Disappointed.

[thebrookster]

Have to say, I am really very disappointed with this new version of Kubuntu, which is a pity because I have been using Kubuntu happily for several years now.

I upgraded from version 10 to this version the other week when the updater suggested, and have had nothing but problems with my laptop since.

Simply, there are problems with the screen/display. Every time I view a video and try to change to fullscreen, it is fine. However when I either cancel fullscreen, or change the volume (so the little display comes up on screen) or if the brightness changes because I have unplugged the power, it crashes Kwin. This then causes the laptop to completely spaz out, so that I can no longer use the laptop unless I reboot it. Which gets very boring, let me tell you.

To make matters worse, this problem also occurs when simply switching between tabs in my browser, or between windows.

I do hope that there is a simple fix, that does not involve having to re-install the computer.

[thebrookster]

Re: Disappointed.

I read your comments re upgrade vs. re-install, I had merely thought Ubuntu had gotten through these issues! The last two upgrades done on this machine have worked fine, just this latest one that hasn't.

The daft thing is I could probably fix it happily enough, I used to be really into my programming and code (I have been using one flavour of linux or another for many years now), however I realised that computers had eaten my entire life away. I made the decision a couple of years back to stop the whole gaming/building/beta testing thing, and now I only use a computer for college and videos whilst at sea really. I went with Kubuntu because I a) liked the GUI, and b) it was supposed to be near enough maintenance free.

I still like a), however b) has suddenly become and issue, and I really do not want to spend time trying to fix a computer. I an nearly at the end of a college phase, which means exams galore, and will in 4 weeks time be heading back out to sea for several months, which means I need to fix it before then!

Achh well, it could be worse, I could be running windows instead!! Looks like a re-install is going to be on the cards..................

[MoonRise]

Re: Disappointed.

It could be settings that aren't correct from one version to the next due to the differences in KDE versions. The best to determine that is to rename the ~/.kde directory in your profile to something like KDEOLD. Then reboot just afterwards. This will recreate the ~/.kde directory with all the default settings. Yes, you'll have to reset your personal settings but if this works then that is way better than reinstalling. I had to do that on my desktop after upgrading and I have had no issues since.

[claydoh]

Re: Disappointed.

Depending on the video card (not mentioned), there seem to be some issues with certian nvidia, and maybe Intel graphics with the new xorg/drivers and/or kwin

my guess is a fresh install would have the same results, so I do greatly suggest trying a live session on a flash drive if possible first.

[Spadge]

Re: Disappointed.

I think most people who upgraded from 10.10 to 11.04 have been left wondering why they bothered, to be brutally frank. Or at the very least with a fair amount of work to do getting things working how they did before the upgrade.

Not that I'm saying that's necessarily a bad thing. I've enjoyed the challenges - still am doing, got a few more things I want to iron out and get working properly. But that's what I use linux for; it's fun.

[GUIGuy]

Re: Disappointed.

I think most people who upgraded from 10.10 to 11.04 have been left wondering why they bothered, to be brutally frank. Or at the very least with a fair amount of work to do getting things working how they did before the upgrade.

+1

Alas, it is what I have come to expect from (K)Ubuntu so maybe I shouldn't be disappointed.

[josefko]

Re: Disappointed.

Hopefully you do have a separate /home partition, when so a fresh install is not much work, all old settings will be taken over.

You can achieve the same result with home partition on the same disk with system files using next steps:
- Immediately after start of fresh install choose that you want to divide disk manually
- Define mount point / on the old Linux disk partition
- Then you will be asked, if you want reformat Linux disk partition
- If you answer no, all files in home directory will stay intact and all old system files will be removed and replaced with a fresh install

[charles052]

Re: Disappointed.

I recently to 10.10 on my computer and it knocked just about everything out of whack. Dolphin couldn't open my other partitions, grub got wasted and couldn't boot... But my computer has always been particular with Linux. Kubuntu being the only one that ever ran smoothly on it even after I spent a lot of time working with it.

I figure the only way I can get an upgrade without losing my data is to simply to a clean install on a separate partition and then move everything over after I got it running smoothly the way I like it. I also need to do a ghost image of this one for backing up and restoring in case of a disaster.

Anyways, I went back to 10.4. I've already tried 11.4 and ran into some issues with it; mainly flash being so choppy. Flash is a must since my wife likes to play games online. The other was that, for some reason, my monitor wouldn't show the boot menu and said something about it not being able to show that high of a resolution. Is the boot menu in hi-def?

Now, I didn't spend that much time with it, so I could've been a little hasty with my decision to wipe it from my computer. But I know that 10.4 works and as the old adage goes, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Someday, I'll upgrade, but I'm very happy with Kubuntu for now. So until the time comes to upgrade, I'll just hold on to this one.

[charles052]

Re: Disappointed.

Hopefully you do have a separate /home partition, when so a fresh install is not much work, all old settings will be taken over.

You can achieve the same result with home partition on the same disk with system files using next steps:
- Immediately after start of fresh install choose that you want to divide disk manually
- Define mount point / on the old Linux disk partition
- Then you will be asked, if you want reformat Linux disk partition
- If you answer no, all files in home directory will stay intact and all old system files will be removed and replaced with a fresh install

Nice, I'll bookmark this post for future reference! Thanks!

Still going to do a backup image just in case.

[runequester]

Re: Disappointed.

10.10 worked perfectly for me. 11.4 is still a bit buggy though its mostly smaller stuff.

I figure it'll shake itself out over the next few months