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Canonical Pulls Kubuntu Personnel Funding 356

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the not-kool-man dept.
LinuxScribe writes "An announcement on the Kubuntu-devel mailing list tells the sad story: Canonical is pulling funding for in-house developers to work on the KDE-based Kubuntu flavor. Canonical now seems committed to its single vision of a GNOME-based Unity as a desktop and other Ubuntu flavors will now have to rely on community support and some infrastructure from Canonical."
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Canonical Pulls Kubuntu Personnel Funding More

Canonical Pulls Kubuntu Personnel Funding

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  • There goes the other leg (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:22AM (#38951317)

    When you've shot yourself in both legs... you're out of legs... Nice going Canonical.

    • Re:There goes the other leg (Score:5, Funny)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @06:58AM (#38951897) Homepage Journal

      they're an ass, so they have 4 legs.

      and no hands. but they do have a big mouth.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Trepidity ( 597 )

      If your leg runs Kubuntu, you might have other problems.

    • I don't see the problem. It makes sense to focus on one core product and make it the best and because it's open source anyone that wants KDE with Ubuntu can do that. I'm not sure you want to do it but you can.

  • Does it matter? (Score:4, Funny)

    by MrHanky ( 141717 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:23AM (#38951321) Homepage Journal

    From what I remember from Kubuntu, most of their tweaks to KDE just make it inferior to the vanilla version (for instance: you need to click the tabs in the launcher menu instead of just mousing over them, which is unpleasant). Is there any reason to use Kubuntu instead of just about any other KDE based distro?

    • Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Svenne ( 117693 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:29AM (#38951361) Homepage

      Yes, for me, the reason I'm not using any other KDE based distro is because I want access to the awesome Ubuntu package repositories, as well as all the PPAs. I love PPAs, and apparently so does a lot of other users and developers.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MichaelSmith ( 789609 )

        You could use debian.

        • Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)

          by pecosdave ( 536896 ) * on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:37AM (#38951437) Homepage Journal

          The way Debian breaks stable with updates and leaves it broke? It's why I left Debian for Kubuntu to begin with.

          • Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:49AM (#38951501)

            I hear that. The version mish-mash in Debian following every KDE upstream release was atrocious - mind you, that was several years ago, as I too, eventually jumped ship to Kubuntu. Things were better there, but the overall lack of polish, probably stemming from KDE's relatively low priority in the the greater scheme of all things Ubuntu made me eventually leave for OpenSUSE. I'm still using it and it remains a very nice distro for KDE fans.

            • Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Interesting)

              by pecosdave ( 536896 ) * on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @06:16AM (#38951647) Homepage Journal

              I used to use testing before I got pissed off and went stable - which they broke also. The "going stable cram" made using Debian testing a waste. Even if you did manage to keep ahead of the crap they were breaking left and right in testing the rush before stable when everyone rushes in their half-assed packages will break your setup for sure, and it even bleeds into stable on occasion.

              Really unless something has changed if I went back to Debian I would be very hesitant to do my security updates.

            • BTW, I left classic SuSE (I was on it from 7.0 to about 10.04) and finally bailed. SuSE had a habit of releasing packages that had dependencies that weren't met in their repositories OR any of the third party ones at the time. Running SuSE back then was a nightmare and my RPM database went corrupt every six months or so.

          • Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by boorack ( 1345877 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:58AM (#38951541)
            Heh, this is the exact reason I've switched in other direction: from Ubuntu to Debian. After two failed upgrades to 11.10 (both resulted in unbootable system that requires tweaking to bring it back and then left me without true-and-tested classic GNOME desktop, I've happily switched to Debian which now provides some of the best parts Ubuntu developed in recent years. Debian 6 reminds me Ubuntu 8.04 which IMO was the best Ubuntu distribution ever released (in terms of stability).

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dokc ( 1562391 )
              I switched to Debian after 11.04. It was simply too annoying every six months to repair a previously stable system. And if you use ATI with fglrx (like I do) it was a nightmare.

              • I had an nVidia problem with Kubuntu last week (or was it the week before?) My first serious problem in a couple of years.

                Fortunately all my years of troubleshooting the issue on Debian and trying to make the directly from the website driver work when I first started on Kubuntu (and exercise in futility BTW) made it so I had it up and running again in no time anyways. It was an out-of order preparation for the new kernel.

                I have a feeling the Unity backlash is going to do something to save Kubuntu, or at t

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by dokc ( 1562391 )

                  I had an nVidia problem with Kubuntu last week (or was it the week before?) My first serious problem in a couple of years.

                  Fortunately all my years of troubleshooting the issue on Debian and trying to make the directly from the website driver work when I first started on Kubuntu (and exercise in futility BTW) made it so I had it up and running again in no time anyways. It was an out-of order preparation for the new kernel.

                  Interesting. Problem with ATI is that they always push prerelease driver for new Ubuntu releases (because they follow 4 Month release cycle and usually the last driver is not ready for a new Ubuntu kernel). I really thought that NVIDIA drivers work out-of-box on both Debian stable and (K)Ubuntu.

                  I have a feeling the Unity backlash is going to do something to save Kubuntu, or at the least the Debian packages will work.

                  I'm quite sure Kubuntu will continue to exist as an independent Ubuntu flavor.

                  • I haven't played games like I used to so I haven't really paid attention to the nVidia driver, it's done what I needed. I honestly don't know if I've been running the same driver for a year plus or if updates are slipped in without me noticing, but it was seamless until a couple of weeks ago.

            • My Toshiba Tecra A5 was at issue here. Originally they broke the firewire, after a long struggle I looked into a bug report, I found a note saying they were aware of the issue and were going to leave it that way. They said it only worked due to a "nasty hack" to begin with, the nasty hack was removed and it wasn't coming back.

              Later on they broke my sound.

              Mind you when I first installed STABLE it all worked. These were security updates that broke it.

              I was worried Kubuntu wasn't going to be any better sinc

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rich0 ( 548339 )

            I suppose it is ironic then on Gentoo that I've found KDE to be one of the things that "just works?" :)

            It certainly has its share of sharp edges, but when you run into them they tend to be reasonably fixable. The only time KDE on Gentoo was problematic reflected upstream more than the distro - during the 3.5 to 4.0 "transition." I stuck with 3.5 for quite a while, then went to xfce until it got sorted out. Now I just USE=-semantic-desktop and KDE is blazing fast (no nepomuk).

            Or, if you'd rather I'm sure

          • WTF are you talking about? I used ubuntu for about 1 year, once, and it constantly broke. I've been using Debian Stable for 3 years now, and not once has anything broken. Also, the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze was, hands down, the easiest dist-upgrade I have ever performed on any gnu/linux distro (and I have used, as mentioned, ubuntu, but also red hat, fedora, pclinuxos, yellowdog, gentoo, and a handful of others).

        • You could also use Mageia or Suse. Mandrake/Mandriva and Suse were always the best KDE distros, and I personally think Mandrake/Mandriva had the best KDE implementation. A lot of people have great hopes for Mageia right now..... that community is really excited waiting for the upcoming Mageia 2 release, which will be the first real break from Mandriva.

        • Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)

          by RDW ( 41497 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @07:48AM (#38952195)

          You could use debian.

          You could use Ubuntu.

          Kubuntu is not the only way to get KDE on Ubuntu. There are also full, standard and minimal KDE packages available to any Ubuntu variant from the standard repositories. Just like the equivalent Debian packages, you get a standard desktop without all the Kubuntu customisations. The same applies to Xfce and LXDE, which are also available in vanilla forms without the Xubuntu or Lubuntu tweaks or alternative packages.

          • Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Informative)

            by Dcnjoe60 ( 682885 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @09:13AM (#38953101)

            You could use debian.

            You could use Ubuntu.

            Kubuntu is not the only way to get KDE on Ubuntu. There are also full, standard and minimal KDE packages available to any Ubuntu variant from the standard repositories. Just like the equivalent Debian packages, you get a standard desktop without all the Kubuntu customisations. The same applies to Xfce and LXDE, which are also available in vanilla forms without the Xubuntu or Lubuntu tweaks or alternative packages.

            Of course, that brings in a lot of dependencies and extra apps that you would then need to remove manually. It's not as bad when doing this with Xfce or LXDE because they don't provide a lot of extras by themself, but KDE does.

            Kubuntu is not Ubuntu with KDE pasted on top.

      • Me, I like windowmaker...does what you want and nothing more.

      • "I want access to the awesome Ubuntu package repositories, as well as all the PPAs."

        I hope and expect the Kubuntu community will continue to provide up to date packages fast

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It comes with the whole Canonical infrastructure/support and the Ubuntu userbase. Made it much easier to troubleshoot problems.

    • Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)

      by JRiddell ( 216337 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @06:47AM (#38951833) Homepage

      "(for instance: you need to click the tabs in the launcher menu instead of just mousing over them, which is unpleasant)"

      we have a policy of having everything go upstream unless there is very good reason. I just checked and the issue you say is not true (now).

      "Is there any reason to use Kubuntu instead of just about any other KDE based distro?"

      We believe KDE to be the best technology and therefore way to take over the world. Other distros will fill in gaps in KDE's offering with non-KDE apps but we are much more reluctant to do that. If you are interested in having short term solutions go with other distros which ship non-KDE web browsers etc.

      • How is using Rekonq - which is not even v1 - instead of Konqueror - as the default browser - a long term solution?

  • Excellent business move (Score:5, Interesting)

    by astropirate ( 1470387 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:23AM (#38951327)
    As a Linux user, I think this is a great business move on the part of canonical.. It is very important that we have choice software... but for Linux to success, the companies backing need to have a focus.

    • Re:Excellent business move (Score:5, Informative)

      by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:37AM (#38951433)
      Dists definitely need to have focus. Every dist should pick one desktop experience and core set of apps and stick with it through thick and thin. It makes for a more integrated experience, reduces administration headaches for people that deploy it and lowers support costs from having to build, test and develop against multiple configurations.

      That doesn't mean other experiences are not possible. For example I use Ubuntu with GNOME shell and have even stuck Ubuntu with xfce on one netbook because those packages exist in the Ubuntu / Debian repositories so they can be installed and used instead of the default desktop.

      • Re:Excellent business move (Score:5, Informative)

        by Nerdfest ( 867930 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @06:32AM (#38951741)

        True, but their chosen focus wouldn't seem quite so silly is Unity didn't suck quite so badly. I gave it a shot ... I really did. It's a huge step backwards in usability.

      • Dists definitely need to have focus. Every dist should pick one desktop experience and core set of apps and stick with it through thick and thin...

        It make for less choice. As far as I am concerned, distros should stay the heck away from "integrated experience". They just prove time and again that all they care about is a soapbox for their particular brand of bad taste. "Integrated experience" is a job for upstream, who actually care about what they are doing, are competent to do it, and work tirelessly to perfect the countless small details of how users actually use the system they develop. Distros should validate, distribute and provide timely update

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Rich0 ( 548339 )

        "Gentoo is about choice." :)

        Sometimes choice IS the focus. I do agree that it is hard to achieve both choice and vertical integration - this is largely why Gentoo tends to be a bit rougher on the edges compared to most distros. However, it is a great distro to use if you want to do something a little out of the mainstream as it doesn't fight you every step of the way.

    • I think it's more about Unity being integrated with Ubuntu services, from where they plan to get revenue, than focusing. Because more important than discarding Kubuntu would be only releasing LTS versions. When I was a Linux newbie, the most frustrating thing was never finding instructions for dealing with bugs and updates that wouldn't work in a different DE, but outdated ones that no longer work in the current version. Since Debian moves things around so much and the internet pretty much archives everythi

  • Mint 12 KDE (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:29AM (#38951363) Homepage

    Every time the subject of Ubuntu comes up on Slashdot I see a slew of comments complaining about how bad Unity is and what they've done to Gnome and how they're jumping ship for Mint I think "OK, so why not just use Kubuntu instead?", but now they've dropping funding for Kubuntu it looks like even more people will be moving over to Mint too.

    I only update to the LTS versions of Kubuntu but if Precise is going to be the last one then why bother? Mint 12 came out a few days ago so maybe I'll just move over to that instead.

    • Re:Mint 12 KDE (Score:5, Informative)

      by lordandmaker ( 960504 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:35AM (#38951419) Homepage

      Kubuntu's never really been a good way to use KDE. I don't have much love of KDE, but many people package it better than Ubuntu.

      If what you want is old Gnome just use XFCE; Xubuntu in canonical-speak.

    • Re:Mint 12 KDE (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@nOSpaM.gdargaud.net> on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:37AM (#38951439) Homepage
      Yeah, I use kubuntu and set it up on every family member PC. It combines a standard UI (KDE) which isn't traumatic to ex-Windows users and the power of Ubuntu repositories. So I'm saddened by this news. I hope development keeps on.

    • Re:Mint 12 KDE (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chrb ( 1083577 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @06:07AM (#38951595)
      Canonical have only pulled funding for one developer. Kubuntu, like all open source projects, will continue as long as there is a community behind it. It appears that Kubuntu hasn't been a commercial success for Canonical despite 7 years of funding. The KDE developer involved, Jonathan Riddell, deserves some respect for acknowledging this and recognising that this is a rational (and probably correct) business decision. I suspect quite a few developers would have reacted with anger at both being laid off and losing funding for their pet project.

      • It appears that Kubuntu hasn't been a commercial success for Canonical despite 7 years of funding.

        Neither has Ubuntu.

    • As to the "why bother" question... I think you will get 5 years of support with Precise, which is a very long time. This is such long promise of support in fact that the changes in computer hardware will probably render the entire discussion moot by 2017/2018.
  • Just when I had settled on Kubuntu as my distribution after Unity and Gnome 3 ruined most of the others. Still, I've been using Lubuntu too and that is based on Ubuntu but nothing to do with Canonical and it's pretty good. Kubuntu could even become stronger and better for being cast loose. The more I think about it the more I think that this is definitely good for Kubuntu and possibly good for Canonical.

  • Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rapidreload ( 2476516 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:42AM (#38951467)

    It does make business sense to drop financial support for Kubuntu when you think about it. Ubuntu has been around for 7 years and Canonical still has yet to make a profit, so the purse strings undoubtedly have to be tightened so that the focus of attention can be put towards things that are more likely to succeed. It's not like they took Kubuntu seriously anyway - it was generally one of the least polished KDE distros available (though it has been getting better).

    Having said that I think Ubuntu is mostly doomed anyway - even with this new tablet/TV angle Shuttleworth wants to get into, the fact he hasn't managed to expand Ubuntu's marketshare via OEMs preinstalling it on machines (with some rare exceptions) kinda tells me he is either really optimistic or really stupid. Red Hat gave up on the desktop and, but then again Red Hat never had Unity and disappearing global menus. Yeah, I'm sure that's what's gonna fix things to make Linux more appealing for mainstream users. :)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Having said that I think Ubuntu is mostly doomed anyway - even with this new tablet/TV angle Shuttleworth wants to get into, the fact he hasn't managed to expand Ubuntu's marketshare via OEMs preinstalling it on machines (with some rare exceptions) kinda tells me he is either really optimistic or really stupid. Red Hat gave up on the desktop and, but then again Red Hat never had Unity and disappearing global menus. Yeah, I'm sure that's what's gonna fix things to make Linux more appealing for mainstream users. :)

      Well, creating Ubuntu wasn't such a bad idea when it came to building credibility for Ubuntu LTS and trying to compete with RHEL and SLES in the server market. And at face value, it didn't seem like a bad place to be for when there's a "paradigm shift" that would enable other solutions, but they haven't manage to catch it. Amazon EC2 and others beat them on the cloud, Apple and Google beat them to ARM mobile/tablets with iOS and Android, perhaps the smart TV market is still open but I doubt they're in a goo

    • Linux obviously does better on the server but I'm glad they did go for the desktop and I hope more companies continue to do so. We're not going to see any decent improvements in the desktop if people don't focus on it and Linux certainly won't gain desktop users by assuming no one wants to use it on the desktop.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by olau ( 314197 )

      Red Hat gave up on the desktop

      Huh? They're still funding it. Red Hat developers are the main drivers behind GNOME 3 as far as I'm aware?

  • Ubuntu is the New Mac (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:45AM (#38951477)

    The New Ubuntu is becoming increasingly less flexible. In Lucid 10.04, you could place the gnome-panels anywhere you wished. You could add icons and and even short cuts to scripts to the panel, and there were a whole bunch of panel applets that you could add.

    Now, Ubuntu's new layout with a top panel and left launcher bar is so inflexible that you're stuck with what they give you. You could go with installing classic gnome shell, and/or install ccsm and turn unity off..... but if you do, look out, because when you copy files, don't even dare minimize the File Operations Dialogue, coz it will be gone forever. It;s almost as though Ubuntu punishes you for not using the Unity interface. Oh and forget mentioning this in any of their forums, because if you even imply that you don't like unity, prepare for some snooty feedback.

    But the engine below the interface is pretty fantastic. I fell in love with Ubuntu from Lucid, because everything worked, and it was so flexible and customizable, and that suited my indecisive personality... now things are very mac-like... where everything works perfectly, but sort of comes with a sticker saying, don't change it too much, coz it's perfect the way it is!!

  • What next? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @05:51AM (#38951509)

    Drop support for Ubuntu?

  • I liked Ubuntu up until after 10.04. Now it's got some kind of tablet/smart phone infection that I wish it could get a shot for so it'd go back to the way it was. The worst part is it spread outside of Ubuntu in to Gnome. Well if Kubuntu doesn't float for lack of funding then there's always Xubuntu or Lubuntu. If those go then Mint will be the real shining star even more then it already is.

  • But did Canonical promote Kubuntu? (Score:3)

    by Teun ( 17872 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @06:12AM (#38951619)
    I read that Kubuntu was not the success hoped for after the invitation in 2006.
    But that's where part of the problem is, in recent years there was virtually no marketing for Kubuntu, for quite a while there is no more reference to the project on Ubuntu's front page .
    As a desktop KDE is far more integrated than Gnome ever was and Unity will still be based on this disjointed approach.

    Unity is a high stakes experiment by Mark Shuttleworth and is it that now he sees more and more users go over to the KDE desktop he feels his experiment is threatened?

    Regardless, KDE development is not depending on Canonical and the Canonical infrastructure will still be available so we can continue to enjoy this very good distribution.

    • The whole idea of Kubuntu is stupid. The package should simple be called "kde" and it should be installed by default, unless you say otherwise. Anything stranger than that and somebody is obviously pushing an agenda.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Teun ( 17872 )
        You think very lightly about interfacing and integration between the underlying OS and the desktop.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dargaud ( 518470 )
          That's a valid question. What is the difference between an Ubuntu-integrated KDE (called Kubuntu) and having KDE as a standard optional package. Anything extra ? Anything missing (like regular KDE improvements/bug fixes) ? I've been using Kubuntu for 4 years at home and work and I don't even know.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      of course they didn't, that would have been the same as admitting that their gnome clusterfuck was lackluster and that people wanted something else and would be happier with something else. unity is what's supposed to make the ubuntu fellows the next steve jobs and gates combined, that's why it tries to be ah so different while not managing to be neither different enough or useful, it's design seems to be "what would people use in 5 years?" rather than what would they be happy using TODAY _and_ in five year

  • Beginning of the end for KDE? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by squoozer ( 730327 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @06:24AM (#38951693)
    I wonder if this is the beginning of the end for KDE. Sure it'll continue to be developed for years to come but without major backing it'll probably fade away like a lot of projects do. It's a shame, I feel KDE had much more to offer than Gnome but long term there could be only one winner and all the major players picked Gnome. Over all I think this is probably a good thing for Linux though, the war between Gnome and KDE has been a huge waste of resources and has massively hurt Linux adoption on the desktop. I really look forward to the day when the Linux desktop just works even if that means it's Gnome based.

    • Re:Beginning of the end for KDE? (Score:4)

      by mattcasters ( 67972 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @07:09AM (#38951937) Homepage

      This has very little to do with KDE or the quality of KDE. I think Canonical simply sees too many people migrate from Unity to KDE so they distance themselves since it's not where they want to go.
      I'll follow KDE to another distribution but I already have Ubuntu ppa's installed to automatically upgrade KDE to the latest stable versions so I don't know what the big deal is. When Canonical starts to actively block inclusion of packages like kde-desktop then I'll start to worry. In the worst case scenario I have a few hundred MB of worthless Unity/Gnome crap on my disk. I'll live.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Teun ( 17872 )

        When Canonical starts to actively block inclusion of packages like kde-desktop then I'll start to worry.

        That's the point, so for the foreseeable future Kubuntu will live and prosper.

    • Re:Beginning of the end for KDE? (Score:4)

      by Daniel Phillips ( 238627 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @07:12AM (#38951967)

      I wonder if this is the beginning of the end for KDE.

      Not at all, KDE has a huge presence in Europe, especially Germany, which by itself is enough to ensure it continues on happily forever. On the contrary, Ubuntu getting its clumsy claws out of the standard KDE package is no doubt the best thing that ever happened to KDE on Ubuntu.

      But I'm still installing Debian stable :-)

    • I'd think that it's the beginning of the end for Ubuntu, if not Canonical. If I'm reading this right, Canonical might well decide not to invest money into versions where it's being beaten by Mint and challenged by other distros, and instead, follow up Kubuntu's severance w/ that of Xubuntu, and stop offering Gnome3 as an option for Ubuntu either.

      Also, Gnome hasn't been a winner ever since Gnome 3, while KDE is now getting past the troughs that they went thru due to the 3->4 transition. I doubt that C

  • I just switched to kubuntu a few weeks back because of the state they put ubuntu in. I hate the new interface as its way too faffy. How am I supposed to advocate that for an OS? Now this!! :( looking for a new home.
    • Try Xubuntu. I've been using Kubuntu for years and years on my main machine, but all my new installations (on laptops etc) have been Xubuntu instead. Like for like it seems to be faster, and one of these days I may convert the desktop as well - especially if this event causes Kubuntu to implode. That would be a rather sad moment, though - I've been using KDE since 1.1.

  • Ubuntu gets increasingly useless (Score:3)

    by jopet ( 538074 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @06:43AM (#38951809) Journal

    It seems that Canonical has the stategy to exclusively target Noobs and people who use Linux for nothing more than using a browser. Unity and Co is absolutely unfit for professional or productive work.

    It is time to change the distro in order to strengthen strategies that take care of people who need Linux to get some work done.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shish ( 588640 )
      Noobs get the noob desktop. Professionals get apt-get so they can install a hundred other desktops for themselves. Where's the problem?

  • What compelling reason anyone has to use Ubuntu over Debian anymore? It used to be because the former was supposedly more user friendly, but that doesn't seem like a compelling argument nowadays when even Debian has a GUI install and autodetects most stuff.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      Compelling is the superior integration of not so free (like multimedia and drivers) items in the Ubuntu world where the Debian user has a lot more trouble getting it right.

  • I like Ubuntu because it's frequently updated, and seems to be where the "zeitgeist" of Linux development is living these days.

    But I don't like Unity. How do I get Ubuntu with the original Desktop?

    And while I'm at it, how about a (local storage) replacement for Evolution, since the zeitgeist evidently abandoned it years ago?

  • Ubuntu? (Score:3)

    by aglider ( 2435074 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @08:15AM (#38952403) Homepage

    It's time to go back to Slackware.
    You always know who to blame. Yourself.

  • Overblown (Score:3)

    by Alex Belits ( 437 ) * on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @08:29AM (#38952547) Homepage

    1. There are many other Ubuntu derivatives that as far as I know never had direct support from Canonical. Kubuntu is not going to disappear just because it is now at the same level as Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Lubuntu and other projects.
    2. Kubuntu itself is an installer, KDE customizations and a set of dependencies. As long as Canonical (or anyone) supports KDE packages, it is at the same level of "legitimacy" as KDE support in Debian.
    3. Oh, it's anti-Linux propaganda worker Brian Proffitt again. Figures.
    4. Canonical made a really bad move with Unity that was followed with a worse move by Gnome. This leaves KDE as the best desktop environment currently supported by developers.
    5. Kubuntu remains the only Ubuntu-derived distribution that supports sane window management, and can be reasonably customized (with Compiz instead of kwin). It's also the best desktop Linux distribution that currently exists.

  • ArchLinux for Bleeding Edge, Debian for Stability (Score:4, Informative)

    by ilikenwf ( 1139495 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2012 @10:04AM (#38953845)

    I have had a lot of time to deal with this, as I dropped ubunturd 3-4 years ago, as I found that every dist upgrade horribly broke the system, and that I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get my custom modifications and kernels not to cause dependency hells...

    I'm personally very partial to ArchLinux [archlinux.org] for my daily driver laptop. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a tweaker and ricer on my laptop, but Arch is perfect for that...

    You control every aspect, as you set the system up from the ground up, and it's packages are always more up to date than most distros. It's package management is faster by far than apt, and the PKGBUILD building system gives even the most novice compiler of software what they need to package any application not included in the distro, build any of thousands of premade PKGBUILDs in the AUR repository [archlinux.org], and rebuild and modify anything that is already packaged by the distro via ABS.

    My server, however, runs Debian testing - which is rock solid...if you need something that "just works," Debian is definitely the way to go.

    In my mind, these are the only two distros that exist, as I've been unimpressed with any others, unless you count the TAILS livecd when using public computers, for paranoia's sake.

    • I concur. If you want a bleeding edge rolling release (meaning that it takes at most a few days for a fresh stable upstream release to get into the repos) distro with vanilla (unpatched) packages, Arch takes the cake. It's like Gentoo, but without all the recompilation BS, and a really simple init that's easy to edit by hand. And Debian is for when you want things to just work, and don't want to fuss over updates.

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