oneline article: "Debian Alliance on The Horizon"

[John]

Ed Cogburn wrote:

>>
>>I just did a dist-upgrade of one of my Ubuntu boxes (I do have a
>>couple). I went
>>apt-get -qud dist-upgrade
>><something broked and scrolled off the screen, so>
>>apt-get -qud dist-upgrade
>>apt-get -y insta;; kde
>><chug chug chug)
>>apt-get -y dist-upgrade
>><did not work, errors on nearly everything>
>>apt-get clean
>>apt-get -y dist-upgrade
>><worked> <shrug>
> 
> 
> 
> What were you going from and to?  If you're talking about Kubuntu, you don't
> need a dist-upgrade for that, just 'apt-get install kubuntu-desktop'.  If
> you're referring to going from Hoary to Breezy, or Warty to Hoary, then
> yes, upgrades like that are almost always messy.  In my experience,
> dist-upgrades in Debian were never exactly smooth either, but as I alluded
> to at the first, it all depends on what you're going from and to.
> 

Warty to Hoary. Possibly, installing KDE in the middle confounded 
things, but I think it _should_ have worked.


> 
> 
>>I did notice some of the stuff (eg less-than-latest python) cam from
>>universe and that bothered me a bit. I expected a clean update to the
>>latest python; if not then the required python to come from main.
> 
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, koffice has an inappropiate dependency on a specific (old)
> version of python, but kubuntu itself doesn't, at least in hoary, and
> kubuntu doesn't include koffice, it pulls in openoffice.  Are you sure you
> aren't really talking about a hoary to breezy upgrade?

For sure it was Warty to Hoary. I'd not previously run Hoary.
> 
> As for KDE in general, its not as stable as I'd like, but I fear that comes
> from KDE's burgeoning complexity (and size, and dependencies), and not
> anything specific to Ubuntu/Kubuntu.  I'm starting to think the guy behind
> "Simple KDE" is not as crazy as I first thought... maybe not crazy at
> all... :)

My main system atm is running mostly Fedora Core 3 with much self-built 
RHEL4. My desktop came from RHL 7.3 via Woody and Sarge (testing). 
Considering its parentage it works remarkably well. I do have regular 
problem with the desktop locking for a few seconds when I select text; 
that happened in Sarge too.

Also the mouse goes funny at times: I can move the cursor but clicks 
don't register and the cursor doesn't change. Ususlly, it comes good 
when I navigate around the screens and close some windows. That happened 
in Sarge too.

I think it's time for the KDE folk to settle down to some refinement, 
particularly of the core elements. It performs very poorly in 256 Mbytes 
of RAM, and not brilliantly in 512.

OTOH I used to use RHL 7.3 (KDE 2.2 I think) on a 128 Mb Pentium II and 
it was better than FC3 on a 1.3 Ghz Celeron with 256.