En GNU / Linux users sometimes live with the strange contradiction of seeing how they arrive updates all the time for all kinds of projects, and still have to wait a long time before starting to install and use them. And it is that although the source code is available immediately, a great majority of users are based on distros that provide them with the necessary stability -especially if they use their equipment for the day to day- and as we well know most of the packages it takes a while before they are available in the repositories.
In the case of KDE It seems that luckily things are about to change, and it is thanks to Jonathan Riddell himself, the founder of the Kubuntu project and who was in charge of maintaining it for a long time, until the problems and differences began with some of the members of Canonical. Issues that continued to escalate into a veritable war in the community and ended with Riddell's resignation from his place as Kubuntu developer and director.
We say good luck because Riddell will be presenting in the next few hours his new project, called KDE Neon and that seeks to solve the problem that we described at the beginning. It is a new distro, based on Ubuntu 15.10 and that of course it will have the desk of the 'K' as its epicenter, but whose main objective is to always offer advanced software, very new versions and all the news that are arriving. All this without giving up stability, which is the main thing for many users.
Riddell and the KDE community, which has always been a very homogeneous group, plan offer a never-before-seen level of integration of KDE with a GNU / Linux distro, something that is a point against if we compare GNOME and its integration with Fedora, which uses it as a base desktop. From what can be seen on their website the thing already looks very good and is well advanced (at the moment based on Ubuntu 15.10 since the idea is that users start from Kubuntu and install later from Git repositories) but with the promise to release their own images soon.
Website: KDE Neon
A solus with kde
Sorry, but IT'S NOT A NEW DISTANCE, Riddell himself says it very clearly in several places, including the interview that you yourself have linked in this article:
We build binary packages akin to KDE on Windows and several other projects. It doesn't change KDE's relationship to the Linux distros that will always be the main way to get KDE's software. It uses Ubuntu LTS (actually 15.10 until the next LTS comes out) as its base as that is good technology which the team is familiar with.
These are packages created by the people of KDE that are installed and run on Ubuntu LTS. In fact, the way to use KDE neon is to install kubuntu and add some repositories. The difference with previous similar projects (including the "project neon" from which KDE neon was born) is that now these repositories are maintained by a project internal to KDE (still in incubation), but that does NOT mean a new distro, not even a derived from an existing one.
For now it is like that, and to save time they are based on Ubuntu LTS ... but they will soon release their own images.
Sorry, but that they release images does not mean that they become a distro, in fact on the same site they say that it is a repository for Kubuntu, in the same FAQ
What is KDE neon?
KDE neon is a rapidly updated software repository. Most users will want to use the packages built from released software. Contributors and testers can use the packages built from KDE Git. The packages can be installed on top of Ubuntu's LTS release (currently 15.10 until the next LTS is out). Live / installable images will be available soon.
Is this "the KDE distro"?
nope. KDE believes it is important to work with many distributions, as each brings unique value and expertise to their respective users. This is one project out of hundreds from KDE.
Yes, what I have read on the web is that it is a ubuntu lts (the base of the distro) but with a kde updated to the latest. This distro can be a ruin for linux mint kde or kunbuntu if those desktop updates are stable and do not give problems this distro can have many users as it would be better than using the previous two named.
Although something like this can be done with opensuse and kubuntu adding additional repos but I suppose that in this case it can be more stable since as I understand the updates are maintained by the kde team or collaborators, apart from saving us configuring new repos and that.
We will see how this project progresses as I find it very interesting.
Wow, you just made my day. I'm a kde user but currently I'm still on linux mint 14.04 waiting a little longer for plasma 5 to mature.
I had thought in a few months to make the leap to plasma with manjaro but I will have to think about whether to use manjaro or kde neon (which I did not know). Both options are great for having the latest kde but the difference between using a rolling or a solid base.
I hope this project becomes solid and does not fail because it seems to me an excellent alternative to have the latest kde on a more solid base just in case.
The first stable version that comes out will be with Ubuntu 16.04 ????
It is what was always wanted in some sense, a kind of rolling release of Ubuntu, in this case Kubuntu, something similar like the halfrolling model of Chakra, obviously it is not the same, but it seems good to me for who wants to plasma in Ubuntu
Hello Fabián wherever I find you haha you told me a video of mine from manjaro where I used kde and your EL-GENERAL icon pack that are spectacular, I also use antu in chakra, but now I'm from manjaro gnome :)
Now yes, my opinion about it is that KDE Neon will not end up being a distro as such, but it will mimic (integrate) so much a distro that the common user will perceive it and they will speak of it as "the OFFICIAL KDE distro" although not so be it. In these statements it is clearly seen how each word that is said is measured to perfection but it is inferred that the intention "without wanting to" is that.
The same regardless of whether or not they are a new distro (I don't see the bad or the good, just indifferent) I think it's great that KDE wants to integrate into a distro. In the case of CHAKRA, the developers have integrated the environment into the system, now the case is that KDE seeks to approach and introduce itself willingly and with intention to a distro. Hopefully everything goes well because in the end the end users are the ones who win one more alternative. I still stick with arch-based distros.
Well, in this article, they leave the people behind the project in a bad way:
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3032063/opensource-subnet/kdes-new-linux-distro-terrible-idea-or-simply-a-huge-mistake.html
After the fiasco that kubuntu 16.04 supposed and that Canonical wants to continue lucandro with ubuntu and derivatives. The departure of James Riddel, landed in a very ugly scene. Fortunately Riddel did not fold his arms and started the neon project that is slowly gaining followers and is going on that giant wave of surfing. What more can I say? Congratulations on the hard work to bring the end user a kde with the latest available updates.