Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

[lurch]

Hi
You want opinions of Kubuntu.
As it stands at the moment in my opinion I am sad to say it is the worst release of this great OS.
I am unable to get into the desktop I have a post about my problem in the installation and boot forum Black desktop with mouse pointer .
lurch

[irish man]

Re: Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

> Just installed 9.10 on HP laptop 1.6 mhz cpu-1 ghz mem was always locking up with XP which is the reason for the switch to Kubuntu started working with ver 8 found difficult to setup....this version had everything I needed but webcam drivers ( cam built in but hardly used so no big deal) a few hic ups in install but still not like early versions so all in all good job

[GreyGeek]

Re: Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

Don't use the "Social Desktop" so I don't care.

Stable? For me, like a ROCK. I haven't had a single desktop crash since I started using Karmic at Alpha4.

Beautiful? My desktop is gorgeous. But, of course, I customized it to make it look exactly the way I wanted it to look. Why don't you, instead of making a whine which says more about your abilities than it does about Karmic? You know it is fully customizable, don't you?

[theread]

Re: Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

Grey Geek,

I can see where you are coming from, and understand your point of view but you too must understand that there are many people like me, who although computer knowledgeable in our own way, just want an OS that is 100% reliable without having to understand it, so we can get on with our work uninterrupted.

All other versions of Kununtu for me (from daper onwards) have been solid and reliable. Today Karmic crashed on me 5 times as I was using Open Office Spreadsheet - and my crime - simply dragging a set of cells from column C to column E. Yesterday was much the same, every time I closed a message in my web mail it crashed.

I am glad that the developers have acknowledged the situation (I assume that is what the splash on the Kubuntu home page is about) and improvements will come about in due course. Until then how can I say to my associates that I use a better system when I have to keep rebooting and keep them hanging on whilst I do, so that our collaboration can continue again once it has rebooted?

Roy

[GreyGeek]

Re: Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

Karmic crashed five times using OOo ... web mail crash ...

Roy,
Dragging a set of cells from one column to another works fine in my copy of OOo 3.1.1.

ForFox has no problems working with my gmail account. Nether does Konqueror, but I prefer FF.

The "acknowledgement" you mention is the "TimeLords Project", and it is MUCH more than what you think it is. You should download and read all 9 pages from here. It will give you a good idea of what the Kubuntu developers face and why they can use YOUR help too. Helping is much better than complaining.

Until then how can I say to my associates that I use a better system when I have to keep rebooting and keep them hanging on whilst I do, so that our collaboration can continue again once it has rebooted?

Simple, Roy:

I noticed that just 4 days ago you reported

Installed Karmic last night as upgrade from jaunty, all seemed to go OK and it "works" but I keep getting warning dialogues coming up on log on "Your Kernel has suffered serious failure" or words to that effect.

And you wonder why Kubuntu 9.10 isn't the stable, social and beautiful desktop you thought it would be?

Roy, it is obvious that if you are having serious kernel failures then all didn't go well with your upgrade, but you only asked about deleting core dumps. You could turn off core dumps by using the following instructions, but that wouldn't fix your problem of a bad kernel and/or installation. I believe that a better method in your situation would be to save off your important data to a DVD or other suitable removable storage device, and do a FRESH INSTALL of Kubuntu 9.10 from a LiveCD that you've burned and checked by running the menu option on the LiveCD to check the CD itself, before you install it. If your PC had problems connecting with the wireless it would be a good idea to take a piece of cat5 eth cable and connect your PC to an eth port on the back of your wireless while you do the install and the subsequent updates & upgrades, and to be sure you can configure your wireless and get it running before you disconnect the eth cable.

In checking over your posts for the last two years I see that you are a web designer and former Turbo Basic programmer! If you are a web page creator and were using Turbo Basic you've been around the block a few times and aren't the complete computer novice you seem to portray. Don't do anything fancy during the install. Let Kubuntu's installer have the whole HD and do it automatically. When it is back on then reload the data you saved off. Then install apps ONLY from the Kubuntu repository. You mentioned that if Quanta wasn't on Karmic then you weren't going to install it. The version of Quanta in the repository is for KDE 3.5.10. Qanta Plus was my favorite web design tool, but I haven't used it in several years. I have no clue as to how well it will run under KDE 4.3.2, but it has a lot of addtional dependencies to install. If you are running the 64 bit version of Kubuntu, like I am, then the ia32.lib compatibility may or may not be compatible with Quanta. The only thing you can do is install it and try it. If it doesn't work well then do a complete uninstall and use the autoremove parameter of apt-get to clean up the orphans.

I've installed Kubuntu 9.10 on nearly a dozen different laptops and/or PCs, all ranging from 8 years old to less than a year old, and all of them gave "stable, social and beautiful" installs. Most are owned by folks who are almost as old as I am, (68), or older. None of them have more than "Joe and Sally Sixpack" experience. ALL were installed when Kubuntu was in Alpha or Beta and no one has reported any crashes or failures, let alone any like you report having. If a 78 year old man with no background in web design or BASIC programming can use a Kubuntu 9.10 installation and not have any problems so can you.

[theread]

Re: Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

Hello Grey Geek,

I am not complaining I am just stating what I find. I am no way a Linux expert but intend to stick with it as returning to Windows is not attractive, Linux being so much more secure and I have forgotten most of what I knew of that OS, though I miss Power Basic a lot and that compiler has developed tremendously. I wish they would port it to Linux, but I don't see Bob Zale ever agreeing to any of the licences for the Open Source environment. The question surrounding Linux and its distos that seems to be always hanging in the air unanswered is to what extent the help should be tailored to the dumb (like me). At least a Windows help file will have a shot at diagnosing the problem, often unsuccessfully but when it works, great, problem solved without going through essays that read like a computer science lesson. Incidentally I seem to recall seeing a dialogue after upgrading that said all was well, hmmm.....

Downloading a live CD is an option, I realise, but it would take at least 4 hours, then there is all the applications to get and install and configure and this is not attractive. I could order a live CD but I still have to get the programmes. Incidentally the network here is ethernet cabled but a **##** awful broadband/DSL connection.

I will have a look at the Time Lords document to see where Kubuntu is headed, I hope along an evolutionary path not revolutionary, no doubt I will see when I read it. As I now do most of my programming with PHP on the server, or client side Java Script I really do not know that much about the internals of Linux, as opposed to Windows when I was always poking around in the OS with Power Basic and VB but my C capabilities can be written a postage stamp so yes I am a linux novice.

Roy

[chipbennett]

Re: Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

Downloading a live CD is an option, I realise, but it would take at least 4 hours, then there is all the applications to get and install and configure and this is not attractive. I could order a live CD but I still have to get the programmes. Incidentally the network here is ethernet cabled but a **##** awful broadband/DSL connection.

I found out the hard way, a couple years ago, why it is an awfully good idea to have a separate /home partition. My upgrade to Hardy was painful and involved loss of data (due to my own ignorance, though I *thought* I had properly backed up my /home) after a borked upgrade. Afterward, I did a clean install, and had the installer create a separate /home partition. Last week, I "upgraded" from Hardy to Karmic, by doing a clean install of / and leaving /home intact. It went flawlessly.

All that to say: bite the bullet, back up your existing /home, and do a clean install. Does it really matter that the download will take 4 hours? Start the ISO (or better, torrent) download before you go to bed, and it will be finished before you wake up.

Once downloaded, perform the clean install, drop your /home data back on your new /home partition, and you should be good to go. You may have to install a few other apps, but they are a single sudo apt-get away. Your configuration settings will remain intact in your /home dot-files.

If I can do it, *anyone* can do it.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

You don't have to have a separate partition for your home account to do that. Just use the same home account name as your did before.

But, I don't do it that way. I save my DATA off (backups of my PostgreSQL databases, pics, videos, email, address book, banking data, etc...) onto DVDs. Then I do a fresh install, reinstall my apps with the latest and greatest, install my app data from the DVDs, and I'm off and running.

New versions of apps sometimes have new versions of dot-config-files. I prefer to use the newest version, even if it means resetting some things.

But, each his/her own.

[chipbennett]

Re: Kubuntu 9.10: Stable, Social and Beautiful NOT!

You don't have to have a separate partition for your home account to do that. Just use the same home account name as your did before.

True, of course - and the *buntu installer can now recognize a non-partitioned /home during install, and can be set not to overwrite it. However, Should the worst happen, having /home on a separate partition just makes things so much easier.

But, I don't do it that way. I save my DATA off (backups of my PostgreSQL databases, pics, videos, email, address book, banking data, etc...) onto DVDs. Then I do a fresh install, reinstall my apps with the latest and greatest, install my app data from the DVDs, and I'm off and running.

New versions of apps sometimes have new versions of dot-config-files. I prefer to use the newest version, even if it means resetting some things.

In case of incompatible dot-files, it is easy enough just to delete (or rename) the old dot-file, and let the app create a new one.

But, each his/her own.

One of the many reasons Linux is great!