Possibility to add gwenview, krita, kdict, and enable Java in browsers?

[Jordan Mantha]

On Wed Jul 11, 2007 at 04:53:16PM +0200, Knut Yrvin wrote:
> On Wednesday 11. July 2007 15:09, Gavin McCullagh wrote:
> > However, in their defense, I don't think the broad argument was "we can't
> > have kde apps" but more like "we'd really prefer to have gnome versions of
> > the apps".  My understanding was that the reasons were purely technical --
> > having chosen gnome as their desktop, the cost of adding KDE apps was large
> > on the CDROM and on hard disks due to the added weight of KDE libraries.
> > You also tend to have slower start-up times and greater RAM footprints when
> > you mix the two environments.
> 
> Mark Shuttleworth blocked such suggestion by stating that Edubuntu will be 
> DVD-based. They included good KDE-based educational programs on Edubuntu, and 
> have done so since they started. Petter and I told about the advantages to 
> also distributing everything on one CD. According to Edubuntus download page 
> they distributed several CD's. You can download a Desktop CD, Classrom server 
> CD, and Classrom server add-on CD. 

Edubuntu will probably become DVD based at some point but it isn't now. For
many users finding a DVD-Rom is difficult but a DVD-writer to burn the DVD
in the first place is very very difficult. Since we wanted to include more
educational applications and LTSP tools we decided to split our last
release into 2 CDs. The Desktop CD is a LiveCD that's good for demoing, and
the Classroom Server CD has a traditional Debian installer and is the
recommended way to install Edubuntu (it has standalone workstation, LTSP
Server, and regular Ubuntu server installation modes). The Classroom Server
Addon CD has the bulk of the educational packages (KDE Edu is on there
along with gcompris, Tux*, etc.) and can be used with any Ubuntu
installation (although you might have to grab some additional packages for
Kubuntua and Xubuntu). It also holds additional language packs to support
users of various languages. One CD is a great goal, but it's very
difficult to create a good educational distro with only one.

Actually, the most difficult part of putting KDE apps on the Edubuntu CD
was not so much the added libraries, but the additional language packs we
had to include (basically we had to pull in all the KDE strings for all the
languages we wanted to support). Before we went to the Addon CD approach we
were tossing around the idea of stripping the KDE language packs of all the
unneccessary strings but that would have meant more maintainance overhead.
 
> > As far as I'm aware, every version of edubuntu so far has included the KDE
> > Education apps as like you, they are thinking of the students' education
> > first.
> 
> Just to be clear on what was decided and followed up by Richard Weideman and 
> Ubuntu-developers. They support both KDE and Gnome based educational 
> applications. Weideman also said they got huge ubuntu-based installation with 
> KDE based dekstop. 

Edubuntu tries to support the best educational apps it can within the legal
and policy limits it has (i.e. we can't really do a lot of Java apps until
Sun's Java is free or a free Java works for all the apps). Since Edubuntu
is Gnome based there are obvious motivations to see more educational apps
for Gnome but that doesn't stand in the way of good KDE apps being
included.
 
> Kubuntu is installed as the default desktop in all Georgian schools. Georiga 
> is a state east in Europe adjacent to the Black Sea[1]. Population is about 
> 4,7 million. Therefor its unwise to support only one desktop, or educational 
> applications from groups of developers using just a "single" library. 
> Customers expects support for both KDE and Gnome based desktop, Richard says. 
> I totally agree. 

While it is true that many educational institutions use KDE/Kubuntu it is
also very difficult to support and develop for two DEs in the way Edubuntu
does. That's why Ubuntu and Kubuntu exist, because to do a small, hopefully
well polished, integrated, and stable distro requires a lot of focus and a
lot of work. Edubuntu is almost entirely done by one person, Oliver
Grawert, who besided maintaining the educational apps in Edubuntu and
Edubuntu .isos (this includes days of non-stop testing before a release)
has also been very involved in LTSP development. Dropping a "Oh, btw, you
also have to support a KDE version" is quite large. Recently there has been
discussion of creating at least metapackage/tasks and perhaps more of an
Edubuntu remix for KDE, but that *has* to come from the community wanting
to work on it. Customers expect support for both KDE and Gnome based
desktops, but it's far from trivial to actually do and for Edubuntu would
require some people to step up and do it.

> 
> 1. 
> http://tech.netscape.com/story/2007/05/11/kubuntu-takes-over-georgia-ubuntu-summit-video/
> 
> Big regions and now also countries deploy KDE desktop based on kubuntu. 
> > There was talk for a time initially of trying to clone the KDE apps in
> > GNOME and later of trying to collaboratively port the KDE apps to GNOME
> > though sadly I'm not aware of any noticeable progress on either.  
> 
> Well, there are duplication effort where Gnome developers copies Kalzium. 
> Thats lead to some confusion since Kalzium has been in production a long 
> time. Gnome Chemistry has some nifty new stuff with a 3D structure viewer,  
> but are still in beta. This is not based on same code base at all. 

I want to clear this up a little. I started an exploratory project once
called gallium to see what it would take to make a pygtk+cairo periodic
table app (I'm a chemist) that could use the element data that's in
Kalzium. It was not a copy of Kalzium or a GTK port, but certainly Kalzium
provided inspiration. Kalzium is a great app (one of the shining stars in
Chemistry FLOSS) but surely that's no reason to exclude somebody from
making Gnome-based app. I shut down gallium (after a whole 2 days of
coding) after it became a big "issue" (Oliver getting death-threats via
email) and talking with the developer of Gnome Chemistry Utils about
putting my effort there instead. Gnome Chemistry Utils is a great suite
of Chemistry tools and is very usable and quite different from Kalzium.


</Edubuntu Talk> ;-)


-Jordan Mantha

Edubuntu community developer