Kubuntu was formerly under the umbrella of Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, but they have since parted ways. Kubuntu is based on the work of KDE, a German development project, but it is Ubuntu underneath. Their developers of Kubuntu have selected what parts of KDE to include in the distribution and then have put this into the Canonical repositories. You can install Kubuntu by downloading the ISO and installing it or you can add it to an existing Ubuntu installation (the reverse is also true).
Ubuntu is based on the work of Debian and GNOME, but the developers have put a different layer on top, called Unity. Unity is meant to be scalable for different devices. It has its own parts and nomenclature. Dash, HUD, scopes, lenses, etc. It is a new paradigm for desktop users.
Kubuntu in contrast follows a traditional desktop paradigm, but with many powerful features found nowhere else. It has its own nomenclature as well, widgets, virtual desktops, activities, plasmas, etc. The biggest difference is that KDE is uniform across all of its applications. It will have the same menus, look and feel, etc. Also KDE is a construction set where you can change everything about it. It has downloadable, themes, icon sets, colour schemes, wallpapers, activities, etc.
For example, the panel in Unity is fixed to the left. But in KDE it can be on any side or removed entirely. It can be resized and you can add widgets to the panel or the desktop. You can have different activities configured for different things you do on the computer. Each activity can have its own widgets, icons, and desktop location and you can rotate the wallpaper and compositing is built in.
Unity has HUD where you can search intelligently from the Dash. It has scopes where you can filter different types of activities. Everything is centred around the panel and the Dash. The focus is on simplicity. It is far less configurable. Parts that you change can give you fits because of the piecemeal nature of Unity and GNOME on which it is built. There is no uniform standard that developers follow. If you move the window controls from the default left to right corner then many apps will not follow this change and you will have some closing on the right and some on the left. It all depends on what the source of the application is.
GNOME itself is following this dumbing down trend. Many GNOME and Unity applications work just fine, but their feature set is nowhere as powerful as the corresponding KDE one. Compare file managers, Dolphin vs Nautilus and the burning applications, K3b vs Basero and you will see what I mean.
KDE has been around the longest and Unity is the new kid on the block. Both are working towards touch interfaces for tablets, etc. Unity as the name suggests has the same look and feel for all. KDE has separate parts to install depending on the device, Kubuntu-netbook edition, Kubuntu-desktop, etc.
In the end it comes down to user preference. Some people want less and some want more. Some people want one look and feel for everything (like Windows 8) while others want different looks for different devices.
Both Ubuntu and Kubuntu load the same way up until you login at the GUI. From there on it is different. Think of it in layers and you can get a better idea. They differ at the top layers (last parts to load) only. You can install both Kubuntu and Ubuntu (and Xubuntu, Lubuntu etc) on the same base. You do not need to re-install. You choose which one to boot at login. That becomes your default until you change the session at login.
I installed Kubuntu 14.04 a couple of days ago from ISO, but have Ubuntu desktop, Xubuntu desktop, Ubuntu GNOME, etc installed post installation. When I am in Kubuntu (KDE) I can use GNOME and Unity applications and vice versa. I do not get Dash, etc which is a major part of the Unity experience. To use those, I must log out, change the session to Unity and then re-login. When in Unity, I can use KDE applications, but do not get my KDE activities, widgets, plasmas, etc.
I have used KDE since 2000. I still play around with Unity, GNOME shell,etc. But prefer KDE and always go back to it.
I hope this helps.
Roy
On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 9:16:26 AM, "jpwalker@fastmail.fm" <jpwalker@fastmail.fm> wrote:
Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions. I have been trying Ubuntu for a couple of months now, and might decide just to stick with it. It would really help me if I could find some good tutorials on how to use it.
Can anyone tell me what the main differences are between Ubuntu and Kubuntu? I have downloaded it, but not tried it yet.
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