Hey there!
TUXEDO OS project lead here.
First, I appreciate the ideas in this thread. It is always good to see how the community tries to solve things and to help make stuff better for everyone. I’d like to explain, or better affirm, a few things flying around here.
TUXEDO OS is based on Ubuntu LTS and Neon User. We backport quite a few things from Ubuntu intermediate releases (23.10 and such) but regarding the KDE stack it’s pretty much 1:1 Neon User. The main difference is our QA infrastructure added to everything software-related we are shipping:
- regular Ubuntu package are mirrored, tested and shipped on a weekly basis
- packages from Ubuntu security are mirrored and shipped daily
- Neon package updates are checked daily, tested and shipped as a cumulative update. This takes 2-3 days normally
Other stuff, not related to KDE or Neon, but to draw the full picture:
- Firefox and Chromium are packaged as DEBs, tested and shipped within 1 working days after upstream release
- Mesa, Pipewire, Wireplumber are packaged, tested and shipped within a week as it depends on testing work load
- Kernel and Nvidia drivers are built on their own schedule and shipped after extensive testing plus adding features via backporting or own development
Our QA structure is a combination of test being run automated and manually by humans:
- we have a set of ca. 10 different laptop modes being tested as a reference
- we test on real hardware, not only in virtualized environments
- it’s always the same people that test, plus rotating staff to take a second look at the results
In the recent past, we tried to help with bug reports and QA for Neon as well. But honestly, we failed due to missing time and other priorities. The least I can promise is to take a look at how we can adjust our processes and get more QA work upstream. That includes my wish to have openQA or something similar running. But this would take time to set up with our real-hardware-tests.
I’m happy to hear any other ideas and discuss possibilities for KDE and Neon to profit from. Thanks all for your time!