Kubuntu 15.04: released with major issues - what's the logic?

[tomcloyd]

Just a general question, for those who know the culture far better than I do.

I have 15.04 installed on my laptop. I have also noted a serious system tray problem, and posted about it in this forum: the Dropbox icon won't show; I've heard that the Skype icon only just recently started showing up; I know other programs have this problem (for me, Synergy is a big one).

I also note that 15.04 was released in mid-April, over two months ago. In four more months we'll have 15.10 out. The system tray's still a mess. Whatever the problem is with the system tray, it was hardly made known to any of us prior to upgrade, and in those cases where it's a showstopper, having to regress to a previous installation means (so far as I know) a full reinstall, which in my case then entails about two days of work to get my normal working environment back in place.

All this because 15.04 was released with what looks to me like a major glitch.

Am I the only one who uses Dropbox and Skype? Ha.

My question: what's going on upstairs, that this sort of gotcha is considered perfectly acceptable? I really don't get it. Educate me, PLEASE.

Thanks.

[Qqmike]

Yeah, you're right, tomcloyd, you don't know the game . I've got 14.04 LTS installed as my OS. For fun, on the same HDD, I installed 15.04, too, as an experiment. And, properly, now and then, I boot into 15.04 and, for awhile, ... I experiment! Then back to 14.04 to get my work done ...

[Qqmike]

... I think maybe you are looking for serious answers to your inquiry ....

[tomcloyd]

... I think maybe you are looking for serious answers to your inquiry ....

Well, sure, but humor, or even whimsey, or perhaps veiled sarcasm, is never objected to by ME. And your suggestion actually appeals to me. So, now I'm trying to figure out how to do the following:

I have a desktop with Windows Vista and KB 14.10 dual booted. I'd ditch Windows in a heart beat...and probably should...if I was sure of never ever again needing it. But in any case, I'm looking for how to do this:

1. Add an installation of 15.04 to the hard drive.
2. Encrypt my exiting /home partition and 15.04 (never mind why - I have secrets - perpetual motion is going to BIG in the coming years, trust me!).
3. Then be able to boot into either of the three (er...any of the which? both of the twain..?) at a whim.

I should think this is possible, but I'm not sure where to find the instructions. I'm looking about, but lack of time so far has constrained me from finding instructions I trust.

Any thoughts? Anyone?

[Qqmike]

Question: Advice on encryption, anyone? -->

Conceptually, adding 15.04 is simple:

Use GParted to create new partition(s) for 15.04 (the root partition /, how about a separate /home partition?, and it can share the /swap partition created already for 14.10 so no need to create another /swap partition). You can use GParted live CD/USB, or even boot into 14.10, install gparted, and run gparted from there ASSUMING you will not be changing the 14.10 partition in any way (e.g., shrinking it) or moving it. (To install gparted from 14.10, you can use Muon Package Manager; it will show up, probably, under K > Applications > System > Partition Editor (GParted).)

Then run the 15.04 installer DVD/USB, choose the Manual install method when that screen comes up, then on the partition setup screen, identify and use the newly created partitions for 15.04 (root / and /home). And continue the installation. You have one HDD, sounds like. If you are asked, GRUB can go into /dev/sda (the MBR of your HDD) -- I'm assuming you do not have UEFI, the newer firmware.

But, I know nothing about encryption, except reading the posts, I know you need to pay attention to that! So someone will chime in.

First, to help any helpers, from 14.10, you might run two commands and post the output. This will show us what is on your HDD and where it is. (It will be more readable if you post the output of each between code tags, if you know how. Or use the forum to do that: the "#" sign is the code tag, so highlight the output of the command and then press the # symbol in your post formatting menu. Too much information?)

sudo fdisk -l
sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda
(you might have to install gdisk using Muon Package Manager)

So you need some encryption advice.

[tomcloyd]

No, not too much information! Very helpful, in fact. I may not get started on this for about a day, but definitely want to move forward if possible. Thanks for your detailed help.

So here's the disk info. you suggested I post:

tomc@LDT:/$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 298.1 GiB, 320072933376 bytes, 625142448 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x08000000


Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *           63     96389     96327    47M ce unknown
/dev/sda2           96390 163943324 163846935  78.1G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       176234494 625141759 448907266 214.1G  5 Extended
/dev/sda4       163944448 176232447  12288000   5.9G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda5       176234496 577650587 401416092 191.4G 83 Linux
/dev/sda6  *    577665333 625137344  47472012  22.7G 83 Linux                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                                                    
Partition table entries are not in disk order.                                                                                                                                      
tomc@LDT:/$

tomc@LDT:/$ sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda                                                                                                                                                  GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.8                                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                                                    
Partition table scan:                                                                                                                                                               
  MBR: MBR only                                                                                                                                                                     
  BSD: not present                                                                                                                                                                  
  APM: not present                                                                                                                                                                  
  GPT: not present                                                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                                                                                    
***************************************************************                                                                                                                     
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format                                                                                                                       
in memory.                                                                                                                                                                          
***************************************************************                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                                                    
Exact type match not found for type code CE00; assigning type code for                                                                                                              
'Linux filesystem'
Disk /dev/sda: 625142448 sectors, 298.1 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): DFE19819-17CA-4811-9CD7-9255582CB733
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 625142414
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 23015 sectors (11.2 MiB)


Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1              63           96389   47.0 MiB    8300  Linux filesystem
   2           96390       163943324   78.1 GiB    0700  Microsoft basic data
   4       163944448       176232447   5.9 GiB     8200  Linux swap
   5       176234496       577650587   191.4 GiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   6       577665333       625137344   22.6 GiB    8300  Linux filesystem
tomc@LDT:/$

[Qqmike]

OK that output just confirms you have a standard MBR system (not the newer UEFI firmware + GPT). That's OK. fdisk tells me that. (So does gdisk (no GPT present)--if GPT were present, gdisk would have told us all about it, in detail.)

The question remains about the encryption, you might have to bump this to get someone's attention on that.

As for installing another 15.04 OS, you do have to have the available space.

df -hT

should tell you how much space remains. Or in 14.10, fire up gparted Partition Editor and it should show you the available space on each partition.

You need available space so you can have room for 15.04. You should have a minimum of 6 GB for the root / partition plus some space for your home files or separate /home partition. If you have already used all available space on that disk, then you would have to shrink an existing partition to make room for 15.04. I'm not sure what you have in those Linux filesystems, sda5 and sda6: maybe root of 14.10 in sda6? /home is sda5? You have to think this through to determine if you will shrink and/or move any partition(s) to make room for 15.04. If you are shrinking/moving your home files for 14.10, you sure want to have a backup of those files! GParted is extremely safe and reliable, I have never had a data loss, but--as they will tell you @ GParted--risks do exist.

[tomcloyd]

Great. I'm quite comfortable with GParted, and have the same experience as you. It just works. I already have backups (always), so as soon as I get a little time, I'll get on with this. This will solve my problem, aside from the encryption issue, which I'll pursue separately.

Thanks again for your excellent, detailed help. I'll report back here with results in a couple of days.

[Qqmike]

OK, good luck.

Have you used the Manual method when installing Kubuntu?
If so, stop reading.
If not, I'll just drop a few tips:

You choose the Manual install method from one of the first menus that appears during your 15.04 DVD installation session. So you choose Manual, then Continue.
Then you see a picture or list of your partitions, including the new partitions you created for 15.04.
You click one of the new partitions to highlight it.
At the bottom of this menu somewhere, you will see a chance to change or use that highlighted partition. Click that option (I think, as I recall, that option is "Change.")
Then over at the right somewhere are menus, including as I recall a drop down: you can figure out there how to use that highlighted partition as you wish-- say as / or as /home. Your choice will appear then in the list of partitions. Then you click another of your new partitions and repeat that sequence, indicating how to use it. (You may have a root / partition and a separate /home partition, or just a root / partition and no separate /home -- that's up to you.)
I'm not recalling the exact details, but that gives you the idea how to tell the installer which partitions to use and for what (/, /home).
When you created these new partitions for 15.04 using GParted, at that time you indicated a format for each one, probably ext4 (which is what most people use).
During the installation of 15.04, in that partition screen we are talking about, you may be given the option to re-format those; i.e., to reformat / and /home. There is NO need to do so since you did it fine in GParted. The installer MAY, however, tell you it is going to re-format the swap partition, and ask you, is that OK? Say yes to that--there's no problem doing that, and I don't see that the installer gives you a choice not to do so, anyway.

[NoWorries]

I wish to add my worth as you are getting excellent advice. I must confess that a 6GB root partition is a bit on the small size. I normally specify 10GB. I have 15.04 installed on a USB SanDisk and while it has some limitations, I tend to use it 90% of the time. My partitions on this system are:



As you can see, I am already over 6GB. I tend to keep it in check using "sudo apt-get clean" as, at times, I have less than 1GB free!!!

So make sure your root partition is bigger than 6GB

[Qqmike]

I agree with NoWorries on this. Not sure why I said 6 GB--thinking of absolute minimal guidelines, I suppose. But most users will use a lot more, and with drives so big and inexpensive, why not use 10-15 GB (or more) just for the heck of it? My usage is not typical:

~$ df -hT
Filesystem     Type      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2      ext4       29G  [B]5.0G[/B]   23G  19% /

I partitioned / for 30 GB, but as you can see, I'm using only 5 GB because I don't install much, and the apps I do install don't take many bytes (like rEFInd). (I have a separate /home.)

Good catch there, NoWorries. Please jump in on stuff like this. He's also asking about encryption.

[NoWorries]

Thanks for that acknowledgement. I have never use encryption, as I was suspicious that it would give me problems with installation and also copying home partitions onto another installation.

For example, I was having trouble with getting Kontact to work on Vivid so I copied all of the Utopic home directory hidden files ~/.config, ~/.kde and ~/.local onto the Vivid system. I then had to reconfigure my desktop to what I liked and Kontact worked perfectly for me.

[InsideJob]

My question: what's going on upstairs, that this sort of gotcha is considered perfectly acceptable? I really don't get it. Educate me, PLEASE.

They simply don't care what users think or want. They don't need your money. Committees and foundations trickle down the phony fiat currency so all they really need to do is obey the corporate codes of conduct. You should see how the Raspberry Pi Foundation guys respond to people begging for the official touchscreen. They've basically told customers to shut up and quit complaining, you'll get it when you get it. That's the type of attitude that prevails in Linux-land today. Don't even waste your time reading "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", it no longer applies. You'll get Kernel 4.1 when Linus finishes tanning his @ss on vacation, and not one minute sooner.

[SteveRiley]

All this because 15.04 was released with what looks to me like a major glitch. . . .
My question: what's going on upstairs, that this sort of gotcha is considered perfectly acceptable? I really don't get it. Educate me, PLEASE.

Big software companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, etc. have sizable budgets specifically for testing their products in hundreds, even thousands of configurations. Open source projects do not. The fine folks at KDE and the fine Kubuntu developers and packagers test what they can -- but the true tests come when tens of thousands of users start to use the bits across myriad hardware and software configurations. By using interim *buntu releases, you are tacitly agreeing to participate in this process. It's the only way to get a lot of hard-to-find bugs removed for the next long-term support (LTS) release, due in April 2016.

[SteveRiley]

They simply don't care what users think or want. They don't need your money. Committees and foundations trickle down the phony fiat currency so all they really need to do is obey the corporate codes of conduct... You'll get Kernel 4.1 when Linus finishes tanning his @ss on vacation, and not one minute sooner.

For someone who seems perfectly willing to avail him/herself of the work of others, you sure do complain a lot. Open source software projects don't owe you or anyone else a schedule.