9.04 - the worst version ever

[Snowhog]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

pansz@

"One size does not fit all." What one finds suitable, even enjoyable, another finds unsuitable and unenjoyable." So what? Does that really define anything? No.

[Telengard]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

I believe that in almost 100% of the cases where a post claims "it's bad", it's due (likely) entirely to incompatible hardware and/or a screwed up system (highly messed with).

I can understand why you might think so, especially if 8.10 Intrepid worked well for you. I installed 8.10 on two different model physical machines and a virtual machine. In all three cases the system simply quit working in various ways after several reboots. I didn't post about it at the time, and simply gave up on 8.10 from frustration. I'm not about to hijack this (albiet useless) thread to rehash it.

Since the OP of this thread has refused to cooperate with everyone's attempts to help him, and appears to have abandoned this thread anyway, let's just let it die.

[irlandes]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

I believe that in almost 100% of the cases where a post claims "it's bad", it's due (likely) entirely to incompatible hardware and/or a screwed up system (highly messed with).

I can understand why you might think so, especially if 8.10 Intrepid worked well for you. I installed 8.10 on two different model physical machines and a virtual machine. In all three cases the system simply quit working in various ways after several reboots. I didn't post about it at the time, and simply gave up on 8.10 from frustration. I'm not about to hijack this (albiet useless) thread to rehash it.

Since the OP of this thread has refused to cooperate with everyone's attempts to help him, and appears to have abandoned this thread anyway, let's just let it die.

Maybe I am missing something, but of course he abandoned it after being called names. What sort of person would not abandon a thread after being treated that way? I am a moderator on a "social issues" board which by its nature would tend to be rather volatile if we did not keep it under control. If you guys acted there like you do here, you would be gone 15 seconds later.

The comment on Mepis reminds me of how I was treated there last year. I had Kubuntu 7.04 in my Dell Vostro 1000 laptop, and hibernate worked perfectly. One day it stopped working. I finally discovered the UUID for swap had changed. At the time I did not realize it happened right after I tried a live Mepis CD in this machine.

I went through the routine of changing the several files which must have the correct UUID in them, though 7.04 still does not hibernate; in fact when it boots, it says mount point swap does not exist. The other versions work okay with swap.

One day I decided to try Mepis again, and as the live CD came up, it plainly said, Setting Swap UUID, and listed the new UUID number.

I decided to do the right thing, which was go to the Mepis forum and ask for help. When I told my problem, immediately everyone started shouting, calling me names, such as the word troll which is what unintelligent people say when they have nothing useful to say. Other names as well.

And, all insisted live CD's do not ever write to HD which is really pathetic, since many of them do use Swap, and mine changed the UUID. I saw it, and got no help at all from the Mepis forums, only insults. And someone e-mailed me that I was banned for saying I saw a live CD set UUID on swap. Mepis is on my personal negative recommend list, because no one should be treated that way.

I will never know what happened since I was unable to get the source for the binary initrd, but I did learn not to ever again try Mepis in my machine. I do not hesitate to use every opportunity to let people know how I was treated. You alienate one person on a distro forum, you lose a larger number of potential users, which is probably the way it should be.

I came back here because I just installed Kubuntu 9.04 based on positive reports. I guarantee you if I could access apt-get repositories for 7.04 I would never change. I have tried once a year, and nothing since then has been any good. They sit there on my multi-boot HD doing absolutely nothing. I have an old emachines with 6.10 and it also does almost everything very well; I sometimes boot it when I need to do something the others don't do.

I am also having lots of problems with 9.04, and though I am going to tell you an incomplete summary so far I AM ALSO GOING TO ABANDON THIS THREAD, and will be posting problems one at a time on separate threads unless you also attack me on those threads. Kubuntu forums have been very pleasant and civil in the past and I frankly was shocked to see the attack here.

Example 1: Konqueror. I do a lot of simple photo work, using mostly mogrify, and i send photos from families here in rural Mexico to kinfolk in the north, some of whom have not seen a photo of family at home in up to 18 years. 7.04 had a function in which I could hover the cursor over a file, and see the data, including creation date with a pop-up display. Gone all gone. I have found nothing on Google except lots of scripts to change filename to include creation date which I have no desire to do.

Example 2: Konqueror. Thumbnails do not work on photos, which also slows things up for this work. Yes, in settings display thumbnail is enabled. Nothing on Google.

I may have to re-boot to 7.04 to do my photos, but that is pretty pathetic, IMO, that with a new distro to do the same tasks as before I have to reboot an old distro. I have them in a storage partition linked to ~ so I can hit them from either distro.

Example 3: If I attempt to change the display screen to accurately show Desktop folder, or any other folder for that matter, the X crashes and comes back with its artificial display. To work with items downloaded to Desktop, such as Ubuntu Kung Fu and a couple other pdf manuals, have to go into Konqueror. (I do not like Dolphin, which works the same with #1 and #2.)

Example 4: Evolution changed stored mail format, which means if I attempt to use another distro, which would be indicated, I am going to lose mails since my last html back-up. I realize they did it to make things better, it is only a negative for my personal needs. But, at this time, it sort of freezes me into 9.04 no matter how many things I can't do any more.

Example 5: When I open a terminal window in a konqueror window, it usually crashes the konqueror window. This is something I have always done in 7.04 for a variety of activities. There may be a way to open that terminal in the window where I want to use it. I haven't got around to being sure yet.

Example 6: I have not found a Desktop access app for the tool bar which allows me to clear the "desktop" so I can do something there, and have to minimize manually all the apps. This may be some other way to do that which I have not yet found.

Example 7: I have not found a way to add app icons to the tool bar below. This is also something I have always done and was fairly easy. So, if I want to open an app, with it's icon on the "desktop" thingie, I have to minimize one at a time, instead of merely clicking the app icon below. Or go into the K menu which is also time consuming.

Waiting a whole year for a stable version as someone suggested is not a good choice.

+ It did detect the wireless by itself. That was a very big plus, I tell you.

+? I am not sure yet, but I discovered fbreader e-book reader, which may or may not be good. I have always used etr and was not even aware of fbreader until I bumped into it while googling for these problems. It does look promising.


Due to the surly behavior of several people here, I am also abandoning this thread. I will be posting my questions one at a time, unless of course, I encounter more of the surly attitude on other threads. There are other forums and plenty of other distros..

[GreyGeek]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

....
i send photos from families here in rural Mexico to kinfolk in the north

How rural are you .... what is your Internet connection? Rural internet connections in the US tend to be dialups or FM links.

You write using excellent English. Is it your native tongue, i.e., are you a transplanted American, or did you spend a lot of time "up north"?

[Telengard]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

Maybe I am missing something, but of course he abandoned it after being called names

You are missing something. The OP outright refused our attempts to help him. End of discussion.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

I have read this thread with some interest as it is a bit typical of not only new users, but also frustrated, more experienced users.

The very nature of linux distros mean there is no specific point where you can complain or shout at someone for releasing a bad product. So sometimes people go to whatever is available to vent their frustration. I know I have done that sometimes, and the reactions have not always been too kind, and sometimes outright arrogant and hostile. Even when I have not vented frustration in the first place, only after people "trying" to help (without reading what I have posted) and I have reacted to the obvious, have I got what I would call rude comments.

But I have to say that this forum has in general been very tolerant and helpful. And I hope that the attitude I have found other places on the net never will appear here. Here is one suggestion:

The OP did not really have any questions or calls for help at all. He vented. that's all. One of the forums I frequent about foreigners in Brazil has set up a section for exactly this purpose. They have realised that people needs to vent sometimes and having a forum for this is a good way of keeping it out of the other forums. Why not get something like this here? A place where you can blow off some steam without risking being called a troll or whatever label other users want to use?

For me, Kubuntu has largely been a great experience. Maybe I was lucky when I made some choices before installation. I did a little research and decided I would not trust my data to a new filesystem. So all my installations (still) use ext3 and I have had no problems worth mentioning with it.

I have upgraded all installations in the house to KDE 4.3 and I am VERY happy with it. As I have not been running Kubuntu more than since 9.04alpha6, I can not speak on any comparison with KDE3. But I have to at least agree a little with people that get frustrated with software that get a major upgrade and find that big parts of the functionality disappears.

I would call this a less than optimal development and maybe rushing things to please. It would be better to keep the beta designation on a software like that. A think most people expect a newer version of a piece of software to have the same features as the version it replaces and then some. It is ok if some functions change, but you should not plainly loose a lot of functions, just have to do them in a different way.

We need help sometimes. And we can hopefully all lend a helping hand sometimes. And maybe it does not hurt to let people vent a little. Ususally, it just becomes bad if these people are met with a confrontational and arrogant tone. It is tempting, I know, but it actually do not help anyone.

[lmilano]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

That's an excellent idea (a section to vent up). There is a section to propose site improvements, you may want to propose this there ...

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

I'll make a suggestion.

In the forum I mentioned, threads like this one are moved over as soon as it becomes appearent that it is venting and not a question for help of any kind. But we should also be careful about it and not move threads over just because we do not like them. In a situation where you have lost a lot of valuable work, it is very normal to get frustrated, so some remarks to that effect should be expected. And as I said, it is not easy to know where you should direct your frustration when there is none to direct it at. So it usually ends up in a "This is a xxxx system (insert bad words of your choice)".

It is a lot easier with Microsoft or Apple. There, you have a company and people that are clearly responsible for the product and they charge money for it. So you can direct all your frustration against them. Not that it helps, though....

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

Done. Add your thoughts to it at

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3105849.0

And if you have a suggestion to a name, please add that too. I have already suggested a few there :-)

[Troberg]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

In my opinion, Kubuntu has had a slump, due to too early adoption of KDE4, way before it was ready. Intrepid was unusable in an environment where you depended on your machine. Jaunty is better, but still not as good as Hardy. I do think, however, that Karmic Koala will be the magic bullet, and that it will be the best Kubuntu yet, as KDE4 will then be ready for general use.

So, I suffer for a couple of months more, then it will be fine again.

[irlandes]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

....
i send photos from families here in rural Mexico to kinfolk in the north

How rural are you .... what is your Internet connection? Rural internet connections in the US tend to be dialups or FM links.

You write using excellent English. Is it your native tongue, i.e., are you a transplanted American, or did you spend a lot of time "up north"?

I am a retired expat, and have DSL here. Telmex DSL varies in speed depending upon the number of people using it. Our service here is by microwave repeater. This is a Third World village in rural Pueba, I am at 5700 feet.

Telmex spent a lot of money, and as far as I can tell almost any small village today has telephone and DSL available. The isolated ranches and houses, of course, do not.

I worked in a contract defense plant in the Midwest for over 30 years, and started on microprocessors in 1974.

[irlandes]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

Maybe I am missing something, but of course he abandoned it after being called names

You are missing something. The OP outright refused our attempts to help him. End of discussion.

With all due respect for an honest difference of opinion, the OP refused your attempts to help him AFTER HE WAS INSULTED AND TRASHED. End of discussion.

[dibl]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

Why, oh why, are we breathing new life into this sorry old non-productive thread/argument? Aren't there current users seeking assistance with current issues -- can't this energy be re-directed to help someone who needs and wants help, today?

Thanks!

[irlandes]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

I was really negative at first about 9.04. I may have said so, and I have posted on separate threads for the problems I had. Once I worked them out, I think it may be one of the best distros I ever installed. I still have a couple of nuisance problems, but based on past experience, I am confident when I have time to work on them, I can find solutions.

The only remaining issue is the relatively short support cycle. So, I am trying CentOs 5.? on my desktop and evaluating it for long-term use. Some guys do not mind installing new distros but I have so many things I expect to do, and so much in photos and other data I want to keep, that it takes me quite a while to set up a new distro to suit me. I'd almost rather take a (minor) beating than install a new one. I would probably still be using Kubuntu 6.10 if support were available.

At first I resisted change. I have always used Konqueror, for example for files. Early Dolphin was pretty disgusting. Now, it will do split screen. And, one can have a terminal open at the bottom, and it automatically follows moves through folders.

Ditto for Gwenview. I always used Kuickshow and first Gwenview was pathetic. But, Gwenview now lets you see meta data, and has minor photo editing capacity. If I want to crop a picture, no longer have to open GIMP, or fuss with mogrify to find the correct points.

Also, it displays a thumbnail of whichever file you hover the cursor on. Plus mogrify is one of my favorite photo edits, and that is available in the Dolphin live terminal, although resize is available in Gwenview.

And, my old books from Gutenberg Project work really well on FbReader. I always used ETR, but this new reader, at least new to me, is really slick.

It may be obvious that 9.04 suits me so well because the several things I do more than anything (except surf) work so well with the new apps it has. Clearly, if I did something else, and the great apps weren't there my viewpoint might be more negative.

But, that personal difference of usage, plus the differences in hardware is why different people have different viewpoints on a given distro. And, also why so many people tire of MS One-size-fits-all-take-it-or-leave-it-I'll-leave-it-thanks attitude.

[Snowhog]

Re: 9.04 - the worst version ever

irlandes -

Do keep in mind, that it really isn't fair to make any *real* comparison of 9.04 - yet. It's still just an Alpha release; hasn't even made it to Beta yet.