[kdelibs] [Bug 318309] Unattended crash

Jerry Nelson jerry-va at speakeasy.net
Sun Apr 20 19:39:40 BST 2014


https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318309

--- Comment #6 from Jerry Nelson <jerry-va at speakeasy.net> ---
Christoph,

In this note I report my research on how to update KDE, and ask you 
to add your advice at the end.
--jerry

--------------- begin end-user groping notes ----------------
KDE UPDATE BASICS
4/20/2014

Find your current version:
K-InfoCenter on desktop from application launcher
2014: KDE SC Version 4.8.5  ("KDE Software Compilation" suite)
           "KDE" is the K Desktop Environment.
           "K" is ??

Find out the current version:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/KDE

Download a newer version:
How?

THIS INSTALLS EVERYTHING -- NOT JUST AN UPDATE.
Maybe like this.  Ask Christoph Feck
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
The repository list might be at /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
or separately as
           sudo apt-get update
           sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
Expect the terminal screen to roll forever.
reboot
Expect a logon screen that offers you the Plasma Desktop/Workspace.
You can create a machine with alternate Ubuntu and KDE desktops this wasy.
--------------- end end-user groping notes ----------------

At 08.04.2014  14:30  Tuesday, you wrote:
>https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318309
>
>--- Comment #5 from Christoph Feck <christoph at maxiom.de> ---
>Jerry, your software is very old, please update to newer versions (KDE 4.11.5
>or 4.12.x). The crash reports you added are unrelated to the crash of the
>original reporter.
>
>--
>You are receiving this mail because:
>You are on the CC list for the bug.

--- Comment #7 from Jerry Nelson <jerry-va at speakeasy.net> ---
Christoph,
In this note I convey the difficulty users face in figuring out their 
relationship to the KDE organization, where to get information, how 
to update their desktop manager software, or even to discover that 
the desktop needs updating and all the update maintenance they are 
doing does not touch the problem.

Please forward the note to people concerned with the relationship of 
the developer community to the larger Linux world and attracting new, 
good users from that larger world.

The last paragraph is for you, of course.
--jerry

BACKGROUND: A developer responded to a user bug report, telling the 
user to update his KDE software.  The user responded with two emails, 
a short one in which he almost discovered where KDE software lives on 
the Web and how to update it, and this email, where he struggled for 
a longer time trying to figure out what KDE is, besides the letter 
"K" in his Kubuntu installation.  The user had no idea that the 
maintenance he performed perfectly on his system did not include any 
updates for the desktop manager.

ACTION REQUIRED:  The KDE development community has a flawed 
relationship to the kind of users they wish to attract in the user 
community.  This letter should be forwarded to more widely-thinking 
KDE people who can generate marketing literature that sells KDE to 
smart but knowledge-lacking people who belong in the community and 
would be happy  there and ultimately contribute to it.

--------------------------- start notes from Lost User 
-------------------------------
Gnome/GNU was born open-source, and has roots in CORBA, which makes 
it enterprise friendly.

KDE Kubuntu's GUI used a proprietary Dutch library, and so
           corporate support of open GUI d'ment
           flowed from RedHat et al to Gnome instead.

Major early open-source developers grew within three particular communities:
--Linux community (originally only the kernel), 1991
-- X-Window (top level GUI) community, centered at MIT
         --X.org, with contributions from RedHat
         --X-free
--GNU (mid-level) libraries, utilities, Richard Stallman Free 
Software Foundation.
           GNOME today springs from these origins.

TODAY's UNIX & LINUX WORLDS USE X-WINDOWS-like TECHNOLOGY
but there are variants.

KDE ("The KDE Software Compilation") and GNOME
are the two main X-window, full environment variants.
"Full" means not just the shell or the windows manager, but also
DISPLAY MANAGERS  (KDM and GDM; they are also the login managers)
THE WIDGET TOOLKITS are Qt for KDE and GTK+  "the Gnome Tool Kit"
BASIC UTILITIES/APPs

SOME KDE & GNOME UTEs/APPs ARE:
--filemanager Dolphin (formerly Konqueror) vs Nautilus
--music player Amarok vs. Rhythmbox
--viewer Gwenview vs Eye of GNOME
--Web browser Konqueror vs.Epiphany

A lot of Web space (chatter) concerns "flavor" choices.
These choices are in the KDE camp:
Kubuntu
Mint
Mate
Cinnamon

This flavor chatter (which is "best") fails to clarify the 
institutional support and larger relationships between the distros 
and the developer communities supporting them.  One sometimes finds 
crumbs of information like this:

Kubuntu differs only in the desktop.
The KDE Plasma Desktop (hence the "K" before ubuntu) replaces the 
Unity graphical environment.
Blue Systems took over as sponsor from Canonical Ltd., and Kubuntu 
will retain use of Ubuntu project servers.  The packages for Ubuntu 
and Kubuntu share the same repositories (you can get both at the same 
place) and the programs will run OK on either system.  Kubuntu 
updates are released regularly on the same schedule as Ubuntu.

These "Mint"and "Cinnamon" flavors are available as distributions to 
install, but, after you install and keep the installation current 
with all updates, a developer might tell you that the KDE part of the 
distro was never automatically updated, and you don't know how to 
find out what revision you have, but it is too old and you don't know 
where to go or how to make it new again.  To find out these things, 
it is important to be polite with developers because they are usually 
generous by nature, and know a lot of info even if they are clueless 
about the rest of the world where people like you live.

These commands will tell you your current versions:

  uname -r   (just the OS; does not know about the desktop manager)
  K-InfoCenter
  -->    OS Version Linux 3.2.0-60-generic
          KDE SC Version 4.8.5

We are working on figuring out where the center of user life is and 
where the updates are hidden.  ww.kde.org/community/whatiskde/ seems 
to be for developers, not users.
--------------------------- end notes from Lost User 
-------------------------------

At 08.04.2014  14:30  Tuesday, you wrote:
>https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318309
>
>--- Comment #5 from Christoph Feck <christoph at maxiom.de> ---
>Jerry, your software is very old, please update to newer versions (KDE 4.11.5
>or 4.12.x). The crash reports you added are unrelated to the crash of the
>original reporter.
>
>--
>You are receiving this mail because:
>You are on the CC list for the bug.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug.



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