Underwhelmed with Muon

[geezer]

Just installed 13.04. Tried to do the automatic upgrade to 12.10 from 12.04 and so far I am batting 100% on upgrading Linux - all have been total failures. Fortunately I learned way back to download the Live-CD and write to CD/DVD before trying the upgrade and so just installed form DVD after the upgrade totally froze the system.

I have been using Muon to find and install s/w.

I am again totally underwhelmed with Muon. I first tried searching for the packages I wanted by name, e.g., gkrellm. No luck in finding anything. Then I tried gnucash. I figured that such a popular package HAD to be in the new 13.04.

Muon again failed to find anything for gnucash.

Tried a few more, kdbg, jedit, etc.

Muon could find NOTHING.

Finally in desperation, I tried selecting a specific catagory and searching. Finally found gkrellm that way in some catagory, I forget which one.

I have found since that the only way I can get a successful search for a package under Muon, is to first select a catagory and then search.

This a very hit and miss proposition since I have to enter the search term(s) and then go down the catagory list selecting each in turn until Muon finds the package. I can then mark for install.

Sometimes (a very few) I can make an intelligent (to me) guess as to the proper catagory and get lucky - usually not. What really mystifies me though is that some very CLOSELY related s/w - what I would guess to be a single package is scattered to more than a single catagory.

For example, in trying to find HPLIP and install it, I was able to find all parts EXCEPT the HPLIP GUI. That part was in a totally independent catagory. Total nonsense. The GUI is useless without the working HPLIP pahages. Now the working s/w can be used without the GUI, but why put the GUI in a totally independent catagory This is probably not Muon problem, but why force searches to search only one catagory at a time.

I'm probably going to have to find synaptic and install that.

[claydoh]

Are you using the muon Software Center, or the Muon Package manager?

Think of Muon Software Center like Ubuntu's Software Center, which only shows a certain subset of packages available in the Ubuntu repos.

Think of Muon Package Manager like Synaptic.

***EDIT... having said this, I have no problem finding any of the same packages you are unable to find in SS, using the search bar. I am guessing that your package lists for some reason did not update. I'd suggest trying the Package Manager and fetch updates, and check out that program, it might be more to your liking.



As to categories that software resides in, that is pretty much how Debian/the packager/the particular program's team labels things.

In Software Center I typed in "HP" and also "HPLIP", each time the HPLIP Toolbox was the first (or only) entry.......

[geezer]

I think my problem was I was trying to use the wrong muon s/w for the right job. And yes, the catagory location is note a muon problem. Thanks.

[wrender]

When I first booted up from the freash install of Kubuntu 13.04 and used the Muon Software center I had the same problem of not being able to find anything.

However after I used the Muon Package manager once. It resolved the problem for the Software center allowing for later searches to deliver proper queries/results.

I thought I was crazy/only one that had that happen. Perhaps it just needs the Package manager to initialize some repos/files.

[dmeyer]

Just installed 13.04. Tried to do the automatic upgrade to 12.10 from 12.04 and so far I am batting 100% on upgrading Linux - all have been total failures. Fortunately I learned way back to download the Live-CD and write to CD/DVD before trying the upgrade and so just installed form DVD after the upgrade totally froze the system.

I have been using Muon to find and install s/w.

I am again totally underwhelmed with Muon. I first tried searching for the packages I wanted by name, e.g., gkrellm. No luck in finding anything. Then I tried gnucash. I figured that such a popular package HAD to be in the new 13.04.

Muon again failed to find anything for gnucash.

Tried a few more, kdbg, jedit, etc.

Muon could find NOTHING.

Finally in desperation, I tried selecting a specific catagory and searching. Finally found gkrellm that way in some catagory, I forget which one.

I have found since that the only way I can get a successful search for a package under Muon, is to first select a catagory and then search.

This a very hit and miss proposition since I have to enter the search term(s) and then go down the catagory list selecting each in turn until Muon finds the package. I can then mark for install.

Sometimes (a very few) I can make an intelligent (to me) guess as to the proper catagory and get lucky - usually not. What really mystifies me though is that some very CLOSELY related s/w - what I would guess to be a single package is scattered to more than a single catagory.

For example, in trying to find HPLIP and install it, I was able to find all parts EXCEPT the HPLIP GUI. That part was in a totally independent catagory. Total nonsense. The GUI is useless without the working HPLIP pahages. Now the working s/w can be used without the GUI, but why put the GUI in a totally independent catagory This is probably not Muon problem, but why force searches to search only one catagory at a time.

I'm probably going to have to find synaptic and install that.

After any upgrade there are three magic commands to run.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

then

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

Fixes 99% of Kubuntu issues.

[geezer]

After any upgrade there are three magic commands to run.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

then

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

Fixes 99% of Kubuntu issues.

Been doing just that - I guess my upgrades have consistently fallen into the 1% catagory.

As for muon searches not working I THINK the problem may be updating the sources. I JUST installed on my laptop and tried the MUON package manager to find glkrellm - no luck on gkrellm or gnucash or anything else. Closed it down and tried the software center. No luck searching there either. Closed and rebooted package manager and clicked on the 'update' icon.

Muon then started a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooong process of trying to update the list of sources. Been about 20 minutes and it is still not completed - only at the 29% mark. Seems that trying internet in my neighborhood on the weekend is slow since people are home and on the computer as opposed to at work and on the computer. Location makes a difference. Might be good argument to switch from DSL to FiOS and fiber cable.

I'm thinking that when the source update is completed sometime in the future, then search might work, since then Muon has something to search. With only what gets loaded during installation, it has nothing to search and so finds nothing.

Just guessing - we'll see when the source update finishes.

[geezer]

just checked Muon on the system monitor. It seems that muon just hangs on the update process. It isn't the internet - it's muon. CPU usage is 0% and stays there.

Don't know what is going on with Muon, but it seems broken. looked closer and both package manager and software center were runnig. killed both and booted package manager and now it says waiting on another process. seems to be some conflict. rebooted and then ran package manager and the upodate only took abot 20 seconds.

Now search works. So before you can search you first have to update the sources.

Go figure!!! Makes sense I guess, but somebody should mention this somewhere, somehow maybe

[geezer]

Think I may have found out part of the problem. When the Muon installer runs it freezes the package manager - they have a conflict. I had tried running the Firefox installer while package manager was updating the sources. That is what was the rerason for the original problem. After many reboots, I finally just used package manager to uninstall the muon installer and then installed. That seems to have cleared up the problem. Now muon will run without any problem. I think that the muon developers should check for such conflicts and one or the other should refuse to run until the other is shut down.