Some Advice Needed

[oldgeek]

I have been using Bionic Beaver since it came out and am very satisfied with its stability and reliability. I am using btrfs and have a very up-yo-date backup on an external hard disk. I have also been using Kubuntu 19.04 and Neon 5.15.x on virtual machines and like the look and feel of both very much. I would like to switch to Kubuntu 19.04 when it comes out, but I don't like the 9-month lifespan, as it would force me to upgrade to 19.10 before the next LTS release. So I've been thinking of Neon. I used a hybrid Neon for awhile, based on Kubuntu 16.04 and using the developers edition of Neon, and it worked very well. I switched to Kubuntu in order to get btrfs and because the latest Neon wasn't ready yet. So I think that Neon would be my best bet as it doesn't have 6-month release cycles. But I have a couple of questions. Since my @ subvolume is based on Kubuntu, what would happen if I used it on Neon?

Would I need to use my backup @ at all, or could I just use the new one based on Neon? If so, would I need to make any adjustments, like for Google Earth or Wine, which I heard doesn't run on Neon? Is there anything else I should consider before making the switch, if I decide to make it?

[claydoh]

There are instructions on KDE's forum for running wine on Neon - basically involving enabling 32 bit support.
Google earth installs and runs just fine on Neon. Download the deb and double click. That's it.

I have no idea about btrfs, but I don't think it cares about the desktop at all, or whatever you named the volume. others will have better info about that.

You may consider converting 18.04 to Neon - it is not really a hybrid doing so, as it just replaces Kubuntu's Plasma and Qt. It supersedes them, really. Everything is the same Ubuntu base in both Neon and Kubuntu. It might be worth considering to preserve what you already have, and that includes your snapshots.

Some possible downsides to Neon is that some Qt software in the repos don't run on the newer Qt, so you have to grab packages directly from any respective home page or PPA (which gets you newer versions anyway)
You lose the Ubuntu/Kubuntu specific driver manager and software sources manager, though these can be installed after the fact on a clean install. I have seen times where I had done so, and the driver manager GUI did not work, but I have not used either of these in Neon for a while now.

I would not suggest using any of the -dev versions of Neon, as these are *always* at beta and alpha versions of Plasma, unless that is your thing

[oldgeek]

I believe someone from this forum tried to convert 18.04 to Neon and had a lot of error messages or something like that. It worked for me on 16.04, but that doesn't mean it will work now. I don't remember how to do it anyway. I agree with you about the -dev editions; I got tired of so many updates fairly quickly and sometimes they didn't work properly for a few days. My VMM version of Neon is the users one. Thanks for your comments, and I'm still thinking about the change.

[woodsmoke]

Hi
I've been running two versions of Neon for the last year and a half or so in addition to Kubu.

One is dev stable and one is user.

I have had absolutely zero problems with either.

However, I have not had the need to use "QT" stuff as specified by claydoh but I tend to run plain vanilla stuff, the office suites, e-mail or...I go full bore Media Center. The Neon user is one of my two work machines the other is Kubu, the Dev stable is every single kind of media app that can be found on the dev stable. And I have also tweaked the interface to make my Kparadigm shift tweak which I outlined in GREAT DETAIL... back when the whole thing about getting various activities to work specifically with certain apps and certain files etc. But the post, which is dated, is now in the archives someplace gathering dust.

However, what took multiple clicks and multiple moving betweens screens has now, , fortunately over the last year been GREATLY streamlined by the developers of Plasma etc. now it is basically just a click here and there.

But, as noted by oldgeek the dev stable updates daily and there are usually 50 to 100 + updates and they take maybe...oh... 3 or 4 minutes on cable in the midwestern U.S. on a medium fast plan.

You were talking about "backing up".

Well I quit all that rigamarole years ago... keep ALL OF MY FILES on an external hard drive or, for things with which I am actively working, on a usb stick which will later be moved to the external HD.

I can plug the HD into any of the machines and I have everything I need.

Really, all that i have on any of the machines is the OS itself and the applications. So, upgrading etc, changing etc is not a thing for me at all in terms of data, etc. I save my home settings to the usb stick if I change...

BUT...

Neon really is kind of like a ROLLING RELEASE... really.

Some people like that paradigm some do not.

If you are the kind of person who wants to "just set it up and be done with it" AND are willing to put your data, music, pics, you name it on an external HD then I think you might give Neon a try.

And, I have NEVER had any thing "break" because of an update, but then I don't get too far off the farm.

You probably will have problems with really OLD apps that are not maintained like xmms or something however I can run xmms2 just fine, it just took going out to the mainatainer to get it.

The only thing that regularly goes south is Kmail, which I, personally think, is the fault of Gmail and MS changing some niggling little thing just to stick it in the eye of anything not Microshaft or Google but then that's just me.

However, again, if you are using "Outlook cloud" at work the setup for it is dead simple just ask your supervisor for the appropriate send and receive mail stuff and it just works now.

So, maybe give Neon a try User should work fine not so many updates, or dev stable, Or...stay with Kubuntu!!! I loves my Kubuntu!

woodlikeskubusmoke

[oldgeek]

Actually, Woodsmoke, I like both Kubuntu and Neon. I like the new stuff, too. KDE is great. I have a few old astronomy programs that used to run on Windows and run on Kubuntu using Wine, so that is something to consider. I'm using my VMM Neon User at the moment and despite the slowness caused by virtual machine aspects I find it easy to use. So I have a happy dilemma.