A few simple questions prior to updgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 ~

[Guest]

Greetings to one & all.

This is my first post on this forum/website, and I hope that there will be plenty of good info found here about Kubuntu for both newbies & oldies.

I'm thinking about upgrading to 9.04 from 8.04, and I just wanted to ask a few simple questions to those of you who have had some experience with installing this latest version of Kubuntu.

First, just for the record, I've been using Linux/KDE for several years, and what a GREAT pleasure it was when I first got liberated from 9+ years of MicroCrap software HELL. I started out with a couple of versions of 7.X Red Hat, then moved on to several versions of SUSE, switched to PCLinuxOS for awhile, and finally decided that the KDE version of Ubuntu would be the best choice for me due to its large user community & lots of good documentation scattered around.

I've been using Kubuntu 8.04 on both my old Dell 4100 as well as my new custom homebuilt machine, and 8.04 has been working quite well for me. I had NO problems whatsoever during the installation of 8.04 on either machine, and it really was one of the quickest & easiest Linux installations of the many that I have experienced over the years.

Since moving to 9.04 would obviously involve a major switch from my current version of KDE, here's just a few things I'd like ascertain before I install the new Kubuntu :

* Some of the info posted about this newest version of Kubuntu is a little confusing to me. I want to make SURE that I'll be downloading & installing a viable, STABLE release, and not some kind of "pre-release" version that might be overly buggy. If possible, I certainly want to switch to a version of 9.04 that is at least as reliable as 8.04 has been. Also, when I download 9.04, I'm assuming that I'll be getting an official ISO file which I can then burn to CD, correct?

* I normally download the ISO file, burn it to CD, and then do a COMPLETELY new installation, including wiping out my hard drive prior to installation. Since this worked very cleanly for me when installing 8.04, can I be reasonably assured that there aren't any strange new "gotchas" lurking about that might be a problem?

* Does this Kubuntu release include the newest 4.2.2 version of KDE? I assume that this is the case, but it's kinda difficult to find out exactly which version of KDE is actually being included (i.e., I'd prefer to avoid the bugs that were found in 4.2.0).

* On 8.04, the KDE "Add/Remove Programs" utility worked well. I still have Synaptic installed & have used it as well, but a lot of times, the simple "Add/Remove" utility has been very convenient to use. However, I noted in one post by another user, that this handy tool might not/is not working with 9.04. Is this correct? If true, that's kinda disappointing since it's nice to be able to use this particular GUI tool for loading lots of new software. And if this tool is currently *not* working, has there been any indication of when it will be functional within this new version of KDE?

* All the multi-media stuff on 8.04 (sound, video, k3b, etc.) was really easy to configure. I'm hoping that 9.04 is not having any serious configuration problems with any of the various multi-media tools, but I thought I'd check just to be sure.

* I use Firefox almost all the time (3.0.5). Is it currently "playing nice" with 9.04, including the usual multi-media plugins that most of us use when browsing?

Guess that's about it for now. My apologies for the length of my first post, but I thought it would be better if I was "wordy" in my descriptions since I like to get some very clear insight before I proceed with a major new installation.

Thanks a bunch for any info that any of you may care to toss my way. I've seen many positive comments about the newest versions of KDE, and I'm hoping that any "teething problems" that might still exist will soon be rectified so that future upgrades will only enhance our use of Kubuntu for ALL of our computing needs & desires.

All the Best,

LinuxHobbit

[sithlord48]

Re: A few simple questions prior to updgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 ~

hey hobbit,

have you read about this kde 3.5 remix for JJ ? here

that should allow you to ease in to kde4 a bit as you can have them installed at the same time (kde3 uses .kde3 for its configs)

for me kde4 seams to be working just fine i use FF all the time and w/ no issues not a big my space or youtube kind-a person but for my everyday it works fine. 9.04 ships w/ kde 4.2.2. you can expect some wifi issues aparently lots of people are having them w/ 9.04, i however can report my laptops wifi is working just fine.
the multimedia apps are basicly the same, i dont' have problems w/ amarok, vlc or k3b for my watching/listening/burning pleasure. you might want to install synaptic on 9.04 as kpackage kit is a bit on the buggy side and adept has been removed

[barbolani]

Re: A few simple questions prior to updgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 ~

LinuxHobbit, you should not expect to have a lot of problems specific to KDE in 9.04. Most of the problems I've encountered so far are not related to the KDE desktop environment but to kernel components. And I would say that 9.04 brings definite improvements in both kernel area (no need to mess around with nVidia) and the KDE specific area: you'll notice that kde-samba finally works as expected (no need to mess with smb.conf) and power management (at least in my case it wasn't working in KDE4.0)

As for going KDE4 vs KDE3, I guess it depends on your level of dependency on KDE3.5 features. I've seen in this forums people disliking KDE4 for things that I did not even notice or used, but for those folks were an essential part of their day to day usage.

My multimedia stuff works fine (playing with VideoLan, Amarok music plus Ipod, CD/DVD burning), I always use FireFox for browsing the net (I use konqueror is for manages) and dabbling with programming languages is still working for me after the upgrade.

[rusty]

Re: A few simple questions prior to updgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 ~

Linuxhobbit

Will my experience of installing 9.04 help? Here it is.

I use Kubuntu now for some years but as a non geek would do it - GUI everything and with verrrry few exceptions, no terminal.

I tried to upgrade to 9.04 from 8.10 but could not upgrade (even with assistance from 2 programmers) - reason unknown.
I then installed 9.04 - had a small glitz (something to do with Kmail appearing on the bar at bottom after opening it - not sure if it was that or something else?), did a re-install and am really satisfied - I uploaded the bug-fixes and security files after installing synaptic (yes, by terminal as fully instructed by the doc.). I loaded the amarok dependancies which amarok itself asked for, loaded F/fox with synaptic - and am happy. the Kmail ghost is something which I will work on to find out what is going on.

Installing rather than upgrading has its benefits! KDE4.2 also worked as it should - though had to apply the Knetwork manager applet? to connect to internet.

One thing made my life very much easier with installing - a year or two ago I partitioned my hard drive to have a '/home' partition where my data now resides (in its own partition) - this now helps me as all my data are safe, even after moving various times from 7.04 to now at 9.04. It is surely worth it. It does mean doing the manual thing when partitioning comes up, but as long as you have a '/' root partition, a smallish '/swap' and mark the biggest part of the hard drive '/home', you are home free.
Installing took me around a half an hour, with my imput limited to about 5 minutes or less.

Rusty

[pwabrahams]

Not such a good experience

i had a pretty stable Hardy 8.04 running when I attempted the upgrade to 9.04. Nothing but grief ever since. I knew I wanted the "KDE 3.5 remix", and the instructions for it said to install the standard 9.04 first, which I did. But when I added the new repositories and attempted the update again, I got some worrisome error messages about package problems. Since then I've had a crippled system despite my attempts to update everything in sight and the help I've gotten from this forum. For example, k3b won't install; it gives the message

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 k3b: Depends: kdelibs-data (>= 4:3.1.4-2)
E: Broken packages

There are lots of packaging problems, it seems, and I'm just not capable of resolving them.

I may have to resort to a complete reinstall (after saving my home partition), but I wish I didn't have to.

Alas, version and dependency problems are the soft underbelly of Linux generally. Things like

foo.3.7.2.9 has not been installed because it depends on bar.3.7.11, which conflicts with glop.2.9.8.1.5

[flarson]

Re: A few simple questions prior to updgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 ~

It is hardly fair to lay Kubuntu specific problems at the feet of Linux in general.

[pwabrahams]

The versioning problem

I'm afraid that the versioning problem afflicts every Linux distribution. I've encountered it just as badly in OpenSuSE. But I love Linux nonetheless.

Perhaps someone will, in the future, figure out how to deal with the versioning issue systematically. After all, Microsoft eventually got rid of most of the Windows blue screens. Linux surely can do better than Microsoft in almost anything.

[claydoh]

Re: A few simple questions prior to updgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 ~

As usual, try out the livecd first, that way you can get a better feel for how it looks and feels, and how your hardware works - especially wireless and video, which seem to be the most common maladies in (K)Ubuntu right now.

KDE4.2.2 is very stable, but it is not KDE3, so it is mostly just different in places, in many ways like Gnome and Xfce and KDE are different.

There are lots of packaging problems, it seems, and I'm just not capable of resolving them.

In your case I can bet that the dependency problems you are experiencing are directly related to your using a relatively untested and semi-official repository. You should refer your broken package issues over at the remix site, I thin there is a bug reporting area there

There is a kde3-only cd image on the remix site, which shouldn't have these problems

[pwabrahams]

Dependency problems

In my experience, dependency problems are almost always related to upgrading or sometimes even updating an existing system. New installations rarely have them because they've already been worked out before the DVD image is cut.

The problem with installation de novo is that you lose your installed applications and customizations. All of that has to be done over, which is at best inconvenient and particularly awkward if you don't remember exactly where all that stuff came from or the little tricks needed for installation of the applications (not native Linux ones). I guess that's an argument for taking detailed notes, but the fact that these things are installed piecemeal can make it difficult.

[kevinc]

Re: A few simple questions prior to updgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 ~

Suggestions.

First, as claydoh said, try the live CD. It will give you a taste of KDE 4 and Kubuntu 9.04

Second, if you have enough space on your hard disk, try dual boot. Leave 8.04 on, add two or three partitions and after the live CD, install Jaunty.

I have not had any problems that could not be solved simply with the stable versions, nor the RC or betas.
The forums even report stability for the Jaunty alphas.

I wouldn't worry about the remix and putting KDE 3 and 4 together. KDE 4 has been great since Intrepid (8.10) and I doubt if more than a tiny minority went back to KDE 3 after trying KDE 4 for a while.

Third, even if you don't have enough space for dual boot, the worst case is you install Jaunty and for some reason don't like it - I suspect that you will love it- ; In that case, just install Hardy or Intrepid over Jaunty.

[sithlord48]

Re: A few simple questions prior to updgrading to Kubuntu 9.04 ~

just remember if you duel boot you do not need to create another swap partition they can share one.