Kubuntu - back and gone

Submitted by asoliverez on Sun, 03/21/2010 - 23:48

As I told in my previous post, I am now using Linux at work. I have been running Arch at home since October, and I never looked back, but in this case, the servers are Ubuntu 9.04, so I decided to give Kubuntu a new chance. I installed Kubuntu 9.04 to stay in sync with the servers.

So, I installed it myself, then activated the Kubuntu backport PPAs to get the latest KDE version. Well, it was not the latest, but at least it was 4.3.1. It looks like they had stopped updating the Jaunty short before Karmic's release. Well, it wasn't bad.

The Eclipse was a little old, like 2 years old, so I went for a manual install. The rest of the dev environment I needed was there. Java 1.5, Tomcat 5.5, VirtualBox, etc. Not bad, and I was happy.

Then, KDE 4.4 was released, and I realized the Jaunty packages in the PPA had been deprecated. I expected they wouldn't be upgraded to 4.4, but I never anticipated the packages would be removed. As usual in these cases, 4 hours later I needed the dev packages, which I hadn't installed yet, and now I couldn't. So, either downgrade to KDE 4.2.x or upgrade to Karmic. I felt like left in the cold for no good reason. Were you in such a need of space that you had to remove these packages? I know there is no guarantee for anything in the backports, but you would at least expect a blog post, a notice on the site, something. Not realizing on your own that you are no longer supported if you are using the version previous to the current one, and which is supposedly still good for another 9 months, half of the purported support life.

Ok, what to do now? I knew that 4.2 sucked compared to 4.3, so I went ahead and upgraded to Karmic. The upgrade went fine, but I had a few unpleasant surprises. Some packages I needed for development were no longer there. Java 1.5 and Tomcat 5.5 were deprecated in Karmic, and Eclipse has been upgraded, but it's broken, so I had to keep using the manual install. Tomcat6, which I had to install later, was broken too. So, my current development is almost fully manually installed, because the relevant APT packages are deprecated or broken. I'm running KDE 4.4 now, but it cost me more time than I expected.

Anyway, now I'm running a dev environment which is mostly manually installed. That's where Kubuntu loses the edge over Arch. So, this week I'm getting new hardware, and this time I'm going to install Arch+Kdemod. If the Chakra ISO works, I'm going to install that, otherwise I'll install Arch and then add the KDEMod repos.

I read Harald's last post about Kubuntu. It's good to see that the situation is being finally acknowledged by some of the people in the Kubuntu team. Kubuntu is the blue-headed step-child. That's something users felt, but until it is acknowledged and the distro team starts acting on that, the issues won't be solved. A lot of denial has been written to come to Harald's post. I hope it's the begining of a new path for Kubuntu. Me, I'm back to Arch, but there is a lot of users counting on you. BTW, translations were a lot better this time, so there's hope.

Tags:

Planet-KDE

kubuntu

archlinux

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not in denial

Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 03/22/2010 - 01:53

FYI: The term "Blue Headed Step Child" was invented by me in 2005, the same year Kubuntu was invented. You can look at the logs from previous Ubuntu Dev/Open Weeks where I pissed of Shuttleworth with the blue-headed-step-child comment in years past. So with that, I am not in denial, I know we aren't given the same fare shake or attention that Ubuntu is, and there is nothing I can do about it. Believe me, I have tried.

As for the packages changing up like they did for you, I don't know who did that in the dev team, but I think it is bat shit insane that it was done, therefor leaving you in the dark. I apologize for that. The Java, Tomcat, and Eclipse issues are not Kubuntu's fault. There are teams within Ubuntu that deal with those packages, ie. the Ubuntu Java Team. As a prior Java developer, there isn't a single distro that does packaging for java development correctly, and every java dev I know or knew, would rather install manually instead of trusting the distro with it. And speaking of Java, I finally convinced the rest of the team to remove it from the restricted packages in favor of just using openjdk/icedtea, especially since 1.5 support seems to have been dropped elsewhere in the repos.

@nixternal

Gentoo

Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 03/22/2010 - 03:47

You should give Gentoo + KDE a try! It's the "Best Distribution Ever"(tm) ;)

I think it's the perfect distribution in general and it's the perfect distribution for using KDE.

Jan

Are you agitate one of

Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 03/22/2010 - 05:25

Are you agitate one of Kubuntu Council members to use gentoo? :)
LOL

Java is needed for company development

Permalink Submitted by asoliverez on Mon, 03/22/2010 - 07:57

We need the Sun packages for the development we are doing.

Also, and that was my point, if I have to setup the environment manually, then I'll stick to what I like most. Up until 9.04 Kubuntu had the upper hand, but it lost it all in just one version. I understand the reasons, but you can understand too why it doesn't make sense anymore to me to keep using Kubuntu when I feel much more comfortable using Arch.

i totally understand

Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 03/22/2010 - 14:01

I believe you should use what you are comfortable with. When I was doing Java dev stuff I kind of preferred using Fedora or CentOS, because as you know when doing Java work, you need all the resources you can get :) I am not totally comfortable with Arch yet, but it is in my top 4 favorite distros and I try to use it as much as I can.

@nixternal