LucidPackaging

Summary

What applications we will package for Kubuntu Lucid.

Release Note

Kubuntu 10.04 comes with KDE 4.4, updated packagekit, faster rendering thanks to Qt 4.6 and a KOffice migrated to KDE 4.

Rationale

As an LTS we will be conservative in the application versions we package, however we still want the latest KDE for highest quality versions.

User stories

Maggie is a Kubuntu user who enjoys the integration of KOffice, she installs the version from Kubuntu and is pleased that it fits in with the rest of the desktop.

Louise wants to install Java for Firefox and does so through KPackageKit, she ticks the click through licence box and it installs successfully.

Assumptions

polkit-qt-1 will be available.

Design

10.04 is due to be an LTS release. As such we will focus on quality through thorough testing and bug review over and above speed of packaging.

All patches to KDE packages will be reviewed for quality and possibility to upstream to KDE or Debian.

We will only add patches with consultation from the relevant upstream. If upstream disagrees with a patch there will be a strong assumption that we should not use it.

For patches which are really configuration changes (e.g. Plasma default layout) we will talk with upstream if there is a better way to achieve the same affect without patching. For Plasma there is a new scripting interface which it may be possible to use for this.

We will only package stable releases of applications. Where we want to package beta or unreleased versions we will only do this where upstream approves.

Implementation

We will package and ship with the most recent KDE 4.4 point release. The Beta is due to be tagged on November 25th and we will package it for Lucid and beta backports at that time, assuming merges are complete.

Our Qt version will be the latest point release of Qt 4.6.

KOffice 2.1 will go into main replacing the KDE 3 version.

Qt 3

We will move kdelibs 3 to universe. This means skim will also be moved to universe. xdg-utils should not be using kdelibs 3 so we will remove the suggests it currently has and investigate if upstream has make any progress to making it use KDE 4.

We would like to move Qt 3 to universe, this is probably not yet possible but we will investigate closer what would need to be done. It would need a Scribus version with Qt 4, we will discuss this with upstream but it probably will not be ready for main. Several libraries have wrappers for Qt such as dbus and avahi, we will investigate if it is still useful to keep these. QCad would also need to be moved to universe. lsb-desktop is a likely sticking point.

Applications

As an LTS release now is not a good time to be switching applications. We will settle on a fixed list of applications by FeatureFreeze.

We will monitor the options for web browser but presume to continue using Konqueror with KHTML. If the webkitkde kpart is stable and matches KHTML for all features we could consider using this.

Out choice for IRC client should consider which will be the best choice over the next LTS cycle.

We will consider using Kaffeine for video player due to its extra features over Dragon, but only if the existing crashes are fixed and if upstream agrees to its use.

Pulseaudio

Pulseaudio currently causes intermittent problems for users who have it installed. Although we don't install it by default it does get pulled in by other apps and this issue is unlikely to go away. We will investigate the patches from Mandriva which are reported to make this more reliable by putting the patched version of Phonon/kdelibs into a PPA and testing. In line with the patch policy above we will discuss this with the upstream patch author and upstream Phonon/kdelibs maintainers before deciding if we should include the patches in our packages.

Nepomuk

We will package new Nepomuk backend Virtuoso and ensure it is working for Nepomuk tasks. Space permitting we will put this on the CD if upstream considers it to be ready, but do not expect to have it turned on by default for the LTS due to high resource usage.

We will also investigate the source packages for Sesame (which is currently a binary blob in multiverse) made by a 3rd party packager for inclusion in universe.

KPackageKit

We will use the latest version of KPackageKit 0.5. This uses Packagekit 0.5 which requires PolicyKit 1.0, KDE support for Policykit 1.0 (polkit-qt-1 and policykit-kde-1) is due to be available in time for Lucid but not as part of the KDE 4.4 release. The polkit 0.9 support in KDE and polkit-qt-0 will be removed when this is available. We will need to be careful to ensure that all applications which use PolicyKit in KDE work with 1.0.

We will also push for the changes needed for debconf support in PackageKit (currently being worked on by KPackageKit upstream) to be made to dpkg.


CategorySpec

Kubuntu/Specs/LucidPackaging (last edited 2009-11-18 16:03:26 by 63)