Kubuntu PowerPC builds

[Micah Gersten]

On 08/01/2013 07:29 AM, Ho Wan Chan wrote:
> Hello Harald,
>
> 2013/8/1 Harald Sitter <apachelogger at ubuntu.com>:
>> On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Ho Wan Chan <smartboyhw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> However, a survey conducted by Russian Ubuntu users revealed that 80%
>>> of users agree to the decision of removing such images.
>>
>> ~700 votes casted; and the voters had not been properly informed as it
>> turns out.
> Well sure, they are not informed of the TECHNICAL side of things. But
> then, that's what a normal Ubuntu user would think of PowerPC.
>>
>>> So, I'm suggesting that we should change our attitude, and stop
>>> building PowerPC images.
>>
>> As has been done at about every non-virtual UDS since forever. Latest
>> conclusion (from I think the March Mumble Meeting) was that since
>> build problems do not really occur (unlike with ARM for example) we
>> want to keep it around for as long as we have someone testing the ISO.
>> That being said, I do not know anyone who spends considerable time on
>> Kubuntu for PowerPC, so I am not sure dropping PowerPC would have any
>> impact on the developers. I for one don't care.
>>
> If you don't care, why should we have it then?
>>> Don't forget, we aren't exactly Lubuntu, who wants to support every
>>> single old computer.
>>> Alternate images are what Lubuntu still wants while we have already
dropped it.
>>> Why should we drop alternate images if we can properly test it, as in
>>> coherence to our attitude?
>>
>> We didn't test them, that's why alternate was dropped.
> Think about this. We only have 1 tester for PowerPC. How many testers
> do we have for i386 and amd64? Alternate images  can have a lot of
> testers. PowerPC will have problems.
>>
>>> So, what are the pros and cons of removing PowerPC image builds?
>>>
>>> Pros:
>>>
>>> Save testing time on PowerPC builds (and no need to wait for it at all
>>> before we can release betas or final releases)
>>
>> AFAIK we'd still have to wait for the other flavors and I don't think
>> we ever delayed a release for considerable amount of time because an
>> architecture that is not x86 based wasn't tested.
> Well, the only flavour who still supports PowerPC except us is
> Lubuntu, and that's because they really want to support PowerPC, and
> they actually spend time contacting release teams and testing even the
> dailies. Not in our case.
> <snip />
For what it's worth, I'd like to add PowerPC images back to Xubuntu if
and when we get a tester to commit to the images.  Kubuntu seems to
already have that.  I see great value in having something easy to use
for people to resurrect their old Mac hardware that Apple abandoned.

Micah