Ubuntu Open Week - Kubuntu - Brandon Holtsclaw - Tue, Apr 24, 2007

see also Thursday Session.

TZ UTC-4

(05:01:30 PM) imbrandon: ok give me one more moment to get situated here and we'll get started
(05:01:56 PM) habeeb: okie
(05:03:38 PM) rulus: in the meantime, habeeb can throw some popcorn around, especially in my direction, mjum!
(05:03:53 PM) imbrandon: ok lets get things started , I'm not sure if it is still moderated in here ( +m ) or not , but we'll find out in a few moments, I try to keep my sessions informnal as possible, I'm going to start with
(05:03:57 PM) harrisony: +m on the channel?
(05:04:04 PM) harrisony: it would be nice :D
(05:04:49 PM) imbrandon: just Intoducing myself , I'm Brandon Holtsclaw ( imbrandon on the wiki and LP and IRC ) and am an un-paid ( by canonical ) core developer for Ubuntu and Kubuntu
(05:05:27 PM) imbrandon: I do have a "day job", and they pay me approx %20 of my time to work on Kubuntu related packages
(05:05:45 PM) imbrandon: ( the rest is a little more boring hehe )
(05:06:23 PM) imbrandon: I got started with Ubuntu arround the Breezy cycle and have been going full blst since then.
(05:07:01 PM) imbrandon: sooo as long as it dosent get too hetic in here I'll open it up to some Q & A about Kubuntu in here, if we need I'm sure PriceChild can help me filter Questions in -chat
(05:07:32 PM) imbrandon: everyone been enjoying OpenWeek so far? how many do we have from last OpenWeek ?
(05:08:35 PM) imbrandon: Great
(05:09:20 PM) imbrandon: So What is Kubuntu, Kubuntu is our KDE varariant from our brethern Ubuntu based on Gnome
(05:09:32 PM) imbrandon: for those of us that prefer the KDE desktop
(05:09:57 PM) imbrandon: we strive to bring you the same level of User experince ( sometimes better IMHO ) than Ubuntu "proper"
(05:10:01 PM) imbrandon: :)
(05:10:24 PM) imbrandon: thats just my humble opinion though , i might be a tad bias ... :)

< tmske> Off-Topic QUESTION: what is your "day job" where you can work on Kubuntu?

• I work for a very large PCI compliant Web hosting company , that uses a few thousand Ubuntu Servers ( and also Solaris and Windows boxes ). my job is to maintain those and help trubbleshoot problems

<shawarma> PCI?

• PCI == Payment Card Industries, like vias and mastercard complaint

< xerosis> QUESTION: what do you think kubuntu's advantages and disadvantages compared to ubuntu?

• well thats kinda hard , in a tech sense there are man dis and advantages. it really depends on what your used to programing for, like QT and KDE or GTK, etc, from a users perspective, it is just a matter of taste on the bundled apps. techinically we strive to have the same goal , we just go a diffrent road to get there

  <xerosis> i guess i meant overall progress as a project, and for the future as for the future, we're looking forward to KDE4 and the great cross platform things that will bring to kubuntu. this cycle we should see a release ( even if just beta ) of KDE4 that is making great strides to be a next generation Desktop experince with things like GL acceleration built in, unified sound backends etc ( e.g. beryl quality effects built right into the default desktop )

<rpw> Sometimes Kubuntu seems (not a hard fact!) to get little love than Ubuntu, for example some friends have asked me things like "I can't fiend Desktop-Effects, I thought I could enable them very easy".

<Jack313> QUESTION: Have there been any thoughts on incorporating beryl with the KDE? I downloaded it and found it pretty cool and seems like it would be a nice addition, your thoughts?

• well there are 2 answers to that. with KDE3 the current desktop there is aquamarine that strives to be a kwin replacement like emeryald is for Gnome. with the comming of KDE4 the KDE developers are building that tech right into kwin , the heart of KDE. so it will be an in-house tech

<PriceChild> Isn't it heliodor for gnome? emerald works in both gnome and kde

• right, my mistake , thnaks

(05:21:35 PM) imbrandon: btw everyone give a big welcome to Riddell , the mastermind behind Kubuntu ( the Kubuntu lead developer :P )

< wburge_> QUESTION: What types of apps do you typically work on when developing for kubuntu?

• I typicly work on Amarok bugs in my time, but I have touched many many packages over the last few cycles. anything from mono to amarok to kubuntu-default-settings etc etc etc

<davmor2> Question: do you think that the changes in kde 4 will be hard to implement and will it really make kde more usable?

• everything new is a challenge, but with rockin people on the team and how closely we work with upstream implmenting KDE4 is an ongoing process that I dont think will be super difficult. as for will it be more useable , yes, it is a vast improvemnt over KDE3 and the way we look at things today. tons of useability study has gone into this by the KDE team and many others. making KDE4 one of the heftiest releases yet

(05:23:34 PM) wburge: <imbrandon>Are there any aps you have worked on that started as new projects?

<Belutz> Question: is there any specific application that is developed by kubuntu developer for KDE?

• guidance is a good example of it was developed by Kubuntu and KDE developers both and used in Kubuntu first but now its in official KDE svn.

  <davmor2: kde launchpad intergration?

  • and yes KDE LP intergration if you can consider that an APP

  <Belutz> what about adept? is it developed by kubuntu developers?

  • <Riddell> no, but it was funded by canonical yes adept was started by a Kubuntu developer ( and is currently maintained by other Kubuntu developers ) but not 100% just "ours". others like fedora and such can and do use it

<luca_b> QUESTION: (and an *evil* one at that) What was the rationale behind implementing System Settings?

• <Riddell> kcontrol sucked but system settings was implemened by a KDE developer, we just happened to like it honestly , it was after much useability testing from what I rember correctly, but Riddell can tell you much more specifics as to exactly "why" , other than KControl is hard to use for a new user

  <luca_b> I rarely use both, so it was just a matter of knowing

<tmske> QUESTION: do you think that gnome and kde could share more code, is there improvement? or is it not necessary/usefull for ubuntu/kubuntu?

• colaboration is always usefull, and on backend things we do share alot of code *sorta* thats a loaded statement, by backend i mean like HAL and DBUS and the "core" , as for the UI and the KDE libs they are very diffrent beastes so code sharing is hard, but collaboration is a must

  <Riddell> KDE 4 is now the biggest user of DBUS by a long way. it has also adopted the mime type specification recently. and icon naming with oxygen

  <Riddell> I've spent time getting it to adopt the icon name spec which I hope will feed back to gnome and others but there are limits there with people's time. sharing documentation would be great and KDE has written the specification with agreement from gnome, but the gnome docs guy hasn't had time to implement it

• hint* Kubuntu can always use good people helping out with your favorite OS

<allee> KDE3 already implements the freedesktop trash spec (draft). Hopefully gnome does so too in the future.

<Jack313> QUESTION: I have noticed the schedule for the next release of kubuntu is days before KDE4 release, will the kubuntu release date get pushed up so we can get the KDE 4 incorporated?

• yea alot of the collaboration goes through the freedesktop project. thats a hard one, so far Ubuntu and Kubuntu have alwasy kept the same release cycle, and afaik there are no plans to change that. but that dosent mean we wont work with upsteam KDE to get KDE4 in time for rlease if that is possible

<rpw> QUESTION: Speaking of KDE 4, do you know when we will see KDE 4 as default in Kubuntu, or will there be an easy way to install and use it as default on our desktops?

• <Riddell> it also means we can do a KDE 4 CD shortly after the normal kubuntu release in line with KDE's schedule there will be an easy way to install it , just as there is now in feisty ( is a developers preview ) but as for Default, thats something to be worked out at UDS this and next cycle

<allee> QUESTION: when there's a new spec that needs a GUI, is more than 'ping Riddell' to make sure KDE supports the spec feature too?

• hehe, well yes and no, in the past there hasent been much more than "ping Riddell" but we have more and more upstream developers and useability poeple from KDE working with us daily like seele and elen to poke and get input on new GUI apps , like the Wine config and upcomming grub config modules for guidance etc

  <Riddell> when ubuntu developers do apps they usually do it for gnome first because that's their desktop but in almost all cases such apps are well thought out to be easy to port to other desktops. and we always get a lot of help when doing the port (colin spends a notable amount of time help with the ubiquity kde frontend, mvo did fantastic stuff helping with dist upgrade tool). we didn't get migration assistant for kubuntu in feisty but it wasn't for will of wanting to, evan plans to do it for gusty

  i will love that one , personaly

***ajmitch made sure to keep the pygtk bits separate from the core for his code :)

<Sanne> QUESTION: with dolphin as the new (easier) default file manager in upcoming kde releases I read about, will the file manager part of konqueror still continue to be supported? What will Kubuntu's policy be concerning that?

• we will typicly support what KDE upstream supports, and thats looking to be dolphin, we've been known to stray from the path then get upstream acceptance like with system settings but all in all dolphin will probably be our first choice, that dosent mean konqueror will be removed or striped down

(05:46:56 PM) Riddell: I... need to bed
(05:47:05 PM) Riddell: but let me point out a couple of things before I do
(05:47:14 PM) Riddell: firstly, Kubuntu has seen some major adoptions
(05:47:34 PM) Riddell: the French Parliament uses us for all their MPs, so we now rule France (whoever becomes president)
(05:47:54 PM) Riddell: meduxa has put Kubuntu on tens of thousands of computers in canary islands schools
(05:48:16 PM) Riddell: we have an impressive list of kubuntu derived distros at https://wiki.kubuntu.org/KubuntuDerivedDistros
(05:48:33 PM) imbrandon: even router cd's :)
(05:48:39 PM) Riddell: seeing companies like dlink using kubuntu derived CDs as their official development environement is so cool
(05:48:54 PM) Riddell: secondly.. and you're hearing this first folks
(05:49:08 PM) Riddell: Kubuntu is again Gold Sponsor of KDE's Akademy conference http://akademy2007.kde.org/
(05:49:18 PM) Riddell: thanks to Canonical
(05:49:31 PM) imbrandon: rockin :)
(05:50:06 PM) Riddell: and remember, Canonical provide top notch commercial support for Kubuntu for anyone who cares to pay for it
(05:50:11 PM) Riddell: (and people do)
(05:51:24 PM) Riddell: thanks all, guid nicht
(05:51:27 PM) imbrandon: cool, thanks Riddell , and sleep well
(05:51:34 PM) imbrandon: ok ...

< n2diy> QUESTION What are the dangers with using KDE apps. in Gnome?

• none, other than using a bit more memory because you have to load the KDELibs along with the gnome libs but apps are fairly desktop independant

<luca_b> QUESTION: Is adept's UI planned to be improved for 7.10? (as the original spec for Edgy never got implemented)

• yes very much so, manchicken and others have been working on doing just that for Gutsy ( 7.10 _

<davmor2> QUESTION: (devils advocate) I am on the iso testing team but there were few kubuntu testers so I volunteered as I had time. So I played around with kde for a bit. Why can't gnome and kdes apps have similar tab names? Armarok and rhythmbox as examples.

• good question, but normaly somethign that handeled upstream and KDE useability and Gnome useability tend not to agree at times and on nameing conventions , that dosent mean this wont changed for KDE4 and Gnome++

<xerosis> QUESTION: how hard is it to port a UI from ubuntu to kubuntu?

• it all depends on how much the UI is seperated from the programs logic, and how much the originaly author thought about portability, it can range from a few minutes litterly to a few months. normaly more on the shorter side in Ubuntu and Kubuntu's case

<tmske> QUESTION: what parts of kubuntu are you very proud of?

• i persoanly am proud of how it "just works" for the most part with audio and video playback and asking you to install codecs but there are many many things i would love to see smoothed out too over time

<pointwood> QUESTION: Have you made any thoughts about what to add to Kubuntu Gutsy or is that too early to ask?

• yes thats what the specs ( blueprints ) on LP are for , and they get discussed by you and me and everyone else at UDS in spain here in a few days thats what the UDS meeting are all about planning the next release

<mon> QUESTION: i've applied an old user-submitted patch of "an app" to the svn version of this app. how can i get it included upstream/in ubuntu? i've added it to the relevant bugzilla page but now the bug is "dead"

• those cases hopefully dont happen too often but if it does happen that way, you can generaly ask arround in #ubuntu-motu to have someone help you patch the package in kubuntu or attach the patch to a LP bug and we can take on a local delta

(06:03:13 PM) imbrandon: ok well since this is the last session of the day , i can stick arrround a few more minutes and just open up the floor if you all want to blurt out some last questions, i'll do my best to get to them