Natty Narwhal 11.04 Alpha 3

[Snowhog]

This is the first time that I've installed, and am using as my 'main' Kubuntu, a Kubuntu 'alpha' release. On March 5, 2011, I downloaded and burned the Natty Narwhal 11.03 Alpha 3 dated 3-Mar-2011 .iso to CD and did a clean installation to two new partitions on my HDD, giving me three Kubuntu's.

I'm quite impressed with Natty. I haven't done all my normal customizations with it yet. Until Medibuntu adds the repo for Natty, I won't add their repository, which will be needed to get the packages needed for DVD playback. But everything else about Natty 'just works' on my Toshiba laptop. I've also not yet configured Kontact/Kmail, which I'll do when Natty is released as 'final'. For now, while I'm running Natty, I just access my email account via the web interface my ISP has.

At this stage of Natty's development, there are here, just a few niggles, but aren't show stoppers by any stretch of the imagination. One niggle here, is that Rekonq has an issue when navigating back to a previously visited web page - the previous page loads/displays, but it is effectively 'dead' - nothing on the page works. I have to 'refresh' the URL and then the page is again 'live'. This doesn't happen every time, but I filed a bug report at bugs.kde.org anyway: Bug 268327 - Navigation dies when returning to previous page. Another niggle is the rekonq crash that happens "everytime" when adding a bookmark to the Bookmarks Toolbar. That has apparently been 'fixed' in version 0.6.85, which is not yet in Natty's repos.

I've not installed FF, and likely won't - I actually like rekonq. As I have done since Jaunty, I installed Wicd (wicd wicd-cli wicd-curses wicd-daemon wicd-kde) and purged networkmaner and it's ilk (modemmanager network-manager network-manager-openconnect network-manager-openvpn network-manager-pptp network-manager-vpnc knm-runtime network-manager-kde plasma-widget-networkmanagement). I just prefer Wicd.

[claydoh]

Re: Natty Narwhal 11.04 Alpha 3

I have to concur. Though I almost always run the development version of Kubuntu as my main OS from about alpha 3 on, I have been doing so since Alpha 2 with very few niggles personally. I am giving Firefox 4 a go this time out, so my rekonq experiences are few - FF4 is quite responsive and fast, even on my old P4 laptop I find it competitive with the others in this area.

The only thing I see that bugs me is that opening Dolphin sometimes gives me a blank page when opening my home directory (can't figure out how to reproduce this one), and the ultimately harmless akonadi error messages since the move to kde 4.6.1 (not exclusive to Kubuntu from the bug reports)

Having moved to a used Dell Latittude d630 dual-core laptop with all Intel inside, I am actually now re-discovering KDE as I now have enough graphics and cpu oomph for things like desktop activities and the like.

My old latop definitely is snappier in natty than in maverick, even though it is running KDE 4.6.1 on both OS's. The newer kernel and xorg drivers seem to be the key here. desktop activities are out of the qustion on that machine, as are having too many effects or too many running applications, but 11.04 is still more than useful for the tasks that it does

[dibl]

Re: Natty Narwhal 11.04 Alpha 3

I cheated and added the Maverick Medibuntu repo for long enough to install flash and java and codecs. Works.

[Snowhog]

Re: Natty Narwhal 11.04 Alpha 3

I considered that - briefly - but decided not to go that route. I don't actually watch DVDs on my laptop anyway - just use it (playing DVDs) as my 'acid test' that everything works as it should.

[verndog]

Re: Natty Narwhal 11.04 Alpha 3

I have been testing Ubuntu natty using Unity, and I have been far from impressed. At first I was just glad to get it to boot to Unity. Now that I've had time to use it and have Compiz and/or Unity crash almost daily, I've turned my attention toward KDE again. I will still test Ubuntu natty, but I see myself changing. I thought I would move else where but decided to install Kubuntu natty.

So far, I'm very impressed. Its the first Kubuntu that I have installed that worked out of the box. I used Ubuntu's iso and zsync to kubuntu. That way 1/2 of my work was already done. Now that I have both natty's installed, I can see which one I prefer. I also realize that its still in the testing phase, but I've found some show stoppers on the Ubuntu side anyway. I know Unity is new, and will evenually have most bugs worked out, but I've not very fond of the interface.

I ended up on this topic while searching for "rekonq" [how do you pronounce that]. I've never used "rekonq" before or have never even heard of it. I'm a Chrome users for a very long time now. Since it came with Kubuntu natty, I thought why not try it out.