Lubuntu 18.04 add Arc Themes and icons

[Gerald McInally]

Look I know you want to make your Lxqt offering better but can you please do a solid and add Arc themes and icons to 18.04 LTS too?
After all this will be around for 10 years as far as I gather so give us all a break even if it takes the edge off whats different with 18.10
Yes I know i can do all this manually and I have but this really should be a built in option in the standard LTS distribution so it doesnt look as ugly.
Thank You!

[Juhani Numminen (jsonic)]

Hi,

There is a package called arc-theme in 18.04 LTS already. Does that work for you? Or is your request about changing the default theme for the LTS?

The lifetime of a Ubuntu LTS is 5 years rather than 10 :) https://www.ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

Regards,
Juhani

[Gerald McInally (gerald-mcinally)]

Hi
Thank you for your reply.
OK glad to hear there is a "package available", but its not accessible as a menu option in the installed Lubuntu 18.04 is it? So normal users wouldnt know its there. It seems in 18.10 the arc themes are very much available up front by default as I can see from promotional screen shots to promote the new interface which is slightly unfair as the very nice arc theme has little to do with the changes.. So thats what I mean. Please make it available in the appearance menus in Lubuntu 18.04

Unless I was dreaming there was a recent announcement that at least Ubuntu 18.04 would be supported for 10 years instead of the normal 5 so I did assume the same would apply to Lubuntu too. Maybe worth another check?

[Simon Quigley (tsimonq2)]

This is won't fix, both for the arc theme and 10 years of Lubuntu support.

[Gerald McInally (gerald-mcinally)]

Hmm sounds a bit negative and condescending to the users you claim to support - why wouldnt you introduce a long overdue cosmetic improvement which is already in the pipeline for 18.10?
No way am I switching from 18.04 LTS (which I think you WILL find you WILL be supporting for 10 years, wait and see) far a 1 year supported 18.10.

So please listen to your users this would be a welcome and very easy improvement. Low hanging fruit - whats not to like it would be win-win.
Or at least less of the foot stomping and justify why not.

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

I'm sorry you see this as negative and condescending. It's certainly not the opinion of Lubuntu. That said, I'd like to add some perspective to help you better understand the reason for the statement.

The most important thing to consider is that LXQt was never released as part of Lubuntu. We didn't really support it then as it really wasn't ready for prime time. It was close, but not all the way there. That said, for 18.04, Lubuntu is responsible for supporting LXDE, not LXQt. You certainly could take it up with the LXQt folks to add it as a default theme, although I think they will be similarly disinclined.

Furthermore, since there is indeed a package that can be installed, there's no reason why additional effort needs to be expended on this. It's not as "low hanging" as you think. Stable Release Updates are a rather thorny, complicated process that's really only worth going through for things having a significant impact. This is especially true with Lubuntu as we are a very small team with limited resources. That said, you're certainly welcome to push it through if you so desire:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates

Finally about the timeline, most flavours support their releases for a smaller amount of time than standard Ubuntu. Lubuntu is no exception to this, and indeed in the release notes one finds the phrase "Lubuntu 18.04 LTS is the 14th release of Lubuntu, with support until April of 2021:"
https://lubuntu.me/bionic-released/
This is no different than it has been in any previous version of Lubuntu, either.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

The five years of LTS support only ever applied to packages found in the 'main' repository. The ESM & extended life (including 10 years) applies to that category, not to 'universe' packages which only ever had 3 years of supported life.

Lubuntu 18.04 LTS released in 2018 will be supported until April 2021 as stated in release notes https://lubuntu.me/bionic-released/ where you'll note it never said 5 years.

The packages used are in 'universe' which means community supported, for example https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/x11/lubuntu-icon-theme meaning its up to the community to create and package.

Your expectations and language to volunteers in the wider community I think is harsh and out-of-place. Lubuntu is supported by users (the community) and for more to be achieved, more 'users' would need to stand up and try and help.

[Gerald McInally (gerald-mcinally)]

Hi
Thank you both for your responses.
I am talking about Lubuntu 18.04 which as far as I know is based on LXDE.
Now, I dont really care LXDE/LXQT/LXQX whatever. There are people responsible for Lubuntu releases.
18.10 has as far as I can see has alreadsy got Arc themes added as a welcome face lift out of the box.
All I am asking for without the blah blah blah is that you implement the same improvement which is the addition of a few appearance options to 18.04, I dont see that as a big deal or an issue whatsoever as most of the work must already be done.
I dont really see how I was harsh or out of place - pardon me for daring to suggest getting an easily fixed improvement to be implemented in the nominated Long Term Support version (which one would assume would be the best of the best). in contrast 18.10 is a transitory test release not LTS. From my side all I can do is give constructive suggestions - there was a kind of side swipe there that maybe I should do more but sorry I dont accept that, I have given my constructive suggestion, this change is already implemented so transferring that to the LTS should be trivial.
With regards the lifetime of the release well lets see. The main ubuntu base is the main thing in the longer term and note for example the Lubuntu spinoff LXLE is still based on 16.04 LTS to this day.
Do what you want with this suggestion.It definitely IS low hanging fruit as the bulk of the work is already done in 18.10. It definitely IS an improvement. The only weakness with Lubuntu is the really poor and clunky appearance that hasnt changed much if at all for a decade. Thats something you need to work on.

[Simon Quigley (tsimonq2)]

You have already received a "no" from both the Release Manager and the QA Manager for Lubuntu. The difference between Lubuntu 18.04 and 18.10 is the switch to LXQt. LXQt has the option for the Arc theme. 18.04 will not, from the Lubuntu project.

It is bad practice to change the whole user interface post-release, especially in an LTS release. If you want the Arc theme, our source code is available. You're welcome to patch things locally.

You have already also been told by all three of us that Lubuntu will not support 18.04 past April 2021. Lubuntu is a community project, and none of us work for Canonical. We are aware of the news, but unless Canonical wants to start paying us a salary, which is unlikely, we will not support 18.04 past then.

[Gerald McInally (gerald-mcinally)]

Just to shoot in one more thing:
Here is a direct quote from the Lubuntu website Ref 18.10
"The winning combination of Arc theme and the Papirus icons makes the new Lubuntu desktop easier to read and less cluttered."

Now - why cant that be put into 18.04 which is the LTS??

A negative answer to that question can be down purely to politics and nothing to do with end user satisfaction.

I dare you to give any credible justification why 18,04 LTS should not include these well overdue and welcome interface updates.

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

Thanks for your suggestions, Gerald, but to put this plainly and as respectfully as I can, this is not something we will be discussing further. The Lubuntu Team will not be spending the effort going through an exhaustive process to make a change to the look of 18.04 given that it came out looking exactly the way the Lubuntu Team wanted it to. Put another way, there is no problem or bug here. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and you're welcome to your opinion, but we're not changing it. You know the solution to the problem.

[Gerald McInally (gerald-mcinally)]

OK one last post I will keep it short know this is not supposed to be a chat line.
I think Lubuntu is a great, I like its efficiency and tweaking options. All thanks to all those who made it and contribute. You have my greatest respect.
I had already come across the Arc themes and Arc/Papirus icons and my default setup uses these and some nice backgrounds and Lo and behold Lubuntu is a perfect OS. I wanted to share that to the world. If it was in 18.04 you would snag a lot of new users. Your call.
My other favorite OS is Ubuntu MATE which I use on systems with better resources. Here is a quote from their 18.10 release notes.
"Ubuntu MATE 18.10 is a modest, yet strategic, upgrade over our 18.04 release. If you want bug fixes and improved hardware support then 18.10 is for you. For those who prefer staying on the LTS then everything in this 18.10 release is also important for the upcoming 18.04.2 release"
So you see their philosophy. They are ploughing back improvements into the LTS release - that sounds just about right to me.
Anyway all respect to the Lubuntu team. If I didnt care about this and like what you were doing I wouldnt post. You do what you have to do with the resources you have.

Over and out from me on this one, no reply expected case closed.