15.10 vs 14.04

[Snowhog]

I'm running 15.10 on my i3 64-bit HP laptop without any issues. It was a two-stage full-system upgrade from 14.10 (14.10 to 15.04, and then immediately to 15.10). The upgrades were done from the console, which many here would agree, is the preferred method as upgrading using Muon Package Manager (or other GUI package managers) can lead to incomplete system version upgrades (many posts on such 'failures' here), due largely to background confirmation requests that don't appear when using a GUI package manager. Each user case is likely to be different though, so take any replies to such questions with a grain of salt.

[Fester Bestertester]

Along with others, I'd say No - eminently usable, just a few cosmetics needed. Go for it! Your 'live boot' from CD or USB? The better bandwidth of the Hard Disk will be even better.

[Fester Bestertester]

Thanks for the console tip Snowhog - I'll likely use that in future.

[elijathegold]

Just to agree with the majority here, in day to day use 15.10 has been stable with no crashes so far. I run it on a pretty high end Toshiba laptop and an old but upgraded Samsung.

[wrender]

All right I am all backed up and will give it a go. Thanks for all the input and look forward to KDE 5 finally!


I'll let ya'll know how it goes.

[wrender]

Install went great with out a hitch and left my dual boot intact!


I have to say that that KDE has really come into it's own with Plasma 5. Beautifully designed, crisp and fast. My aging 2008 System76 laptop feels as though it got an upgrade. Animations are snappy and feel appropriate. UI is intuitive and clean.

I have to do some more testing but everything seems to work well including laptop function keys and general software such ask Firefox KDE, VLC, Libre Office, KTorrent, Amarok etc.

Came across a few things that were new to me. Drivers had a micro code driver update for my cpu which I didn't know existed. The other thing is that it seems like my aging Nvidia Geforce 9800m GTS can now run OpenGL 3.1 under the compositor though still stuck with GLX as when I enable EGL the compositor switches off. It maybe related to Kubuntu's defaulting choice of Nvidia driver to 340.x. I am not sure how to get it to try the 350.x series as I heard they are now supporting EGL in that.

The only thing that stands out is that the volume control seems tempermental, working most of the time but occasionally ignoring the dragging of the slider down to lower the volume. The system is overall stable but kde settings windows seem to randomly crash leaving the system running fine in an non-threatening mannor. Hopefully the KDE Plasma 5.4.3 update will adress these minor burps as I have no intention of going back from KDE 5.x sweetness.

[vinnywright]

Install went great with out a hitch and left my dual boot intact!




The only thing that stands out is that the volume control seems tempermental, working most of the time but occasionally ignoring the dragging of the slider down to lower the volume. The system is overall stable but kde settings windows seem to randomly crash leaving the system running fine in an non-threatening mannor. Hopefully the KDE Plasma 5.4.3 update will adress these minor burps as I have no intention of going back from KDE 5.x sweetness.

you are probably using the "new" system tray volume widget (it is default @now) .
You can if you like disable it in the system tray settings and install "kmix" (the traditional KDE volume control) ,,,,,,,,,O OK the "Old" volume controle.

I like kmix better .

VINNY

[wrender]

I'll take a look see, Thanks!

ps. do you think plasma 5.4.3 will fix the new one?

[claydoh]

https://www.kde.org/announcements/pl...-changelog.php

[Fester Bestertester]

Thanks claydoh - and to the team. That was quite a massive changelog, and reboot just now started in desired pre-shutdown state. All widgets in their proper places, all apps in their proper desktops. Congrats all round. Will see what tomorrow brings - will it be robust? Should be...

[Rich Oliver]

I'm sorry but for me Plasma 5 is still unusable for productive work. I was working in Suse in leap, went to add a sym link to a javascript file in dolphin. Only folders, no files showed in the dialogue box. Checked that the files were there. They were. I rebooted into Kubuntu 15.10, same problem. Rebooted into Kubuntu 14.04 and it worked fine as usual. I've had problems with dolphin in plasma 5 before when I've been in superuser or kdesudo mode. In Plasma 5 I can only add shortcuts to the main panel. I use three screens at home and I like to have shortcuts on the panel on each screen. I also can't add applications to the primary menu from the launcher. I can only add them to sub-menus.

Suse 13.2 and Kubuntu 14.04 were both excellent desktops. I particularly liked Suse 13.2's lightening boot up. Will we ever see their like again? I have a sense of foreboding about 16.04. I'm ranting because, I'm a committed Linux user who can put up with a bit of inconvenience to advance the cause and try to do my very small bit to spread Linux, but I don't think newbies should be let anywhere near plasma 5 for the time being.

[Fester Bestertester]

Have you tried 15.04? It's Plasma 5 too. There's more to 15.10 - it has inherited some woes from Debian Jessie (recent up?grade), and that could well be the problem. 15.04 is not so afflicted.

[Cecil]

Been spending the last week trying all sorts of Linux distros, having been fed-up with Windows 10. Went from Ubuntu 14.04/w Cairo-Dock desktop, to Ubuntu 15.10, back to 14.04. Then I tried Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 1 day before the hack, then back to Ubuntu 14.04 briefly before giving Kubuntu 14.04 a try. Now I'm on Kubuntu 15.10 and am enjoying it. This past week has been a ton of fun, trying out all of these different Linux distros and environments and seeing what each has to offer. At first, with Kubuntu 14.04, I wasn't sure about how I felt about KDE, but after seeing all that I can do with it, it definitely grew on me, and Plasma 5 feels like a step up from that, so I believe I'll be sticking with 15.10 until 16.04 comes out.

[Cecil]

Cecil, good to hear (how) you sampled the various distro's and especially that you came back here.

There is another thread about 16.04 and especially the last page shows there is great progress:

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...-Kubuntu-16-04

And I just noticed Steve Riley, one of the moderators, has created 16.04's own forum entry.

Yeah, it looks good for sure, though I'm going to wait until it's officially released in April. I thought about trying it out, but I'd rather wait until everything's ironed-out and ready for official release.

[oshunluvr]

Not trying to dissuade you or anything, but I usually wait until June to install the April release if I'm planning on using it as my daily driver. There's almost always a flood of bugs (usually minor) that are fixed in the first several weeks. It takes me a whole weekend to massage my install to my liking so I'd rather keep the hassles to a minimum. There was so much going on with 15.10 that I skipped it altogether and am still using 15.04. Just sayin'....

Although from what I read and my limited experience with 16.04 in a VM, it's looks to be quicker and less buggy than 15.10 is now. I'll likely go ahead and install it to bare metal in late April, but not move to it completely until June-July.