Overall experience of Meerkat?

[kapil]

Hi,
Last complete year i have used kubuntu.
This year..with launch of Meerkat..and with new laptop with ample 500gb i decided to dual boot.
I found ubuntu more snappy than kubuntu but kubuntu more elegant and eyecandish..
I am still trying to get that solid black ubuntu window decoration in kubuntu..but that is other story.

Subject line says all.. how does the Meerkat treat you overall ?
Personally i am very much pleased by the Meerkat.
the air theme by default is really nice. The glassy task bar gives awesome look.
The network manager has improved alot.The new interface is great. I had decided that i will remove the nm and install wicd the first time nm disconnects while downloading the file. but surprisingly it has not failed yet.. very happy with that. (moreover the nm symbol feels more at home than wicd one)
The new bluetooth app was works great. no need to use that obex command in konsole now. i could send and receive the files via bluetooth without hitch.

just one regret though... there is not good window theme to go with oxygen desktop theme.
i downloaded the ubuntu look-a-like ambiance window decoration.. but still does not go with oxygen..
but that is just personal view..
air theme is really nice with oxygen decoration.

overall 4.5/5 for Meerkat

[craig10x]

Re: Overall experience of Meerkat?

I love it

I was originally a gnome person (for my first 2 years on Linux) and though i found KDE rather attractive, i thought i wouldn't like it...seemed a bit more confusing to use then Gnome (which is pretty simple)....In the past, i looked at Kubuntu live cds but it didn't seem polished to me, though i liked it's "look" better then most KDE distros and i always preferred the way ubuntu renders web pages and fonts...

It was finally when i tried MInt 9 KDE that i fell in love with KDE
And recently, when i looked at Kubuntu 10.10 on live cd i was VERY IMPRESSED...it seemed very smooth and polished and the KPackageKit, which use to be pretty bad made a 180 degree turn around...it is now excellent! I haven't even felt a need to add synaptic package manager!

I always liked ubuntu but haven't cared for the more recent editions..but Kubuntu (as of 10.10) is near PERFECT to me 8)

[x-shaney-x]

Re: Overall experience of Meerkat?

Well I started using about mid way through the previous release and although I liked the OS, it did have some technical problems, particularly related to intel and desktop FX.

With meerkat, many of the problems were solved though it still lagged behind gnome in terms of performance and still a few minor desktop FX issues.

More recently, I can't put my finger on when exactly, there was a big KDE updated and since then I have seen a quite dramatic performance increase and all the FX related problems are now gone as well.

I still have the odd buggy moment but overall, kubuntu maverick is the best OS I have used since openSUSE 10.

[Eric KDE]

Re: Overall experience of Meerkat?

10.10 was a pain at first for me. The graphics were being suspended after every login and they were choppy & slow. After reading a lot and re-installing a few times, I found a quick fix. After the fix Kubuntu has been nothing short of Amazing! The 3 days of headache's were worth it, because my desktop is beautiful!

[woodsmoke]

Re: Overall experience of Meerkat?

MM has worked flawlessly for me, and as I have so much bored folks with another thread, I'm using it because of it's integration with Koffice and the plasma desktop folders it is a great productivity OS and it is also...as you said.....somewhat ....attractive!

woodsmoke

[x-shaney-x]

Re: Overall experience of Meerkat?

@ woodsmoke

If I may cut in there, you mention integration with Koffice.

I have been thinking of using Koffice as an OO replacement. Or more specifically, Kword as a Writer replacement.
I haven't used Kword for a long time but when I did, I remember it didn't handle .doc files well. It *could* handle them to an extent but was flaky to say the least.
How does Kword handle them now?

[Unhinged]

Re: Overall experience of Meerkat?

I think it's great, but there are always those niggly little things that irritate. At this writing I can only put my finger on two of them.

1. Inkscape as near as I can tell has developed a bug under MM with the positional caret (cursor?). As Inkscape is my Linux substitute for CorelDraw this bug has gotten under my skin.

2. It could be me to a degree, but Akonadi appears to be not entirely stable. It's hard to play with it when I'm concerned about trashing my data (though that has not happened, yet).

3. I prefer the look and feel of Kontact (except for the aforementioned), but Evolution has the Exchange connector. The problem with it is that it does not allow me to view attachments when run under Kubuntu (I have to save them to file system first). Otherwise I would have used Evo as my Email client exclusively.

[Snowhog]

Re: Overall experience of Meerkat?

Speaking just for myself, Maverick Meerkat has been the best version of Kubuntu I've used, and I started out with Edgy Eft. On my Toshiba, MM w/KDE 4.5.5, is ROCK SOLID STABLE - PERIOD.

I am using the following ubuntu repositories:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ maverick partner
deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick main
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-security multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-proposed restricted main multiverse universe

and these non-ubuntu repositories:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/echidnaman/qapt/ubuntu maverick main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu maverick main
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ maverick free non-free
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ maverick free non-free

In Software Sources, Updates > Kubuntu updates, Important, Recommended, Pre-released, and Unsupported updates are all checked; Automatic updates Check for updates is checked and the frequency is set to Daily and Only notify about available updates is checked; Release upgrade is set to Normal Releases.

I do no package management using KPackageKit - I use the CLI and apt-get, or Muon, maintaining a log of when and what is installed, removed/purged, or upgraded.

IMO, Maverick Meerkat and KDE 4.5.5 make for a very polished Linux OS distro.

[quantum]

Re: Overall experience of Meerkat?

I had alot of problems with my hardware on the 10.04 LTS core. Mainly with my NVIDIA cards some worked but would lockup randomly threw out the day and others didn't work at all, and some of my usb wifi dongles had problems. But all of that when't away when I upgraded to 10.10.