Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

[apachelogger]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why

However there is one suggestion I could make: In the current version of Linux Format in the UK Ubuntu gets a 9 out of 10 score whereas kubuntu gets severely criticized, with no reason to use that over any other "vanilla" KDE distro, suggesting that kubuntu receives little, if no, attention. Reviews like that from supposed allies must cause damage. Perhaps if you as one of the developers were able to speak to the editorial staff, that might help. Firstly, to get a full explanation as to why they say what they do, so that you can do something about it, and secondly to get the message out that something is actually being done to improve things. Don't know how that would square with your role though, especially as Jono Bacon writes for the mag!

I will look into this. Unfortunately we get this a lot. Way too many "reviewers" judge the amount of work put into a distribution by the amount of branding applied or "custom" solutions brought into. Which is really unfortunate because we deliberately do not change KDE's branding and artwork (at best we tweak it a bit ).

Thanks for the info though

[apachelogger]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why

The default KDE configuration seems to be to blame for a lot of issues I see here. Akonadi just isn't finished thats all there is to that. Its limping along but it will improve. But Neomuk/Strigi shouldn't even be activated by default. (Mepis doesn't) just because its there doesn't mean it should be a default. I'd rather see one post about how to enable it then 50 on how to tweak it or disable it!

Grub2/Plymouth splashy sux! Sorry guys but I'd rather wait for a couple extra seconds and get slow stable boot that I can manage to edit to my preferences. (I'm sure this will improve but it is a little bit of a learning curve + overkill IMHO) Really hope to see some kind of GUI for this soon!

Well, they are both relatively new technologies, so it will probably still take a bit until GUIs appear, though I am quite sure they will (they always do ). GRUB2 however is relatively simple. Just few it as a series of scripts that put together will result in a config file. In any case I should hope that the settings in /etc/defalt/grub should be all you need. If you want to change the appearance a bit there are some guides I have seen floating around on google, also I think Dell made a package to brand GRUB2 a while back already. For Plymouth I do however agree, it is massive if you just want to do a bit of customization, on the other hand it allows developers for much greater flexibility in boot splash creation and boot experience at large. I personally would say that at least from the graphical point of ivew plymouth is a vast improvement over usplash

All the pieces are here kde 4.4.4 would have been a much better LTS release but... its here now. Hope it gets into the spins soon it'd be silly not too!

Yeah, we are trying to land it for the ISO updates. Not a particularly easy thing to do though, since we do not want to introduce any regressions, which is unfortunately not always provided for KDE's minor updates.

though I still maintain more attention to the default install could save a lot of headaches.

Any particular suggestions?

But WTF to I know anyway they are the experts after all.

A lot I would say You'd be surprised how many times a bit of common sense defied class book engineering...

[The Liquidator]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why

@apachelogger
I don't think I'm in danger of contradiction when I say it's very nice that you have come here and contributed and long may you continue to do so. This dialogue can only lead to progress.

[Bruce]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why

Well those are all nice excuses, and convenient that they are just simply explained away. Doesn't do much for confidnce and is about what I expected to hear.

If you think my problems with Plymouth are unique, then you haven't been looking into things much as the Internet and google are loaded with problems regarding it and pile of convoluted work around.

My hardware works incredibly well with "Linux". No problems with my hardware. All my drivers and hardware are currently working flawlessly on another distro. I have never had another distros boot splashes completely disappear or go from high resolution to a dismal 640x480, not even back in 2000 with RedHat 7.0 did that happen.

As for the starting and stopping of services I am well aware of how to edit configuration scripts, and start and stop them via the CLI. There is no excuse in the year 2010 for not having a graphical way of doing simply. Especially on a distro that claims to be "user friendly". There are no such things as sane defaults anywhere on any distribution that fit all users so well that there is no need for such utilities. Don't fall into that gnome mentality of removing or not implementing useful tools because you think your defaults are so good no one would need such a utility. The best defaults are ones that can be changed easily with a good tool designed for the job.

I found the akonadi crash on logout strange also, I didn't bother taking the time to report it, because I need a stable system that I can trust and uninstalled Kubuntu and installed another distro.

Same goes for the shutdown reboot hangs. Simply can't be bothered with taking more then the couple weeks I worked through the issues.

Then there was the package management, I had to use older versions of ffmpeg to do some of the work I do because ffmpeg was broken, that was no big deal it isn't the first time I had to such a thing. The thing that was a pain was when I went to lock the packages I installed so the wouldn't be changed or updated. There was no way to do it. So off to google I went again, only to discover I had to create and edit a file and pin the packages in that file. A simple right click in another distro and I lock packages.

As for open ports, how does samba work without an open port? For that matter a few of them have to be open for samba to work. Or ftp, or any of the other network services?

I absolutely love KDE, and have been using it faithfully for more then a decade now. I can honestly say if Kubuntu were my first and only experience with KDE, I would likely have never used it again.

I have a spare machine I am getting ready to set back up, dual processor tyan server motherboard with 8 gigs of ram, I will likely test on that system as I don't have to "rely on it" right now for anything other then testing junk on it. I know all it's hardware is 100% Linux compatible and has no issues. It is the perfect machine for experimenting.

I'll see how things go on that.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why

.....
GRUB2 however is relatively simple. Just few it as a series of scripts that put together will result in a config file. In any case I should hope that the settings in /etc/defalt/grub should be all you need. If you want to change the appearance a bit there are some guides I have seen floating around on google, also I think Dell made a package to brand GRUB2 a while back already.

It's SUPER of you to drop by, apachelogger, and I hope you make KubuntuForum a regular stop. But, being an old, retired programmer I understand that a properly filed bugzilla report is a more appropriate place for bug reports than trying to glean valid information from complaints or whines in a forum. But, since you are here ... ....

GRUB was easy to configure. All one had to do was edit /boot/grub/menu.lst.

GRUB2 is easy too, except for newbies and those not comfortable editing configuration files. Specifically, in GRUB2, there is no easy way to specify the order of bootable partitions displayed in the GRUB2 menu. In order to change the default boot partition one must edit /etc/default/grub and change "GRUB_DEFAULT=0" to some other value and then manually run update-grub. The value for "GRUB_DEFAULT" is determined by the user by counting the "menuentry" position that the desired partition was associated with in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file, which contents the user cannot explicitly control without rewriting a series of scripts. There use to be a GRUB editor in systemsettings but it was removed because it confused GRUB with GRUB2 and could not edit either menu.lst or grub.cfg. A GUI editor for GRUB2 should be added to systemsettings.

This probably isn't in your bailiwick, but the xserver configuration is another area which could benefit from an GUI configuration tool, similar to XFDrake. For some hardware HAL, udev, upstart, or what ever, never figures out what to do with some video chips and the user is left with a black screen and nonfunctional keyboard and no xorg.conf file to edit. When that happens to PCs on which I am installing Kubuntu I boot a PCLOS LiveCD and use its GUI tool to configure their video chip and then copy the xorg.conf file to their HD partition. Then I edit that file. I haven't found a tool in Kubuntu that reliably creates an xorg.conf for the user to edit. Even then, most users do not know how to edit xorg.conf, so a GUI tool is their only hope.

Finally, my avahi daemon had not been giving me any problems. On Monday, June 14, 2010 the following applications were updated or installed:

Installed: linux-image-2.6.32-23-generic, linux-headers-2.6.32-23, linux-headers-2.6.32-23-generic, linux-image-2.6.32-23-generic, linux-headers-2.6.32-23, linux-headers-2.6.32-23-generic
Updated: libc6-i386, libc6-dev, libc-dev-bin, libc-bin, libc6, libc-bin, linux-generic, linux-image-generic, linux-headers-generic, libc6-i386, libc-dev-bin, libc6-dev, linux-image-generic, linux-generic, linux-headers-generic, libc-bin

On Wednesday, June 16, 2010:

Updated: libusb-0.1-4

After a boot up on Wednesday afternoon I began getting 4 to 6 warning message about the avahi daemon crashing. After I close them avahi remains installed and functioning. I usually don't concern myself with warning messages because subsequent updates usually eliminate the messages, but since I know you are specifically working on avahi at this time I will, the next time I boot and the messages appear, follow through with filing a bug report on them.

I've been using KDE since 1.0 beta in 1998 and my last remaining significant complaint with KDE4 was that activating the desktop slowed my accelerated video by a factor of 2. That problem has been addressed and I now keep the desktop active all the time.

Kubuntu 10.4 is the BEST Linux/KDE4 distro I have ever used. Thanks again for dropping by, apachelogger, and keep up with the good work. 8)

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

The thread went in a different direction, but since I started it some time ago saying I was going back to Windows, then changed it in saying I was quitting Kubuntu, and finally came back to Kubuntu, I think I should also tell why I came back.
I'm no Linux-expert at all. I simply don't have the time to become one.
I tried Mepis. It has much much more issues than Kubuntu 8.04. There was something strange with the characterset, so it couldn't copy anything with an accent in it. Tried changing some locales etc., didn't work. Probably something simple if you know what to do.

I didn't know there were 'new' versions of Kubuntu 8.04. I thought I had to install something two and a half year old, so completely outdated. There happened to be 8.04.2. If I had known that, I had installed that right away.
I did now. And everything is working like it should. And like it used to do. So in april 2011 I hope 10.04 is working for me...

There are three small issues I can live with. Probably they can be solved too, but I've become a bit paranoid to change a working system.

Internet doesn't start automically after restart. Only when I turn power off completely. So once a day I have to login the router: just three clicks. I have a customized hosts file to keep all kind of rubbish out. If I change something, doesn't matter what, in network settings my hosts file gets completely mixed up and dns isn't working anymore. But I can live with one time a day logging in and clicking four times.

Firefox is stuck on version 3.0. But at least it works and a working 3.0 is far better than a not working bleeding 3.5.2. For writing tutotials on making sites I don't need the newest versions, because you can't use the newest things anyway, because lots of people run elder browsers (or the ugly monsters Microsoft wrongly dares to call a browser).
The whole thing started with me wanting to update Firefox because of security reasons. Well, I'll take the security risks. Probably 99,99% of the security risks have to do with Windows anyway.
I've searched for people updating Firefox themselves, but the results are very, very different, with lots of people running into problems. And I've had enough for the moment

I don't run nvidia-driver. If I do, I get with some programs the 'out of range'-error. (Programs that suppose the screen is 800x600, or something like that.) I've had that before and I know you can fix that, but without this driver I only can't play three games, so that's no big deal. And for some reason I become a little nervous when I hear 'nvidia-driver'

One very good thing: I changed from VMWare to VirtualBox. For me far, far better and easier. That's really something nice this adventure gave me.

When I started using Linux I choose Kubuntu because I thought it was the best for me. Well, it's still at least better for me than Mepis. Why 10.04 is such a complete disaster for me I don't know, but it certainly must have to do something with just my machine or something like that, otherwise it would be completely useless for everybody.
Anyway, I'm really happy to have 8.04 back. Except for these three small things everything's working like it should. My fonts look like they used too: I can read them!!!

Edit: @GreyGeek: I didn't ask anything for two year because I didn't have any issue with 8.04. So I didn't have to ask anything. Didn't give much answers too, but that's because I'm no Linux-expert at all.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

Firefox is stuck on version 3.0. But at least it works and a working 3.0 is far better than a not working bleeding 3.5.2. For writing tutotials on making sites I don't need the newest versions, because you can't use the newest things anyway, because lots of people run elder browsers (or the ugly monsters Microsoft wrongly dares to call a browser).
The whole thing started with me wanting to update Firefox because of security reasons. Well, I'll take the security risks. Probably 99,99% of the security risks have to do with Windows anyway.
I've searched for people updating Firefox themselves, but the results are very, very different, with lots of people running into problems. And I've had enough for the moment

It might be worth you taking a look at Google Chrome, which is winning a few converts.

http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=linux

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

Thanks for the tip, but I have Google Chrome and Opera installed for testing (and IE 7 on VirtualBox and Safari/IE 8/Firefox 3.5 on a Windows machine). But since I mainly develop in Firefox on Linux I thought it was a good idea to update...
After working with DOS/Windows from the very beginning I can really say working on Linux is far, far, far, far more pleasant than it ever was on Windows.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

If you want an up to date version of firefox on Hardy, you might find ubuntuzilla to be very useful.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawik...itle=Main_Page

[miKeyBabid]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

as far as your issues with firefox go : have you tried just downloading the tarball ? you don't need to install anything - it'll just work. I use this method on my puppy linux system, sinve I don't want bother compiling firefox from source and bloat my system too much. you can get the tarball from here (make sure you download the tarball and you might need to choose another language), extract the tarball, and then enter the new firefox directory and click on the "firefox" file, which should open up your new firefox 3.6.3 browser.

Hope this works for you (if you haven't already tried it that is)

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

Thanks for the tips about Firefox, but it's really no issue for me. I suppose the possible security risks are (almost) only for Windows. And for what I do I don't need the newest version. I've read also Canonical is asking beta testers for Firefox 3.5 on 8.04, so in some time there'll probably an update.
I have been looking to update myself, but I've read too many posts from people running into (big) problems doing that. And since I really don't need the latest version, why should I risk it?
I only updated to 10.04 because I had read lots of times it was so stable, fantastic, bugfree, ... It probably is, but not on my machine. I choose the LTS because I don't need the newest versions of OpenOffice, Firefox, Gimp, ...

Edit: it's already 3.6.3? I'm getting old before I even have time to notice it.

[miKeyBabid]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

And since I really don't need the latest version, why should I risk it?

no reason at all I guess although there's no risk that i can think of : if you doesn't work for you as a solution you just delete the directory from your home folder, since you never actually install anything on your system. But whatever works best for you!

mike

[Guest]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

Goeroeboeroe
Don't give up on Kubuntu 10.04. I've done three upgrades from the prior version on three diff computers and it works fine! btw if you do development, I'm sure your aware of Opera which will not only solve your email problem but has a knockout developer tag. To get it, click on Menu button and SHOW MENU BAR (if it is not there). From the menu bar, click on View and Developer Tools. There are cool things here like Opera Dragonfly!

To install, use Firefox and goto www.opera.com and download using the deb installer option. We're talking a very fast browser here... Opera 10.60.... the best yet!

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

Thanks for your reply. But I'm really happy with 8.04, so why should I upgrade before I have to? Besides, I'm pretty sure there's something with my machine that's fighting with 10.04. And since my machine is over about five years old, I'll probably have a completely new machine when I have to switch. So I'll probably have less problems, or none.
I do have Opera (en Chrome, and on Windows more browsers) to test, but I really prefer Firefox for development, because it has extensions that are (far) better than Dragonfly.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Leaving Kubuntu after 4 years using it and the reason why I came running back

.....
After working with DOS/Windows from the very beginning I can really say working on Linux is far, far, far, far more pleasant than it ever was on Windows.

You hit the nail right on the head!

After programming almost 40 years I told my employer that I was going to work until I was 70. The primary reason was that a few years before I had switched from programming in a Windows environment to a Linux environment and it brought the fun back into programming. Nearly losing my wife because of her heart problems interrupted that retirement date, and I continued for only 6 more months.

BION, it was much easier and faster programming on Linux using Kate and Kdbg than it was using MSVS C++.