My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

[Manabu]

First off all, I will only describe here the problems that I had with Kubuntu live-cd, not the good things that I experienced. Kubuntu is the best linux distribution that I've seen until now, and I will install it in my HD soon. But it has many flaws. MUCH less than the Ubuntu 4.10 that I tried a long time ago, but many nonetheless.

I tried to stay in the flaws that are more specific to Kubuntu, and not general Linux flaws. This means, only things that I already saw better in another distro and not things like “It don’t have anything like avisynth” or “I can’t play my windows games”.

Please tell me if you disagree (or even if you agree) with any of my complaints, or if they are already solved (in gutsy gibbon, for example). I’m also not sure where I should post the bug-reports and feature requests. If in somewhere in this forum, in an kubuntu’s bug-tracker or in kde’s bug-tracker or in application’s bug-tracker. Some bugs are also a bit hard to define, like the huge slow down, and I don’t know how I should fill it. Help is welcome.

Now, finally, to the rant:



Adept Problems:

It is slow to give an visual feedback when clicking on some itens to install. For example, to install "Four-in-a-Row", or "Robots". There is also an automatic association of some games with other games that I would like to disable. I only want to install one, not all.

In "others" area of Adept, there are many applications w/o sucint descriptions. That means: no description at all, or a verbatin copy of the whole description taking a lot of space, and being ugly.

There are lots of gray-out programs, that I don't know why they are that way, and how I can enable them. Clicking on them shoud at least show that information. I already enabled "show proprietary" "show unsuported" for all plataforms. By the way, there is no help file for Adept installer.

If you don't have xfce installed why show by default things like "Xfce 4 settings manager". For me it's okay to show applications of other DEs, like GIMP, totem, etc. These are useful w/o the DE. But these others should only. And, in my opinion, it would be more practical and logical put the configuration tools together with the application in their categories.



Menu and application choice problems:

The "utilities" menu is a mess. Somehow more than internet menu. And don't show some utilities, like kwrite. Sub-folders for rarely used items could help... By the way, kate is not very user friendly, and too advanced for simply writing a note on something. And why the "current line highlighting" is enabled by default for kate and kwrite, as well some syntax highlighting (it appears so, when I'm opening and closing that parentheses for example)? This is more a developer thingy.

And why the default calculator is SpeedCrunch and not KCalc? KCalc is much more organized, with easier to recognize buttons (is very unlikely that a non-native-english-speaker knows what "sqrt" means, for example), hide the most advanced options, with a practical and simple way to enable them, and as far as I can see, have everything that SpeedCrunch has, and much more. The only thing that speedcrunch may have an edge is that it shows the previous results and let you use them again in a simple way. But it is at same time very confusing, because at the top of the answer screen (the first place where you look, normally) there is the last result, not the current. In short, Kcalc is much more powerful and user friendly IMO.



Configuration panel problems:

Many configuration windows need scrolling, even in 1024x728 resolutions!

[img width=400 height=284]http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/784/pssimaorganizaodeespao.png[/img]

In the "disc and file system" configuration from "system settings" if I only type an inexistent mount point in the navigation mode, it simple don't accept it. It could suggest to create this mount point. Also, it set my two HDs to the same mount point. If I change one, the other changes together. Maybe because before that I set both to the same place by mistake... but I should be able to correct that mistake, isn't?

Well, now it simply locked, and don't let me chose any partition or button in the bottom. But the rest of the windows continue to work flawlessly. Strange and annoying.

The window decoration options are all duplicated for some unknown reason.

[img width=400 height=94]http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/3139/duplicatedoptionsinaparencesetings.png[/img]


Very questionable behaviors:

Why in the hell the .deb files are associated to Kate When I click to download a .deb file from internet, it is automatically opened by kate. It should ask me if I want to install it, open with another program (in this case the user can select kate) or simply download!

And I couldn’t find in any place my NTFS windows partitions (nor FAT32 for that matter). It should be mounted by default, in read only mode, with an easy write/read mode transition, when I start the system! And until now I don't found any way to see my data in them. I appreciate any tutorial about that, especially if it doesn’t require any command line or manual configuration file editing, as it is like going back to DOS era from which Windows evolved a lot since a long time...

I can't drag and drop files in Kaffeine initial screen. I tried to play an .mp4 file (H.264 video and HE-AAC audio) but it didn't show anything, neither made any sound. No error message, or an indication of how I can solve this playback problem. I don't live in USA, and therefore I don't want to suffer or be crippled because their stupid patent legislation. Please offer an option of installing/enabling the correct codecs when find an media that can't be played by these know restrictions. And at least display an error message when unable to load the file. Otherwise, the user can think that the video file is all black, if he have not seen it yet.

An request for it is already in Ubuntu wiki for a long time: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EasyCodecInstallation

And only a small complain: the Ksnapshot window name should not change depending of the last screenshot made. It is not a program to manipulate certain achieve, but one to make new screenshots. This change only turns this program more difficult to find latter in the taskbar.



Blatant visual problems:

Many and many windows and taskbar drawing problems. Look at the first application that I opened: The konqueror file/web browser:

[img width=400 height=310]http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/4069/snapshot3.png[/img]

[sarcastic mode on]What a good first impression, isn't?

Now tell me what is that "Save As...” dialog from Ksnapshot?

[img width=400 height=113]http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9339/janeladesalvamentohorrvel.png[/img]

Can it turn any worse? According to Murphy "everything can be worse, you that don't have imagination". It seems that KDE developers have a lot of imagination. One way to demonstrate it is clicking in a screenshot that you already made to see the visualization:

[img width=400 height=113]http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/3813/janeladesalvamentohorrvel2.png[/img]

Well... you cant see a lot in this defaut visualization anyway...
[/sarcastic]

Two lines not placed correctly. An error so basic that I'm surprised that it was not corrected right way.



And finally an example of taskbar rendering error:

[img width=400 height=19]http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/5639/taskbarrenderingproblems.png[/img]



General System problems:

The system became unresponsive for some minutes, with constant reading from CD, and probably 100% CPU utilization (of course I couldn’t see that because the computer was totally halted). I think it was making the installation of around 79mb in programs (a download of 23mb). Nevertheless, It shouldn’t happen in any circumstance. And after that installation, the computer became painfully slow, reading again and again the CD for anything that you do.

Even with that, I continued using the live-cd. When trying to solve the mount point problem again, appeared an error window, that no mater if I clicked OK, or in the X, or any other way, continued to appear again. After dozens tries to close it, it somehow closed. I don't really know what happened. And worse, I don't even know what that window was, because its title bar was incomplete, and I found no way to read the complete text, to know what it about. If someone knows how to do it, tell me please.



One of the programs that I tried to install was Noatun, but it failed to start. I don't check if it was in the supported branch or not. If not, then it is not so bad. But anyway it is a bad thing to have a program that you fresh installed not run because a configuration in another place. And the error dialog only vaguely says "Verify if artsd is configured in an appropriated way" (free translation). How would be an "appropriate way"? It gives no clue of how I should solve it. This is not a thing that I experience in windows, even with the dozens of programs not supported by Microsoft that I install.

[img width=400 height=136]http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6189/noatun-error.png[/img]

PS: The bigger images seems to be resized by the forum, but if you folow the address of the image you shoud see it in full size.

[SheeEttin]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

That's... a lot. I'll try to answer as much as I can.

Adept.
The slow response is (I'm guessing) because it has to calculate dependencies, i.e. what you select requires something else to be installed (like graphics libraries), and the needed packages might take a bit of work to figure out. I don't see this, but I have a 2.6 GHz dual-core processor.
On descriptions, they are written by the person who creates the package. There is no standard, and everyone does it differently (more or less).
On grayed-out packages, I don't know. I've never seen it. Perhaps it's because you're on a LiveCD?
(Adept Installer: a horrid program. Don't use it if you can help it. Nobody here likes it either.)
On unrelated packages: which is more annoying, packages you can install but don't need, or packages you need but can't install?

Kate: Personally, I love it. If all you need is a quick note, just type and save. No need to look at the other features. If you want syntax highlighting (I bet the majority of Linux users are hackers in one form or another), it's there. (Also, you might look into KNotes, if a quick note is what you want. I like it, though I rarely have need for it.)

Disk & Filesystems: totally broken. It's being worked on. In the meantime, editing your fstab is the way to go.

Deb files: There is no GUI frontend for debs like there is for other things. (dibl, UR, et al: I know aptitude, dselect, etc. are technically GUIs and frontends, but you know what I mean.) There is a deb installation method available by right-click > Kubuntu Package Menu > Install Package.

NTFS/FAT partitions: Just had someone else complain about this, see here.

On Kaffeine, you need codecs. They aren't installed by default due to legal restrictions, and there's nothing anybody can do to change that (aside from lobbying legislators). Even if you don't live in the US, you can still install them easily. See Medibuntu.

Finally, on visual and system problems, all I have to say is that it's a LiveCD. It's not an entirely accurate depiction of what the installed system will look like by any means.

[Manabu]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

The slow response is (I'm guessing) because it has to calculate dependencies, i.e. what you select requires something else to be installed (like graphics libraries), and the needed packages might take a bit of work to figure out. I don't see this, but I have a 2.6 Hz dual-core processor.

Well, I'm now running it from live-cd on an 2Hz dual-core processor and fell an more or less slow response. The curious thing is that it is slower to unmark than to mark. It probably can be optimized.

Update: It is also a bit slow even running after installed in the HD.

On grayed-out packages, I don't know. I've never seen it. Perhaps it's because you're on a LiveCD?

Here they are:

And NO explanation of why it is greyed-out or how to enable it.... But after I installed they really

On descriptions, they are written by the person who creates the package. There is no standard, and everyone does it differently (more or less).

It seems that the package creator don't done nothing...

Deb files: There is no GUI frontend for debs like there is for other things. (dibl, UR, et al: I know aptitude, dselect, etc. are technically GUIs and frontends, but you know what I mean.) There is a deb installation method available by right-click > Kubuntu Package Menu > Install Package.

Yeah, I saw it, and it only enforces my initial questioning: why .deb files are associated with kate and not ask if I want to install the package When downloading, or double clicking should be an window asking me if I want to install, and clicking in 'yes' there should be the same thing than making 'right-click > Kubuntu Package Menu > Install Package'.

Kate: Personally, I love it. If all you need is a quick note, just type and save. No need to look at the other features. If you want syntax highlighting (I bet the majority of Linux users are hackers in one form or another), it's there. (Also, you might look into KNotes, if a quick note is what you want. I like it, though I rarely have need for it.)

No, it is not a thing like knotes, it is really like kwrite, that installed by default in the live-cd, but don't have a link in the kmenu for some reason...
And I think that Ubuntu and Kubuntu aims mainly to bring more non-hackers to linux world, and not the contrary. And even me being a bit hacker, I don't need this large side bar in Kate for write an simple text (like I'm writing now in Kwrite). The same goes to the line highlithing. And there is also an difference in load times, that is significative for an app like that, especially after being accustomed to the instant notepad loading in windows. Remember, most of the world don't have an 2.6Hz dual core machine.

NTFS/FAT partitions: Just had someone else complain about this, see here.

In the installed system the partitions are auto-detected and easy to mount... it cost nothing to make the same thing in the live-cd too...

Finally, on visual and system problems, all I have to say is that it's a LiveCD. It's not an entirely accurate depiction of what the installed system will look like by any means.

Well... I think that is reasonable to think about an slower system and things that you can't do... but from that to throwing many and many times the same error window, and making it unreadable/unresizeable ESPECIALY for the live-cd is an completely different story. I consider that last thing an very serious bug, and the worst thing is that I don't even know where to report it because the bug is exactly not knowing it.

And I find strange these persistent drawing errors. It is understandable that it takes longer to redraw in the live-cd, but not that it don't redraw at all. Now, in this faster computer, I'm not having none of these persistent drawing errors... even running in the live-cd. Installed it exactly the same thing: ugly while moving, but after that everything gets corrected. That is at least reasonable, even for windows users that only know smooth windows movements. I think that OS X is also smooth. Only in linux is so ugly while moving... but I can live with it.

On the other hand, I also don't see how the meta-bar line positioning error can be caused by it be running on the live-cd, nor the ugly "save as..." dialog in ksnapshot.
Update: they indeed persist in the installed system... I don't know how these things passed uncorrected until KDE 3.5.6...


Like it or not, the most important thing to linux become an real alternative to Windows for more people in the world is it "appear better than windows". For peoples choices, what they think about the thing is more important than what the thing really is. What people think about a thing is more important to what the thing really is. The first impression is what counts, and the rest only needs to be good enough for this first impression don't disappear, ie: no too rough edges (of course, the better, better .

For most people today, the first contact with linux is in an Live-CD, and if it is bad, this possibly can be the only contact for a long time...

[DMurray]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

And even me being a bit hacker

Then you better get the code and fix it yourself, that's the beauty of Linux, it's free! What are you waiting for?
And no hacker (not even the least bit of them, errr, and they don't name themselves hackers) would use a livecd (all hackers, even the least one, have their preferred distro), waste time pinpointing this or that defect (because they know all softwares have bugs, but THEY KNOW how to differ a bug from a malfunctioning in a particular system) and posting their first experience on a forum.
Oh, you are a Windows hacker. You don't know what goes on in Linux world!
And believe me, not a single user has ever come here and showed these bugs, they pretty much talk about errors reproductible in any machine (known bugs). Your 1337 machine needs some serious repair, dude.
My 2 cents... =P

[Manabu]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

And even me being a bit hacker

Then you better get the code and fix it yourself, that's the beauty of Linux, it's free! What are you waiting for?
And no hacker (not even the least bit of them, errr, and they don't name themselves hackers) would use a livecd (all hackers, even the least one, have their preferred distro), waste time pinpointing this or that defect (because they know all softwares have bugs, but THEY KNOW how to differ a bug from a malfunctioning in a particular system) and posting their first experience on a forum.
Oh, you are a Windows hacker. You don't know what goes on in Linux world!

Sorry for the late response. When I said I was a little hacker, I mean that I like to play with my system, doing things like instaling another OS (linux). But I usualy like to play only when I don't need to do it, not when I need, so no lazy distro like slackware for me.

I don't know how to program, and it's being two years since the last time that I instaled any linux distro in my computer, mainly because lack of HD space (every 5GB where precious until some months ago). So the "first impressions" post. And I think that kubuntu aim is not to restrict linux only to hackers, and the point of having an live-cd is to permit testing w/o instaling, thus leaving an first, and hopefully not the last, impression about it.

And believe me, not a single user has ever come here and showed these bugs, they pretty much talk about errors reproductible in any machine (known bugs). Your 1337 machine needs some serious repair, dude.

Well, my windows works perfectly well in it for years, so it is linux that needs serious repair somewhere. This somewhere is the problem, can be even the video drivers (VIA S3 ProSavageDDR onboard video in the problem machine, by the way), and thus imposible to reproduce in other hardware, but it don't mean an hardware problem.



I think that is better to sumarize the main points of my post that are yet unsolved:

1) Why speedcrunch and not KCalc? Where I ask a request to replacing it in the next version?

2) It is normal these unresizeable error messages? Or it is specifc of this [unknow...] app? How I see the complete title of the window, for the next time that it may apear? Where I shoud report this bug (dependent on the first part of the question)?

3) Why .deb files are associated with kate? Where I can ask to change it for the next version?

4) Window Decorations duplication, Metabar line position error and "save as..." dialog in ksnapshot: is only reproduceable in my two, completely diferent, computers? If not, where to report the last one? (the other two I think I know where)

5) Noatun gives an error if I try to install on the live-cd. Is this reproduceable (in live-cd)? If it is, where to report it?

[Manabu]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

No one knows the answers? I tried to go to launchpad to report yet another problem, but there was no "kubuntu" to select there, only "ubuntu".

[Snowhog]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

No one knows the answers? I tried to go to launchpad to report yet another problem, but there was no "kubuntu" to select there, only "ubuntu".

Kubuntu is Ubuntu running the KDE environment. Launchpad is where you would report any bugs.

[Manabu]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

Ok. But how should I fill a request to change the defaut calculator shiped with kubuntu? Should I fill it for the package itself (speedcrunch or kcalc?)? I'm also uncertain how to fill the bugs for the others too, as it is not obvious.

[Snowhog]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

Having scanned your post, what you have described (in most part) aren't 'bugs' but features you would rather see. Posting such on launchpad would not be the place to do that.

[Manabu]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

So, where those things are to be discussed? And 4 and 5 are bugs, while 2 I also think that is an serious bug.

[Snowhog]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

If you truly believe you have reportable bugs, then the launchpad site is the place to post them.

As to what you described (and provided pics on) as rendering problems are almost certainly caused by an incorrectly defined video driver during your booting of the LiveCD. If your specific video card/chip set was not listed in the choices, and you picked one you thought would would work, that can be the root cause. If you have not already done so, try rebooting and when you are selecting video drivers, opt for Vesa. You won't get a lot of the resolution options, but, it should work with the resolution(s) it is built to support. See if your 'rendering' issues don't disappear.

[rathod.nikhil@gmail.com]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

Like it or not, the most important thing to linux become an real alternative to Windows for more people in the world is it "appear better than windows".

I guess this is where Linux users have upper hand. Just spend few minutes and you cant think of what you can achieve.

I do programing but I'm not that experienced that I can write code to fix my problems but hats off to the users of this forum to help me resolve each problem I faced and helped me to kiss windows goodbye.

Windows released Windows95(which is not their first OS) on 1995 and first Linux was released on 1996(if I'm not wrong), so there is going to be some difference. But indeed it has came a long was since then in fact I'm stunned by looking at the improvements in just last two or three years when I first tried very first release of Fedora Core.

My suggestion, just stick to it, take experts help, and I'm sure you are going to love it.

Just to add KDE_startup.wav is the best startup music I've ever herd.

[coyotl]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

manabu, nobody is forcing you to use the kde interface.
I only use it occasionally, usually prefer faster things (have only 512 RAM).

And there IS a program that can open deb files directly and can be associated with them:
kpackage, which has been the package program in kde for many years, but I think its not included in kubuntu by default.
If you have this you can also download a deb and then right click on it and open it with kpackage. Or open kpackage, click open and navigate to the saved deb
--this in addition to using the repos.

A deb can be easily installed from the command line too.

You do need to install linux to the hard drive before making final jugdments.
Then you can install better programs than the defaults here.
Web browsers, file browsers ...

[Manabu]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

I'm runing it instaled in the HD, double-booting with windows, since my second post, in august 10. The problems don't disapeared. Initialy I was using vesa driver, but as the quality of all videos that I tried to see whith it was horrible (jagged edges) I was forced to swich to nvidia driver (I got the binary one) for my integrated GeForce 6100. The problem still the same.

If you truly believe you have reportable bugs, then the launchpad site is the place to post them.

Posting such on launchpad would not be the place to do that.

Sorry to repeat it over and over again, but I simply don't know how to post them in launch pad. In the case 2, for example, the bug is that I don't know from where the error apeared, so I don't know where to report inside the launchpad. And I know how to use launchpad to report a bug in a specific aplication. The problem is when I don't know to who report the bug.

OFF TOPIC: The problem with linux is not it's age, but that for an long time it's development was geared twards server and geeks, and not the common computer user, that see the computer as an tool to acomplish another things. Still today it is very predominant.

[opie]

Re: My problems running Kubuntu live-cd for a day

On the menu/applications issues you can right click an item in kmenu to open the editor and you can reorganize the menus as you wish. You could replace speedcrunch with kcalc, for example.