[lubuntu-devel] [Lubuntu 17.04 Discussion] LXQt

[Simon Quigley]

Hi everyone,

So I'd like to talk about LXQt. Initially, if I remember correctly, our
plan was to at the very minimum have an LXQt image for 16.10, but that
didn't happen due to trouble with the default settings being applied
incorrectly, a bug which has been fixed in Qt.

So here's a progress report of my recent work with that and different
pieces of the puzzle which have come together.

I worked with the Debian KDE/Qt team to get that patch in their
packaging for Qt 5.7.1 (which Ubuntu pulls from) and will be included in
the next Qt upload.

I also talked to Timo Jyrinki, the usual Qt uploader, and Qt 5.7.1 will
begin the staging process as soon as it's released. So the faster we
help him get that into the archive, the better. Until then, once
uploaded to the usual Qt staging PPA, we could rebuild all of LXQt
against it in a PPA (which would have a dependency set on the Qt PPA)
and do any needed modifications in order to get those default settings
and everything else done and ready to go, so as soon as Qt 5.7.1 lands
in zesty-release, we can get that in the archive and images building.

Lastly, last I heard, LXQt 0.11 is currently in Debian Sid, and Julien
and myself have started discussions for getting that in Ubuntu. There's
a bug report open against liblxqt[1] (which is the first step in getting
a new version of LXQt in the archive) which we were discussing. Today I
plan to look over what's left for that and see what to do from there.
The Lubuntu Packages Team is subscribed to that if you wish to take a
look at our progress there.

After liblxqt is synced, the rest of the components (with an exception)
can be synced from Debian. The exception to that is lxqt-session, which
needs to be manually synced due to some changes Julien made in Ubuntu
that upstream won't accept.

Either way, automatic autosyncing from Debian hasn't been turned on yet
due to a Perl transition in Ubuntu. The Ubuntu Release Team hasn't
automatically turned that on because they don't want MoM to blow up. So
Julien, if you could look at the LXQt packages that could be synced,
and, well, sync them, that would be great.

So it seems we have the following items left before we can think about
moving Lubuntu to LXQt:
 1. Get Qt 5.7.1 in the archive.
 2. Apply new default settings and separate that into a separate binary
package.
 3. Do some minor tweaks to the seed that will become apparent later
(I'm not remembering at the moment).
 4. Get a daily image building.
 5. Get the Lubuntu QA team to thoroughly test it and fix any errors
that arise.
 6. Ask for testing and public opinion on the packages that we have
installed by default.
 7. While #6 is going on, we should consider looking at the Ubiquity
slideshow and removing any KDE-specific components.
 8. Decide on a final set of packages.
 9. Get Package QA tests written and approved by the Lubuntu QA Team.
 10. One last round of thorough testing by the QA team.

The main question I have here is, do you think that we can get
everything on this list done before 17.04 is released (keeping in mind
archive freezes)? At the very minimum, does that TODO list sound
reasonable enough to get done before 17.04 and at least provide an image?

If not, what timeline do you propose?

There's no doubt in my mind that LXQt is stable enough for daily use.
I've been using it for months now with no major problems, and I've heard
LXQt 0.11 will be even better than that. So in my honest opinion after
using it for months, it is ready for Lubuntu to switch to. The only
concern I might have is the lack of a development team in LXQt, and once
we get more public interest, given collaboration with the LXQt team on
making contributions easy, I don't see a problem there.

Also, any general thoughts on the topic of LXQt?

[1] https://pad.lv/1635701
[2] https://merges.ubuntu.com/l/lxqt-session/REPORT

-- 
Simon Quigley
tsimonq2 at lubuntu.me
tsimonq2 on freenode and OFTC
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