Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

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exploder
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Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

Today I am checking out Kubuntu 9.10 because the Mint KDE CE will be based off of it. So far I have it installed and am downloading all of the updates. I have seen some minor quirks but I will see how it behaves after applying all of the updates. I really like KDE 4.3.2 and we are still getting good reviews for the last KDE CE and I think things are going to be even better for the next release! What is your experience with Kubuntu 9.10?

Edit: So far, so good. I have multimedia working, turned off KWallet, and launch feedback. I cleaned up and resorted the panel so things look better and used my Camaro wallpaper. Everything seems pretty decent, the system is quick and responsive and I have not run into any real problems since I updated the system. This should be a pretty nice base for the KDE CE. :D
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markcynt

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by markcynt »

You made me curious so I'm downloading it now.

I'll install it either today or tomorrow.
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

It is pretty nice. I used the Kubuntu Spotlight KSplash and KDM theme to make things look nicer and believe it or not most codecs were installed when K3b notifiedme I needed them. It took very little time or effort to get everything the way I wanted. The Kubuntu RC has had some bad reviews and I think it is only because they did nothing to customize the release. The system itself is really nice once it is all set up, even Package Kit is half way decent now. I did have to install java and I still have to find libdvdcss2 and win32 codecs. This should work out real nice for the KDE CE because this time there should not be nearly as much to fix like in the last release. KDE 4 is really getting nice! :D

Let me know how you make out with Kubuntu 9.10.
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

I think that the installer has been updated since the release candidate came out, unfortunately there has not bee a new daily build since then.
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

Here is how my Kubuntu desktop turned out.

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/9784/kubuntu.png

Now I have some idea of how Mint 8 KDE CE will run on my system.

Edit: I fixed the trash icon in the screen shot. I changed the way the Desktop Folder displayed by default and added the two shortcuts by hand. The default view had all of the folders in Home displayed and I did not like it that way.
markcynt

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by markcynt »

I got Kubuntu 9.10 up and running now, not without some headaches though.

I first installed it last night and I got a hard crash after I installed the Nvidia restricted driver and set the desktop effects but before I installed the initial updates. After the crash I rebooted and the desktop wouldn't load.

So I reinstalled this morning, let the system update first then added the Nvidia restricted driver before finishing off my initial setup.

Here's how it looks now.

Image
I don't care for Package Kit but it does seem much better than the version that came with Kubuntu 9.04

I also installed Kubuntu Spotlight KSplash.

Overall Kubuntu does seem very nice.
AK Dave

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by AK Dave »

My laptop-as-a-desktop rig at home has been running Kubuntu 9.04 64bit for a couple months now. The install is based on Ubuntu 9.04 with an apt-get of kubuntu-desktop pasted onto it, so its not exactly vanilla. Over the weekend I decided to add another shake of sprinkles to the mix by upgrading to Kubuntu 9.10 RC on that machine. Not a reinstall, but a slipstreamed upgrade with do-release-upgrade.

I had to do it twice for it to work. First time through, the script seemed to download everything and then hung at some point. I admit that at that moment I had a week or two of uptime on the laptop since I normally suspend instead of shutting down. I rebooted, tried again, and went downstairs to enjoy streaming some HD movies to my new LG-BD390 off of my server and from Netflix. Apologies to those who can't stream HD from Netflix.

Went back to the laptop, job was done, rebooted, Kubuntu 9.10 64bit was running just fine. Except for one hiccup: sound. Turns out my audio is hda_intel and thats a known issue with 9.10 at this time. A quick google, a reconfigure of alsa, another reboot (just to make sure), and everything was back.

I really haven't noticed anything spectacular about Kubuntu 9.10 compared to 9.04 w/ the 2.28.16 kernel and everything from -proposed and -backports. But, I shouldn't! KDE 4.3 is solid and responsive in both versions. Okay, so bootsplash looks different and a few things in gnome's admin menus are rearranged. I don't note anything substantially improved and nothing seems broken. I did notice that upgrading to Karmic re-installed pulseaudio for me, but audio is working fine. This looks like a very stable KDE base to roll a Mint version out of, and I really hope that Mint-8-KDE comes out in 64bit.
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

I notice that boot time is a little better, not lightning fast but faster than it was with no tweaking. With KDE 4.3.2 the desktop loads faster and applications are more responsive. Amarok is now about as good as it was in KDE 3.5.10. KDE 4.3.2 seems more predictable and stable too.
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

markcynt, hopefully the final release will not cause you problems with your graphics card. There were some xserver updates today, some NVidea related. The only odd thing that I have run into is that I have compositing enabled but it doesn't work on the panel... I have read where others have the same issue but no one seems to know why. It doesn't especially bother me because everything else is fine, maybe an update will fix it. All of the other features of compositing work fine on my system. I will like it better when Boo starts working on the KDE CE, it will be so much better with all of the features that Boo adds. The Intel issue is resolved in the new base and that was one of my biggest concerns. :D

Edit: Panel transparency is working, one of yesterday's updates must have fixed it. :D
markcynt

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by markcynt »

I think it may have just been a bad install.

It's running fine right now.

I also think it would be a good base for the next KDE version of Mint.
kaddy

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by kaddy »

I myself was curious and tried Kubuntu 9.10 today..... it is pretty good actually.... although... I don't really have much faith in the Kubuntu devs... I don't mean to diss... but the Kubuntu devs don't really go out of their way to make a good release.... they include alpha software in their releases which are not stable... and they don't seem to test things before releasing... "thats what I assume anyways... as i have seen many broken packages in the past.... whether its kde's fault or kubuntu's.... it don't matter... if it don't work.. don't include it"

but anyways.... Im a kde fan... and mostly use Opensuse, Mandriva, and Arch..... but Kubuntu 9.10 seems to be a decent release..... I don't believe it is because the kubuntu devs have done much on their part to make it good.... "apart from the slight speed increase"
all they seem to do is pick packages they want to include, and just chuck the latest kde on top of ubuntu and call it "kubuntu!" they don't even bloody rename 'ubuntu' in grub startup to 'kubuntu'............ don't even include any new artwork that brands Kubuntu different from the rest! ............ but anyways....

Kubuntu 9.10 seems to work pretty good so far for me... no thanks to the kubuntu devs... but thanx to ubuntu and kde........ But i've always felt Mint go the extra mile and make it their own.. so..... Looking foreward to Boo's work with Mint 8 kde.... im sure he will do a better job than the Kubuntu team do as usual......

Can't wait for Mint 8! Show em how its done Boo! :)
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by Boo »

So far so.... BAD!

I have to warn people I found the massive problem with multiple disks and fake-RAID capable mother boards.
You can not use the ubiquity partitioner (on any 9.10 variant), auto is wrong and manual is even worse.
I have tried Kubuntu, Mythbuntu and Ubuntu, all the same.
I had to re-spin kubuntu minus the dmraid package to get it to install (ubiquity partitioning still not 100%).

I have been playing since the Beta of Kubuntu but as soon as i went to make a clean install of the final Kubuntu.... FAIL.
I hope they fix and re-spin. but i doubt it since they will be too focused on 10.04 LTS.

:(
Boo
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Now where was i going? Oh yes, crazy!
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

I am looking forward to Boo's release myself! There is an event coming up to improve Kubuntu. Kubuntu does not have any unique artwork but that seemed to make customizing it a lot easier. They should have used the Kubuntu Spotlight KDM theme ans splash, just adding these and changing the wallpaper makes Kubuntu look nice without taking away from the good things KDE has by default.

Kubuntu Developers did make some good decisions, the Firefox installer was better than their original plan to use Aurora and K3b pulls in quite a few codecs. OpenSuse managed to fit a complete system on a CD though and Kubuntu Developers might want to examine how this was accomplished. Kubuntu could learn a lot from Boo about usability. The service menus that Boo builds into the KDE CE make administrative tasks very easy, preforming these same tasks in Kubuntu is not very user friendly.

I have to give the Kubuntu Developers some credit this time though, they do not have very many people working on their releases. Ubuntu has all the Developers and nearly all the focus is put on it. Kubuntu hit number 7 on DistroWatch's 7 day list yesterday and they haven't been that high on the list for a long time. The last release Kubuntu had that was very good was Feisty and that was some time ago. Kubuntu fans usually rely on a few talented forum members that help people fix all of the problems that remain in Kubuntu releases. Weather it was luck or development skill that made 9.10 a decent release, I have to give this small group the credit they deserve because they did a lot with very few resources.

I would think that nearly every new KDE release should be pretty decent now because KDE 4 is maturing and qt based applications are maturing right along with it. Amarok and K3b sure are getting better! I really like KDE 4 now and I have never been much of a KDE fan in the past. A year ago I would not have given KDE 4 a second look! KDE 4 has an extremely appealing look and logical layout once you get used to how thing work and they spent months perfecting little details like the oxygen icons. KDE 4 has a huge potential to attract new users to Linux and the Developers didn't forget about the people that prefer the KDE 3.5 look and feel, they built in the ability to satisfy these users too!

The LinuxMint KDE CE will have all of the benefits of KDE 4.3.2, the speed of the newer kernel and it will be user friendly to administer. I can hardly wait! :D
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

So far so.... BAD!

I have to warn people I found the massive problem with multiple disks and fake-RAID capable mother boards.
You can not use the ubiquity partitioner (on any 9.10 variant), auto is wrong and manual is even worse.
I have tried Kubuntu, Mythbuntu and Ubuntu, all the same.
I had to re-spin kubuntu minus the dmraid package to get it to install (ubiquity partitioning still not 100%).

I have been playing since the Beta of Kubuntu but as soon as i went to make a clean install of the final Kubuntu.... FAIL.
I hope they fix and re-spin. but i doubt it since they will be too focused on 10.04 LTS.

:(
Boo
There might be some hope for this issue in a ppa repo. I have seen that this is being addressed in 10.04 and thought I saw a call for testing but I will have to dig through the development forum to be sure. I have been waiting for the "Known Bugs and Work Arounds" thread to appear in the General Help section of the Ubuntu forums, maybe an answer will be found there. There has to be a way around this issue.
kaddy

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by kaddy »

I wonder if this is a "LINUX" specific flaw..... or just a "buntu" thing? does it work in other distro's such as Suse?
wouldn't know myself... i only have 2 drives and never experimented with Raid ;)
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

I wonder if this is a "LINUX" specific flaw..... or just a "buntu" thing? does it work in other distro's such as Suse?
wouldn't know myself... i only have 2 drives and never experimented with Raid ;)
I was thinking the same thing. I have not seen this bug in the OpenSuse bug list but I think they are still using legacy grub with xsplash and their installer was completely rebuilt not all that long ago. I only have one hard drive in my machine, it is just a cheap work station with no bells and whistles so I was not even aware of this problem until Boo posted about it. Ubuntu 10.04 is supposed to address these problems but what are people supposed to do in the mean time? The only thing I can think to do is, watch the Ubuntu General Help section for the work arounds thread and keep an eye on the bug report and the ppa repos.

My thoughts are that the answer will come in the known bugs and work arounds thread when it is posted on the Ubuntu forum. The community always seems to come through on difficult issues like this.
exploder
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Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by exploder »

Kubuntu has moved up to number 5 on DistroWatch today, 11/2. I have never seen Kubuntu get that far on the list!
markcynt

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by markcynt »

kaddy wrote:I wonder if this is a "LINUX" specific flaw..... or just a "buntu" thing? does it work in other distro's such as Suse?
wouldn't know myself... i only have 2 drives and never experimented with Raid ;)
The first time I installed openSUSE 11.1 I had an Nvidia software RAID 0 setup and the installer recognized it and installed flawlessly.
Losgann

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by Losgann »

I've been trying out Kubuntu 9.10 the last couple of days. The only real inconvenience for me, which I mentioned in another thread, is increased boot time due to how long it takes to get to the GRUB menu. I posted about this in the Ubuntu forums and was told that this is a known issue with GRUB 2 when, as in my case, the MBR is on one drive and the boot partition is on another. Apart from this, I like Kubuntu 9.10 pretty well, for a KDE distro. I certainly don't see any reason for the "Kubuntu sucks" stuff you see from some KDE fanboys. KDE 4.3 seems quite stable (so far I've had no problems with stuff like plasmoid crashes that I ran into in earlier versions of KDE 4) and looks really slick, KPackageKit is a great improvement over Adept (I used to replace Adept with Synaptic), wireless worked out of the box, easy install of multimedia codecs and the like, easy install of NVIDIA card drivers.

I didn't know about the RAID issue, though, as my box has only two HDDs and I've never run a RAID setup. That does sound serious, I hope the Mint team can sort something out.
kaddy

Re: Checking out Kubuntu 9.10

Post by kaddy »

I've used kubuntu for the last few days for testing..... its ok. But i noticed a few bugs instantly......
for example.... when you try and add an icon to the plasma folder view... it doesn't show up... no matter how many times you try.... until you remove
the folderview, and create it again... then adding icons works.....
Also... extracting a zip file in a directory... after it finishes... you can't see it.... and the folder doesn't show up until a logout and re login is done....
I also got a couple crashes when using kpakagekit.....

apart from that, I like how kpackage alerts the user of what codecs you may need, and allows you to install it in 1 click.... thats great for new users...
not that they will need it in mint :p

im pretty disappointed with Kubuntu overall though.... they don't put any love into their releases... its a big put off for me....
compare kubuntu 9.10 to Opensuse 11.2 or Mandriva 2010 where you can See how much effort goes into it.... then you look at kubuntu.... and its almost as if they don't do
anything except chuck the latest kde on ubuntu, pick a few packages....(alot of the time... alpha software.... big mistake) and call it Kubuntu... and the new features are only Kde specific new features... and none of their own.... bah.

I'm typing this from Opensuse 11.2 rc2 right now :) its awesome :D
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