[Bug 1055866] Re: Combine all official derivatives differing only in default desktop environment to single distribution

[Dmitrijs Ledkovs]

Actually all of these official derivatives are merely meta-packages in
the archive. Therefore after the installation, they are in essence the
same.

Collapsing all of these together doesn't make sense, as I will most
likely not use most of the applications offered by different desktop
environment, as they are not the most suitable once for the choice of my
desktop environment. Plus that would be a waste of downloading stuff I
don't want, nor need.

The installation media you are after are netinstall or mini.iso. Which
are tiny images that offer to install any of the above flavours
effortlessly by pulling the relevant packages from the archive over the
internet.

This is defiantly not a bug in ubiquity. As ubiquity is simply one of
the two installers we use across all the flavours and other unofficial
derivatives.

All individual flavours exist because there is a target audience for
those, dedicated communities of developers and users. Ubuntu is highly
versatile community and it is one of it's advantages that we have these
diverse flavours with their own branding, websites, irc channels etc.

** Changed in: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
       Status: Opinion => Won't Fix

** Package changed: ubiquity (Ubuntu) => ubuntu

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1055866

Title:
  Combine all official derivatives differing only in default desktop
  environment to single distribution

Status in Ubuntu:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  Ubuntu currently has a number of official derivatives. These include
  the following.

      Xubuntu - Ubuntu with the XFCE desktop environment

      Ubuntu Studio - Designed for multimedia editing and creation

      Mythbuntu - Designed for creating a home theatre PC with MythTV

      Kubuntu - Ubuntu with the K Desktop environment

      Edubuntu - Ubuntu for education

      Lubuntu - Ubuntu that uses LXDE

  It is a good idea to offer users the freedom of choice to select an
  appropriate derivative, but this can probably be done better by
  simplifying the number of official derivatives that differ only in the
  default desktop environment by collapsing them into a single official
  distribution. Ubuntu Studio, Mythbuntu, and Edubuntu are sufficiently
  conceptually different enough from one another to warrant separate
  distributions, whereas Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu are all different
  in the same way. They differ only really based on the default desktop
  environment. That choice alone perhaps does not warrant the
  availability and support of distinct distributions.

  Instead, a single official distribution for all those that differ only
  in terms of the default desktop environment could give the user a
  choice during installation time of the default desktop environment to
  use, leaving Unity as the default as it currently is for vanilla
  Ubuntu, respecting Canonical's commitment to that desktop environment
  for new users or for those who are comfortable with the default
  choice, while providing brief summaries of the other options if the
  user makes the appropriate selection (e.g. Xfce, Lxde, Gnome, KDE).

  This has many added benefits, not least of which is the reduction in
  the number of different types of DVD discs that need to be replicated
  and only one type that needs to be on hand at Ubuntu community events.

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