This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

[Guest]

Something went real wrong with the testing process for 9.04.

Ten plus years of linux... 5 of them with Kubuntu...

The printer issues, which there are many, are huge.
The most aggravating one of all is the nonpersistant configurations which disappear after a reboot.
Add a printer, (never mind firefox won't print to it), reboot and wala you get to readd it because it's gone.
These bugs alone should have stopped the release of 9.0.4.

The device notifier issues...
The notifier looks great. But couple it's issues with the udev naming issues and now you have something that is just unusable
The notifier removes from its list devices that are still plugged in but haven't been used in awhile. This is not so much of an issue except that
since dolphin doesn't do something like media:/ like Kong did, now you have device that can't be accessed thru the GUI in any way!. Nice.

USB devices not sufficiently identified.
Udev supports a myriad of naming schemes. In dev notifier tho, they are shown by their filesystem type. No way to tell the diff between
a USB maxtor 1TB drive with an ext3 filesystem and a USB WD 250g drive w/an ext3 filesystem. Click on either and now we have dolphin up
with both mounted as disk and disk-1. That'll really confuse a few noobs!

Konsole
My kudo's go out to the konsole team! This new version is sweet. I love the ctrl++ and ctrl-- font size selection. It's really nice to see that
effort!

Probably the biggest for me is the missing functionality in Dolphin.
Dolphin has been a pain in the side ever since it's debut. It was released initially without the tabbed interface and now where'd media:/
and system:/ functionality go I have removed Dolphin in every release I have seen it but now Konq won't even do system:/ or media:/
so why bother... It's nice looking but what I want is something that just works...

Real woooo's
Have you ever needed to add yourself to another group so your can access it's files? No way to do that now in the GUI!
More embarassing is that it takes a reboot for the changes to be effective even if you just use the console addgroup command!
Come on guys this isn't M$ winblows.

Bugs are always a part of software. I expect them.

Cal...

[abalone]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

The notifier removes from its list devices that are still plugged in but haven't been used in awhile. This is not so much of an issue except that
since dolphin doesn't do something like media:/ like Kong did, now you have device that can't be accessed thru the GUI in any way!. Nice.

There's the "Places" panel in Dolphin, and "Computer" in the application launcher menus (both types*). I forgot if anything had to be enabled for that to happen but long-unused unmounted volumes do show up there along with anything freshly inserted.

*although it's buggy in the "traditional" launcher.

USB devices not sufficiently identified.
Udev supports a myriad of naming schemes. In dev notifier tho, they are shown by their filesystem type. No way to tell the diff between
a USB maxtor 1TB drive with an ext3 filesystem and a USB WD 250g drive w/an ext3 filesystem. Click on either and now we have dolphin up
with both mounted as disk and disk-1. That'll really confuse a few noobs!

Yeah. But it seems it uses volume labels and fstab entries if possible.

My kudo's go out to the konsole team! This new version is sweet. I love the ctrl++ and ctrl-- font size selection. It's really nice to see that
effort!

I like the simpler profile management. But did I dream that or was it once possible to use Ctrl-Left/-Right to jump a word left/right? Now it just prints ;5C and ;5D!

Probably the biggest for me is the missing functionality in Dolphin.
Dolphin has been a pain in the side ever since it's debut. It was released initially without the tabbed interface and now where'd media:/
and system:/ functionality go I have removed Dolphin in every release I have seen it but now Konq won't even do system:/ or media:/
so why bother... It's nice looking but what I want is something that just works...

After some simple tweaking I actually like Dolphin better than Konqueror now. The default settings, strangely enough, made it harder to use than necessary.

[Guest]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4


Thanks for the reply abalone

There's the "Places" panel in Dolphin, and "Computer" in the application launcher menus

I see those now. I use the console way too much. Thats probably why this issue cropped up. mke2fs doesn't label stuff unless
u specify it.

possible to use Ctrl-Left/-Right

IIRC it always was. I hadn't noticed that issue but it should be easily fixed in a .inputrc or some other config file.

After some simple tweaking I actually like Dolphin better

I hope I get to that place with Dolphin. Software elvolution is always a joy for me but I guess I wasn't ready to lose
some of the old staple apps

[abalone]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

possible to use Ctrl-Left/-Right

IIRC it always was. I hadn't noticed that issue but it should be easily fixed in a .inputrc or some other config file.

Thanks for the hint. I copied /etc/inputrc to ~/.inputrc, which seems to have "fixed" it (though I'd rather just find a way to make /etc/inputrc suffice again)

After some simple tweaking I actually like Dolphin better

I hope I get to that place with Dolphin. Software elvolution is always a joy for me but I guess I wasn't ready to lose
some of the old staple apps

At first I was really disappointed with Dolphin. But after pressing F4, F7, and Ctrl-2, ticking "Expandable folders" and "Show full path in location bar", adding extra details to the details view, and putting a "New tab" button and other useful stuff on the toolbar... I'm fine with it.

(Well, I do have a number of KDE nitpicks, of course. Some bugs, some wished-for absent features. But 4.3 is looking to be good.)

About the Device Notifier again, I do wish it showed everything (whatever that encompasses... network shares?) - maybe with the recently plugged-in stuff highlighted or sequestered away at the top.

[GreyGeek]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

Something went real wrong with the testing process for 9.04.
......

Bugs are always a part of software. I expect them.

Cal...

Nothing has changed about the "testing process", Cal. It is called "release early, release often". Your task as a user of free GPL software is NOT to whine in the blogs and forums about it (where such whining is liable to discourage newbies from migrating to Linux from the MS plantation -- you DON'T want that, do you?), but to post your bugs and wish lists in the appropriate bugzillas, the links to which are in the headers to this forum.

Besides, most of the "I HATE <something>" rants I read on this forum are by folks whose rant demonstrates quite clearly that they haven't bothered to learn how to use their tools, so they blame their tools. I suspect that many are bogus postings by Windows fanbois fighting the rise of Linux because their OS is begining to fade.

[vinnywright]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

I suspect that many are bogus postings by Windows fanbois fighting the rise of Linux because their OS is begining to fade.

LMAO.........muahaha......................AHum.... ......a..........ya sorey

UNIX type s#*t rocks :P

VINNY

[askrieger]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

@carndt: It is still possible to use Konqueror as your file manager. Just start Konqueror on boot up click Settings>"Load View Profile">"File Management", then set it up the way you like it. As an old codger, I set it up to look exactly the way it looked in Hardy.

[KeithZG]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

@carndt: It is still possible to use Konqueror as your file manager. Just start Konqueror on boot up click Settings>"Load View Profile">"File Management", then set it up the way you like it. As an old codger, I set it up to look exactly the way it looked in Hardy.

Hear hear!

(the first file browser I ever used in Linux was Konqueror, I think; ages ago, but I've yet to find something that surpasses it. Oh, and RadialMap View for the win!)

[jbo5112]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

My kudo's go out to the konsole team! This new version is sweet. I love the ctrl++ and ctrl-- font size selection. It's really nice to see that effort!

This was just a matter of setting keyboard shortcuts in KDE 3.5. They have broken waaay too many things in this version of konsole for me to celebrate updating a couple of keyboard shortcuts. It's so bad, that I cannot use KDE4.2 at work, and I'm considering abandoning it at home . The window doesn't always update to the tab I selected. The highlighted tab doesn't always correspond to the active tab. They took out some options that I regularly use, like setting a default terminal size or triple click selects from the current word through the end of line (which I heavily rely on). When I select the end of a line, it looks like I'm selecting space characters, instead of instantly highlighting the rest of the line. If there isn't a scroll-back history, then the scroll wheel acts like the up and down arrows, which can be anywhere from quite annoying (moving my cursor in vim) to disasterous (oops, I accidentally went back to the line in my history "rm -rf *" before pasting a newline), especially if you enjoy the free spin mode on one of Logitech's Revolution mice. There are probably more issues, but that's what I can remember off the top of my head.

I think it's also worth bringing up that the new dragon media player looks more like a proof of concept than a release version of a program. The user interface has been cut to almost nothing. The same thing for the new default bittorrent client, except it isn't nearly as drastic of a change. It's not really a problem, though. Sometimes abandoning current software and starting over with a clean design is worth the work, and new programs have to start somewhere. You can still install and use Kaffeine and ktorrent, but I cannot see why they weren't still selected as the default. I'm sure I will someday appreciate the new media framework.

This is my first long-term experience with Kubuntu, but I've been using KDE for years, and Linux for over a decade. Overall, KDE 4.2 is much nicer looking and does a better job of using newer technologies, like compiz-fusion and compositing. There is some promising progress, but with all the bugs I see and mission features/options, I don't think KDE 4.2 is up to the quality of KDE 3.5. In a year, with the release of KDE 4.4/4.5 it could be quite the system.

[Ole Juul]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

I think it's also worth bringing up that the new dragon media player looks more like a proof of concept than a release version of a program. The user interface has been cut to almost nothing

From the program description:

Simple KDE 4 video player ... Simple, uncluttered interface

I'd chose something else if I didn't want that.

[sithlord48]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

i know that this is meant to be constructive feedback, but has ne one ever noticed that the people with like 2 or 3 posts are always complaining about stuff..

now about the points you raised..

The printer issues, which there are many, are huge.

i can't really say any thing about this one.. i don't have a printer at home , but i do have one at work (a network printer) seams to work just fine with no drivers, just raw:/<ip>:<port> but then again i had to add it once as a printer on my laptop. (kubuntu 9.04-i386)

The device notifier issues...
The notifier looks great. But couple it's issues with the udev naming issues and now you have something that is just unusable
The notifier removes from its list devices that are still plugged in but haven't been used in awhile. This is not so much of an issue except that
since dolphin doesn't do something like media:/ like Kong did, now you have device that can't be accessed thru the GUI in any way!. Nice.

the places panel works great for that (new configurable media:/ if you will) ...,i like the folder panel too very useful.dolphin is not konqurer , that is its not a file manager and web browser that can open/edit your files. dolphin is more like a manage your files kind of file manager. (and the info bar does preview stuff, if you let it), also after i set up dolphin the way i like its awesome.
i also love how the filterbar works (crtl+i), the konsole in dolphin is super useful too (F4). and split is still there (F3) so what functions that relate to file managment are missing in dolphin?

[josefko]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

It looks like Dolphin and Konqueror are the only File Managers in Kubuntu. Do not forget Krusader, it's near to Free Commander and Total Commander in Windows. See http://www.krusader.org/

[Ole Juul]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

sithlord48: i know that this is meant to be constructive feedback, but has ne one ever noticed that the people with like 2 or 3 posts are always complaining about stuff..

Yes, I've noticed that too. It is consistent with MS's paid posters. One never knows, of course, and they know that. With all due respect to the OP, I can't see what is constructive about what you have to say. What is to be learned? How will it help? And most of all, why haven't you been back?

Regarding file managers: I just typed "file manager" into my package manager and got a rather long list of candidates. I should also mention that MC is probably available on ANY Linux system and it is so close to Norton Commander and Xtree and their ilke that ANY Microsoft user should be completely familiar and comfortable with it.

[sithlord48]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

Yes, I've noticed that too. It is consistent with MS's paid posters. One never knows, of course, and they know that.

not to be to off topic but did you read about this yet http://quaoar.ww7.be/ms_fud_of_the_y...-probably.html

And most of all, why haven't you been back?

lol i doubt he will come back...

[Ole Juul]

Re: This is meant to be constructive feedback... Review of 9.0.4

Yes, that story is also on arstechnica. Here is what I just wrote on another forum:

Me: MS-Win obviously has "superior" marketing - and anyone who thinks that is even remotely relevant to an operating system would perhaps prefer MS-Win. However, I believe in the freedom of people to chose an OS based on marketing tactics if that is what they think is important - even if it's a pretty kinky slant. In fact, I personally fall into that category. I would chose Linux based on MS-Win's marketing tactics.

Regarding the OP coming back: I hope he does some time - regardless whether I was right or wrong about being an MS shill. If I'm wrong, I will gladly apologize. It's just that sticking your head in the door and shouting some "constructive criticism" and then running off, is not exactly... how shall I put it ... constructive.