5 years of support..!!??

[Alex Gabriel]

On 2 March 2012 03:43, Bill Vance <kbun at xpresso.seaslug.org> wrote:
> So what does this mean for 10.04 LTS?  Just how many long
> term projects can be supported before quality drops even
> further into the cesspits?
>
> Bill

Bill,

As noted on the Kubuntu download page
[http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/download#download-block], Kubuntu
10.04 is supported until 2013.  This means that updates are available
until that time.

I don't see supporting multiple projects as an issue.  Developers tend
to work on one project at a time.  While it's possible that the
Kubuntu developers will focus on both, I would think it's more likely
that development teams are created for the different supported
versions.  One team would, in theory, work on Kubuntu 10.04, while the
other would work on 12.04.

Given that Kubuntu 10.04 and 12.04 will simply use slightly different
versions of KDE [both being 4.x], I would imagine that integrating
changes to both KDE versions is not that difficult.  I'm sure the
majority of the work on the different LTS versions of KDE would focus
mainly on security and bugs fixes inherent within Kubuntu.

The above two paragraphs are written without any knowledge whatsoever
of the workings of development on Kubuntu, so I could be horribly
wrong on all points.

The majority of the problems of which I'm aware on Kubuntu aren't
isolated to Kubuntu, actually.  More often than not, the problems
relate to the desktop environment.  I've seen, as an example of a
recently posted question, power issues with Debian, openSUSE, and
PCLinuxOS, to name the few I run into most often.  Another example of
an issue I've experienced is that KDE will crash when an OpenGL
screensaver is running and the user attempts to access the desktop.
Rather than displaying the unlock screen, KDE crashes entirely and
restarts, reverting back to KDM, waiting patiently for login
credentials.  I've seen that specific behaviour on my Kubuntu netbook,
notebook, and desktop, as well as on my wife's PCLinuxOS notebook.

Indicating that quality has decreased is a subjective statement.  I
use Kubuntu extensively both at home and work, and haven't noticed any
glaring issues.  Certainly, some changes have been rather sudden [Muon
software centre replacing KPackageKit is an example], but they can be
obviated [using CLI tools instead of the graphical interface] or
minimized [installing all the software you require in one session].

My only complaint stems from the inability to select a default
workspace during the installation [I often use a netbook connected to
an external monitor].  Otherwise, I've not comes across any major
issues specifically related to Kubuntu that couldn't be fixed by
either doing some research into the problem or by using an alternate
tool to accomplish the same task.

If you've encountered problems with the version of Kubuntu you're
using, by all means, please share them with the readers of the list,
since someone here may be able to assist you in resolving the problem.

Alex Gabriel
Dimensia Design Studio
alexgabriel at dimensiadesign.com