What's Kubuntu-Full?

Question

During text install, it asked me what to install. Along the well known Kubuntu-Desktop and many others, there was Kubuntu-Full. What's it?

Answer 1

kubuntu-full is just a meta-package that includes more software than kubuntu-desktop. Instead of only installing the essential software for a normal user, it installs most of the KDE suite. Another package you can look into is kde-full.

Also, DO NOT install kubuntu-full with a graphical installation. Whenever I install it outside of the terminal, it gets an error while installing one of the language packs. Install it by using sudo apt-get install kubuntu-full.

Answer 2

Ubuntu description for kubuntu-full:

Description: Full Kubuntu Plasma Desktop/Netbook system
 This package depends on all of the packages in the Kubuntu DVD for a very
 complete system.  Installing this package will include much more than the
 default Kubuntu Plasma Desktop or Netbook installation. 

This includes kubuntu-desktop:

Description: Kubuntu Plasma Desktop/Netbook system
 This package depends on all of the packages in the Kubuntu desktop system.
 Installing this package will include the default Kubuntu Plasma Desktop or
 Netbook installation. 

Some of collections included in kubuntu-full but not in kubuntu-desktop include: kdeedu, kdegames, kdemultimedia, koffice, kdepim, kdesdk, and qt4-designer.

Answer 3

Both kubuntu and kubuntu-full are "meta" packages, meaning they are a list of packages to be installed. I do not know the exact differences, but it appears -full is targeted at netbooks.

You can see a list of packages here:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/kubuntu-full

http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/kubuntu-desktop

kubuntu-desktop is referenced on kubuntu-full, and glancing at the packages I see there is overlap.

Answer 4

I was curious to know the difference between the two packages so wrote this quick query to see what packages they pull in. This command will show the packages that kubuntu-full depends on that kubuntu-desktop does not.

comm -23 \
    <(apt-cache depends kubuntu-full | awk '/Depends/ {print $2}' | sort -u) \
    <(apt-cache depends kubuntu-desktop | awk '/Depends/ {print $2}' | sort -u)

The result at the time of writing (on 12.10) is:

anthy calligra calligra-dev dictd dict-foldoc dict-gcide dict-jargon dict-moby-thesaurus dict-vera enscript eyed3 finger flac kdeaccessibility kdeadmin kde-baseapps kdeedu kdegames kdegames-card-data-extra kdegraphics kde-icons-mono kdemultimedia kdenetwork kdepim kde-runtime kdesdk kdeutils kde-wallpapers kde-workspace-data-extras kinfocenter konq-plugins kubuntu-desktop libqscintilla2-designer libqt4-sql-odbc libqt4-sql-psql libqt4-sql-sqlite plasma-runners-addons plasma-widget-ktorrent plasma-widget-lancelot pyqt4-dev-tools python-qscintilla2 qt4-demos qt4-designer qt4-dev-tools qt4-doc-html scribus unclutter vorbisgain xnest xrestop