Combine Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Xubuntu and other *buntu flavors.

[yjcarl]

Hi everyone. I must start off by saying that the Linux community has been a godsend to me. I chose to use Kubuntu about two years ago and haven't looked back. After trying openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, ArchLinux, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Sabayon, and various other distributions, I decided to stick with Kubuntu. There are three main reasons behind this (all of which are personal): The Debian package management is easy and stable, The K Desktop Environment is a work of art, and the Ubuntu community is very helpful. Because of my love for the operating system, I have recently devoted much of my time to helping its progression, and promotion.

As its own "flavour" of Ubuntu, Kubuntu seems to be getting the short end of the stick. Just the same, Xubuntu has been set on the back burner. Operating systems as versatile, user-friendly, and stable as Kubuntu and Xubuntu are should not be put in the ranks as mere "side projects."

On the same level, new users attracted to Ubuntu should be given the choice, rather than only shown a single desktop. Have you seen the Ubuntu homepage lately? See how long it takes for you to figure out that Kubuntu and Xubuntu even exist! They are almost hidden! This is not acceptable, and offensive to the Kubuntu and Xubuntu development branches alike. After all, choice is what one of the major reasons the open source community exists.

My request is simple. Show the team at Canonical how we feel about the decision to separate Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu. Allow new users the option from the start, and promote KDE and XFCE, rather than focusing solely on GNOME.

Interested? Sign this petition! Every signature helps!

Combine Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu into one Petition

If you have input, shoot. I love criticism. But please, nothing offensive.

[GNU-Fan]

Hello,

After all, choice is what one of the major reasons the open source community exists.

well, that may be true, but Ubuntu was born because the community was in need for a beginner friendly "first steps" distributions.

One conclusion was to cut down choices, because too much of it had the effect of "shocking" or overburden users who just had come from Windows or Mac. Especially, if they have to install it on their own, without having someone to ask for advice.

It also has the problem of more maintenance for the distributor. After all, they are responsible that everything fits well together and stays beginner-friendly.

[L4Linux]

I agree with GNU-Fan. Potential new users are terrified when they learn that there are hundreds Linux distributions,5 Major package management systems (dpkg/apt, yum, urpmi, zypper, slackpkg, etc - and that is after the cultural shock of learning that you use a package manager), a dozen Desktop Environments (Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Enlightenment, etc) a different terminal (which is terrifying in itself) on each DE and ... you get the picture- that's a lot of "confused" Smilies that gathered in one post!!!

I believe it is better to give new users something really user friendly & with no options at the beginning. When they feel more comfortable, they will try new distributions (Kubuntu maybe, if they find they like KDE more).

Another argument is that Canonical invests a lot of money in Ubuntu. If they start sponsoring other flavors as well, maybe the quality of Ubuntu will decrease and that will be a huge blow to Linux, since Ubuntu is the entry point for half Linux users (that is my guess, I have no figures about this). On the other hand, maybe a little more polishing of the other flavors by the full-time Ubuntu developers won't cost so much to Canonical. Who knows?

[Surak]

why isnt Ubuntu called Gubuntu? the other branches have to have different names, i mean its only fair.

[elija]

why isnt Ubuntu called Gubuntu? the other branches have to have different names, i mean its only fair.

Because it's the original.. the one and only... oh wait...

It's the original and official Linux for Humans flavour, I believe the others are all community re-spins and a couple of them have become successful enough to have been taken under the Canonical wing.

[Freston]

After all, the only difference between the flavors is the GUI. Ever tried to let a Windows/OSX user choose between Desktop Environments? All they see is that one has a bar on both top and bottom, and the other only has a bar on the bottom (by default, I repeat: by default). And that's just Gnome and KDE respectively.


___
On a side note. When my machine's boot reaches the login I can choose which GUI I want to load. I have a fair share of choices. FVWM, MWM, TWM, E19, KDE, XFCE, IceWM, Blackbox, Fluxbox. So obviously I agree that choice is a Good Thing. But too much choice is a Bad Thing.

Because this is the Coffee Lounge, I will demonstrate with an example. (sorry, long)
The other day I went into a well known international sandwich shop for the first time. Now normally I go to a cafeteria of some sort and order a cheese sandwich. Or sometimes a ham sandwich. Or both. And then I get one and I pay for it and all is done but the eating.

Now in this well known international chain of sandwich stores I had to choose 1) what size of bread, 2) what kind of bread, 3) what kind of stuff to put on it, 4) what kind of salad (if any), 5) what kind of dressing, 6) warm or cold and lastly 7) I had to specifically say that what the lady had put together was what I ordered before she gave it to me.

I really didn't know any of these things. I just wanted 'lunch', something to eat. I'm Dutch. Dutch people only eat because they die if they don't. Put any kind of meat or cheese on any kind of bread and we'll happily call it lunch.

Now I discussed this with a co-worker, and we quickly agreed that what went wrong in the sandwich shop was that the lady behind the counter was 'programmed' without defaults. She did not fall back to sane defaults when no options where specified. Some kind of ~/.sandwichrc or /etc/sandwich.conf with user-overridable defaults would have suited her. I thus could not just order a cheese sandwich and be done. I had to chose between five different kind of bread, I didn't know her five different kinds of bread and I wasn't interested in her five different kinds of bread. I wanted 'food'.

Now I think Canonical has a good sense to offer a default for their users that is a good, simple and effective choice; the choice many new users will want to make anyway. We can talk about the differences between KDE and Xfce and Gnome all day and night, but when someone doesn't know anything about these things, then Gnome is a good, solid and valid option. While people can and do install another GUI when they so choose. The choice is there for the people who want it, but the default is good enough and people can easily choose not to choose.

And thus Freston spoke of choice, and of default values, and also, see sig

[yjcarl]

I do understand why Canonical chose to do this, but I guess my frustration lies with the belief the Gnome and only Gnome is "user-friendly" enough to be the first sample of Linux to new users.

One of my hobbies now entails promoting Linux distributions to anyone who is welcome to the change. About six months ago, I had given Ubuntu to a friend to try. He installed it, everything worked okay, but he was not pleased. One of the very first things he said to me was "it just reminds me too much of Windows 98." These are HIS words and not mine. I was curious, I mean - I personally think it looks virtually nothing like any of the Windows versions. "You told me I could configure the desktop how I wanted, and there was no ultimate standard, but I can't figure out how to do that," he said. This was one of the first times I was glad to have stuck with KDE. He wanted to see my laptop (running Kubuntu). After tinkering with it for a while, he loved it. Granted, this was KDE in the 3.5.X era, but even still.

So I guess what I'm trying to point out, is that new users still need choice. Though, you are absolutely right that there should be default values for those out of the know. But when someone starts using Ubuntu, and they just plain don't like the GUI, they may not even know that there are other options. Add to that the fact that there are very few distributions that use KDE as a default, and you will see my frustration. The same goes for XFCE. Even with Fedora - you get the option to choose KDE, but are thrown in with Gnome if you don't specify.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with Gnome. Some of its features are very helpful. But, hopefully you see what I'm trying to say.

[darkrose0510]

Some kind of ~/.sandwichrc or /etc/sandwich.conf

Haha, I love it!

[bigtomrodney]

I do understand why Canonical chose to do this, but I guess my frustration lies with the belief the Gnome and only Gnome is "user-friendly" enough to be the first sample of Linux to new users.

Ubuntu generally is the first stop for new users but it's not the be all and end all of Linux or even Linux for newbies.

I just thought I'd mention this, did you know you can switch flavour of Ubuntu by installing the relevant metapackage? For example you can add in the Kubuntu specific parts by installing the kubuntu-desktop package and similarly for XFCE with xubuntu-desktop and so on. Experienced users will have probably come across that but perhaps a better alternative than overwhelming the desktop would be to make that choice more available or increase awareness of it.

Going back to the older days of Red Hat 7-9 and SUSE 9.x I always chose to install the Gnome and KDE environments along with whatever WM took my fancy, even if it was TWM. What frustrated me though was the abundance of entries on my menus. Why do I have four CD burning applications? How many media players do I need?! It was all a bit much and throw in the differing appearances of Qt and GTK based apps (or worse plain X apps) and things got ugly.

Originally I disliked Ubuntu as a kind of Duplo to the Lego that is Linux. What won me over was the sane default application choices and a consistent and coherent desktop experience. I switched to Ubuntu when I decided I was more interested in installing and working than my previous hobby of endlessly configuring my system.

[yjcarl]

For example you can add in the Kubuntu specific parts by installing the kubuntu-desktop package and similarly for XFCE with xubuntu-desktop and so on.

Well, I've tried that all of two times. The problem with that is, you are left with a very crippled KDE or XFCE desktop. Though you have installed the base packages, it takes about half an hour to install all of the essential components to the desktop that aren't included in the base packages.

If a new user tries just installing the desktop as an add-on package, they will not experience everything the desktop has to offer.

NOW, that being said... I believe that the developers could make an "all-inclusive" package for each desktop environment that would install everything that the Kubuntu and/or Xubuntu live cds have. They would also need to make it so that the first time you use the new desktop, you would be able to configure it so that the Gnome defaults are not still running in the background.