KDE version in Lenny: KDE 3.5.9 vs KDE 4.1

Scott Kitterman debian at kitterman.com
Fri Jun 6 04:56:30 UTC 2008


On Thursday 05 June 2008 16:03, Ana Guerrero wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> We have been delaying taking a decision about this for too much time now,
> the freeze is coming up [0], and we need to have it clear, for our users,
> the release team and the rest of Debian.
>
> Basically we can ship either KDE 3.5.9 or KDE 4.1. For some people in the
> team it seems clear we should ship KDE 4.1, for some other it is clear we
> should ship KDE 3.5.9. The latter is my opinion, so here you have a mail
> explaining why we should release with 3.5.9. Feel free to reply with a nice
> mail of why we should ship with KDE 4.1, detailing as well how much time
> *you* are planning to invest in this goal.
> By the way, my proposal is shipping KDE 3.5.9 with the KDE 4.1 development
> platform: kde4libs, kdepimlibs and kdebase-runtime.

Kubuntu is committed to ship KDE 4.1 in it's October release.  If it doesn't 
work out so well, you might see me migrate to a Lenny that had 3.5.9.  

From my perpsective as a Kubuntu developer trying to get 4.1 working (and the 
needed KDE3 bits) in the Kubuntu Intrepid repository, KDE 4.1 seems to me to 
be pretty scary for a release that will be THE Debian KDE release for at 
least a year and will have to be supported for at least two years.

I fully expect that Kubuntu Intrepid with KDE 4.1 will end up being labled 
as "For Intrepid adventurers" (e.g if you want to get serious work done, wait 
for the next release).  Debian is, by design, more conservative than the 
various Ubuntu parts and I think that's good.  

The one caution I will give you is around displayconfig (in kde-guidance).  
I'm still working on refactoring the current Kubuntu package to make it 
suitable for Debian.  It would be a major improvement from what you have now, 
but expect it to be fundamentally broken for dual screen configurations.  KDE 
really needs a good Xrandr display tool.  The only one I know of ships with 
KDE4.

Good luck making the decision, it doesn't look like an easy one.

Scott K



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