Thanks for the thoughts!

I am critical of Kubuntu because I lose my choice when using it. The Kubuntu group/project/whatever is dictating to me which applications I can use by specifying which application repositories they will support.

I don’t take issue with the fact that many people are using Kubuntu and that it is working out for most people. I take issue with the fact that when I ran into a problem with an application (Skype, in my case) I was unable to get it installed and running properly. The Kubuntu package failed to run (I can’t remember why now, but it’s posted around here somewhere), the source wouldn’t compile because of renamed files causing a depency failure, and the static package was very unstable.

The basic steps that I follow and preach are: install the package for your system; install a binary; install from source. If none of those work (as was the problem in my case), what am I supposed to do? I *should* have been able to compile and install the source, but I was unable to because of the renamed dependency issues.

That annoyed me and I will not recommend Kubuntu for that reason. I’ve become very spoiled with GNU/Linux and very protective of the freedoms I have while using it. I don’t like running a distro that will only support a specific pile of apps and strays far enough from the Debian path that I have troubles installing other versions of the apps when trying to ‘work around’ the ’supported’ apps. The word support was coined to make us think of good things, but it has two sides. When someone says they ’support’ A, what they also mean is that they don’t ’support’ B,C,D,E,F and so on.

In my case it was not ‘annoying’ that the Kubuntu maintainers had given different names to things, it was a fatal show stopper.

As for the DCC - you got me there. It must be late because I don’t even know what the DCC is and can’t remember being for or against it. What are we talking about here?

I acknowledge that my points are largely philosophical in nature, but that’s one of the things I enjoy immensely about the FLOSS community - the philosophy.

I’d like to just comment on these issues, as i think neither are negative points for Ubuntu.
a)
It has always been a risky business installing packages from distro A on distro B, the Debian/Ubuntu situation is no different.
I believe there is no problem if an application is built static with all dependencies compiled in the binary.
As i understand it Ubuntu is trying to promote to availability of the source code rather than binary releases of software, which is the best solution for the whole community. Source code doesn’t have to be released under the GPL for it to be available of distros to build it, take the ATI and NVIDIA drivers as examples.

b)
Who is to say that the DCC Alliance will come to anything.
Certainly there will be deferences in their release cycles which could split them all between Woody,Sarge & Testing package versions, thus requiring compatibility libraries etc.

I agree that it is annoying that their package maintainers have occasionally chosen alternative names from that of the debian maintainers. At the end of the day, the only way to install something which was not built for your exact distro, is to do so from source.

Here is a link to an FAQ by the Ubuntu founder:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarkShuttleworth

I should stop, as i have no authority to be commenting other than being a loyal linux user.

(I’ve been using Ubuntu since Warty, btw)

I think the browser is the choice of the distro rather than the choice of the window manager. I run KDE on Fedora and it has Firefox out of the box.

I kinda like the brown-ish colour scheme. Admittedly I haven’t played with it much yet, but I find it easy on the eyes. Seems to me that people could change the colour scheme via Gnome’s themes, no?

Have you heard to Kubuntu? It’s Ubuntu with…you guessed it…KDE :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Jon

Ubuntu has Gnome which I prefer to Kde, and it has my favorite browser Firefox right out of the shoot. It is easy to navigate. I find it really smooth.

Most of the knocks I’ve read on Ubuntu are about the earth tone color palette it has, and not the distro itself. People seem to want ‘PC’ blues and grays or Mac aqua, and they can’t deal with Ubuntu color scheme. It seems like people have been throughly conditioned to ‘know’ what an OS should look like.

I have a live Ubuntu CD sitting here and I’m waiting for my full CDs that I ordered a few days ago.

I’ve heard such good things about it, and I want to try a Debian based distro, so my plan is to play with Ubuntu and see how it does. Unfortunately this week is pretty much a write off because July 1st is a holiday here in Canada and I’m going camping this weekend. Lots to prepare :)

Maybe next week I’ll find some time to really get into Ubuntu and see how I like it.

Thanks for the comment :)

Jon

For ages I used to use and swear by (and occasionally at) Damn Small Linux, but eventually Ubuntu wooed me with it’s glossyness, and the breadth of applications that “just work” with it, compared to DSL. Also I upgraded enough bits of my system to make a desktop engine like Gnome feasible. Nothing against DSL, but it’s KDrive engine just breaks way too many applications for my liking.