Oh No! Fuduntu Calls it Quits

I can't believe my eyes. Just as Fuduntu was getting rave reviews and moving up the charts, just a week after announcing their latest release the Fuduntu project "voted to end-of-life Fuduntu Linux." It seems developmental issues are forcing this decision, and signals a time when ultimately all GNOME 2 users will end up having to move on.

It was just last week that Fuduntu 2013.2 was announced with lots of updates as well as the teaser that Shawn Dunn has been developing KDE for Fuduntu and was working towards a KDE spin. I was anxious to test drive that one.

Lee Ward stated the reason for their decision was "support for GTK2 has decreased dramatically. With this, apps using GTK2 have been moved to GTK3 and old versions are no longer being maintained for either bugs or security flaws."

Starting immediately, there will be no new features added, except a few that were already in works. There will be one more update (2013.3), security fixes, and support will continue through September 30. At that time, the serious distro with a "punny name" will be no more. But all is not lost.

Ward also said that team members are discussing new distribution ideas basing on a different distro. Andrew Wyatt, founder and lead of Fuduntu, is retiring and won't be joining the new efforts. Discussion are just beginning and could go anywhere, but the community will be updated as soon as the team knows.