Hacker News Reader

This thread is baffling. Most of the comment replies are about KDE, for which Kubuntu (with a "K") is a completely separate spin.

The XFCE-based Xubuntu spin includes nothing of KDE by default, and neither KDE or Kubuntu are mentioned in the linked article at all. Call me cynical, I just don't think most people clicked the link or even took a close enough look at the title here.

Alternative: People know exactly what they're talking about. Kubuntu is just an interesting, related topic and a valid comparison.

Yeah, this is weird, I guess some people mistake X for K.

There are no KDE apps or libraries in Xubuntu. I'm pretty sure that I would have noticed in the 10 years of using Xubuntu and updating it with Synaptic.

Technically, that's not correct: Xubuntu is just an ubuntu package (https://packages.ubuntu.com/disco/xubuntu-desktop). You can install any other Ubuntu (Debian) packages.