OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/21846/Xubuntu_The_Better_Ubuntu_than_Ubuntu Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 23 May 2013 16:07:27 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?373861 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373861 KDEs problem:

It just does not get the same attention from big companies. Novell, Red Hat, Intel, Nokia, Canonical etc. all employ a lot of GTK/Gnome hackers.
Qt is well maintained by Nokia, but for KDE they only employ Aaron Seigo. Novell has a few older SUSE KDE hackers on the payroll, but let go a few go lately. Mandrake has very few and Canonical has one.
That is why KDE gets a lot more development in the Summer because of Googles Summer of code.
Same with distros. Kubuntu is much more a community project than Ubuntu. It lacks developers. For Fedora KDE is only a special interest group.
There are only a few distros that do some KDE development (Pradus does a lot of config/glue Python stuff. Others do similar superficial stuff, but no core development.)

That is also why KDE4 lacks a lot of enterprise functionality that was there in KDE3, because volunteers are not so much into that stuff. They like to build flashy new desktop stuff.

I think KDE should embrace these facts and not try to be something it isn't. It is a enthusiast desktop and it should embrace its users and listen to their brainstorm at forums.kde.

It should work on a social desktop and try to integrate better with Debian. A true community distro is KDEs best option right now.

Try getting new versions of KDE into Debian Testing fast would be a great choice for most people.

And it should work on a more social desktop.
I great suggestion in this regard is this:
http://whilos.blogsite.org/?p=144 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kragil) Comments Or either or instead of or or? http://www.osnews.com/thread?373862 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373862 Or or? Isn't it "either this or that"? Anyway, it sounds weird. Besides, this is an exclusive OR, or XOR-situation.

About the defaults: If the defaults (including theme, software selection ..) were so important nobody would use Windows, but *buntu. After installing Windows I need to adjust _a lot_ of settings, install _tons_ of software .. to get a (for my personal needs) usable desktop.Edited 2009-07-17 11:21 UTC Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (xnoreq) Comments yes but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?373863 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373863 after reading your article I have installed Xubuntu (already tried few years back).
It's true. XFce has improved a lot.
But for the brown-ish ubuntu's look vs. xfce i personally prefer ubuntu, even if is the first thing i change on new installations.
this just to say that l&f is a personal taste...

thank you for the article, gave me the possibility to re-try a desktop env., often forgotten.

Kindly

elvisd
(sorry for horror-english ;) ) Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elvisd) Comments XUbuntu is basic, if you want more go to (K)Ubuntu http://www.osnews.com/thread?373865 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373865 Only a window manager is all? And that you have more themes? You can replace the window manager (metacity/compiz) with the XFCE one, even it does not look so amazing. My issue with XFCE is that it starts fast only the basic desktop. The rest of GNOME libraries are already cached, so any libgnome application does it's job. Also, the basic tools of Gnome are equal or better than the XFCE counterparts. Taking a bit more memory is not the main concern for most people, but the problem to Just Work.
KUbuntu also excluding the start time of KDE, afterward is snappy, even on an Atom machine with 1G of RAM.

The issue of XFCE IMHO is that it does not drive so much tracking in it to makes person that have paid developers inside it. This is a problem that both KDE or GNOME do not have. Also XFCE seems limited when you run around. You cannot move the icons out of the desktop grid...

Sounds silly, but excluding that you don't have a machine that for real have low RAM, I am really thinking that XFCE is not (yet) a replacement for GNOME/KDE. Or may be, but a painful one. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ciplogic) Comments XFCE http://www.osnews.com/thread?373866 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373866 XFCE has been my choice since '02... couldn't be happier with it.
Xfce + AWN + stalonetray + brightside = happy
only word of warning, with proprietary ATI drivers there are problems with compositing (as with kde i believe)

Try it out Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sAmIlE) Comments Linux Mint http://www.osnews.com/thread?373875 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373875 XUbuntu is an awesome distribution but Linux Mint with Murina-Blue (included) style and URW Gothic L Book font with size 9 and Subpixel Smooting setting for fonts looks really good. Of course, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. Also to my surprise, the Print Screen button in Linux Mint actually captures a screenshot. I will try XUbuntu as I like Xfce but currently I am hooked on Linux Mint. I have downloaded the Universal Gloria edition. Linux Mint is trully aimed at looks and functionality!Edited 2009-07-17 13:02 UTC Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSGuy) Comments Another variant that is worth mentioning is MINT http://www.osnews.com/thread?373876 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373876 http://www.linuxmint.com/

I find it's pastel shades of green to be quite soothing. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DREVILl30564) Comments screenshots http://www.osnews.com/thread?373877 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373877 No screenshots? It's a bit weird to wite an article about how nice some desktop looks without providing some screenshots. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (maaxx) Comments agree on mint and xbuntu http://www.osnews.com/thread?373878 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373878 poor me i have never had the pleasure of using 0-day cpu and computer configurations so yes it is sort of obvious Xubuntu and maybe the newest linux mint maria? are both good on older machines, i would also like to add on older mechines default Xubuntu i feel is more user friendly than a plain install of xp on the same computer, is it really that much fun looking, waiting for, and installing windows drivers to.......use your computer or just pop in a live cd and 5-10 minutes later up and running full fledged OS......when i say older machines i mean any x86 base that is older that '05 or '06. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (goldstanza) Comments XUbuntu http://www.osnews.com/thread?373880 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373880 As I mentioned above, XUbuntu is a very descent distro and I agree with Thom on the points he raised. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSGuy) Comments It's very cool but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?373881 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373881 ... it has problems with one thing I need everytime: access to smb:// network shares. You have to install one or two programs or mount all the damn shares, and when you try to mount them sometimes it gave me an wierd "segmentation fault (core dumped)" error.

Besides this minor problem it's a very very cool DE.

:) Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rramalho) Comments Mr. Brown & the Orange http://www.osnews.com/thread?373882 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373882 I'll have to disagree about the Ubuntu choice of colors being 70s. In the 70s, people had brown and orange curtains, brown and orange car seats, NOT brown and orange GUI desktops.

The Ubuntu desktop is a way to make working on your computer easier on the eyes, and it's a definite break from the "let's make everything blue...blue is good...blue is corporate...blue is soothing...blue is calming...blue is water.." that is so prevalent.

I personally like red, orange, green, grey, even purple, and seeing the Debian desktop, with its lighter blue background, is refreshing. It may not be suitable for many hours a day work, though.

I should mention that I live my life in Vim, varying between dark-blue and just-dark themes, but having Ubuntu running means I've been inspired to make my own "70s" theme, and it's turning out to be quite pleasing on the eyes. That's what matters when you're actually working on your computer.

Oh, and I like the top bar of this site a lot too...what's that? Orange? Yellow'ish green? Logo lettering in fat swung style? 60s hairstyle default avatar icon?

Hmm...if they could just get rid of all that WHITE... Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PrimalDK) Comments Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?373892 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373892 Too be honest, I don't see much point in Xubuntu. It's pretty much like Ubuntu but with a different color scheme. The overall look and feel is pretty much the same and all the major apps are the same.

Btw, they're called earth colors and they're pretty popular outside the western hemisphere, especially in latin-american and african countries. You know, the countries that aren't horribly dull and cold.Edited 2009-07-17 14:32 UTC Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments Comment by erikharmon http://www.osnews.com/thread?373894 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373894 I found Xubuntu to be a little more lightweight on the GUI front, and prefer it when I set up a PowerPC Linux box. It seems to be the right balance of utility and performance. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (erikharmon) Comments RE: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?373896 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373896 Exactly. My wife, who's an artist, prefers the Ubuntu desktop to just about any other, including the Mac OS X one. She says most desktop designs are decidedly "male" looking (I think she means "tech" in the non-Giger way), not organic like a painting would be, a fact she finds disturbing on an aesthetic level; she calls the typical desktop designs "edgy" and "thriller movie-dark".

I just asked her again, and she mentions the Ubuntu designs as "non-gender specific", a further plus in her book. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PrimalDK) Comments RE: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?373898 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373898 I think KDE is doing fine. The number of active contributors is steadily growing: http://dot.kde.org/2009/07/14/growth-metrics-kde-contributors

I personally like the fact that KDE is mostly developed by the community. I think it would be nice to have a really good KDE centric distribution, but personally I can live without. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (michi) Comments RE: XUbuntu is basic, if you want more go to (K)Ubuntu http://www.osnews.com/thread?373899 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373899
Only a window manager is all? And that you have more themes? You can replace the window manager (metacity/compiz) with the XFCE one, even it does not look so amazing. My issue with XFCE is that it starts fast only the basic desktop. The rest of GNOME libraries are already cached, so any libgnome application does it's job.
You can tell XFCE to start GNOME and/or KDE daemons from the configuration panel. Just tick the boxes.

BTW, Tom, the iconification of programs is not an afterthought on XFCE. It is the filesystem icons that is an afterthought actually. Earlier versions of XFCE didn't have filesystem icons.

Anyway, it is true that XFCE has grown a lot and is a fantastic DE, but Xubuntu is probably one of the worst implementation of it. If you like XFCE, you should try Zenwalk. It's not debian-based but it is a very good distro.Edited 2009-07-17 15:12 UTC Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spiderman) Comments RE: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?373900 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373900 I live in Arkansas (in the southern United States) and trust me it is not cold here right now, nor does it get very cold here in the winter. It is boring here though, unless you love the outdoors.

Edit: We love Earth colors in my state. This makes sense since our official motto is the Natural State. (Our unofficial motto is "Thank God for Mississippi" ;) )

Sorry for the multiple edits my brain doesn't want to work correctly today ;) Edited 2009-07-17 15:21 UTC Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (asupcb) Comments Comment by joekiser http://www.osnews.com/thread?373903 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373903 Nice summary. I've been an Xfce user off and on since it was done with XForms, and having migrated back from KDE 3.5, the 4.6 version is the best I can remember. People looking it as a lightweight clone of Gnome aren't giving it a fair shot, IMHO. There are a lot of customizations that Xfce can do that Gnome can not. I've never given Xubuntu a try (Kubuntu's regression over past few releases has perhaps unfairly put me off from most Ubuntu derivatives), but Fedora 11's version is nicely done. So too is Zenwalk, but I'm still waiting for a 64-bit version. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (joekiser) Comments RE[2]: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?373905 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373905 An organic looking desktop would be horribly impractical. Computers aren't organic there machines.
I just read that blue is the most favourite colours for both male and female. Must themes are blue, so that would make most desktops non-gender specific. But I have better thinks to as jugging if themes are male or female specific.

p.s. I hate blue. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (righard) Comments RE: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?373907 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373907 I honestly think Nokia/Trolltech needs to develop a Qt only desktop similar to Antico.
http://www.antico.netsons.org

I think part of the point to Qt v4 was portability. KDE lib dependencies just prevent apps to be easily ran on multiple platforms unless you plan on installing KDE on that platform, I just don't see it catching on unfortunately. It's sad because there are some KDE apps I really want to see cross platform like Amarok, Koffice. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (robojerk) Comments RE: It's very cool but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?373917 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373917
... it has problems with one thing I need everytime: access to smb:// network shares. You have to install one or two programs or mount all the damn shares, and when you try to mount them sometimes it gave me an wierd "segmentation fault (core dumped)" error.

Besides this minor problem it's a very very cool DE.

:)


Sounds like the avahi daemon isn't started, this happened to a buddy of mine recently and it took us forever to diagnose it. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (darknexus) Comments I like the Ubuntu lnf ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?373922 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373922 I like the browns, tans, yellows, and oranges of the standard Ubuntu desktop.

For one, it gives Ubuntu a distinct and original look and feel, something that helps with perception and branding.

Two, I find it a warm, comforting, human feel, as opposed to, for my tastes, the rather cold, mechanical industrial lnf's of some other Linux distros, and Mac, and even Windows.

What's worse is the stupid Fisher Price interface of WinXP. Vista looks nice, but it's a pig.

But Gnome with the standard Ubuntu theme is great to me. And those who don't like the colors, well, of course it's very easy to change it to your liking. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JeffS) Comments Distrowatch comparison of Debian Lenny xfce vs xubuntu http://www.osnews.com/thread?373923 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373923 At distrowatch, they did a comparison of Debian with xfce vs the new xubuntu 9.04.

They concluded that Debian was more stable (big surprise...), faster, and better implemented.

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090427#feature Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jonathane) Comments RE: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?373930 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373930 Although KDE could do with some corporate assistance in many places, mainly to do with polish and general finishing work, KDE certainly still has a lot going for it. I think you're selling it a bit short when you say its future only really lies as an enthusiast desktop.

I think the thing which was putting off major commercial distros in the past was that Qt was GPL, which would really limit any distro as a target platform for proprietary software. It's not really been very long since the license change to LGPL, and I am still holding out hope for greater corporate interest due to this improved situation. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bralkein) Comments Comment by h3risson http://www.osnews.com/thread?373955 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373955 One little issue that I had with Xubuutu was in how it handled switching keyboard layouts in 8.x; not until I switched to 9.0.4 the issue that I was having disappeared. Ubintu 8, of course, *never* had any keyboard-switching issues, which drove me to think that Xubuntu is always a bit behind in usability.

Yet, I am all for Xubuntu if one has to consider limited hardware resources, I had it working flawlessly (besides the keyboard rues) on a P3 box with an ancient ATI video card - good enough for a developer's GUI. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (h3risson) Comments RE[2]: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?373967 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373967 The situation may have improved but it never wasn't only the about the GPL. It was also control and Gnome always had better accessibility. Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kragil) Comments RE[3]: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?373971 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373971 My...you have better things to do...

I was taking the discussion seriously because it is a serious matter. Usability is a multi-billion dollar industry, the basis of a number of U.S. laws stating requirements for the public sector, the source of countless hours spent in frustration with bad user interfaces etc. ad nausseum.

Organic interfaces are both possible and nothing new, and I'll gladly bet my future in this business on them BEING the future. The argument that computers are machines and that organic interfaces should thus not belong on them is unsubstantiated, my busy friend, and the tendency in computing to try to model real physics, EVEN in user interfaces, is not about computers but about the sentient beings USING them, just as it directly contradicts your sentiment. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PrimalDK) Comments Xubuntu is cool, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?373989 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373989 ...I used it before and I still keep an eye on it with every release. The reason I stopped using it was because it didn't have support for mounted drives via smb and you had to install few programs for that and even then it didn't work well. I also do a lot of stuff on remote servers via ssh and sftp and I like to mount those directories as well which Tunar doesn't support, it's much easier to use via Nautilus then Filezilla (for me). So that is why I came back to Ubuntu. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (motang) Comments RE[2]: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?373991 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373991
I honestly think Nokia/Trolltech needs to develop a Qt only desktop similar to Antico.
http://www.antico.netsons.org

I think part of the point to Qt v4 was portability. KDE lib dependencies just prevent apps to be easily ran on multiple platforms unless you plan on installing KDE on that platform, I just don't see it catching on unfortunately. It's sad because there are some KDE apps I really want to see cross platform like Amarok, Koffice.


Uhm, you do realise that Amarok 2, KOffice 2, Kontact, Konqueror, DragonPlayer, in fact the whole KDE4 stack is cross-platform, right? You can run them on various Linux distros, FreeBSD, Windows XP/Vista/7, MacOS X, Solaris, probably OpenBSD and NetBSD and DragonFlyBSD, and probably a few others that I've forgotten. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 03:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoenix) Comments RE: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?373994 http://www.osnews.com/thread?373994
Too be honest, I don't see much point in Xubuntu. It's pretty much like Ubuntu but with a different color scheme. The overall look and feel is pretty much the same and all the major apps are the same.


Have you actually used it, or are you just going by screenshots and forum comments? Xubuntu is as different from Ubuntu as Xenwalk is from Slackware. It's the same core, but the UI is worlds different. The default software is different too; Xubuntu has a lighter set of apps, with little crossover to regular Ubuntu. Try it and you'll see that.

Btw, they're called earth colors and they're pretty popular outside the western hemisphere, especially in latin-american and african countries. You know, the countries that aren't horribly dull and cold.


Try living here in northwest Georgia, USA and then tell me about earth colors and temperature. Our earth is a decidedly brownish-red due to the red clay that permeates the area, we have more trees than nearly any other part of the US, and in the autumn the tree leaves turn to a quite pleasing array of browns, oranges and yellows. Also, it's 11:38pm local time and it's still above 80 degrees Fahrenheit (that's a balmy 27 degrees Centigrade) and the humidity is 72%.

Once again, get some experience before you dismiss something out of hand. Your air of superiority makes you appear petty and overly judgemental. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 03:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Morgan) Comments RE[2]: It's very cool but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?374008 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374008
"... it has problems with one thing I need everytime: access to smb:// network shares. You have to install one or two programs or mount all the damn shares, and when you try to mount them sometimes it gave me an wierd "segmentation fault (core dumped)" error.

Besides this minor problem it's a very very cool DE.

:)


Sounds like the avahi daemon isn't started, this happened to a buddy of mine recently and it took us forever to diagnose it. "

What does the Avahi daemon have to do with that?

The problem is that, at least when I last tried it, XFCE did not have anything similar to gvfs or kio, which would allow the user to access remote storages without root privileges.

Actually, I feel that gvfs is the best such solution currently available (apart from the "translator" concept of The Hurd, which unfortunately will forever remain pre-alpha software), as it even allows applications without gvfs support to access smb shares, webdav storages, ftp servers etc, through its use of FUSE (if correctly configured, gvfs file systems are mounted through FUSE under ~/.gvfs, so that you can access them with any app, you can even cd ~/.gvfs and you will have the full might of the shell available)

I last tried XFCE a year back or so and at least by that time, I did not see any equivalent to gvfs there. Has this changed in the meantime? Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (yahya) Comments RE: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?374010 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374010
Novell, Red Hat, Intel, Nokia, Canonical etc. all employ a lot of GTK/Gnome hackers.
Qt is well maintained by Nokia

I don't have any numbers but I could imagine that there are more people employed for working on Qt then for working in GTK+

but for KDE they only employ Aaron Seigo.


This is actually not correct.
Aaron is the only one being paid by Qt Software to work on KDE full time, others like David Faure are paid to work on it part of their time (in David's case 50% IIRC).

and Canonical has one


There have to be more, I know at least Jonathan Riddell, Aurélien Gâteau and Bo Thorsen.

Not counting all of the KDE PIM developers working for KDAB, the guys working fo KO Gmbh on KOffice, etc.

It could be that those companies are just not as well known to people wathing KDE development from a distance. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anda_skoa) Comments RE[2]: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?374018 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374018

I don't have any numbers but I could imagine that there are more people employed for working on Qt then for working in GTK+


Could be, still besides my point.


There have to be more, I know at least Jonathan Riddell, Aurélien Gâteau and Bo Thorsen.


OK, one more. Bo is at KDAB. I just mentioned the distro guys, because you need at least a few dozen to really shape a distro and release a quality product if you want to release every 6 month. And even with a dozen you won't do a lot of development or polishing. Mainly you do bug fixing. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kragil) Comments xubuntu a distribution? http://www.osnews.com/thread?374023 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374023 I always find it funny how X/K/ [younamit]buntu are always talked about as if these were seperate distributions. The are just metapackages. Every ubuntu user can test xubuntu by typing "sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop" in a terminal window. I mean, nobody ever referred to Debian with KDE installed as KDebian or Redhat with GNUstep as Gredhat.

And what makes XFCE on Ubuntu so much different/better from XFCE on any other distribution?

I cannot avoid the impression that the only reason why there is an article on XFCE on Ubuntu and not SuSE, RedHat or Debian is just the brand, nothing else. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (yahya) Comments RE: xubuntu a distribution? http://www.osnews.com/thread?374027 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374027 Additional humor can be found from the fact that certain Linux/Ubuntu advocates dismiss Windows because it has "too many versions". ;) Edited 2009-07-18 12:13 UTC Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (strcpy) Comments RE[2]: xubuntu a distribution? http://www.osnews.com/thread?374029 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374029
Additional humor can be found from the fact that certain Linux/Ubuntu advocates dismiss Windows because it has "too many versions". ;)


Who says so? Well, in fact what I said was that Ubuntu, Xubuntu etc. just pretend to be different distributions. In fact all those customisations (Server, GNOME, Kubuntu, xubuntu, Ubuntustudio etc) use the same repository, they are just different metapackages and therefore install different selections of packages from that pool. and if you want you can have all of them installed at the same time, just as you can have GNOME, KDE, XFCE, E17, GNUstep and LXDE installed in parallel on Debian. ...

It may be that the different versions of Vista have the same technical base, but here switching between the versions is certainly much harder (and costier).

P.S: Why don't we have LUbuntu yet? I.e. Ubuntu with LXDE installed... Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (yahya) Comments RE[3]: It's very cool but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?374030 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374030
What does the Avahi daemon have to do with that?


Well, it should have absolutely nothing to do with it, but there are issues with some Samba versions where, if the avahi daemon is not running, they will randomly segfault when attempting to mount a remote folder or to share a folder itself. It's an internal assumption that avahi is running and, when it's not, certain memory access can go out of bounds. It's been fixed, but I'm not sure if *buntu has the fixed versions.
As for gvfs, I'm not sure. I don't use Xfce, but gvfs or the lack there of would not have caused the segfaults the OP described. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (darknexus) Comments RE[3]: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?374032 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374032

Could be, still besides my point.

Then I probably didn't get your point. I though it was about companies being actively involved in development of Free Software desktop stacks by employing key developers.


OK, one more. Bo is at KDAB.

You need to update more often ;)
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3908

I just mentioned the distro guys, because you need at least a few dozen to really shape a distro and release a quality product if you want to release every 6 month.

I am pretty sure all of the distributors have "a few dozen" people working on their products.
My guess would actually be several hundred.

And even with a dozen you won't do a lot of development or polishing. Mainly you do bug fixing.

Yeah, one of the unfortunate side effects of employment. The individuals will work on Free Software full time but usually more on company related things than the project they came from.
Which is why contracts like Aaron Seigo's are so special as they allow them to work in their original project at all times. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anda_skoa) Comments RE: xubuntu a distribution? http://www.osnews.com/thread?374034 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374034 I specifically said why I was talking about Xubuntu and not Fedora or anything else: I prefer Debian.

Also, I specifically talked about a *variant* of Ubuntu, which is *exactly* what Xubuntu is. It has a different desktop environment, different artwork, different set of default applications.

Inn other words, your comment is off in every possible way. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments RE[4]: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?374037 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374037

Then I probably didn't get your point. I though it was about companies being actively involved in development of Free Software desktop stacks by employing key developers.


No my point was that KDE does not get a lot of attention from distributors. Qt does not really matter in that regard.


You need to update more often ;)
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3908


OK, I stand corrected. It is three now, maybe even four. But Riddel was for a very long time the only one that was employed to work on Kubuntu. And it shows.

I am pretty sure all of the distributors have "a few dozen" people working on their products.
My guess would actually be several hundred.


Not on the KDE part they don't. The biggest distributor has exactly zero.


Yeah, one of the unfortunate side effects of employment. The individuals will work on Free Software full time but usually more on company related things than the project they came from.
Which is why contracts like Aaron Seigo's are so special as they allow them to work in their original project at all times.


This I don't get. Which company related things would that be for Canonical, Novell etc. other than making the KDE part of the product good and advance it?? Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kragil) Comments RE[5]: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?374044 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374044

No my point was that KDE does not get a lot of attention from distributors. Qt does not really matter in that regard.

Ah, I see. That wasn't obvious from your first posting, you wrote "GTK/GNOME developers" so I though you included people working on libraries as well.


Not on the KDE part they don't.

Why do you think so?
They create and ship all the relevant packages, they maintain not-yet-upstream patches fixing problems on their distributions, they provide fixes to their paying (enterprise) customers, etc.

Sure, KDE is a well engineered product and might not require dozens of people working on it, but since those things don't miraculously do themselves, there must be some humans doing it ;)


The biggest distributor has exactly zero.

Since Novell and Red Hat have people working on KDE, that would then be Oracle? Or maybe Microsoft?


This I don't get. Which company related things would that be for Canonical, Novell etc. other than making the KDE part of the product good and advance it??


They could be working on things like the SUSE Build service, products for customers, internal applications, customer support, training interns, attending conferences, writing papers and so on.

Stuff employers expect their employees to do.
Only very few people are lucky enough to get fellow status and be allowed to work full time outside the usual corporate workload. Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anda_skoa) Comments RE[3]: Kubuntus problem is http://www.osnews.com/thread?374094 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374094
The situation may have improved but it never wasn't only the about the GPL. It was also control and Gnome always had better accessibility.

Specific examples? We always seem to lurch from one reason to another on this topic. Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments Window Managers http://www.osnews.com/thread?374111 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374111 I don't understand the obsession with desktop environments, all those do is tell you how to use your computer.

I prefer using a window manager and then installing only the tools I need. I use Ubuntu's Alternate install CD and install a command line system, then build on that.

My window manager of choice is Window Maker. I turn practically everything off within it, no applets, no icons and no dock to be seen on my workspaces. Only a menu, which is access by right clicking the workspace (or pressing F12).

I do have nautilus installed, which I run when I want to browse windows/Samba shares but apart from that it's mostly cli - save for firefox/conky/pidgin etc, I use the tools that suit me best.Edited 2009-07-19 08:01 UTC Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (g0nad) Comments RE: Kubuntus problem? http://www.osnews.com/thread?374119 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374119 I disagree. I like KDE (Kubuntu) better than Ubuntu. It looks nicer and is more user-friendly than Ubuntu. Further, the widget-oriented mentality is what all operating systems are going to (including OS X and Windows 7).

The Gnome desktop is late to revamp, which it is due to do this year. KDE is actually ahead of the curve, not behind, even if it might be doing farsighted revamps with less resources.

Xfce is a nice, lean little desktop, but go ahead and try to figure out how to use it. There is little to no documentation for Xubuntu, while Ubuntu and Kubuntu have guides (ubuntuguide.org and kubuntuguide.org), forums, community documentation, etc.

Besides, if you are really looking for speed, try Puppy Linux, a pretty, really fast, small Linux distro that does everything a netbook user could want to do.

For everyone else, the increased speed of Ubuntu/Kubuntu Jaunty makes a lot of discussions a bit, well, old-fashioned. Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (perspectoff) Comments No network browsing means half-baked http://www.osnews.com/thread?374151 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374151 Sorry, but any file browser that cannot browse network shares is last century for me. That is not an extra feature anymore when it is becoming so natural to have several networked devices. Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elmimmo) Comments RE[2]: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?374155 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374155
Have you actually used it, or are you just going by screenshots and forum comments?


I have used it.

Once again, get some experience before you dismiss something out of hand.


Are you talking about me not liking XFCE/Xubuntu or are you somehow miffed about the earth colors comment?

Your air of superiority makes you appear petty and overly judgemental.


Maybe I just get a bit tired of all the whining about how horrible the ubuntu colors are and how awesome blue and white is?
Most of this whining do happen to come from westerners so far. Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[3]: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?374157 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374157
Maybe I just get a bit tired of all the whining about how horrible the ubuntu colors are and how awesome blue and white is?
Most of this whining do happen to come from westerners so far.


Just as I get tired of America-bashing and blind adherence to stereotypes just because not everyone agrees with you. We're not all Europe-hating, beer drinking, xenophobic, racist, redneck neo-conservative f--ktards here, but that seems to be the image many outside our country judge the entire nation by.

You should be more open minded and you won't be called out as often, you know. Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Morgan) Comments one good thing http://www.osnews.com/thread?374166 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374166 about xubuntu is that there's no mono in it Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Mellin) Comments RE[4]: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?374175 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374175
Just as I get tired of America-bashing


I'm pretty sure I didn't mention America anywhere in my post. Heck, I didn't even know you are American.

We're not all Europe-hating


I'm equally sure that "westerners" include Europeans. My post, if that wasn't obvious, was targeted at westerners and the western color sensibilities (the blue rules thing) and the idea that everyone should have the same sensibilities.

You should be more open minded and you won't be called out as often, you know.


Perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to think that everyone is against you. You know, be a little open minded. Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[5]: Comment by Soulbender http://www.osnews.com/thread?374309 http://www.osnews.com/thread?374309 Look, we could go on like this ad infinitum, but that would be stupid. Yes, I take offense when someone talks about those "damn westerners". I'll leave it at that. Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Morgan) Comments