Behind the scenes with Kubuntu, we build packages, then test and finally release to our users. We mostly rely on the building services provided by Canonical on Launchpad, but also are lucky enough to have services donated by some third parties.  A lot of our developers are working on quite slow internet connections and when working with large source-code tarballs this takes a very long time, is painful and quite honestly leads to developers burning out.

We’ve been thankful that Linode have come to the rescue by providing a server for developers to work from.  This machine is connected to the internet by a blazing fast connection, plenty of RAM and 8 CPU cores.  A release which takes 30-60 minutes to do on a home connection can be sped up by a factor of ten!

Linode has kindly agreed to extend this donation for another year and the Kubuntu team would like to thank them very much for doing this.

Thank-you image: Creative Commons. Linode logo via Linode

http://kubuntu.org/news/latest-round-of-backports-ppa-updates-include-plasma-5-10-2-for-zesty-17-04/

Warning: 14.04 LTS to 16.04 LTS upgrades are problematic, and should not be attempted by the average user. Please install a fresh copy of 16.04.3 instead. To prevent messages about upgrading, change Prompt=lts with Prompt=normal or Prompt=never in the /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades file. As always, make a thorough backup of your data before upgrading.

See the Ubuntu 16.04.3 release announcement and Kubuntu Release Notes.

Download 16.04.3 images.

The Kubuntu team will be releasing 17.10 in October.

This is the first spin in preparation for the Alpha 2 pre-release. Kubuntu Alpha pre-releases are NOT recommended for:

• Regular users who are not aware of pre-release issues
• Anyone who needs a stable system
• Anyone uncomfortable running a possibly frequently broken system
• Anyone in a production environment with data or workflows that need to be reliable

Kubuntu Alpha pre-releases are recommended for:

• Regular users who want to help us test by finding, reporting, and/or fixing bugs
• Kubuntu, KDE, and Qt developers

Getting Kubuntu 17.10 Alpha 2

To upgrade to Kubuntu 17.10 pre-releases from 17.04, run sudo do-release-upgrade -d from a command line.

Download a Bootable image and put it onto a DVD or USB Drive

See our release notes: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/Alpha2/Kubuntu

Please report your results on the Release tracker: http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker

NOTE: This is a release candidate. Kubuntu pre-releases are NOT recommended for:

* Regular users who are not aware of pre-release issues
* Anyone who needs a stable system
* Anyone uncomfortable running a possibly frequently broken system
* Anyone in a production environment with data or work-flows that need to be reliable

Getting Kubuntu 17.04 RC:
* Upgrade from 16.10: run `do-release-upgrade -d` from a command line.
* Download a bootable image (ISO) and put it onto a DVD or USB Drive : http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/20170408/

Please see Release Notes for more details, where to download, and known problems. We welcome help to fix those final issues; please join the Kubuntu-Devel mail list[1], just hop into #kubuntu-devel on freenode to connect with us or use the Ubuntu tracker [2]

1. Kubuntu-devel mail list: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-devel

2. Official Ubuntu tracker: http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/

Darin has been coming to the development channel and taking part in the informal developer meetings on Big Blue Button for a while now, helping out were he can with the packaging and continuous integration.  His efforts have already made a huge difference.

Here’s a snippet of his interview:

<DarinMiller> I have contributed very little independently, but I have helped fix lintian issues, control files deps, and made a very minor mod to one of the KA scripts.
<clivejo> minor mod?
<acheronuk> very useful mod IIR ^^^
<clivejo> I think you are selling yourself short there!
-*- clivejo was very frustrated with the tooling prior to that fix
<DarinMiller> From coding perspective, it was well within my skillset, so the mod seemed minor to me.
<clivejo> well it was much appreciated
<yofel> when did you start hanging out here and how did you end up in this channel?
<DarinMiller> That’s another reason I like this team. I feel my efforts are appreciated.
<DarinMiller> And that encourages me to want to do more.

He is obviously a very modest chap and the Kubuntu team would like to offer him a very warm welcome, as well as greeting him with our hugs and the list of jobs / work to be done!

For those interested here’s Darin’s wiki page: https://wiki.kubuntu.org/~darinmiller and his Launchpad page: https://launchpad.net/~darinmiller

The meeting log is available here.