KDE 3.5.6 released w Kubuntu packages

[Donn]

I won't argue with you. I'm not in the mood and you haven't bought a ticket. 
Let's get to the good stuff in your post:
> > I built this upon my prior discussions on the reasons why Gnu/Linux has
> > trouble running certain software. It is a simple fact that a distro will
> > age rapidly and in Ubuntu-land (and Fedoraville too) each "upgrade" is
> > virtually a new distro. This leaves "islands" of users behind as the
> > newer apps available in the repos are not available for them. Witness
> > Firefox 2 which is not available for Dapper.
>
> It _is_ available for Dapper.  It certainly doesn't crash for everybody.
> So, once again, your premise is disproved.
Not at all. It is a fact that on Ubuntu (means *buntu) and Fedora a given 
distro has a set of apps that are frozen at some version number. If you want 
to go up your Ubuntu must also go up.

Leave Firefox out then. I had the same trouble with Inkscape and wxPython.
I am also not alone in coming-up against this issue. I can't really imagine 
how you cannot have experienced it, other than to think you must be very 
adept at upgrading Ubuntu and thus you would not have noticed it.

> And it's exactly the same in the Ubuntu world - except that, for the most
> part, you will be able to update all of your apps without going out to
> every vendor's website.  Like "Windows Update" but for much more than just
> the O/S software.
Yes -- to a set version limit.

> > Now that user comes to Ubuntu. All is fine for 6 months, perhaps a year.
> > They rely on the apps in the repos because Synaptic and apt-get are
> > emphasized. (Actually going to a website and downloading an install file
> > is not common on Linux.)
> Actually, it's very common on Linux, but not in the Debian-style distros.
> It's becoming less so in other distros, too.
I was on Fedora for ages, it was common to use yum over there. It was rare to 
find an rpm and install it because of dep hell. Perhaps there are circles of 
experience within Linux and you move on a more advanced one than I do. 

> > So, if the user is happy and makes it to the end of a year and then sees
> > that ZingBling 2.5 is out and they check their Synaptic and it only shows
> > 2.1 and they never see any new update icons for it, they may get a little
> > worried.
> You do realize that Synaptic is _not_ the tool that the Ubuntu developers
> recommend to do the job?  Since we're talking Kubuntu, the tool is Adept, 
Sorry - mea culpa.
> and I'll accept that it's highly intimidating and doesn't have a way to
> automatically move you to the next release.  That is simply a bug to file
> with Adept.
Sure thing. I was hoping there would be an 'upgrade helper' like the one in 
Ubuntu, but I have not seen that one yet.

> My personal preference would be that Ubuntu do exactly what Debian does -
> if I point my sources.list to "stable", it is never obsolete.  Updates will
> continue forever.
Now, to keep me straight, when you say "stable" and "is never obsolete" do you 
mean that Debian's repos keep (many || most || some || all) apps up to date 
(i.e. on the latest stable version)?
If so then I would totally agree with you, but perhaps I misunderstand the 
words.

> > Sure, new users will have to adjust to the reality and the operational
> > facts of Ubuntu, this is about pre-warning them on this one issue.
> Then the warning you want to see is just something along the lines of
> "every six months or so, you will need to update one file to point to a new
> source of packages".  It would be nice if that was automated for you, but
> it hardly makes life a living hell not to have it.  It's still far above
> and beyond having to go out to every single app's website to get new
> releases. --
Cool, that's where I was heading -- to have a go at the wording. 

In my neck of the woods, the Internet is very slow, restricted by caps, 
unreliable and intolerably expensive (South Africa). That's one reason why 
keeping Kubuntu updated is hard to do, not impossible but hard.
There's also the "oops" factor involved when upgrading; loss of hardware 
functionality, loss of config files, odd problems. The very fact of the 
complexity of a distro almost guarantees this. To me this means there is no 
smooth, seamless, unseen slide into the next version -- hence, new users and 
users who cannot afford to "take a chance" will tend to stay on a single 
version. I really don't know how common this is, it's surely something we can 
discuss.
Those two points were not complaints. I am observing facts from my pov, asking 
for argument to test those facts but building an argument from them in the 
meantime.

From those points, I would argue that many users will stay on the version of 
Ubuntu they first install, especially if it happens to be a Long Term Support 
version. Thus they will run into the software jail I spoke of and thus I 
wanted to make the situation clear in the text, hence my version of the 
introduction.

So, something like:
"Every six months or so, if you find you cannot move to the latest versions of 
the apps you use, you will need to run the Ubuntu update wizard first. After 
that you will find all the latest stable versions become available. Please 
note that this will fetch many megabytes from the web and might take some 
time and certainly needs a fast connection. If your Internet is not up to the 
job, please be patient and order a new CD from which you can easily upgrade."

And then I would say, concentrate on making the upgrade (from net or CD) as 
smooth as humanly possible!


Right, bedtime real soon.
/d
PS - I meant to ask: I read the Ubuntu pages on this but I am not sure, will I 
be able to update Dapper LTS to XXX LTS, whatever XXX is in the future? I.e. 
does LTS update directly to LTS without having to go through all the animals 
in-between?