Why Upgrade? Getting tired...

[Robtygart]

I haven't seen a huge difference, but I enjoy having a fresh install, so I am happy I did.

[jberkpc]

Staying with 13.04

I am a dyed in the wool LTS user now, I just got tired of glitches, etc. Love this OS but I'll leave the testing to somebody else, thank you very much. The next LTS is due next April if I'm not mistaken, anybody correct me if I'm wrong.

Like you, I loved 12.02 LTS, and I had installed 13.04 in my testing space.
I decided to replace 12.04 LTS with the new, 13.10.
What a mistake, I couldn't get pulse to work and the Installer kpet dying, when I tried to mount my usual partitions.
So I replaced 12.04 LTS with 13.04, where pulse works and the installer works.
I imagine the installer for 13.04 is the same as 13.10, but all I can tell you is during two installs of 13.04, the installer never went down, in 2 different sets of partitions. One for / and one for /home.
I did not update, never do, just copy my data over to a third drive and start clean, cause upgrading has never worked for me.
So, I'm sticking with 13.04 and will be looking forward to the next LTS.
12.04 LTS was a rock.

[GreyGeek]

That's why I am staying with LTS 12.04 till 2017 or this computer breaks, which ever comes first.

The other option is to run Debian stable with KDE, which is still at 4.5.

[oshunluvr]

Based on the news on another thread, It seems that 14.04 will be Kwin on X, so I'll probably move to that release. Then, since 14.04 is LTS, I can sit until the Wayland/Mir/X mess is hammered out!

[Frank616]

Oshunluvr:

It seems that 14.04 will be Kwin on X, so I'll probably move to that release. Then, since 14.04 is LTS, I can sit until the Wayland/Mir/X mess is hammered out!

That sounds good to me as well. Hope KWin is more stable than with 12.04 as well. I get random crashes at the moment on my laptop.

Frank.

[oshunluvr]

FYI Frank, I was getting that on 12.04 too. I haven't had that since upgrading to 13.04. I don't know if it's xorg, nvidia, or KDE related though.

[SteveRiley]

Bug 993187 -- haunted me nonstop on my T520. Mysteriously disappeared after upgrade to Quantal.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...el/+bug/993187

[Frank616]

Steve:

I have 12.10 on my netbook, and it seems to work well (other than weird cursors in LO in tables), so I may upgrade that far just to try to get a stable version of KWin. However, I try to avoid the interim releases to the extent that I possibly can. Often I just end up trading bugs I know for ones I don't know.

It is only a few months now until 14.04. I may also try to tough it out that long before making a jump.

Frank.

[geoaraujo]

I was very anxious for 12.04 because it was a LTS, but that nasty bug Steve mencioned ruined everything and I just wanted to upgrade as soon as possible.
Actually, Kubuntu 12.10 was by far the best version I've ever used.

[oshunluvr]

I suspect my problem with 14.04 and a major reason why I started this thread in the first place is Ubiquity sucks and will likely continue to do so into the foreseeable future. Fully half of the Kubuntu installs I've done on my desktop computer fail because of Ubiquity. 11.10 never installed at all and the only reason I'm up to 13.04 was because I did a fresh 12.10 install (Ubiquity works on that version) and then upgraded it to 13.04. I'm not even going to try 13.10.

[SteveRiley]

Ubiquity sucks and will likely continue to do so into the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, the Debian installer sill kicks (rather than sucks) ass. Grab the Ubuntu server ISO and start the install. I like to enable "expert mode" because it allows selecting a mirror; for those in the U.S., mirror.anl.gov is likely to be the fastest. Near the end, you'll be presented a list of server packages -- don't install any of these. Allow the installer to finish; once that's done, then:

sudo tasksel remove server

sudo apt-get purge $(dpkg -l | awk '/^rc/ {print $2}')

sudo tasksel install kubuntu-desktop

The above three lines:
1. Removes server-related packages not part of a desktop install
2. Purges left-over configuration files from #1
3. Installs the Kubuntu desktop

[oshunluvr]

I'll try that. Likely, I'm so high-maintenance with my installs these days I'm sure I'll find something to have an issue with.

Honestly, the one really great thing about Ubiquity (when it works) is the support of BTRFS subvolumes. Unfortunately, the developer wasn't interested in my suggestion to further enhance the methodology. Next year, I'm planning on being unemployed for a long stretch so maybe I'll dig into the code myself. The lack of subvolume support has kept me from installing a couple other distros on bare metal - in an arms-folded-holding-my-breath sort of way.

According to the documentation, the Debian installer only supports full volume btrfs installs, not subvolumes. I bet I can "fix" that given a year or so to play with it.

[dequire]

Fortunately, the Debian installer sill kicks (rather than sucks) ass. Grab the Ubuntu server ISO and start the install. I like to enable "expert mode" because it allows selecting a mirror; for those in the U.S., mirror.anl.gov is likely to be the fastest. Near the end, you'll be presented a list of server packages -- don't install any of these. Allow the installer to finish; once that's done, then:

sudo tasksel remove server

sudo apt-get purge $(dpkg -l | awk '/^rc/ {print $2}')

sudo tasksel install kubuntu-desktop

The above three lines:
1. Removes server-related packages not part of a desktop install
2. Purges left-over configuration files from #1
3. Installs the Kubuntu desktop

Steve - as a matter of diligence to anyone reading this thread post and curious to try it out, I'm assuming that going this route, after step #3 one would have to manually add the relevant PPA's to their install to keep a fully-functioning and updated system going out into the future?

This seems like a good alternative to those (like me) who used to use the 'minimal' .iso and add the Kubuntu desktop from there...

[SteveRiley]

This seems like a good alternative to those (like me) who used to use the 'minimal' .iso and add the Kubuntu desktop from there...

A straight-up Kubuntu install from the regular ISO relies on no PPAs. Standard Kubuntu packages come from each release's universe repository. You would add PPAs to the installation steps above only for the same reason you add PPAs after a normal Kubuntu install -- because you want additional packages not in normal repos.