[neon] KDE Neon - Why Ubuntu

[Jonathan Riddell]

I agree entirely, it also has the nice advantages that we can adapt
(mobile)kci to it easier than other distros as it already uses Ubuntu
and community problems nowithstanding it has a good amount of
mindshare including third party software support.

Jonathan

On Fri, Oct 02, 2015 at 09:18:52AM +0200, Harald Sitter wrote:
> Hola,
> 
> Since Jens yesterday raised the question of why neon will use ubuntu
> as a base I threw together a white paper on the topic.
> I think right now the important part to keep in mind is that until we
> have a greenlight from the KDE e.V. Board to pursue an Ubuntu base
> from a legal POV, we could (and might have to) change the base we are
> going to work on. So everyone should keep an open mind when talking to
> others about the base we will or should use. I for one do not care as
> long as we can build something great on top of it, and right now the
> best I know happens to be Ubuntu.
> 
> # Intro
> KDE Neon provides an easy and elegant way for people to test the
> latest from KDE, or use the latest releases of KDE Software.
> 
> Since KDE Neon is meant to put focus on KDE Software, the base system
> requirements are very trivial:
> 
> - Linux kernel
> - GNU toolchain
> - Actual KDE Software dependencies
> - Interesting 3rd party software (firefox, vlc, inkscape...)
> 
> Just about every distribution in the world matches these requirements,
> so for all intents and purposes all of them are suitable.
> 
> In particular, since we only care about KDE Software, any religious
> concerns a la "my installer is 2 seconds faster than yours" should not
> play into this.
> 
> # Why Ubuntu?
> 
> Since we care little to not at all about the superfluous terminal
> software stack we can look at this from an entirely KDE purpose driven
> point of view.
> 
> ## What We Want
> 
> - A stable foundation that rotates no more than once a year
> - (Security) Updates for the foundations and everything we do not
> handle within KDE Neon.
> - A healthy ecosystem
> 
> Most of the mainstreamish/large distributions meet these requirements
> (sans Arch as that is rolling).
> 
> ## Why we want a stable foundation
> 
> - Users like things to not explode
> - Rolling foundations *always* have a risk of random explosion so we
> do not want rolling foundations
> - What we want are rolling KDE software, the rest we care little about
> - This does have the disadvantage of not being able to use the latest
> and greatest foundations (e.g. systemd or pulseaudio) unless we
> decidedly make it so which might be substantial effort.
> - By not having to QA the foundations over and over again, we can
> focus on providing high quality experience of KDE software instead of
> chasing our tail by regularly having to do deliberate fullstack QA
> 
> ## What Ubuntu Gives us Additionally
> 
> - Ubuntu has so-called Long Term Support (LTS) releases that only
> happen once every two years. LTS releases do get first class
> (security) updates for 6 years, making it appealing to enterprise
> users.
> - LTS releases can also get opt-in backports of foundation stacks
> (e.g. X11). So if need be we can actually selectively opt to use some
> newer foundations as they become available.
> - Canonical does offer hardware certification programs for LTS
> releases making it easier to find semi-reasonable devices to run on.
> - Ubuntu is pretty much the only distribution that holds any sort of
> sway with Desktop OEMs such that it gets preloaded and supported.
> - Unlike most other contenders Ubuntu is itself based on another
> viable option (Debian), so if Ubuntu as a platform doesn't turn out
> too well we do have a way out by rebasing to Debian without risking
> too much disruption for the user, nor having too reinvent all our
> technology.
> 
> # Conclusion
> 
> By and large any base distribution that isn't rolling could do. It is
> however my current believe that Ubuntu offers the most interesting
> platform to build on; in no small part due to Canonical's efforts of
> making things appealing to enterprise.
> 
> http://futurist.se/gldt/wp-content/uploads/11.03/gldt1103.png
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