported for a much longer period (3 years on the desktop 5 on the server).

The problem as I understand it is that the current KDE situation has put ubuntu in a tight spot, they either totally rip up thier release schedule (which would not be a good thing for their acceptance in the enterprise), they pay people to do a lot of support work for a non default desktop (which would probblly be a lot of money spent for little gain) or they don't provide long term support for use of KDE with hardy.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[xiaomai]

i think that the 6 month release cycle is largely a good thing. my favorite distro has always been debian. my main problem back then though was that whenever major new versions of software (gnome 2, xfree86 4.0, etc.), i knew i had two choices: compile it myself, or wait a year (or four) for the next version of debian to come out (assuming i was on stable at the time). I like only having to wait a few months with ubuntu.

the major downside, though, is that the packages that don't come pre-loaded in the default install seem much more likely to have bugs.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[SoopahMan]

Strongly disagree. Ubuntu is doing a lot of things right, and the recent commercial end-user available machines rallying around Ubuntu/Gnome shows it. If anything other projects should speed up to keep pace with Ubuntu.

The regular release cycle helps contributing developers to enjoy their work - they can count on finished new features to be out in less than 6mos, rather than less than a year, which can be pretty exciting. And it aids iterative development - a year between releases can encourage hail mary style development where you go big and failures are crushing.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[houstonbofh]

ubuntu wants to kick a release out the door every 6 months, i think it would be wise to release once a year and no more frequent than that, the rest of the Linux distros & community works at a slower pace than ubuntu wants to run at...

Base releases are every 6 months. (and some people still complain that it is too slow) LTS releases are every 2 years. (and some people still complain that it is too fast) In the Linux world, no matter what you do, someone will hate you.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[Khaed]

Eh, I went from Slackware to Ubuntu because I wanted it to just work. My printer randomly stopped working and refused to reinstall no matter what I did, I spent hours reading about my printer and Linux, CUPS, etc. Nothing worked, at all. I bought the printer for its linux support. After a while I decided that it wasn't worth my time to fuck with text file configurations, recompile things, and in general be frustrated that no one had an answer.

If that makes me a luser, it's a badge I'll wear proudly while I use my time to do something other than fight with programs written for people who live in basements and consider what distribution they use a realistic indicator of the size of their cocks.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[FudRucker]

RE:["Base releases are every 6 months. (and some people still complain that it is too slow) LTS releases are every 2 years. (and some people still complain that it is too fast) In the Linux world, no matter what you do, someone will hate you."]

you are right, with some product marketing no matter what you do someone wont like the method, it just seems to me that once every six months would not give developers enough time for bug fixes. oh well, different smokes for different folks...

i am not an ubuntu user, i been using Slackware for years and find Pat's once a year release schedule to be just right, debian has an even slower release schedule...

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[Aladrin]

While moved from Slackware to Kubuntu for the same reason you did, I think you missed the troll's point:

'Lusers' prefer Ubuntu.

That doesn't mean you or I are lusers, just that if you ask a luser was distro they want, they say 'Ubuntu'. Of course, it also happens that if you ask many professionals the same question, they'll answer the same.

The reason is simple: Ubuntu is fixing all the complaints about Linux distros. Ease of use, painful configuration, etc etc. They're making Linux a joy to use for the non-technical and the technical people are reaping the benefits as well. Every minute that I don't spend in xorg.conf is a minute I spent elsewhere, enjoying what I want to instead.

In short, you responded just as the troll wanted you, too. You took the bait and ran with it and ended up with nothing.

Do not feed the trolls.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[Daengbo]

the rest of the Linux distros & community works at a slower pace than ubuntu wants to run at...

I have to comment somewhere to undo a botched mod, and you look like a good candidate. ;)

Ubuntu releases
exactly on the schedule of Gnome. Ubuntu is a Gnome distro and was created to release early and release often on its schedule. Gnome comes out in March and September. Ubuntu has time to do final tests on the official product and ship in April and October. That means that you're just wrong, not interesting as modded.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[Khaed]

His account doesn't seem to have a history of trolling; more likely he's just a pissy elitist.

Re:ubuntu shmoobuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

those without dicks big enough to persevere through the storm deserve to be swept away in the waves of their own delusion.

I hope this doesn't mean

[Neuropol]

my fancy blue Kubuntu splash screen isn't going to work any more.

That's what you get...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when you name your distro after some nigger-speak jibbajabba.

Re:That's what you get...

[whistlingtony]

................... Wow.

This is the most blatant bit of racism I have ever seen. I live a charmed life, I'll agree. Still... Wow...

P.S. Language is a beautiful thing. What geek would disagree? What is this person doing on Slashdot?

Re:That's what you get...

[Locutus]

the AC who posted that crap is obviously not a member of the tribe and with an attitude like that, they can stay away.

LoB

Re:That's what you get...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey you faggot, get over it.

If you like language so much, why don't you marry it?

Re:That's what you get...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, Pee-Wee.

Re:That's what you get...

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

Re:That's what you get...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the most blatant bit of racism I have ever seen.

The poster is probably not even racist, he's just another troll trying to get a rise out of people. Slashdot used to be famous for having some of the worst trolls online (there were even groups of trolls working together) but nowadays you rarely even have a chance to see them before they're squished by moderation. Count your blessings that you weren't around when GNAA was here crap-flooding.

Re:That's what you get...

[Oktober Sunset]

ah, who's the racist now eh? Begrudging a poor gay nigger the freedom to express himself, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather be a ladies man than a lady boy.

http://spamslashdot.myminicity.com/tra

Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[empaler]

... adding features "upstream" of today's products are focused on KDE 4.0, meaning that it's risky to release a long-term support version based on 3.5. Someone's not been paying attention to the point of LTS - the point is that since there is no addition of major features, there's less risk involved, making it a better choice for those seeking stability. Zonk's next accepted feature:

FreeBSD - too many versions?
News.com reports that only damned fools would go for FreeBSD 5.5 - where no major features have been added for years. Server maintainers should get with the program and start download FreeBSD 8 alphas - it has something called superpages and network stack virtualization, and while none of us know what that means, the names are impressive.

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[Anonymous Coward]

it has something called superpages and network stack virtualization, and while none of us know what that means, the names are impressive.

Sounds like a typical Windows release.

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[value_added]

the point is that since there is no addition of major features, there's less risk involved

Aaargh. A minor nitpick, perhaps, but no reason to muddle what could have been perfectly clear point.

the point is that because there is no addition of major features, there's less risk involved

Even when heard from the mouths of complete illiterates predisposed to bastardised or colloquial usage, since and because should not be considered analogous by anyone, any more so than "way" should be considered anything other than a piss poor if not bizarre unit of quantitative or qualitative measure.

Or for those gentle Slashdot readers preferring crib notes to study, commiting "Since when" and "Because why" to memory should suffice.

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[slyn]

Someone's not been paying attention to the point of LTS - the point is that since there is no addition of major features, there's less risk involved, making it a better choice for those seeking stability.

That is not necessarily true. Ubuntu 8.04 will be using kernel 2.6.24 (which still hasn't had a final release), and as always they use the newest Gnome (2.22 I believe) and X.org (7.3). On top of that they will be using the new PulseAudio sound server, integrating the Policykit framework, rewriting the restricted driver manager for easier cross-desktop-environment-iness, and tossing out the old "Human" theme for a completely new one. And of course working on getting Tracker and Compiz Fusion (and everything else, but those two in particular (hopefully)) less buggy and more useful.

Considering that this is supposed to be an LTS release, their still keeping Ubuntu on top of things in terms of the latest and greatest.

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't really think a Slashdot editor is going to take the time to read, are you?

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[wanderingknight]

Yeah, but all the things you mentioned don't represent major application overhauls. They're mostly point releases, while KDE 4 is a complete remake of KDE.

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you read your own link, idiot.

since [sins]
8. because; inasmuch as: Since you're already here, you might as well stay.

And "way" as a "unit" of distance is informal but acceptable usage. It is mostly metaphorical. People who lack autism understand this.

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[MMC Monster]

The problem is: if a bug is noticed in KDE 3.5.x in a couple years, are developers going to waste time fixing it?

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[immcintosh]

Um, I might point out that the last definition of "since" in the very page you cited is synonymous with because. To quote:

-conjunction
... 8. because; inasmuch as: Since you're already here, you might as well stay.

Now, regardless of whether you are of the opinion that this is an unacceptable neologism, they may, at least according to dictionary.com, absolutely be used synonymously in this context.

...any more so than "way" should be considered anything other than a piss poor if not bizarre unit of quantitative or qualitative measure.

Way out there? Actually, the use of "way" as a measure of degree seems to be derived from "away," and, again if dictionary.com is to believed, can be traced several centuries back (this use originating sometime around 1175-1225 according to that source).

To be blunt, the only thing wrong with either of these seems to be that you don't like them, as they are clearly recognized as acceptable English usage, and have been for a long time. Normally I would ignore grammatical nitpicking, but the combination of patronizing tone and outright incorrect assertions here got my goad.

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[empaler]

The problem is: if a bug is noticed in KDE 3.5.x in a couple years, are developers going to waste time fixing it? Then the problem is not new; 6.06 LTS is supported through 2009/11 (desktop/server), and if any of the old packages in that LTS needs a security update 2010 even though they've made point releases since... well, if the badge LTS is to be worth anything, Ubuntu will have to ensure those security fixes are made.

Apart from that, TFS refers to oo, shiny and not security fixes. Even MS will make security fixes for Win2K until 2010. If Linux can't cut it for a small handful of years with feature-free security upgrades, then it really is not business-worthy.

Don't get me wrong, the above was just a straw argument; I think Linux is very business-friendly.

Re:Someone explain how LTS works to Zonk?

[Daengbo]

Blogspam warning! I did an overview of the likely improvements in Ubuntu (no K) Hardy just today. http://ibeentoubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/12/upcoming-hardy-heron-features.html. The blueprints which don't have to do with the desktop will be in Kubuntu, though, so the article might still be useful for Kubuntu people.

I'd rather see them be honest

[Realistic_Dragon]

The Gutsy version of Kubuntu broke a _lot_ of things on my powerbook. Up until this release I was really happy with Linux on it, rating it well above OS X for geeks. Right now I'm seriously considering reverting back to Feisty.

So, with that in mind, it's actually nice to see them declare that something won't be working _before_ I waste time trying to upgrade to it. I can then make an informed decision about what to do, instead of using a half assed release that would disappoint me. Not meeting expectations is about the worst thing you can do to your credibility.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps rather than "downgrading", why not move to a distro that doesn't break things?

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[calebt3]

They upgrade slower.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[Pausanias]

Amen to that. Up until feisty, Ubuntu was a constant improvement for me. Then gutsy broke two very important features:

• Suspend/resume doesn't work as reliably (hard restart required every ~5 resumes)
• NetworkManager barfs when switching from wireless to wired

Now, I won't say that there weren't improvements. Rhythmbox now plays iTunes shares over SSH, and hibernate (which I never use) finally works. But these improvements definitely were not worth the above two regressions. Badly done, Ubuntu.

The only reason I'm not regressing to feisty is that I'm afraid I'll break my evolution settings when reloading my inbox to the older version. That, and the fact that I don't have the time.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[gambolt]

just use debian. It's the same thing only the emphasis is on the code and technical perfection, not the eyecandy

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[kbahey]

I have been using Kubuntu for a couple of years too.

The problems I had were on the upgrade to Feisty.

An Intersil WiFi card that worked fine on Edgy stopped working on Feisty.

The slmodem driver for the HDA sound card which worked fine on Edgy stopped working on Feisty.

Apart from that, on Gutsy with a new laptop (Toshiba A200-TR6), sound is a bit flaky (plugging in a headphone, sound still comes out from the laptop built-in speaker in addition to the head phone).

Also on Gutsy, inserting an SD card works most of the time, but has to be taken out and inserted for it to work on other occasions.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[ConceptJunkie]

Gutsy broke sound on my HP laptop and I couldn't fix it to save my life. It didn't work in Fiesty either but I was able to build a new version of alsa to get it working. And let's not mention wireless. I love using Gusty on my desktops, but for my HP Pavilion laptop, it's just not there yet.

I ended up switching back to XP, and I had to friggin' buy a copy because those bastards at Microsoft stuck Visturd on the laptop. Friggin' monopoly. If there was real competition I wouldn't have to pay because Microsoft decides to stop bundling a good product and bundle a crappy one solely because they hate the fact that they can't charge a subscription for their OS and are taking it out on customers. I'm sick and tired of those arrogant, hateful bastards.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[johnnyheavens]

Pleeeeese...I even like debian myself but slow doesn't even start to describe debian's history of releasing. Sure, I know about stability and debian is as stable as anything out there but they've done little if anything to further the acceptance of linux. I'd love to start seeing debian and other nix folks start giving ubuntu it's due props. As I see it it, ubuntu has furthered the linux and OS growth by leaps and bounds compared to any other project since the first linux release and this will be good for everyone in the long run. I may even force MS to suck less. While the timing is harsh KDE given it's LTS release time and no KDE I am glad to know in advance.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[gambolt]

why run a release? At any point testing is more stable than most of Ubuntu, which is based on a snapshot of unstable.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[jesterzog]

Suspend/resume doesn't work as reliably (hard restart required every ~5 resumes)

I started my laptop on Feisty, and since upgrading to Gutsy I noticed that the hibernation was broken. On some further examination though, I noticed that this problem seems very specific to the Kernel. If I boot gutsy to the 2.6.10 kernel, hibernate works fine. Without wanting to imply that this should be okay for Ubuntu as a distribution, you might still find that it works again if you boot to an earlier kernel, or try compiling your own and fiddle with the configuration.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[Cal Paterson]

Debian releases are slow. However, the testing branch is a "rolling update" distribution. There are new packages daily, and stability is good. Debian testing is actually very similar to Ubuntu; GNOME by default, very similar packaging system etc. In fact, if you pick the default settings all the way through the install, it ends up pretty much identical, except that because of the "rolling nature" you don't have to wait for a big release before you get all the new packages.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[A beautiful mind]

I run on unstable myself, for the past 5-6 years or so. I update once a week or something similar. The only time I had any problems was back in 2005(?) when an X lib update broke video playback for two weeks, but apart from that I had zero problems whatsoever.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[sricetx]

I had a horrible experience with Gutsy too, and ended up reverting to the Feisty release. The Kubuntu folks need to spend a little more time on QA.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[Brandybuck]

The Gutsy version of Kubuntu broke a _lot_ of things on my powerbook.

Ditto for me on my Thinkpad. But NONE of those broken things came from KDE. All were (K)Ubuntu addons, enhancements, and the like.

My current assignment ends tomorrow, and then I will be wiping Kubuntu off the Thinkpad, and replacing it with a no-frills system (probably Arch). I prefer my KDE in the vanilla flavor, without any of the "improvements" Kubuntu/SuSE/Mandriva/etc. bolt onto the side.

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[mrchaotica]

I ended up switching back to XP, and I had to friggin' buy a copy because those bastards at Microsoft stuck Visturd on the laptop.

If it came with Vista Business or higher (and any decent laptop should have -- non-"business class" machines aren't worth crap anyway), it should allow you to "downgrade" (or rather, upgrade) to XP without having to buy a different license. And even if it didn't, if I already owned a legal copy of Vista I'd have no moral qualms about switching it out for a cracked version of XP anyway!

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[hawk]

Not only that, but the next Debian release will include KDE 3.0! :)

hawk

Re:I'd rather see them be honest

[ConceptJunkie]

It was Vista Home or the "You're screwed, Neener neener neener!" version. I would have expected the Business version since it was a decent machine, but as I always say, "Microsoft hates me!"

BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

Any distro must make a choice of what to include or what not to include.

If it's critical software such as the kernel or compiler, the distro release is reasonably delayed. If it's not critical such as mtools, there's no need to wait.

With a desktop environment, it's somewhere in-between. If it is something most users depend on, then one would expect a reasonable delay. Obviously, maintainers of this distro don't believe that KDE users are in the majority and the distro can adhere to its release schedule and provide solid KDE4 support later. Good decision; not a problem.

However, making this NEWS implies there is something nefarious afoot and that alone should provide the usual morons who love to debate these things an opportunity to display their ignorance.

I, for one, do not welcome our flame-baiting masters . . .

FYI

[empaler]

Trolling spamlink above. Don't believe me? Check the URL.

Misleading article

[csnydermvpsoft]

Looking at the mailing list message linked from the article clears up things. Kubuntu 8.04 will not be "unsupported" - it will simply not be an LTS (long-term support) release. This means that it will "only" be supported for 18 months on the desktop instead of three years.

Also, the concern is not whether features will still be being added to 3.5, but whether bugs fill be fixed upstream. From TFM: "Will a bug in KDE 3.5 receive upstream attention in March 2011?"

Re:Misleading article

[theshowmecanuck]

Doubtful, as an AC mentioned (in a much cruder way), Trolltech is not supporting QT3 any more... or at least not much longer since they are now at QT4. KDE3.x QT3 and KDE4 is programmed using QT4. At least that is how I understood things to be.

Bottom line is that KDE3.x likely is not really going to be supportable till 2011. But who knows? That is a long way away.

KDE release and LTS

[Pecisk]

Disclaimer: I am GNOME user for eight years, but I recommend KDE for powerusers. Thanks God that we have choice.

Problem is very simple - KDE guys don't guarantee that KDE 3.5 will be supported next 3 years (which is obvious - KDE 4 is just around the corner and all development efforts will be channelled to it), but KDE 4 won't be useful until end of next year (basis is there, but lot of stuff must be ported). So it is kinda dumb situation. However, Kubuntu 8.04 WILL be released, it just won't be 3 years supported, aka LTS, but tradicionally 18 months, which is half of that time. After that, Kubuntu 8.10 release will contain KDE 4 at it's best.

So - not kinda cool that there won't be LTS for KDE, but still - there will be release.

p.s. it is a little bit sad that rather fine article summary contains somehow weak attempt to cause flamewar. Yes, KDE is popular, but also is GNOME - I know lot of KDE fanboys has problems to admit that (ohh, and it is similar with GNOME fanboys to admit that KDE is desktop of choice for many people, of course).

Re:KDE release and LTS

[Anonymous Coward]

i was hoping for the flamewar to come up so that i could see the argument take place and the points beeing made

Re:KDE release and LTS

[Burrina]

Divide and conquer my brothers.Are we not any stronger than this?

Re:KDE release and LTS

[Athrun Zala]

Disclaimer: I am GNOME user for eight years, but I recommend KDE for powerusers. Thanks God that we have choice.

I don't know who your God is so I may be mistaken, but I'd really doubt that *any* of Them ever did any programming work for the OSS or the mentioned DEs. What about giving a little credit to the real hard working people behind the Gnome and KDE, who actually are the ones that gave us this choice?

Re:KDE release and LTS

[Khaed]

How about not being a dick unnecessarily in regards to someone making use of a common expression?

Re:KDE release and LTS

[jhol13]

KDE guys don't guarantee that KDE 3.5 will be supported next 3 years Really? That sounds horrible, the development model of KDE sounds very amateurish.

not kinda cool that there won't be LTS for KDE, I think it is very cool not to include immaturely developed programs.

Re:KDE release and LTS

[sameerds]

Kubuntu 8.04 WILL be released, it just won't be 3 years supported, aka LTS, but tradicionally 18 months, which is half of that time. After that, Kubuntu 8.10 release will contain KDE 4 at it's best. Why don't they simply decouple Kubuntu and Ubuntu LTS releases? Let the next Kubuntu LTS come when KDE is stable enough. Even better ... work out a schedule with KDE the way Ubuntu and GNOME releases are synchronised.

Re:KDE release and LTS

[oojah]

KDE guys don't guarantee that KDE 3.5 will be supported next 3 years

Really? That sounds horrible, the development model of KDE sounds very amateurish.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but can you provide examples of open source projects that *do* guarantee to provide support for versions of their code that are three years old? As a reference, for GNOME this would be 2.8 and the Linux kernel would be 2.6.10.

Cheers,

Roger

Re:KDE release and LTS

[jhol13]

None that are not backed by a company. OTOH OpenSolaris is one.

BTW Gnome tries harder to maintain binary compatibility, 2.8 should be reasonably compatible with latest. However, I doubt it really is very good (for 3 yr old programs to run on 2.20).

real shame

[Locutus]

the reasoning is sound but the effect is not what I think is going to be good for the desktop. Microsoft has way too many hooks into Gnome via Mono and too much reliance on Gnome could allow more harm when Microsoft gets more agressive with their patent claims.

FWIW, I recently ran across another instance of my I don't like Gnome. I did an installation of Ubuntu for a noob and went to edit the default menus but found only some items were editable. WTF, is up with that? I really disliked how Microsoft would make various desktop and system objects 'special' and without common access features. Try explaining to a new user why somethings get acted on one way while other, similar objects are acted on differently or can't be acted on. There was also the case where two of use could not find anywhere to change the text color of the desktop icons. All we found on the web was hand editing config files to change the text color and that through me over the top. I installed kubuntu-desktop and was done with it in no time.

There is dumbing down the UI and then there is dumb-shitting the dumbing down. Gnome is doing a great job at making a desktop you can't grow into. What next Miguel, MS-Bob-gnome?

With hope, Canonical can bring kubuntu(KDE v4.0) into the LTS support cycle once it's been shaken down. Even if it's a year into the the LTS release cycle.

LoB

Re:real shame

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft has way too many hooks into Gnome via Mono and too much reliance on Gnome could allow more harm when Microsoft gets more agressive with their patent claims."

Anyone with any brains has already stopped using gnome (if they were ever using it in the past). Mono is just the latest in a string of really bad decisions - "[Cancel] [OK]" button order being one of them ... or these abominations

>> standard: [Reset] [Cancel] [OK]
>> alternative: [Reset] [OK] [Cancel]

The default action (the one the user presumably wants to do) should be on the left, in all LtR schemas. Doing it the other way "just to be different from Windows", when the fact is that this was how it was ordered before Windows even existed, was another Miguelistic brain-fart.

Re:real shame

[mabhatter654]

the more I use Knoppix vs Ubuntu the more Gnome seems limited.. but KDE is too wide open.

The effect of Suse or Mandriva releases I've used was to reskin half of KDE to make it "simpler" but then leave you digging for options in the other half they didn't feel like updating. Neither distro reskins the same things either. The effect is that most KDE "fans" end up using the bog default version and adding their own customizations to it.

While that's great for everybody to have their own, it sucks for a community distro because nobody agrees on which things to strip out.. nobody agrees on a sane default and nobody want's to clean up the multiple option panes in 8 different places in a sane manner. That's what keeps it from being default in more distros. The Gnome folks just force what they think is sane and everybody lives with it... it's not great but it's easier for new users because there's only "one way" in most cases so at least support is easier.

There is still some licensing issues with the underlying QT license in that it is all-GPL or all-pay... there's no LGPL like GTK and Gnome. It looks like they fixed the cross-platform license problems (QT windows was pay only for a long time) but GTK already snapped up most of the cross platform action and troltech hasn't done much to go after it. Most QT stuff at this point is strictly Linux as "K" apps.. there's not much incentive to port to windows or mac because there are already GTK equivalents in that space.

i do agree, I think we should trust Trolltech more than Novell at this point due to Novell being "in bed" with Microsoft and the head of their cross platform projects being too much of a Microsoft fanboi and not paying attention to Microsoft's history of screwing their partners over IP issues. Mono, Samba, open office are all on the block for Novell to screw up by putting Microsoft "IP" in there "nobody" else can use.

Re:real shame

[poopdeville]

I agree, and don't think you should have been modded flamebait, though I can see why some people might think it is. Special cases are anathema to good interface design. Things that are by all appearances of the same kind should be treated the same by the interface. Each special case introduces a new context the user has to learn. Special cases that change with every release are even worse.

I don't have a problem with limited configurability, if the defaults are sane. Special cases aren't. KDE has some problems with special cases too, but they're easy enough to configure away if they become a nuisance. I've only run into one special case problem in Leopard, and it was hard to fix -- but honestly no harder to fix than a Gnome usability issue would be to a noob. I'm referring to how the Dock handles folders. In Tiger and before, clicking a folder would open a Finder window for the folder. Now "Stacks" open by default, a layer of indirection I don't want.

Re:real shame

[domatic]

GTK already snapped up most of the cross platform action and troltech hasn't done much to go after it. Most QT stuff at this point is strictly Linux as "K" apps.. there's not much incentive to port to windows or mac because there are already GTK equivalents in that space.

If the OS X native port of GTK doesn't get its ass in gear, that is about to change. GTK on OS X means using X11. KDE4 apps on Mac will run native. About a year from now, we'll be seeing polished KDE4 apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Re:real shame

[Fri13]

http://qt-apps.org/ Just run those on any OS what you want, they run on GNU/Linux and on MacOSX or Windows.

KDE4 will come multi-platform because it use Qt4 and you can port those for any other OS too and not just GNU/Linux or it's distros. It just seems that whole KDE4 cannot be run top of windows (to replace windows explorer, shell and few other) but it applications can be runned.

So with KDE4, Amarok and Koffice (+ other great apps) will come to windows OS's and for MacOSX's etc.
There is no need to use GTK for multiplatform anymore when you can use Qt to get nice and powerfull application.
Qt4 even includes Phonon and few other KDE4 hardware parts so video and sound can be played wihtout need what multimediaplayer or OS is under, windows, macosx or GNU/Linux!

Re:real shame

[miscz]

This GTK2/Gnome apps are removed if I uninstall Mono via Apt:

• F-Spot (which sucks, is slow, nobody should use it and is not a part of default Gnome install anyway)
• Tomboy (that is slow also, is part of default install but the old applet is still there)

Yeah, Gnome is now totally dependent on Mono.

Re:real shame

[Anonymous Coward]

> GTK on OS X means using X11.

What's wrong with that?

Re:real shame

[Daengbo]

Interestingly, there's a big debate on just this topic. The blueprint is Hardy-reducing-duplication. There's a strong movement (not including me) to remove Mono, Tomboy, and F-Spot from the Ubuntu default install and use Gnome Sticky Notes and GThumb, which are also included. There really seems to be a big anti-Mono movement out there.

I personally think that most of the fast, interesting work on Gnome apps is happening with Mono, so I don't want to see it removed, but that's just my opinion. Top 10 Improved Ubuntu Applications of 2007 from my blog talks a little about it. While this is officially self-promotion, there are no ads on my blog, so it doesn't make me any money.

Re:real shame

[insane_coder]

Qt no longer requires that your open source application be GPL'd to link with it. You can use it with many other open source licenses, as listed on their website.

Re:real shame

[jafoc]

i do agree, I think we should trust Trolltech more than Novell at this point due to Novell being "in bed" with Microsoft and the head of their cross platform projects being too much of a Microsoft fanboi and not paying attention to Microsoft's history of screwing their partners over IP issues. Mono, Samba, open office are all on the block for Novell to screw up by putting Microsoft "IP" in there "nobody" else can use.

While there is absolutely zero reason to have any trust whatsoever for Miguel or Novell as a whole, the good news is that we have no need to trust them. If they do something nasty to GTK or any other important parts of Gnome, we'll fork.

Re:real shame

[Locutus]

While there is absolutely zero reason to have any trust whatsoever for Miguel or Novell as a whole, the good news is that we have no need to trust them. If they do something nasty to GTK or any other important parts of Gnome, we'll fork.

While that sounds just fine if you're a single user out banging on the keyboard at home, try telling that to a hospital IT department after they've gone through the hardship of moving everything from Windows to Linux/Gnome. If you want to put a putrid taste toward Linux and OSS in managements mouth, do what you are saying, "we'll fork". I am afraid THIS is one of the tactics Microsoft has plans for. It'll buy them another 5-10 years of the mindset that Windows is a safe bet and nobody'll get fired for using it. IMO

LoB

Re:real shame

[jafoc]

If you want to put a putrid taste toward Linux and OSS in managements mouth, do what you are saying, "we'll fork".

When talking with customers I'd of course explain to them what that means from their perspective, namely a kind of insurance against bad management decisions in the projects that develop the software they use.

Re:real shame

[Locutus]

hmmm, talking about the need for an insurance against a products bad management decisions and how it could mean fewer developers behind their chosen product just doesn't sound like something you'd want to bring up at a sales meeting if you can help it. I doubt if any sales rep for a proprietary product is going to talk about such insurances and there is a good reason for that. It does not provide or provoke a feeling of confidence in the one who's got to put there neck on the line and make the purchase. Forking may be something that's great for the hacker and general population of users who just go along with what is out there but business is not that way. It'll be look at as a possible costly change in the product down the road and a threat to budgets and reliability too.

If 25% of US businesses had just one required Linux based software product inhouse and Microsoft could pull the IP ripcord on those customers then they'd do it today. IMO, 25% is easily a larger enough margin to spread massive FUD into the business world to keep the rest away from Linux and open source for a decade or so. If you've not seen it, what SCO did by sueing AutoZone and others for just using Linux was enough to keep many businesses away from Linux and OSS. That effect has lost much of its value now that word is finally getting out that SCO had nothing up its sleeves.

What do you think will happen when Microsoft shows even just one valid IP claim and goes to collect fees? One valid one and the threat of dozens, or hundreds more, will be enough to tell the business world that Linux and OSS is not free and not a safe bet. Sorry, but Microsoft is out to kill this threat to their Windows monopoly and everything in their history shows that it is a Windows game or no game.

I would rather see OSS move much much further into business and government offices for competitive reasons and social reasons. I don't want to see it just continue to exist. Microsoft is not a threat to OSS existence, just it's expansion to the point of a marketshare which is large enough to support far far more consulting positions and be a financial benefit to the public and businesses. So telling businesses about how forking OSS project software is good is not a good idea right now. IMO.

LoB

Re:real shame

[mabhatter654]

good point about the GTK dragging. My point is that all the cross platform apps I use like Gimp, Inkscape, etc. are all GTK and work the same on windows, mac, & linux.

The hassle of GTK on mac is that it doesn't fit any of the Mac HIG because it's forced to use X11 compatibility mode. That was a downer on Tiger, but the Leopard version of X11 has big usability problems making it "discouraging" to use right now.

Re:real shame

[jafoc]

hmmm, talking about the need for an insurance against a products bad management decisions and how it could mean fewer developers behind their chosen product just doesn't sound like something you'd want to bring up at a sales meeting if you can help it

What I'm selling is essentially "GNU/Linux with commercial support". The main competitor is Microsoft Windows Vista, which also happens to be a very fine example for discussing how a product's bad management decisions adversely affect customers. Therefore, for my potential customers it is definitely good news that the free software ecosystem provides some degree of isurance against this kind of problem. Note the meaning of the word "insurance". It doesn't imply a guarantee that a problem cannot occur, it just means that if a bad event of a certain type occurse, its adverse effect will be much less severe than it would be in the case of relying on proprietary software (or on software with a free license but without a large community of developers). Also note that in most cases no actual fork happens, the possibility of forking is generally quite sufficient to prevent project leaders from abusing their influence. That's in fact exactly how things are playing out with Gnome and Mono. I believe that Novell's employee Miguel de Icaza (the founder of the Gnome project) would like to make Gnome dependent on Mono, but it isn't happening because it is clear that the majority of Gnome developers would immediately join the Mono-free fork of Gnome. This is what IMO makes Gnome acceptable for business use even in the absence of any trust for Novell.

What do you think will happen when Microsoft shows even just one valid IP claim and goes to collect fees?

Valid patent claims are few and far between. Versions of the affected software which avoid the encumbered programming idea would be created immediately. We would fight back by pushing for a change of patent law and by suing Microsoft on the basis of existing anti-trust law. (What you're suggesting Microsoft might do would be what is called "patent abuse". It's a serious offence.) The earth would continue to rotate around its axis, just like the general trend of more and more businesses switching to free software would also continue. There might be a temporary slow-down of this trend, and Red Hat and others might sue Microsoft for punitive damages for having caused that by means of anti-competitive actions, but when the dust has settled it would be clear to everyone that the free software movement simply cannot be killed, and that would certainly lead to a significant acceleration of the trend of businesses switching to free software.

I was much more concerned about patent issues until I discussed my concerns with a specialized patent attorney. If you're really concerned, I would recommend that you do the same.

Re:real shame

[Locutus]

it's good to hear and I hope you are more correct than my thoughts on what could happen. It also sounds like you've had some help in clarifying things so thanks for that. Thanks for mentioning the Gnome forking issues. I'd read that Miguel said he wanted to Mono-ize Gnome and with more and more Gnome utility and task apps showing up with Gnome, I figured he'd already set some Mono hooks into Gnome. This also clarifies how/why businesses could still feel somewhat confident with using Gnome in spite of the Microsoft/Novell deals.

LoB

Anything on the KDE 4.0 release?

[mobby_6kl]

Is there any info regarding how soon KDE 4 will be out?
I'm having problems with KDE under FreeBSD, but now Mr Yushchenko suggests I should just use the latest release. I'm not sure if 3.5 will do the trick, or I should just wait for 4.0?

Re:Anything on the KDE 4.0 release?

[crazed gremlin]

http://kde.org/ It's set to come out in 12 days.

Re:Anything on the KDE 4.0 release?

[Brandybuck]

The latest *stable* release is 3.5.8. Don't bother with 4.0, because it won't be stable for a long time. I'm guessing six to nine months. IMHO.

F*ck it

[Anonymous Coward]

F*ck it, we're going to 5.

What next for Kubuntu users?

[Just Some Guy]

I use Kubuntu and was looking forward to the new version. What does this mean for me? Will I be stuck on the current version while the Ubuntu folks roll out a nice LTS version with nice features I won't be getting, or will there be an "unstable" version I can track?

Failing all that, what's a nice distro for KDE power users and developers? I've been using Debian for ages and I'm comfortable with Gentoo (although I'd prefer something else). Any suggestions?

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[Joe Tie.]

Going by the way kubuntu normally works, I'd be surprised if it came down to much more than adding a second repository to get access to kde4 packages.

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing except security uppdates will only come for 18months. So if you want to run the next version of kbuntu for more that that period of time you wont get anny updates

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've been using Debian and want recent KDE version, why aren't you using... Debian?

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[Dragonslicer]

From what I've heard, and I may be mistaken, KDE4 will be in the standard repositories (universe, maybe?) for 8.04. I believe the plan is to have two installation discs available, one that installs KDE 3.5.x and one that installs KDE 4.0.x. I would guess that installing the other version from either starting point would be fairly easy.

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[CheeseTroll]

The article wasn't really clear, but someone else pointed out that it most likely means that the next Kubuntu will be supported for 18 months, rather than 3 years like the LTS Gnome version.

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[celle]

There's Slackware, FreeBSD, PC-BSD, PCLinuxOS (gnome version too). Ah, hell, just look on distrowatch.com and pick you're favorite 10 of 500?.

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[msuarezalvarez]

and which of those provide LTS?

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[Just Some Guy]

There's Slackware, FreeBSD, PC-BSD, PCLinuxOS (gnome version too).

I'm quite aware that there are other Unices than Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo. What I was asking for was a recommendation; you know, along the lines of "I switched from Kubuntu to _____ and it was swell!"

Probably time to throw FreeBSD 7-BETA on there. It's good enough for production these days and I haven't run it as a desktop in year or so and am kind of missing it.

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[opkool]

what's a nice distro for KDE power users and developers?

I'd recommend you Mandriva.

Really, give it an honest spin. Get Mandriva One (Live CD, includes installer and proprietary drivers and all that jazz).

KDE is Tier-1 desktop environment for Mandriva. It is the default DE if you don not change any option in the installer.

The current Mandriva 2008 already includes a KDE 4 preview in the backports repository.

Of course, Mandriva includes all those nifty and OpenSource GUI management tools (the "drakes" in the Mandriva Control Center) that existed even before Ubuntu was a sparkle in Mark S.'s eye.

Peace from KDE with Mandriva!

Re:What next for Kubuntu users?

[cyber-vandal]

Unless you want to use WPA in which case use Windows XP.

I have to wonder ...

[ScrewMaster]

Scott James Remnant

I guess there's not much of this guy left.

Disappointing Turn

[Jekler]

I think this move is a mistake because the goal of Ubuntu has been to lessen the gap between non-technical users and Linux gurus. This introduces another layer of complexity for those non-technical users. I think it's a mistake to mix LTS and non-LTS in same-numbered/named versions of the OS. They have a variety of options here and I think they picked the worst of the lot. They should just add it to a community maintained repository or a backport from the next version.

Someone with an active interest in Linux isn't likely to be confused, but there's a growing number of Linux users who don't follow Linux as an interest, it's just the thing on their computer. More than most other distros, those are the people that Ubuntu has been trying to cater to. I think they chose the worst possible option given their target audience.

It might seem ridiculous to think a seemingly minor detail could confuse or scare off people, but after years of working in support (and I think any support representatives would agree) you might be surprised at how easily people form mental blocks and shut down (mentally) when faced with any computer-related issue. When you walk someone through a process and a button doesn't say exactly what you indicate, they panic. To them "END" is not the same as "FINISH" or "DONE, even though they should all mentally register as a word signifying completion. And then they won't even tell you the name of the button that appeared on their screen, they'll only tell you that they don't see the one you said, like you're playing some sort of sadistic "I Spy" riddle game. Sorry for the digression. Old trauma.

(I'm not knocking Ubuntu for catering to non-technical users. I prefer Ubuntu myself, though I've been a Linux user much longer.)

Re:Disappointing Turn

[MonsterTrimble]

I disagree. Generally (and please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken) the LTS denotes that the release will be supported by Canonical for a longer time frame than a regular release. It has no extra features beyond a regular release. To 99% of the Ubuntu users out there (me being one of them) they would never notice the difference. I think the LTS is geared towards the companies which would use Ubuntu Linux on a number of computers which the IT department would need support for.

Re:Disappointing Turn

[arendjr]

This makes no sense. You're assuming dropping the LTS term will make it more complex for non-technical users, but non-technical users don't care about the LTS term. The only people that care about the LTS term are people that need support, like IT departments, people who are not that easily confused. Really, non-technical people don't care about LTS, don't care whether their operating system carries an LTS label, and what they don't care about, they're not confused about, they just want it to work.

Re:Disappointing Turn

[johnnyheavens]

I think too much is being assumed here. The tech folks won't care because they will have moved on with the new release. The non-tech folks won't care because they are going to use whatever the tech friends points them at. LTS or not. Where LTS matters the most is in larger deployments where consistency is very important to keep support costs down. In those cases Gnome can be use or 2 upgrades rather then 1 in 3 years can be done if KDE must be used. Given the reason behind the shorter (non-LTS) support of KDE in 8.04 I don't see any other way. What is the alternative you'd do? No Kubuntu 8.04 release? Because in 24 moths no one will be updating KDE 3.x let alone in 40 months.

Re:Disappointing Turn

[mabhatter654]

You are assuming that "IT" people are technical!!! I understand what the parent is saying. Mixing Ubuntu LTS and Kbuntu not LTS is a mistake. I know a lot of IT people that can barely keep windows version separate, that's part of Microsoft's problems getting things fixed over on their side. Let alone expect those same "wintel" admins to keep Ubuntu versions straight? The idea is that a commercial or large scale app can port to that version and know everybody is the same. While 75% of the code is the same for the releases, I can see in 3 years that an IT department would allow some members to use the KDE version of 8.04 like every other version then have trouble with compatibility but not be ready for the next LTS due to some App.

The solution is probably to hold up LTS for both until 8.10, but Ubuntu has already run it's timeframe for LTS and it's time to get one out to keep the 5 year plan working. They want to show the 5 year plan in action so that OEMs and ISVs will take them as seriously as Red Hat or Suse even though they are a truly free OS.

Re:Disappointing Turn

[Jekler]

The alternative I'd do is to release Kubuntu 8.04 with LTS using KDE 3.5 for the desktop environment, and place KDE 4.0 in the universe repository. That way, people who know about, and want, KDE 4.0 could get it easily. People with LTS already can't receive support for software obtained from the universe repository, so it creates no conflicts at all.

Re:Disappointing Turn

[damncrackmonkey]

The point is that KDE 3.5 can't be used for LTS either, since it won't be supported for 3 years.

Re:Disappointing Turn

[mrchaotica]

Let alone expect those same "wintel" admins to keep Ubuntu versions straight?

If they're Windows admins, then what the fuck are they doing installing [K]Ubuntu anyway?

I say either the admins are competent or they're not. If their job requires supporting [K]Ubuntu, then they should either learn how to do it or get replaced by people who can. This is not [K]Ubuntu's problem!

Re:Disappointing Turn

[mabhatter654]

this is EXACTLY Ubuntu's problem... and the problem of OSS in general. Most IT staff is managed by guys that were good on Win 98/2000 and those managers are "past their peak" and want to ride out and not rock the boat. IT management days of being geeks at home is long gone from what I've seen.

I will be a few years until the 25-30 year olds get enough clout to suggest something like Linux. At this point only IT staff see windows as "broken" because normal people don't see how stable servers and such are or what alternatives are. To get any OSS in the door it has to be half the cost, twice as good and tells you what to do before you need to do it!

distro for KDE *users

[KwKSilver]

what's a nice distro for KDE power users and developers?

Since you are a Debian user already, have you looked into Sidux? It is based on Debian Sid, but has been fairly solid for me, even though I'm no developer, or even a power user. I've used it for most of the year, since the release of "Tartaros" in May. Now, I have had problems with X breakage, but these seem to have been due to the ATI video card rather than Sid/Sidux, and I' am posting from a Sidux install. If you are a Debian power-user, you should have a fairly smooth flow down a nice stream.

Otherwise Slackware, or possibly Mepis, the latter of which is based on Debian Lenny, IIRC.

And yet the question remains:

[shrikel]

KDE or emacs?

Re:And yet the question remains:

[MarkRose]

Haven't they already integrated KDE into emacs yet?

Re:And yet the question remains:

[haeger]

I'd go for KDE since Emacs still needs a decent text editor. ;-)

.haeger

I still don't get it

[realdodgeman]

I can see that Kubuntu 8.04 will be released without LTS. Fair enough.

But this is just confusing. Will it use KDE 3.5, or will it use KDE 4.0?

Re:I still don't get it

[dasmoo]

It'll be using 3.5. Long term support is not offered because upstream won't be prioritizing fixes for 3.5 bugs in three years time

Re:I still don't get it

[bmartin]

Don't worry about KDE 4.0's availability to Ubuntu users. Either the Ubuntu team (MOTU) will put it in the Universe repository, or the KDE team will put the DEBs in a public repository. Either way, there will be several hundred guides posted on the web on how to install it in Ubuntu. The people who want it will be able to get it easily.

LTS

[imtheguru]

It relates to Long term support. KDE delayed the release of 4.0 for ubuntu 7.10 (october). It cannot thus be included in the LTS version coming out next year. This is mostly KDE's own fault for not meeting their projected deadlines.

Cheers.

Re:LTS

[armanox]

Aside from needing to delay the release to increase stability.......(Sorta like how MS pushed XP and Vista out when they needed more work)

Re:LTS

[mabhatter654]

or rather KED is "done when it's done" and Ubuntu needs a full cycle of completion before they'll claim LTS status for KED 4. In this case KDE 4 will only have been released 3 months before Canonical has to make a decision on wether to be tied to that release for 5 years. Ubuntu is much smaller than Red Hat or Suse and they don't want to play the games of supporting backports and cross-grades like done with the various boxed versions of Suse or RHEL. They waited until an odd time to release that's on nobody else's schedule.. The more politically correct thing might be to delay the LTS release in general then fewer feelings would be hurt.

The situation is not that KDE 4 is "not supported" but the combo in 8.04 will include BOTH 3.5 and 4.0! but only for the standard 18 months. Then the 8.10 will be fully supported for 4.0 only and probably LTS as well. It's a matter of Canonical not wanting to be tied up supporting bleeding edge releases just yet. Remember, Red Hat and Suse don't SUPPORT the free versions for customers, only the carefully limited pay-for versions and if you go "off the reservation" with upstream updates, they tell you to reinstall the base just like other commercial OS vendors do. Part of the Ubuntu experience is that there is no artificial divide between the "open source" and the "tweaked" versions.. it's their stated interest to work CLOSER to the upstream source, not wall their stuff off to versions they have to babysit for 5 years like RH or Suse has.

Just use fedora

[mp3zero]

In other news... For those of you wanting to use KDE 4.0, Fedora 9 will be supporting it. It is currently in the rawhide build and can be installed on Fedora 8 by using the development repo.

Re:Just use fedora

[Locklin]

Really? with commercial support for three years? oh wait... never mind.

KDE4rc is already in the repos... were just talking about long term support here.

Nothing but a world of pain...

[chipoglass]

Well, I guess this cinches it... I'm migrating to Mepis.

I've been using Kubuntu since the Dapper release, and the Gutsy upgrade has been a miserable couple months for me and has made me wish I'd stayed on Feisty. Now the Kubuntu team's completely dropped any KDE 3.5 support and there won't be a LTS release for KDE users in April. It's going to be at least another year before KDE4 has all the bugs worked out and is stable enough for us power users to truly start adopting it, and judging from the established Ubuntu release cycle, the next release in October after the LTS is going to be a cutting edge, unstable nightmare when combined with a still possibly unstable KDE4 release that'll still be missing features that won't reappear until the 4.1 release.

This means Feisty is likely going to lose security update support before we see another Kubuntu release stable and solid enough to use under the KDE4 base. We're likely looking at at least a year and a half if the KDE team can get 4.1 pushed out before about February/March 2009 for lockdown on features for Jizzing Jackalope or whatever, and if they miss that window, it'll probably be closer to two and a half before there's another solid Kubuntu release if Gutsy's any indication to their commitment to bugfixing a release before their next LTS comes out. I'm sorry, I could maybe cool my heels waiting for another stable software release for a server until April 2010, but not my desktop. Desktop software needs to stay current as much as it needs to be stable.

I have a feeling that since Mepis 7 just released and in light of this news, Canonical's going to likely lose most of their KDE userbase to Mepis over the next year or so. Shame that.

Re:Nothing but a world of pain...

[Locklin]

You're moving to Mepis to get three years of commercial support on the current version? Oh wait.. they don't sell that. There's plenty of reasons to switch, but this makes no sense. You can still get 18 months commercial support, and both versions of KDE are available in the repositories.

Basically, NO ONE can support KDE3.x for the next three years because the KDE developers will probably neglect it in 2 years. NO ONE can sell a rock-solid KDE4 distro (ie. LTS) this spring because it's simply not ready. So they are *only* providing 18 months commercial support -sounds fair. The only other rational option would be to postpone both LTS versions to 8.10.

Re:Nothing but a world of pain...

[chipoglass]

I think you misunderstand. I'm moving to Mepis so I have both a stable *and* current supported KDE desktop with an upgrade path that will lead to at least one more stable and current supported KDE desktop over the next couple three years.

I don't want KDE3.5 support for the next three years, my concerns are about current and stable release availability over the next three years... something that won't likely be seen out of Kubuntu for the very reasons I cited. K/X/Ubuntu releases appear to now trend toward good releases in April and crap releases in October. I don't have a problem with Kubuntu's next release not having LTS support, what I do have a problem with is the fact that the Kubuntu team is jumping to KDE4 and releasing that on the last stable Ubuntu base we'll likely see until April of '09.... guaranteeing the users not one, not two, but THREE lousy Kubuntu releases in a row, with the potential for five depending on the timing of the KDE4 dev team and when it goes to 4.1. This is leaving the users who want to stay with Kubuntu but desiring stability over bleeding edge one option: Feisty. Even if Feisty were to get security patches beyond next October, there's no way Kubuntu Feisty is going to last and meet the needs of its end users for that long.

The move to Mepis from Kubuntu has nothing to do with commercial support, long term support, or which version of KDE is used. It has everything to do with the release cycle timing, quality of releases during those cycles, and the dev team's priority on a major distribution to potentially forgo a stable release to their user base for what is looking like will be at least two years because they abandoned KDE3.5 one release too soon. Even if the KDE3.5 repos stay available for Hardy, they're shoddy and abandoned builds that will be identical to the Gutsy release that the Kubuntu team apparently refuses to support or bugfix anymore. This move is leaving Kubuntu users with an unstable desktop upgrade path for far too long, and that's what is going to drive me to Mepis and likely the rest of the user base away to other distros.

I can understand why.

[shadylookin]

I imagine a lot of Ubuntu's users don't want to be guinea pigs for KDE 4, and to claim 3 years support for something that will only be supported for a fraction of that time would be dishonest. Besides 18 months of support isn't that bad considering with Ubuntu's 6 month release schedule they'll be on something like 10.2 before support for 8.4 will be gone.

Plasma is revolutionary

[m0llusk]

Even after KDE 4.0 is released it will take some time for Plasma to mature and accumulate useful accessories, but the real issue is how long it will take for other systems to either pick up or in some way duplicate Plasma as they almost certainly will.

Re:Plasma is revolutionary

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, Plasma needs a another 4.x release or two to reach its full promise but even at this point its very good. I especially like the idea of data engines and taskbar's=widgets. KDE4 is full of good design decisions, like Solid and Phonon. Abstraction layers to make applications easier to develop and making KDE4 independent of any specific hardware abstraction layer/multimedia framework.

Re:Plasma is revolutionary

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an important paradigm shift in the design of user interfaces for Lunix systems. It's critical that developers continue to work together to make sure the proper synergies are in place. The power of the API's in KDE4 are apparant. What remains to be seen is whether or not the bugs will be worked out and if developer support materializes. ...

Kubuntu 8.04 still coming

[HeroreV]

Kubuntu 8.04 is still planned to be released alongside Ubuntu 8.04, just without long-term service as previously planned. That just means the Gnome stuff in 8.04 will receive security updates longer than the KDE stuff in 8.04.

Re:Kubuntu 8.04 still coming

[pallmall1]

That just means the Gnome stuff in 8.04 will receive security updates longer than the KDE stuff in 8.04.

Yeah, and those updates will just embed the Microsoft hooks deeper into gnome. Microsoft will be waiting to reel in people using gnome in any Linux distribution other than Novell.

If you thought Gutsy would be stable,

[Anonymous Coward]

you were only lying to yourself.

As somebody who's never used it, I think Gutsy was awesome. It made Compiz the default on an awful lot of computers. Now, I've been trying Compiz every now and then as long as it's been around, and I'm sure anybody could tell a mile off that this would be a recipe for disaster -- in the short term.

The flip side is that, since the Ubuntu guys have presumably had to deal with a bazillion and one bug reports about Compiz, they've had serious incentive to fix the damn thing. Everybody benefits from that, though maybe not right away.

As of 2 weeks ago, Compiz still isn't usable on Debian. There's just too many little things still broken, and stability still leaves much to be desired. But I'm hopeful that it will be soon!

Disclaimer: I must admit I don't really care if Ubuntu survives. I've tried using "like Debian but easier to install!" distributions before (anybody remember Progeny?), and they just don't offer that much benefit. And if Ubuntu survives, well, it'll be a first. But improving the graphics for all Linux users? That's worth something.

KED KED KED

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this "KED" thing you keep speaking of? I've never heard of it before.

Re:KED KED KED

[Hucko]

A new operating system. Runs all know programs regardless of architecture. But then your soul belongs to the "evil one".

Re:KED KED KED

[argiedot]

It's a desktop based on the QT (QED Toolkit), and is extensively used in the field of mathematics.

LTS = a bad joke

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Kubuntu user and currently consider it the best OS for me since I want the bets open source system I can have. However, the LTS policy is a bad joke - I never got the current LTS version (dapper) to work with my Asus K8N4-E Deluxe motherboard and sata harddrives and I along with many other users complained about it on the forums until the bug report was closed with the decision that it won't be fixed since fixing it might break too many other things (and some had reported the bug even prior to the release). And in addition to that motherboard, the problem seems to be common with many other nforce4 motherboards as well - sata drives don't work. They do, however, work fine with the new, non-LTS release.

Any Ubuntu developers reading this: As much as I appreciate your efforts and am grateful for the OS, it is hard to take an OS seriously if developers decide that in the "long-term support" version they won't fix a bug like that which affects motherboards with such a common chipset. Can you imagine MS ever doing such a thing? Ubuntu has reached a state where people do try to take it as a viable alternative for serious use and consequently expectations are higher and that's what you want, isn't it? So live up to those then.

Re:LTS = a bad joke

[moro_666]

I have to second that statement.

  With the 2 latest releases of Ubuntu :

  * Take a shiny new lenovo laptop with ati x1400 graphics and try to "ubuntu it" ... it won't work. the "open source" ati driver doesn't support the card, the vesa graphics doesn't manage to display the installer window (because the resolution is too small, probably a vesa bug) and the automatic tool that lets you switch between resolutions and drivers just crashes along.
  * Why why why and why does the default desktop install cd come without a command line installer ? if you can't make X work for everyone, give us the command line installer, ok ?

  Now if the LTS comes out with the same "features" towards ati cards (and no workaround to install the native ati driver that at least brings X up), and also skips proper kde support, i'll kick it out from my laptop.

  KDE is the only reasonable X window manager for me, i have grown into it through out the years and there's nothing that will make me move towards the clumsy, ugly and slow gnome. If ubuntu says "let's only do gnome officially for a while and let the kde people suffer", i will go and 'suffer' my ati based laptop to gentoo. It works like gold on my secondary and i don't have to be shaking like a madman every 6 months.

  And modding the parent down for no obvious reason is a lame move from mods. Stop it dudes, he didn't say anything wrong. LTS is a bad joke as far as i can tell (old packages, old bugs and no real solutions to the bugs because eliminating the bugs would introduce some new ones).

Re:LTS = a bad joke

[Fri13]

"KDE is the only reasonable X window manager for me"

Just for confirmation.....

KDE is desktop environment and Kwin is KDE's own window manager. KDE can use any window manager for it's purpose, even Metacity what is Gnome desktop environments window manager. You can even use Kwin as Gnome window manager if you want.

Compiz-fusion is only a windowmanager and Gnome/KDE/etc can use it.
Desktop Environment needs a Window manager but desktop environment isn't needed to window manager.

KDE, Gnome and XFCE are currently available desktop managers and there are few dozens different window managers what you can use with those.

Obligatory question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but does it run Linux?

Right now is not the time...

[Kjella]

I use Kubuntu. Right now KDE is in a major transition phase, moving from KDE3/qt3 to KDE4/qt4 is a bigger change than Gnome has ever done, seriously. While a few things survive porting it's fairly close to a rewrite of everyting KDE is. Supporting KDE4 for a LTS is a "no way" kind of thing, it'll barely be released and KDE has some creative defintions of RC. The only real option would be supporting KDE 3.5, which while I think would be good it something upstream may or may not do. After all, "kubuntu" will support all the server packages in Ubuntu, just not KDE. If they've been recültant to promise 3 years support, I certainly understand why Canonical would. When push comes to shove, they really don't want to sell much more than what upstream provides anyway.

Release frequency

[jrminter]

As a user of Mandriva, I think six month releases are too frequent. I have found clean installs to have fewer problems than upgrades. Those take up a lot of time to be done every six months... I like the recent emphasis on backports. Wouldn't it be better to have more bullet-proof yearly releases with backports of the best of the upgraded features to the LTS version during development? Seems to be the best of both worlds...

Re:Release frequency

[Wowsers]

I have had no problems using the updates rather than full clean installs for about 2 years (even using from the cooker archives) until the change in 2008.0 when Mandriva switched from using Beryl to Compiz-fusion, man did that trash my display setup comprehensively.

It also did not help that the naming convention for the kernel changed from kernel to kernel-desktop, then because of the new naming the kernel-sources had problems interacting with kernel-desktop and stopped the install of the nVidia graphics driver.

Install a huge change like KDE4, I think I'll wait.

Moderation abuse!

[Anonymous Coward]

As usual, criticism of open source projects - no matter how valid - is forbidden on slashdot. Do something contrary to that slashdot rule and mod parent up!

Marvelous vs. Splendid

[rice_burners_suck]

This is a conspiracy to force all users to switch to GNOME. We will NOT be fooled! We will NOT switch from KDE, which works splendidly, to GNOME, which works marvelously. Ubuntu is a splendid OS. It deserves a splendid UI. Not a marvelous one.

My gift.

[haeger]

On release-day I'll send some money to KDE for their effort and their dedication. I can spare $10 and I'm sure some of you can too. Let's do it and not just talk about it.

It would be interestng to see if we can make a donation that stands out when the new and improved KDE is released.

.haeger

Gutsy on PPC eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Gutsy version of Kubuntu broke a _lot_ of things on my powerbook."

Gusty isn't supported on PPC hardware, so uhh, you failed it?

kde vs gnome

[scharkalvin]

There are several ways to define the differences between these two fine desktops.
On the technical side KDE uses a true object oriented toolset built on a true object oriented
language (c++). Gnome uses GTK, which emulates the the OO environment and is built using a NON OO language
(C).

The look and feel of the desktop is unique to each package, and each has it's own set of applications.
The good thing is that (by installing the required lib's from each) you CAN run Gnome applications on KDE
and visa versa. In fact RH's "blue curve" was an attempt to steal the good things from KDE and make them
available in Gnome.

I prefer KDE, but I do wish that some of Gnome's configuration "wizards" were available in KDE.
In (k)Ubuntu the Gnome package manager is better than the POS that ships with Kubuntu. I don't even TRY to
use symantic, I just go to the command line and use apt-get. (Well, I AM an old Debian user who even
remembers how to use dselect!). I do install some Gnome apps here and there.

Submit it to Debian!

[gottabeme]

Ooh, ooh! I use Kopete, and Debian. Please, submit your patch to Debian (or I will be glad to do it for you)! Debian often includes patches that upstream has yet to apply. And if Debian patches it, it will make it into Ubuntu as well (assuming they also include KDE 3.5.x in Kubuntu 8.10; it could also end up in their backports).

Re:Submit it to Debian!

[Simon80]

I've made a bug at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=458419, debdiff included!

Bullsh*t!

[Brandybuck]

This is bullshit! KDE 3.5 is perfectly acceptable. The fact that a new version is coming out sometime in the future is a idiot reason to drop support. "Old" versions of software don't just vanish on release dates. Who they hell died and made Ubuntu the god of release dates? Is this going to happen for any piece of software that happens to have a release date close to Ubuntu's? Or is this only the case for KDE because Ubuntu is GNOME centric?

Horse Help

[Anonymous Coward]

The Stallion

A full grown stallion's cock, when fully erect, will measure some two to
three feet long. It can be three to six inches thick at the base, to about
two inches thick at the head. Horses are somewhat different from other
animals in the way their cock head works. When a horse is fully erect and
excited and ready to mount, his cock head is somewhat pointed and not as
thick as might be normally observed. This is to facillatate an easier
entry into the mare. After the horse has entered and reaches a climax the
head swells (though it is more spongy then hard) into a fist sized mass as
he ejacultates. It is thought that this serves as a plug to force the
semen deep into the mare rather then allowing it to leak out. A full grown
stallion can ejaculate about one cup ( 8 ounces ) of semen. It will take
quite a few spurts to accomplish this. Each time his tail will raise and
lower in a brief flick. The first few jets are of a thin to average
consistency of cum. The final few jets are of a thick gelatinous
substance... it is thought that this serves to "seal" the mares pussy so
that the semen has time to do it's thing before leaking out. Horse semen
is extremely viscous, if you touch your finger to a pool of it you can draw
a thin string of it five to six feet long! Horse cum has a nice flat taste
to it...not at all bitter like man's cum. You can easily drink cups of it
with no discomfort.

The Mare - how to do it.

Mares can be quite satisfactory for the average well endowed male. If you
are somewhat less developed you might find better pleasure with a pony or
Miniature Horse. These are also better as they are lower to the ground. A
pony you can fuck standing up. A miniature horse on your knees or
squatting depending on the size. A mare will require something to stand on
or "platform shoes"...(IE mini stilts to raise you a foot off the ground)
so that you can reach her pussy.
Fucking any horse will depend on the horse. Some will be ready right
away...some will take coaxing. Pet the animal, talk to it softly, spend
time with it gaining it's trust. If something you are doing upsets it then
don't force it. Talk to it and calm it. If you work slowly you can make
an animal accept anything. It is just a question of helping it overcome
it's fears. All animals fear man if raised in the wild. How any animal
reacts will depend on it's own experiences. If you haved raised the animal
yourself in a loving enviroment, then you should have no problem
associating with it, if it is a strange animal that you have met in the
wild then you will have to go through an extended "courtship" to learn how
to respond to the beast.

MARES - TRAINING YOUR OWN

When the filly reaches weaning age, seperate her from her dam. If you have
limited time to spend then she should be put to pasture. If you have
plenty of time then you should keep her in a stall. Spend time with her
during the day petting and grooming her and allow her some time to run
free. Limit her access to other horses though and see that she spends at
least 8-12 hours a day in the stall. (Start with more free time and as she
approaches her first birthday confine her more...she is now at the right
age and her confinement will have made her so bored that she is amenable to
any new experience so long as it is not unpleasant)Young fillys have no
objection to someone playing with their pussy's. I have walked up on a pen
full of strange fillys at night and they came right up to me and I petted
them and felt up their pussys and they just lifted their tales and seemed
to enjoy it. These fillys didn't even know me but they were young,
inexperienced and bored...also since they were penned they were used to the
presence of people and did not fear me. Most horses in a large pasture
will run when they scent a strange human in their pasture at night.
If you sit on the ground and wait