KDE 3.5.6 released w Kubuntu packages

[Derek Broughton]

Donn wrote:

>> I'm cool - you objected that you weren't lying, and I tried to point out
>> that I never thought you were, simply that if Ubuntu were to say what you
>> wanted _they_ (imo) would be lying.

> I was putting out a suggestion based on what had been talked about earlier
> and by calling that suggestion a "lie"

You still wish to take this as a personal attack.  I never once said you
were lying, only that Ubuntu _would_ be lying to make such a statement. 
You, in saying it, were merely misguided - Ubuntu would know better, and
thus it would be a lie.

> I perceived you to be aggressive. 
> Rather than actually reading my posts and taking the time to see my point
> you have come down from on-high like a tonne of bricks.

Once again, you accuse me of your own faults.  I did take the time to read
your posts, but you keep accuse me of not doing so.

> Okay -- I'll say it again : Firefox 2 the Linux binary from the official
> site *does* run on Dapper -- for a while. It crashes. This is my direct
> experience; I might be alone in this.

You might.  You might not, but that is a specific case, and a specific app. 
Taking your experience completely at face value, that simply means that one
vendor has release one insufficiently test application.  Funny, but I see
that a lot in Windows, too.

>> You're complaining that you can't get updated
> I am not complaining. Please don't presume to speak for my intentions. 

Excuse me, but you keep accusing me of being unable to read, so I should be
entitled to at least the same level of misunderstanding.  It certainly
reads like a complaint.

>> I disagree.  You have argued that Ubuntu is not as user-friendly as
>> Windows because it doesn't provide continuous updates to non-Ubuntu
>> software.

> Okay -- I'll lay it all out again:
> My "argument" is now (since I admitted my change in position due to recent
> education on the subject) that there is a disconnect for new users who
> have come from Windows.
> I am saying that *if* Ubuntu is aiming at replacing
> Windows (which seems to be the tacit aim, although I could be wrong) then
> it's my opinion that there is a problem when it comes to using the latest
> versions of software on the current version of Ubuntu you happen to run.

That sounds like a complaint (and your premise is wrong).
> 
> I built this upon my prior discussions on the reasons why Gnu/Linux has
> trouble running certain software. It is a simple fact that a distro will
> age rapidly and in Ubuntu-land (and Fedoraville too) each "upgrade" is
> virtually a new distro. This leaves "islands" of users behind as the newer
> apps available in the repos are not available for them. Witness Firefox 2
> which is not available for Dapper.

It _is_ available for Dapper.  It certainly doesn't crash for everybody. 
So, once again, your premise is disproved.

> In the Windows world it is perfectly natural to keep moving up to the
> latest versions of apps. One typically experiences no problem at all doing
> so. It is the standard and natural order of things. The authors of those
> apps are happy too because their users are mostly keeping pace with their
> development and bug reports are more on-target.

And it's exactly the same in the Ubuntu world - except that, for the most
part, you will be able to update all of your apps without going out to
every vendor's website.  Like "Windows Update" but for much more than just
the O/S software.  
> 
> Now that user comes to Ubuntu. All is fine for 6 months, perhaps a year.
> They rely on the apps in the repos because Synaptic and apt-get are
> emphasized. (Actually going to a website and downloading an install file
> is not common on Linux.) 

Actually, it's very common on Linux, but not in the Debian-style distros. 
It's becoming less so in other distros, too.

> So, if the user is happy and makes it to the end of a year and then sees
> that ZingBling 2.5 is out and they check their Synaptic and it only shows
> 2.1 and they never see any new update icons for it, they may get a little
> worried. 

You do realize that Synaptic is _not_ the tool that the Ubuntu developers
recommend to do the job?  Since we're talking Kubuntu, the tool is Adept,
and I'll accept that it's highly intimidating and doesn't have a way to
automatically move you to the next release.  That is simply a bug to file
with Adept.

> That's what I am talking about. New users will not glibly accept the "Well
> you can stick to version 2.1 of ZingBling or you must update Ubuntu."
> "But I can run ZingBling 2.0 on Windows 98?"
> 
> That's the disconnect. That's what I was addressing. I was saying
> *perhaps* there should be wording (in plain English, sans Linuxy buzzwords
> like "Debian") in the opening introduction to Ubuntu.

My personal preference would be that Ubuntu do exactly what Debian does - if
I point my sources.list to "stable", it is never obsolete.  Updates will
continue forever.  
> 
> Sure, new users will have to adjust to the reality and the operational
> facts of Ubuntu, this is about pre-warning them on this one issue.

Then the warning you want to see is just something along the lines of "every
six months or so, you will need to update one file to point to a new source
of packages".  It would be nice if that was automated for you, but it
hardly makes life a living hell not to have it.  It's still far above and
beyond having to go out to every single app's website to get new releases.
-- 
derek