Kubuntu's Best Version?

[oshunluvr]

If I may insist: System monitors are not eye-candy. They are quite useful. To me, essential.

I totally agree, but one small piece of trouble you're having with conky doesn't ipso facto make Karumba better. It might just mean you haven't learned all you need to know about conky yet.

The Marble Wallpaper. It looked like this,

I do remember that now that I see it. It this that? I haven't tried it...

The Elegance clock

The only difference I see is the hands. Is there more I'm not noticing?

[jglen490]

LTS, and the latest. I'm not necessarily looking for "pretty", but it must work!

Right now 18.04.2, but when 20.04.1 comes out, I'll be all over it ...

[MoonRise]

Interesting Thread here.

Hmmmm... well, like most who already stated I've been here since I think 5.04? I started with Ubuntu first but really quickly moved to Kubuntu so kind of blurred when and which.

It was a great joy learning with the KDE3 series. When, uhmmmm, KDE4 came out I really did try to embrace it. It worked but had its idiosyncrasies. I grew with that and may have side tracked here and there on a few occasions when Ubuntu and Kubuntu had their "issues". I came back with 18.04 which is really solid. I only migrated past that recently because I did want the improved Plasma and other KDE features that I knew 18.04 wasn't going to receive.

So long story short I like stability but I also like improvements so it is always a mater of what I read here from most users of their experiences and usual general boredom of a system that is stable. I'll upgrade to give some "excitement" while still having stability. I'm at 19.04. Stable and I had a little fun in the upgrade and finding fixes to things that were just because.

So, no real Best/Favorite I guess.

[Don B. Cilly]

I agree, most of what I gripe about is eye-candy.
But.

. If I may insist: System monitors are not eye-candy. They are quite useful. To me, essential.
And, in reply to your question as to what did Karamba have over Conky, well, my Karamba monitor looked like this:
My conky one looks like this.
Much the same, you can say... but as network monitoring goes, the Karamba one...

. The Marble Wallpaper. It looked like this, but you could zoom, rotate and configure it to show more things. And the clouds were updated every six hours.
Boy, by having it there all day, I did better weather forecasts than the met office
So, not quite total eye-candy

. The Elegance clock:
On KDE4, it looked like this.

On KDE5:


OK, total eye-candy, but, it has its value, does it not? And, can you find a prettier clock than that?
And, how did such a beautiful thing turn so... well, not ugly, but, well...

Anyway, I'll get used to Plasma 5, and my clunky conky, (or I'll find a way to make it nicer) but... until someone brings the Marble wallpaper back, I'll be quite disappointed with it

[oshunluvr]

Well, matter of taste, I suppose.

Not always, for example;
· Doesn't have Superkaramba support.
Does anyone? It hasn't been updated since 2006, has it? It was written in 2003 to work with KDE3.5, parts of it were integrated into KDE4, then it died. I'd like to know what Karamba can do that conky or all the 100's of other widgets we now have can't. I was a SuperKarumba lover too, but that was eons ago. Conky has gotten much better of late - easier to use and better documentation. There's 1000's of themes out there so I find ones that have things I want and piece it together until I like it. I had issues with Karamba too. Conky is far superior if you want granular control over the look.

· Doesn't have the Marble wallpaper.
Sorry, I don't know what that is but sounds cool. Plasma 5 has animated wallpapers so it should be reproducible. You've got a few months to learn how, right

· Doesn't have root actions in Dolphin.
Agreed. here are workarounds if you still think you need to manage files with a GUI like running Dolphin AS root:
pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY KDE_SESSION_VERSION=5 KDE_FULL_SESSION=true dolphin
Hopefully, someday this will get fixed. I stopped worrying about Dolphin root actions a long time ago. Now-a-days I navigate to the folder I need with Dolphin, hit F4 to open a console there, do my dirty deeds, and close the console window. Really just a workflow change IMO.

· The Elegance clock has the hands hanging out of the dial.
I don't know this one either, but it sounds cool. Any chance you have an old screenshot or something? I couldn't find it. Shouldn't be hard to reproduce. Every theme out there has a clock in it.

· It has Discover.
Yeah well, hard to argue here. Discover looks like a menu for kids. It must be a generational thing. It has improved a lot but has a ways to go. Too bad Muon was abandoned before it got good. There's still synaptic.

OK, so no one cares.

Well, that's not really it IMO. Many share your opinions but this is Linux so who are you complaining to and who's responsible to make it the way you want? The best you can do is either put in a request with a developer to incorporate a change - I've done that and been successful - or dig in and fix it yourself - I've done that also. Honestly, if it's not worth even that level of effort, you probably don't want it as much as you think. It's not like we have to use Windows or Apple and have changes dictated to us. User participation can and will make changes in the Linux world.

Just to say, it wouldn't be difficult to make Plasma 5 almost as good as 4...

This is clearly a matter of opinion. There are still folks out there pining for KDE 3.5 but IMO that's just because human nature abhors change. KDE4 was way better than 3 eventually and Plasma 5 is way better than KDE in lots of ways and still getting better in many. You could always install Centos 7 and use KDE4 for 5 more years, but why? I think it boils down to what's more important - functionality or look. I think most of what you've described (except for Dolphin) is window dressing.I'd rather have an updated modern OS even if it means I give up a few pieces of eye candy. There were a few things I liked better about KDE4 but I can't remember them any longer. I just adjusted to the new normal.

My only gripes about Kubuntu are when they (the developers) fail to address what I think are the most important things, in this order: Installer, Package Manager, File Manager.

Ubiquity (the installer) has been utter crap for years, like a decade or more. The last couple versions have been better but they should have switched to Calamares years ago instead of polishing a - well you know what I mean.

Discover I already talked about. I can't imagine why they've gone that way except the developers are of the smart phone generation and don't want any real feedback when they install something.

Dolphin - with the exception of blocking root actions - has improved nicely. Once I learned how to build service menus it became amazing. I totally agree that I don't need or want developers telling me how to manage my system. That's why I've always hated Gnome. The developers were closing off or hiding functionality 20 years ago. It smacked of Apple or Microsoft and literally made me angry. Again, I can't imagine why some developer decided they knew better than I did how to manage my own property. Honestly, if it continues we'll have to look for another desktop environment to use.

[Bings]

There are some nice widgets you can install for system monitoring

[Don B. Cilly]

Really, each version simply has gotten better and better.

Well, matter of taste, I suppose.
I mean, 18.04 works fine. So did 14.04.
Except, 18.04:
· Doesn't have Superkaramba support.
· Doesn't have the Marble wallpaper.
· Doesn't have root actions in Dolphin.
· The Elegance clock has the hands hanging out of the dial.
(it's still the only really good-looking clock in this galactic sector, but then, hey, exactly ;·)
· It has Discover.
Among other things.

Now, I don't know about Discover, but the rest of the list would be easy to fix, wouldn't it?
OK, so no one cares. Which is funny, because (IMHO) :

------- RANT/RAVE MODE ON --------

· System monitors are very useful. All computers misbehave, and having a monitor that give you a good idea of what's going on is a Good Thing (for me, almost indispensable).
With Karamba, it was easy, efficient and clear. Now we have to use Clunky Conky which, well it does the job, but it's a bit, well, clunky.
OK, Karamba is dead. I wonder why there's not a couple of coders out there to resuscitate it... or port the good code to Conky...

. The Marble wallpaper - with the live clouds. Pretty much everyone who saw it, said "I want it". I said, well, install Kubuntu. Some of them actually did
And of course we want it back. There's even one guy who says it's easy and provides a template to do it. Where are coders when you need them?

. Dolphin root actions. Sure, "security". Now, wasn't Linux in general, and KDE in particular, about "user's choice" and "extreme configurability"?
Sure, "security" So what. Slap a big fat red warning on the screen and let me decide. Worse than Apple, you are
Who's going to attack a little box on a remote Mediterranean island that's worth "less than your shirt" and contains less valuable information than my goat's brain?
Can I please decide what to do with my data?

------- RANT/RAVE MODE OFF --------

('cause I won't even go into the Elegance clock and Discover - not for today anyway ;·)
Just to say, it wouldn't be difficult to make Plasma 5 almost as good as 4...

[Qqmike]

Snowhog: Well, for me, it's always been the one I'm using. Really, each version simply has gotten better and better.

Very well put, good point. That pretty much sums up my feeling here. It's the same drill every time for me--very hesitant to let go of the old version I'm using. Last time it was 14.04, me thinking it was absolutely perfectly indispensable. I hung on to 14.04 a long time. Finally, moved to 18.04 and only regret I hadn't done it sooner.

[Bings]

The easiest way to install stuff of the store, by the way, is to right click desktop and click "add widgets" click "get new widgets" and search for the title. It downloads and installs from the store. Then the custom menus are added to alternatives.

[Nasty7]

I have tried "alternatives" but still don't like it well. One issue I think is my ADD, so a nice layout is imperative.

[claydoh]

I will say it seems to run very well, I just don't like the layout very well. Mostly I don't like the Menu. On Mint's old KDE there was Lancelot, and that thing is the bomb! Dare I say even Windows 10 Menu is miles above Kubuntu.

There are *many* alternative menus out there, I dare say more than there was in KDE 4

[Bings]

I will say it seems to run very well, I just don't like the layout very well. Mostly I don't like the Menu. On Mint's old KDE there was Lancelot, and that thing is the bomb! Dare I say even Windows 10 Menu is miles above Kubuntu.

You can right the menu launcher button and change the look with "alternatives" and if that isn't nice enough, you can install custom menus https://store.kde.org/browse/cat/398/order/latest

[Nasty7]

I will say it seems to run very well, I just don't like the layout very well. Mostly I don't like the Menu. On Mint's old KDE there was Lancelot, and that thing is the bomb! Dare I say even Windows 10 Menu is miles above Kubuntu.

[Snowhog]

Well, for me, it's always been the one I'm using. Really, each version simply has gotten better and better.

[Nasty7]

Agreed for me too! I really loved Mint's KDE, which isn't Kubuntu but still had a better KDE experience IMO.