Does Kubuntu really need to be it's own distro?

[Peter Garrett]

On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 11:31:03 +0800
"Senectus ." <senectus at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why is it being classed as it's own distro? 
> Surely Ubuntu, Kubuntu and all the users in general would be a great
> deal better off if support/repositories etc were condensed into one..
> after all it's ONLY a slightly different GUI.
> 
> It disturbs me to see even distro watch counts it separate:
> http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kubuntu
> 
> Forking is good in some situations (xorg) but this is getting
> ridiculous/pointless...
> 

Kubuntu is not a fork at all. It uses the same apt-sources etc ... It's more an extension, or an alternative, like installing xfce4 on a base-install Ubuntu system - the only difference I can see is that installing Kubuntu as a stand-alone system is an advantage for a lot of people who want KDE. Really, this is kind of a non-issue.

I was curious to see what the Kubuntu experience would be like, so I ran

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

I guess if it was a separate distro this would either be impossible, or break things and require much fiddling about.
 
I believe some people are working on an Xfce4 version ( Xubuntu?) This would be great, particularly for users of older hardware. The "one CD to install " thing is also good for people with limited bandwidth, many of whom will buy a cheap CD from a distributor, or wait for official shipit CDs.

Peter