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Kubuntu's Hardy Heron Won't Have The Long-Term Label

Dec 27, 2007  By Justin Ryan

The KDE-branch of the Ubuntu family is all atwitter this week, with the announcement that Kubuntu 8.04 — better known as Hardy Heron — won't be designated as a "Long Term Support" or "LTS" release by the powers-that-be at Canonical.

The decision — and the resulting backlash — centers around the release of KDE 4, currently in beta, and it's proximity to the release of Kubuntu 8.04 in April 2008. Apparently, Canonical is concerned that KDE 4 won't be mature enough — it will only have been in stable release for about three months when Hardy Heron is released — to be included in a version earmarked as "Long Term Support." LTS releases are guaranteed support for three years on the desktop, and five on the server, meaning that any problems that are fixed in future releases would continue to haunt Canonical into 2013.

No word was given on what will be the next LTS release for Kubuntu, but the announcement did reveal that Hardy Heron will ship with the opportunity to use either KDE 3.5 or KDE 4.

Read more.

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Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.

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RTFA: LTS releases are

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 12/29/2007 - 10:42.

RTFA:

LTS releases are guaranteed support for three years on the desktop, and five on the server, meaning that any problems that are fixed in future releases would continue to haunt Canonical into 2013.

The author was just giving a basic description of what a "LTS" release is.

The servers have no desktop,

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 12/27/2007 - 13:21.

The servers have no desktop, so Canonical would only be in it until 2011; not 2013.

True, but

Justin Ryan's picture
Submitted by Justin Ryan on Thu, 12/27/2007 - 21:16.

That's true, the servers don't have desktops. I suspect, however, that there are aspects of the change that will apply whether you're using the GUI or not; I can't imagine that the update to KDE 4 will leave all the various KDE applications completely unchanged. If the change affects any of the various KDE applications, Canonical would be responsible for supporting them into 2013 on the server if they mark 8.04 as LTS.

Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.

There are no KDE

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 12/29/2007 - 09:43.

There are no KDE applications on the server unless put there after install.

How strange

Justin Ryan's picture
Submitted by Justin Ryan on Sat, 12/29/2007 - 11:42.

Then why bother releasing Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu server...If there aren't any KDE applications, what makes Kubuntu server any different than Ubuntu server or Xubuntu server?

Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.

Would you mind posting a

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 12/29/2007 - 16:28.

Would you mind posting a link to a kubuntu server download? I can't find one.

Here

Justin Ryan's picture
Submitted by Justin Ryan on Sat, 12/29/2007 - 17:29.

The server edition is included in the regular desktop CD. You just type "server" at the boot prompt.

Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.