Thought I would share my first 24 hours with Kubuntu from a newcomer's POV. Also will tell you where I'm headed in case anyone can help me avoid problems.
Background: I migrated from Windows to OpenSUSE about 18 months ago. Left Windows for the usual reasons. Chose SUSE because it was rumored to be a good bridge to linux. It was that, and I was fairly happy with it, and very happy with the linux approach. Now that I have a little more experience I want to move to something a bit lighter, less corporate. Also, SUSE has some issues - some versions are well done, others are 'not really ready'. The recent de facto merger between Novell and Microsoft also sent me a message that it was time to move on.
I'm reviewing Kubuntu because I like feature-rich KDE, and I liked what I heard of Ubuntu's automated software install/update features (Adept), and also its free/open philosophy.
I'm going to be working with several machines, but I began with this one:
Homemade Asus A8V / Athlon 64 3200+ / GeForce 6200TD 128M AGP / 1G RAM / 80GHD IDE / 500GHD SATA1 / Princeton LCD19D (1280x1024) Monitor / NEC 1100A DVD+RW UDMA33 / Logitech LX7 wireless mouse / ATI TV Wonder VE (PCI) Capture Card
I have an extra 5G partition on the SATA drive so I installed Kubuntu there, leaving my SUSE partition intact.
Found and downloaded the Kubuntu CD okay, although I didn't realize the LiveCD and Install CD were one and the same - I thought it was just an install CD. I chose the 32 bit version initially as I read there are problems with software compatibility with 64 bit (same with SUSE - which I did use in 64 bit, but encountered conflicts). Booted and after the splash screen the screen went black. Eventually I heard the 'welcome' music but still no picture. Tried various VGA resolutions to no avail. A google revealed this to be a known bug with the Live CD (lots of gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands apparent) so I downloaded the alternate.
Text install was uneventful and successful. After install, booted to a black screen with barely visible 'something' smeared on it.
I compared xorg.conf from SUSE with Kubuntu's. I changed the driver name from "nv" to "nvidia". Rebooted and now X failed to start (unknown driver), but this had the advantage of getting me to a text login.
I googled "ubuntu xorg.conf geforce 6200" and the first link told me to:
sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-common
which I did successfully. I then pasted my relevant SUSE xorg.conf sections into Kubuntu's and rebooted. Now I could see.
I realize this is a known installation problem with 6.10, but I would like to inject a little lecture/philosophy if I may. I first tried Red Hat about 20 years ago. After wrestling with xorg.conf and modelines I finally gave up on it - just didn't seem ready for use without way too much monkeying under the hood for my purposes.
I find it a bit mind-boggling that after 20 years the linux installers still have such problems with a simple xorg.conf setup. SUSE managed to give me a viewable screen on most machines I installed it on, but it still was far from streamlined, and in one case completely unviewable. If I can use google and kate to solve the problem, why can't the installers automate this? It seems to me a basic thing to master before you move on to other bells and whistles.
This is not a missing driver issue. The driver exists and this card is several years old. I realize most of the vendors don't create driver setups like they do for Windows. Yet I think it would make sense to create a device profile for each card out there, such that an installer can say "Okay, you've got a GeForce 6200 and a Princeton monitor... let me look that up... yeah here's your basic working xorg.conf file". Exactly what I did manually with Google and kate, without having any idea was a modeline is.
You may say it would take time to create such profiles for most devices out there, but wouldn't this make more sense than fielding all the support issues that users generate with inconsistent configurations? Once the profile is made, it's done. The devs don't have to make all the profiles - users could contribute them. But someone needs to set up the profile mechanism, much like plug-n-play. You may say this has been done, but obviously it has not been done well, and from what I see little has changed in 20 years.
Do one thing at a time, do it very well, then move on. It is important not to fall into the Microsoft trap of 'bigger, better, more', forgetting quality. One thing that always annoyed me about MS is that they give computers a bad name. Given healthy hardware, computers are not unreliable, fickle, schizo monsters, they are precise, reliable, and predictable. One thing I love about linux is that more of this true nature shines through. Except in a few areas.
Fortunately I had my SUSE xorg.conf to copy from. If I didn't, I don't know where I would have gotten my modelines and other info from to get a workable Kubuntu system.
One other video issue. Now that I have a working xorg.conf, I went into System Settings|Monitor and Display. What I found there seems to be another universe altogether. My monitor says 'Unknown' despite being labeled in xorg.conf (even the default install recognized it as Princeton). There is a slide bar there which lets me choose 640 to 800 res, even though I'm at 1280 (I think - I know it's not 800). Why is this System Settings so out of touch with reality? Can I use it for anything as a result? Again, why all this trouble with video and xorg.conf?
My next shock was to discover there was no root user. This was well documented but wasn't exactly a pleasant discovery. I'm sure smarter people than me came up with the sudo scheme, but FWIW I don't like it. When I want to be root I want to be root - I want to go in there and kick butt, and I don't want anything in my way. If I want to rm -r /* then I will! If I wanted a user account with root privileges I'd use Windows. I learned early on to think before you act (in the old DOS, typing FORMAT C: would format your drive without so much as a "Are you sure?"), and I don't think that's a bad lesson to learn the hard way. Anyway, I tried the sudo for a bit to be a good sport, but then had an apoplectic fit and enabled root. It just felt like I was too far removed from the machine - like using Windows.
This did not entirely solve my problem. In SUSE there are two icons for File Manager (Konqueror), one root and one user. Both work the same. Yet in Kubuntu, I created a konqueror menu item to be run as root. This works (after some trouble), except that when I right-click on a file and select Open with Kate, it reports 'KDEInit could not launch Kate' (or something to that effect). I see there is an Action|Edit as Root, but this uses KWrite, which is not my preference. I haven't yet looked into this malfunction, but it's annoying not to have a functional root File Manager when setting up the system.
Not to sound all negative, there are a lot of positives, and my overall impression of Kubuntu is positive. It's a keeper if it can do what I want. Thus far, the system seems stable, light, and quick (even in 32 bit), and aside from the video, the other basic hardware seems to have been installed. My mouse tilt-scroll isn't working, which it did in SUSE with the same xorg.conf, but I haven't fiddled yet. Nor have I tried the capture card or DVD burner yet. Kubuntu also added three 'scribe' entries to xorg.conf - I have no idea what these are but I commented them out for now.
Some of the fonts look a little blurry compared to SUSE, but others don't, so perhaps it's a matter of selection. Overall the view is crisp and clean.
Thus far the most exciting thing I've found in Kubuntu is Adept. This is what automation can be. In SUSE, installing software involved finding the appropriate rpm for my version, then putting it in Yast to see any unsatisfied dependencies, then hunting down the rpms for the dependencies. Often there were conflicts and other problems. I often wondered by this drudgery wasn't automated. If I can google the dependencies, download them, install them, why can't then process be automated? I do not believe automation is just for Windows Dummies (TM). Automation is what computers are all about - what they are good at - and it provides consistency and security.
Adept appears to answer this beautifully. I've only used it a little. But installing a working MPlayer, for example, took seconds compared with a lot of researching and monkeying around in SUSE. Very well done. I have yet to try installing software outside of Adept - are rpms accepted, etc?
One package I did not find in Adept multiverse, which surprised me, is Wildfire (formerly Jive Messenger). This is a neat program for setting up a Jabber server. I like to have an IM network in-house, so LAN IMs don't need to go out to the internet and back. Same for email (postfix and qpopper is what I use for this). I think Wildfire would be a good addition to the repositories. I think it comes in rpm format, so one of my next tasks will be trying to get that running.
Other tasks in front of me - postfix, qpopper, my Epson CX4800 printer, Firestarter, FreeNX, ssh (doesn't appear to be running by default), amule, and tv-out. I like Kubuntu thus far so I'm hoping that it will handle the hardware in the other machines, and handle these programs and servers I want to run. I'll let you know how it goes. If anyone can offer advice, TIA. It's always a bit overwhelming moving to a new OS/distro - nothing is where it's 'supposed to be'.
My appreciation to the devs for putting Kubuntu together. A few wrinkles that should not be there, but it's obvious that there was a lot of attention to detail.
IgnorantGuru
Background: I migrated from Windows to OpenSUSE about 18 months ago. Left Windows for the usual reasons. Chose SUSE because it was rumored to be a good bridge to linux. It was that, and I was fairly happy with it, and very happy with the linux approach. Now that I have a little more experience I want to move to something a bit lighter, less corporate. Also, SUSE has some issues - some versions are well done, others are 'not really ready'. The recent de facto merger between Novell and Microsoft also sent me a message that it was time to move on.
I'm reviewing Kubuntu because I like feature-rich KDE, and I liked what I heard of Ubuntu's automated software install/update features (Adept), and also its free/open philosophy.
I'm going to be working with several machines, but I began with this one:
Homemade Asus A8V / Athlon 64 3200+ / GeForce 6200TD 128M AGP / 1G RAM / 80GHD IDE / 500GHD SATA1 / Princeton LCD19D (1280x1024) Monitor / NEC 1100A DVD+RW UDMA33 / Logitech LX7 wireless mouse / ATI TV Wonder VE (PCI) Capture Card
I have an extra 5G partition on the SATA drive so I installed Kubuntu there, leaving my SUSE partition intact.
Found and downloaded the Kubuntu CD okay, although I didn't realize the LiveCD and Install CD were one and the same - I thought it was just an install CD. I chose the 32 bit version initially as I read there are problems with software compatibility with 64 bit (same with SUSE - which I did use in 64 bit, but encountered conflicts). Booted and after the splash screen the screen went black. Eventually I heard the 'welcome' music but still no picture. Tried various VGA resolutions to no avail. A google revealed this to be a known bug with the Live CD (lots of gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands apparent) so I downloaded the alternate.
Text install was uneventful and successful. After install, booted to a black screen with barely visible 'something' smeared on it.
I compared xorg.conf from SUSE with Kubuntu's. I changed the driver name from "nv" to "nvidia". Rebooted and now X failed to start (unknown driver), but this had the advantage of getting me to a text login.
I googled "ubuntu xorg.conf geforce 6200" and the first link told me to:
sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-common
which I did successfully. I then pasted my relevant SUSE xorg.conf sections into Kubuntu's and rebooted. Now I could see.
I realize this is a known installation problem with 6.10, but I would like to inject a little lecture/philosophy if I may. I first tried Red Hat about 20 years ago. After wrestling with xorg.conf and modelines I finally gave up on it - just didn't seem ready for use without way too much monkeying under the hood for my purposes.
I find it a bit mind-boggling that after 20 years the linux installers still have such problems with a simple xorg.conf setup. SUSE managed to give me a viewable screen on most machines I installed it on, but it still was far from streamlined, and in one case completely unviewable. If I can use google and kate to solve the problem, why can't the installers automate this? It seems to me a basic thing to master before you move on to other bells and whistles.
This is not a missing driver issue. The driver exists and this card is several years old. I realize most of the vendors don't create driver setups like they do for Windows. Yet I think it would make sense to create a device profile for each card out there, such that an installer can say "Okay, you've got a GeForce 6200 and a Princeton monitor... let me look that up... yeah here's your basic working xorg.conf file". Exactly what I did manually with Google and kate, without having any idea was a modeline is.
You may say it would take time to create such profiles for most devices out there, but wouldn't this make more sense than fielding all the support issues that users generate with inconsistent configurations? Once the profile is made, it's done. The devs don't have to make all the profiles - users could contribute them. But someone needs to set up the profile mechanism, much like plug-n-play. You may say this has been done, but obviously it has not been done well, and from what I see little has changed in 20 years.
Do one thing at a time, do it very well, then move on. It is important not to fall into the Microsoft trap of 'bigger, better, more', forgetting quality. One thing that always annoyed me about MS is that they give computers a bad name. Given healthy hardware, computers are not unreliable, fickle, schizo monsters, they are precise, reliable, and predictable. One thing I love about linux is that more of this true nature shines through. Except in a few areas.
Fortunately I had my SUSE xorg.conf to copy from. If I didn't, I don't know where I would have gotten my modelines and other info from to get a workable Kubuntu system.
One other video issue. Now that I have a working xorg.conf, I went into System Settings|Monitor and Display. What I found there seems to be another universe altogether. My monitor says 'Unknown' despite being labeled in xorg.conf (even the default install recognized it as Princeton). There is a slide bar there which lets me choose 640 to 800 res, even though I'm at 1280 (I think - I know it's not 800). Why is this System Settings so out of touch with reality? Can I use it for anything as a result? Again, why all this trouble with video and xorg.conf?
My next shock was to discover there was no root user. This was well documented but wasn't exactly a pleasant discovery. I'm sure smarter people than me came up with the sudo scheme, but FWIW I don't like it. When I want to be root I want to be root - I want to go in there and kick butt, and I don't want anything in my way. If I want to rm -r /* then I will! If I wanted a user account with root privileges I'd use Windows. I learned early on to think before you act (in the old DOS, typing FORMAT C: would format your drive without so much as a "Are you sure?"), and I don't think that's a bad lesson to learn the hard way. Anyway, I tried the sudo for a bit to be a good sport, but then had an apoplectic fit and enabled root. It just felt like I was too far removed from the machine - like using Windows.
This did not entirely solve my problem. In SUSE there are two icons for File Manager (Konqueror), one root and one user. Both work the same. Yet in Kubuntu, I created a konqueror menu item to be run as root. This works (after some trouble), except that when I right-click on a file and select Open with Kate, it reports 'KDEInit could not launch Kate' (or something to that effect). I see there is an Action|Edit as Root, but this uses KWrite, which is not my preference. I haven't yet looked into this malfunction, but it's annoying not to have a functional root File Manager when setting up the system.
Not to sound all negative, there are a lot of positives, and my overall impression of Kubuntu is positive. It's a keeper if it can do what I want. Thus far, the system seems stable, light, and quick (even in 32 bit), and aside from the video, the other basic hardware seems to have been installed. My mouse tilt-scroll isn't working, which it did in SUSE with the same xorg.conf, but I haven't fiddled yet. Nor have I tried the capture card or DVD burner yet. Kubuntu also added three 'scribe' entries to xorg.conf - I have no idea what these are but I commented them out for now.
Some of the fonts look a little blurry compared to SUSE, but others don't, so perhaps it's a matter of selection. Overall the view is crisp and clean.
Thus far the most exciting thing I've found in Kubuntu is Adept. This is what automation can be. In SUSE, installing software involved finding the appropriate rpm for my version, then putting it in Yast to see any unsatisfied dependencies, then hunting down the rpms for the dependencies. Often there were conflicts and other problems. I often wondered by this drudgery wasn't automated. If I can google the dependencies, download them, install them, why can't then process be automated? I do not believe automation is just for Windows Dummies (TM). Automation is what computers are all about - what they are good at - and it provides consistency and security.
Adept appears to answer this beautifully. I've only used it a little. But installing a working MPlayer, for example, took seconds compared with a lot of researching and monkeying around in SUSE. Very well done. I have yet to try installing software outside of Adept - are rpms accepted, etc?
One package I did not find in Adept multiverse, which surprised me, is Wildfire (formerly Jive Messenger). This is a neat program for setting up a Jabber server. I like to have an IM network in-house, so LAN IMs don't need to go out to the internet and back. Same for email (postfix and qpopper is what I use for this). I think Wildfire would be a good addition to the repositories. I think it comes in rpm format, so one of my next tasks will be trying to get that running.
Other tasks in front of me - postfix, qpopper, my Epson CX4800 printer, Firestarter, FreeNX, ssh (doesn't appear to be running by default), amule, and tv-out. I like Kubuntu thus far so I'm hoping that it will handle the hardware in the other machines, and handle these programs and servers I want to run. I'll let you know how it goes. If anyone can offer advice, TIA. It's always a bit overwhelming moving to a new OS/distro - nothing is where it's 'supposed to be'.
My appreciation to the devs for putting Kubuntu together. A few wrinkles that should not be there, but it's obvious that there was a lot of attention to detail.
IgnorantGuru
(Somehow I feel better when other people are suffering from the same things I am!) I want to play with my xorg mouse settings anyway to try to get tilt-scroll working, so maybe that will kick something loose. Thanks for the help.
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