As you can probably tell from my signature (I thought it would be a good idea to have my info in a signature rather than having to copy and paste it every time I posted!) I'm running Kubuntu 13.04 as a VM on a Mac.
A few days ago, I decided to try out the new version, 13.10. Rather than upgrading my existing Raring VM, I downloaded the Saucy ISO and made a new VM, for comparison/in case anything went terribly wrong. I'm new to Linux, so I'm probably not much use as a tester, but I wanted to see if I liked the new OS so I know what to install when I finally get a new laptop. And if I CAN pick up any bugs along the way, great!
I'm actually very impressed with how WELL Saucy runs, considering it's only in Alpha 2. So far (fingers crossed) I haven't come across anything disastrous. The point of this post is to discuss the problems I HAVE encountered and try to find out if they actually ARE bugs, or whether it's me doing something wrong/missing a plugin/being daft. Here goes.
unreproducible bugs:
* In folder view, when I first changed the size of icons on the desktop, after a restart the icons reverted to their default size. I changed it again and the problem has never ocurred again since.
* Shortly after I installed Saucy, software update popped up saying updates were available. I installed them and after restarting the font size was GIGANTIC. Another restart fixed it.
other bugs:
1. install screen still says 'thankyou for choosing Kubuntu 13.04' - shouldn't that be 13.10?! hmm...
2. I get a 'KDE power management system' error on startup; it might have something to do with the VM though (see screenshot)
3. when reducing the height of a panel, task bar item text doesn't shrink so text gets cut off.
4. In Raring I had to install python-vte in order for adeskbar preferences to work at all. But in Saucy, even with python-vte installed, when I click on 'add from menu' in the launchers tab all that happens is a sort of 'empty menu' pops up, something that looks like it should be a menu but has nothing in it and is only about half a cm tall. I can't get a screenshot because everytime I click on anything the empty menu dissapears.
5. The software centre. I shouldn't be too harsh since it's still in the very early stages, but I seriously HATE Muon Discover. I didn't like the old software centre much, but it was at least functional if I ever had to install something from there rather than the command line (which I prefer). I can barely use Discover because it's so slow. my Saucy VM has 2 gb of ram, which should be sufficient for running just about anything, but maybe it isn't for Muon Discover. If the new software centre is really that resource heavy, my honest opinion is, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Also, I miss the little 'installing' statusbar that used to show in place of the 'install' button when an app was downloading. The new positioning of the statusbar is both ugly and unintuitive.
To be fair, there are a few GOOD things about Muon Discover. To start with it's quite elegant with the big icons and the grid view, and I like a) being able to launch apps from their pages in the software centre and b) individual 'update' buttons next to the apps.
Anyway, enough ranting. Here are the actual bugs I've encountered:
* extra space at top and bottom when scrolling, see screenshot
* when switching from installed software to discover tab, muon stays displaying only installed software
* numerous crash bugs which aren't reproducible. i.e. the first time I opened Muon Discover, it crashed when I clicked on the 'installed' tab. Other incidents I can't remember (sorry, I know that's not very helpful...)
6. when I try to select an existing theme (i.e. oxygen) to use for a particular element in the desktop theme, it brings up a file picker dialog which forces you to go through every element and pick the file for it (surely if you select a pre-installed theme like Oxygen, it shouldn't be asking you to pick a file?!).
Anyway, when it did this I tried setting the file to a customized desktop theme I'd exported in Raring (I'm not actually sure what kind of file it wants), and when I'd finally set all the elements I got a window telling me the file already existed (see screenshot)
No matter what I clicked on - close, overwrite, cancel, rename - it just kept bringing up the same window again and again.
The same thing happens if you select 'File' for an element instead of an existing theme: it gets stuck in an endless loop, and the only way to get out of it is to kill the process.
This is probably the most serious bug I've encountered in Saucy so far.
Apart from the bugs, Saucy isn't that different from Raring. One major difference is the fact that a heap of apps that don't work properly or at all in Raring run great in Saucy. This alone is enough to make me prefer Saucy over Raring. Rekonq crashes opening Twitter in Raring, but not in Saucy. Some excellent apps, such as Kazam, don't work properly in Raring; this has been fixed in Saucy, although I am yet to get autosaving to work in Kazam.
A few days ago, I decided to try out the new version, 13.10. Rather than upgrading my existing Raring VM, I downloaded the Saucy ISO and made a new VM, for comparison/in case anything went terribly wrong. I'm new to Linux, so I'm probably not much use as a tester, but I wanted to see if I liked the new OS so I know what to install when I finally get a new laptop. And if I CAN pick up any bugs along the way, great!
I'm actually very impressed with how WELL Saucy runs, considering it's only in Alpha 2. So far (fingers crossed) I haven't come across anything disastrous. The point of this post is to discuss the problems I HAVE encountered and try to find out if they actually ARE bugs, or whether it's me doing something wrong/missing a plugin/being daft. Here goes.
unreproducible bugs:
* In folder view, when I first changed the size of icons on the desktop, after a restart the icons reverted to their default size. I changed it again and the problem has never ocurred again since.
* Shortly after I installed Saucy, software update popped up saying updates were available. I installed them and after restarting the font size was GIGANTIC. Another restart fixed it.
other bugs:
1. install screen still says 'thankyou for choosing Kubuntu 13.04' - shouldn't that be 13.10?! hmm...
2. I get a 'KDE power management system' error on startup; it might have something to do with the VM though (see screenshot)
3. when reducing the height of a panel, task bar item text doesn't shrink so text gets cut off.
4. In Raring I had to install python-vte in order for adeskbar preferences to work at all. But in Saucy, even with python-vte installed, when I click on 'add from menu' in the launchers tab all that happens is a sort of 'empty menu' pops up, something that looks like it should be a menu but has nothing in it and is only about half a cm tall. I can't get a screenshot because everytime I click on anything the empty menu dissapears.
5. The software centre. I shouldn't be too harsh since it's still in the very early stages, but I seriously HATE Muon Discover. I didn't like the old software centre much, but it was at least functional if I ever had to install something from there rather than the command line (which I prefer). I can barely use Discover because it's so slow. my Saucy VM has 2 gb of ram, which should be sufficient for running just about anything, but maybe it isn't for Muon Discover. If the new software centre is really that resource heavy, my honest opinion is, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Also, I miss the little 'installing' statusbar that used to show in place of the 'install' button when an app was downloading. The new positioning of the statusbar is both ugly and unintuitive.
To be fair, there are a few GOOD things about Muon Discover. To start with it's quite elegant with the big icons and the grid view, and I like a) being able to launch apps from their pages in the software centre and b) individual 'update' buttons next to the apps.
Anyway, enough ranting. Here are the actual bugs I've encountered:
* extra space at top and bottom when scrolling, see screenshot
* when switching from installed software to discover tab, muon stays displaying only installed software
* numerous crash bugs which aren't reproducible. i.e. the first time I opened Muon Discover, it crashed when I clicked on the 'installed' tab. Other incidents I can't remember (sorry, I know that's not very helpful...)
6. when I try to select an existing theme (i.e. oxygen) to use for a particular element in the desktop theme, it brings up a file picker dialog which forces you to go through every element and pick the file for it (surely if you select a pre-installed theme like Oxygen, it shouldn't be asking you to pick a file?!).
Anyway, when it did this I tried setting the file to a customized desktop theme I'd exported in Raring (I'm not actually sure what kind of file it wants), and when I'd finally set all the elements I got a window telling me the file already existed (see screenshot)
No matter what I clicked on - close, overwrite, cancel, rename - it just kept bringing up the same window again and again.
The same thing happens if you select 'File' for an element instead of an existing theme: it gets stuck in an endless loop, and the only way to get out of it is to kill the process.
This is probably the most serious bug I've encountered in Saucy so far.
Apart from the bugs, Saucy isn't that different from Raring. One major difference is the fact that a heap of apps that don't work properly or at all in Raring run great in Saucy. This alone is enough to make me prefer Saucy over Raring. Rekonq crashes opening Twitter in Raring, but not in Saucy. Some excellent apps, such as Kazam, don't work properly in Raring; this has been fixed in Saucy, although I am yet to get autosaving to work in Kazam.
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