Superior integration

[Snowhog]

I just finished installing Kubuntu 20.04 'daily build downloaded today' on my HP Pavilion g7 laptop. I used dd to write the .iso to a 4GB USB stick. The installation went perfectly; no issues what so ever. What I notice as a HUGE improvement (to me anyway), is the superior integration of Firefox. Specifically the up/down scrolling of web pages using the mouse wheel is SMOOTH! Every prior experience using Firefox in Kubuntu, the scrolling wasn't smooth; was laggy, as if the action was buffered. Very happy that isn't case in 20.04.

[GreyGeek]

Did you go with EXT4 or BTRFS? How long did it take to complete the install?

I'm running the Focal iso, which I update every day, from the boot menu and was planning to install it the day after it was released. However, it is running so good that I've been seriously considering installing it now instead of waiting. You may have tipped my cow over!

[Snowhog]

I opted to use BTRFS, even though I'm not using it for the backup purposes you and oshunluvr are so comfortable with. I don't have the need to be that protected on the laptop. It isn't my production rig for Kubuntu; my VM of 19.10 on my iMac is. I chose to use BTRFS simply because EXT4 is so 'long in the tooth' (even though it is still a VERY good FS).

As I was installing from a USB stick, the whole process (booting from the stick to reboot after install completed) was a bit slower, and I didn't time it, but I don't think it took longer than 30 minutes; less I think. Because my laptop is connected to our network wirelessly, I always opt to not download packages from the Net while installing, and not to install third-party packages (which downloads from the Net). I perform those actions after the install is finished and I've rebooted. I did run briefly, the Try Kubuntu first, to make sure that in the live environment it could see and connect to our wireless network. It did.

[GreyGeek]

I just finished using Guidus to create a Persistent LiveUSB of Focal. Plan on installing it right after I finish vacuuming the carpets.
BTW, I used the graphical output of netdata to watch the progress of Guidus, which has a very long wait period between the "wait for the 'Work is Done'" message and the actual message signalling that the work is done. I was able to watch every nuance of the creation process.

[verndog]

I'm running 20.04 also. Its been awhile since I've used Kubuntu. Very snappy. Impressed with Firefox on it also. Having issues with Chrome, so I stay with Firefox.

[GreyGeek]

Since Snowhog tipped my cow over I decided to go ahead and install Focal. I created a Persistent LiveUSB using Guidus and ran it to make sure it worked. This morning I booted into it and chose the Persistent in RAM option, turning the internet connection off. Going through the steps I configured for BTRFS and when I finished that setup I was taken back to the side panel but it skipped over the "User Info" and went directly into the installation, which died at 99% with an installer crash because there was no user info available to create the user account.

I turned off the system and rebooted. This time I turned the Internet connection on, which is something I rarely do during an install, and this time the "User Info" step was not bypassed (not that the Internet connection had anything to do with that). I configured for BTRFS on the whole drive. This time the installation including updates and continued all the way to the end and completed without errors. My GT 650M Nvidia chip was also configured with the 390 driver, just like I had it before. I pulled my he-ipv6.service file from my most recent snapshot of my 18.04 system, installed it and started that service. It works perfectly. I installed Chromium from the repository and resyned it to my Google account. Everything came down nicely and my Hangouts service is active.

Dmesg showed some errors. I had to edit /etc/fstab and put a "#" infront of "/swap". Some apparmor problems to clean up. Other than that it appears to be a beautiful install. Focal is VERY QUICK!

[oshunluvr]

Snowhog, I'm sure you're aware, but testing a new release is the PERFECT time to start using snapshots. I do an automatic daily on mine.

/etc/cron.daily/dailysnapshots:

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]#!/bin/bash[/COLOR]
#
# IMPORTANT:
# This script requires the root btrfs file system be mounted somewhere before running.
# Alternately, have the mount declared in fstab and the script will mount it.
#
exec 1> >(logger -s -t $(basename $0)) 2>&1 # Log the script activity

## Set the variables. Edit this section as needed
# declare an array variable of all target subvolumes
#declare -a SUBVLIST=("@grub" "@KDEneon1804" "@KDEneon1804_home" "@KDEneon" "@KDEneon_home" "@Kubuntu_1804")
declare -a SUBVLIST=("@KDEneon1804" "@KDEneon1804_home")

# other variables
NOTIFYUSER="stuart"                     # the username to get error messages
NOTIFYDISPLAY=":0.0"                    # the above user's X session
source_folder="/subvol/"                # Root file system mount location
snapshot_folder="/subvol/snapshots/"    # Snapshots folder
addname="_daily_"                       # This is added to the subvolume name of the daily snapshots
lastsnapnum=6                           # Last snapshot number to be saved before moving to backup status

# Verify the root BTRFS file system is mounted and mount it if not, or fail;
if [ -d "$source_folder" ]; then
    if ! mountpoint -q "$source_folder"; then
        mount "$source_folder"
        if ! mountpoint -q "$source_folder"; then  
            su $NOTIFYUSER -c "export DISPLAY=${NOTIFYDISPLAY}; /usr/bin/notify-send -i ksnapshot -t 0 'Daily snapshots:' 'Daily snapshot operation failed - no mountable subvolume folder.
'"
            exit 1
        fi
    fi
    else  
        su $NOTIFYUSER -c "export DISPLAY=${NOTIFYDISPLAY}; /usr/bin/notify-send -i ksnapshot -t 0 'Daily snapshots:' 'Daily snapshot operation failed - subvolume folder incorrect.'"
        exit 1
fi

## Begin process
# loop through the list of subvolumes
for SUBV in "${SUBVLIST[@]}"; do
    SUBVPATH="$source_folder""$SUBV"
    SUBVSNAP="$snapshot_folder""$SUBV"

# Move last daily snapshot to backup status
    if [[ -d "$SUBVSNAP""$addname""$lastsnapnum" ]]; then
        btrfs su de -c "$SUBVSNAP""_backup"
        mv "$SUBVSNAP""$addname""$lastsnapnum" "$SUBVSNAP""_backup"
        btrfs pr set -ts "$SUBVSNAP""_backup" ro true
    fi

# Roll the current snapshot names by adding 1 to each trailing number
    for ((i="$lastsnapnum-1";i>=0;i--)); do
        if [[ -d "$SUBVSNAP""$addname"$i ]]; then
        mv "$SUBVSNAP""$addname"$i "$SUBVSNAP""$addname"$(($i+1)); fi
    done

# Take new read-only snapshot
    btrfs su sn "$SUBVPATH" "$SUBVSNAP""$addname""0"
    touch "$SUBVSNAP""$addname""0"
done

# Notify the user that the job is done
su $NOTIFYUSER -c "export DISPLAY=${NOTIFYDISPLAY}; /usr/bin/notify-send -i ksnapshot -t 0 'Daily snapshots:' 'Daily snapshot operation complete.'"

# Script complete
exit 0

[/FONT]

[GreyGeek]

Continuing with my own Focal installation process ....

Today I continued to build Focal to what I had before with BIonic. First, I installed Minecraft 1.15, which ran fine at 150-250 fps. Then, I installed Steam from the repository and then I logged in and re-installed UniversalSandbox^2 and Kerbel Space Program to my local drive.

After that I downloaded SP-0908setup.exe and used Q4Wine to install it. It ran beautifully and fast.

I opened my most recent BTRFS @home snapshot of Bionic, which was yesterday evening, and dragged the contents of ~/Documents and ~/Download to Focal.

Next came SageMath. I installed the version in the Focal repository. It was the new version that uses Jupyter as the interface, which was broken beyond repair. Nothing worked and I could not import my worksheets from the pervious version. So, I purged the repository version and dragged ~/.sage and ~/SageMath from Bionic onto my new installation using Dolphin. It ran beautifully and all my worksheets worked perfectly. I am going to examine the code and eliminate any code which attempts to update SageMath or deactivate it.

I installed KMail using IMAP and all my emails populated from my ISP server. Google resupplied all my contacts.

Earlier we were told that the Systemd GUI was not being supported and isn't available for Focal. So, I have to resort to the CLI. No big deal, but I miss the GUI.

I installed Netdata and checked out the system performance. Netdata worked as well with Focal as it did with Bionic.

Earlier this morning I was getting the occasional crash of a plasma5 component. Then an update of the Plasma5 desktop came down the tube and I haven't had a crash since then. How could I tell I had a crash? A little square icon with a sad face appeared in the system tray. However, I could not detect any problems visually or performance wise.

I install Audacity, the rest of LibreOffice, some card games, I also installed "Hard Disk Sentinel GUI", which shows how much life is left in one's SSD's (and HDs) without using smart and doing some calculations.

All in all, I am very pleased with the performance of Focal. Thanks for tipping my cow, Snowhog!

[GreyGeek]

I had one more program to install. The EKG Data program that uses data generated by the EKG monitor that I use to keep track of my wife's heart health.
I used Q4Wine but the attempt failed, generating a 0x80010105 error dialog and hanging the install module. This error msg appears to be common for folks trying to install software on Win10.

It partially installed information in the system.reg file so I cleaned that out and tried it again ... several times. I even tried installing the setup.exe file in the English language folder directly, but that failed with the same error as well.

So, I opened my trusty @home snapshot from a week ago and copied the folder from its .wine directory to my current .wine directory, and that worked. The program runs nicely. I added a link to the application launcher.

I did a "sudo autoremove" and 14 Mb of files, about 300 or so, were removed. These were from the bad sagemath install from the repository. It included a lot of python3 files, libraries and other files and libraries so I logged out and back in to check the system and everything appears to be working fine, so far.

So, I am now running the OS I will be running for the next 5 years, maybe longer.