More Reasons Why Kubuntu is Good for KDE
February 3rd, 2008
| Categories: Design, General, KDE/Kubuntu
First off, cheers to Jonathan for his great work with Kubuntu and KDE. Everyone should go read his reasons why Kubuntu is good for KDE. I’d also like to share some of my own comments about Kubuntu and KDE.
- Ubuntu has a huge following, and is gaining market share via commercial distribution (e.g. Ubuntu on Dell) and respect as a user-friendly operating system. This reflects well on Kubuntu which reflects well on KDE.
- There isn’t much I can say about second class citizenship, it would be comparing apples to oranges. Ubuntu is a product, Kubuntu is a project. Canonical has every right to look after their business investments before community-based interests. Canonical is pushing Linux in to the main stream computer market and supporting two very different desktop environments doesn’t make business sense. It is too bad they chose to base their product off of Gnome instead of KDE (hehe, Gubuntu anyone?) but they are opening doors which KDE will eventually benefit from and are supporting Kubuntu on the way.
- KDE4.0 is not ready for the primary user groups Kubuntu focuses on so I’m not really surprised that LTS was not considered. Without knowing what shape 4.1 will be in, it is difficult to know when future KDE4 releases will be mature enough to offer support. A lot of people aren’t happy about this, but it’s hard to support bleeding edge technology when it’s still bleeding.
- Ubuntu’s product philosophy is focused on being human. Although both Gnome and KDE have room for improving usability, Ubuntu is commited to the user. This philosophy makes K/Ubuntu an attractive project for a designer/usability engineer to participant in.
- Canonical has repeatedly sponsored developer and non-developer contributors (e.g. artists, community leaders, usability engineers), many of whom are also active in the KDE community. Even though Ubuntu is their commercial interest, Canonical’s support for KDE/Kubuntu reaches even the fringe of contributions.
- Open source is my hobby, not my job. People complain about upstream contributions, including usability. The Kubuntu project has been one of the most enjoyable projects I have worked with. When most of my work gets moved upstream anyway, why would I want to stop working with Kubuntu?
Well, many use Kubuntu… at least, when I have it up on bittorrent, there are loads of downloaders.
And personally I am very satisfied with Kubuntu. It’s stable, it does what it is told, and the preview packages for bleeding-edge KDE are nice. For work, 6-month releases is too slow, but for home use it is just perfect.
Thank you, all Kubuntu developers; now that I am slowly getting comfortable with Debian package writing I should join you as soon as my critical projects are out of the door :)
You receive the Wheels Gold Star of Sanity in OSS award for the day. Plus it means that I don’t have to write the same thing.
what bothers me most about kubuntu are odd “what applications come with CD” decisions (most notorious example so far being “d3lphin”) and ugly look by default, which doesn’t benefit kde at all
Agree. But OpenSuse ships the nicest kde by default.
Mariano Guezuraga
” Agree. But OpenSuse ships the nicest kde by default.”
Don’t know how long that will last before it goes to GNOME by default
:-)
No, (K)Ubuntu is definitely a threat to Linux and KDE … But especially to KDE as Ubuntu does NOT use KDE.
Probably KDE is available for Ubuntu and probably there is KUbuntu.
But still: Ubuntu *is* a GNOME distro and only promotes GNONME no matter what you or mister «I-am-a-patron» say.
@WishMaster: Of course Canonical is going to push Ubuntu (Gnome) above KDE. It’s their business product. They make money off of Ubuntu so of course Gnome is going to be more important. That is one of the many points I was trying to make. No, KDE is not as important as Gnome to Canonical, but Canonical continues to support KDE in many ways anyways. Scott Wheeler’s comment on a false sense of entitlement in Riddell’s entry hits this issue on the nose as well.
Im littlebit “angry” about all those who says “Ubuntu is so easy to use Operating System”.
Because Ubuntu is easy to use because of Gnome and Canonical choise to get only needed software on start. Ubuntu isn’t own OS as MacOSX is against windows, Ubuntu is Linux. But i cant just understand why people is promoting so much Ubuntu, when it’s just like all other distributions (exept theme and default applications). Even Mandriva is easier to configure than Ubuntu. Currently i gave a change for PCLinuxOS and it just blows Ubuntu away in “easy to learn” and “easy to use” area.
What for we need anymore “word” “Distribution” if we start calling all distributions as different Operating systems. That is just harmfull for whole community because in 5 years, Linux has come big way to be almost everyones lips when they choose OS. And now we want to give Linux fame away because “Ubuntu is OS”. Yes, Ubuntu Distribution includes Linux OS but is that reason to call it “Ubuntu” as OS?
Ubuntu has dropped “Linux” from it’s name because it just want promote “own” “OS”. And here we all just are telling how nice OS Ubuntu is and soon, there ain’t anymore Ubuntu Distribution, there is Linux OS (+ 400 distributions) and Ubuntu OS and most users choose Ubuntu because they has heard it is easy to use and Linux is somekind nerd stuff what was pathetic open source OS what was “promoted as windows killer”.
Yes, its about freedom but why we allow something like this? Something what does bad for whole community?
I have started to understand Stallman more and more, why he wants to use GNU in front of Linux. Because Linux is there because GNU project. And i understand that Linux is used and not GNU/Linux but that i dont understand, is that one corporation (+community) even drops Linux and starts calling whole package as “Operating system”.
Yes, it’s just a marketing way to get Ubuntu promoted for new users because OS for them is what windows offers. Normal user dont even understand that they can install other applications and they think OS = PC. But wouldn’t it be more wiser to teach new users what is OS and what is Distribution so they can understand why a Microsoft is in probblems with a EU and USA comissions?
If we start calling distributions as “operating systems”, we support microsoft what it has done. We are supporting that it is OK to integrate browser to OS. It is OK to integrate mediaplayer to OS and it is OK to us, in same time!
I stopped using Ubuntu because it started to support way’s what Microsoft has done. I dont see any good anymore on Ubuntu. I used it from beginning and i have used Kubuntu but their actions turned me away, because Ubuntu wanst now to be a “Rock star” who dont need anyone else, not even it’s band (community) what made Ubuntu to be, what it is today.
It is good to see that Canonical can make deals with big corporations, but…. what i see, Canonical is just a small Microsoft among other Distributions.
Open Source + Commercial Advertising can be good if it done by in spirits of Open source (and freedom). But when there comes $$$ in eys, its as bad as Microsoft “Get the facts” FUD.
What is more relevant: Why KDE is good for Ubuntu? Answer: It is not.
I think it is.
One thing I’d really like to see is all the hardware integration stuff that’s in ubutnu 7.10 that isn’t already in kubuntu - like the network manager…