Kubuntu future?

[Fenyx]

Re: Kubuntu future?

I'll take your word for it, since you're a Debian user. But is there a sort of community forum for Debian, something like Ubuntuforums? It's because I think the main form of communication between Debian users (not devs) is still the mailing lists (I might be, and hopefully I am, totally wrong on this). And mailing lists really aren't that newbie/average user-friendly. (Scares the hell out of me. Don't know why)

Anyway, I'm having trouble upgrading to Dapper. The mirrors are up (I can successfully update/Fetch Updates), but 205 packages will be removed if I dist-upgrade/Full Upgrade.

*sigh* I wonder what I did wrong...

[kubicle]

Re: Kubuntu future?

*sigh* I wonder what I did wrong...

Probably nothing:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu...eta/+bug/39658

A friend of mine worked around this by using synaptic...I described the process shortly on this thread:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3608.0

Ask away if my instructions are too obscure to follow

[askrieger]

Re: Kubuntu future?

I tried to upgrade to Dapper (on my laptop which I use maybe 3 times a year) the same way I upgraded to Breezy

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.breezy
sudo sed -i s/breezy/dapper/g /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

in the hope that I'd be able to advise the people who will run into trouble upgrading today.

The download went surprisingly fast. It took more time to configure the packages than to download them at average speed of about 250 MB/sec. Unfortunately when I rebooted, I was unable to get into X. I tried pretty much all of the usual tricks dpkg-reconfigure, manual edit xorg.conf and #out wacom and change the ati driver to vesa, create an empty .xsession file, and probably some I can't remember. To end a long story, nothing worked. I'm now downloading the i386-altenate installer at a blinding 72.8 kB/sec and dropping! Aargh, Gahh, and @!*&%.

[ossi]

Re: Kubuntu future?

For me upgrading to dapper worked quite unspectacular good. I did it through using adept which somehow "forgot" to install kubuntu-desktop. So after restarting the system I had no GUI. Anyway I quickly found out what it was and then just downloaded the rest. Since then I got no problems.

I even like the new Artwork. There has been some development and the system looks a bit better now and (more important) seems to be mature. Since the Linux Tag in Germany I am quite optimistic for Kubuntu and by the way I saw yesterday that there is no more dividing in the ubuntuforums between Ubuntu and Kubuntu.

I just hope for KDE 4 releases quite soon and think of how bad those Gnome guys will be looking against KDE 4 and Edgy tools like xgl ;-))

[Fenyx]

Re: Kubuntu future?

@askrieger: read the bug report and the linked thread, and have been reading some other related questions/problems. I'd have to say, though, that I'm quite disappointed with the whole upgrade business. Though since I'm new to Linux and Kubuntu is my first and only distro, I'm not sure whether similar events would happen with other distros.

But should upgrading really be that difficult? I was under the impression that upgrading in Linux wouldn't be, that it's a bit easier probably than upgrading XP to service pack 2. But it felt like it would have been a hell lot easier if I reinstalled the @#*% thing, a lot like upgrading from Windows 2000 to XP.

Or probably I messed up my system by installing from .deb files, most of which custom made for Ubuntu (I'm very picky). Or probably because I upgraded KDE to 3.5.2 from the repositories made for and by Kubuntu. Or maybe because I installed something from source, something that didn't need any other dependencies that wasn't already installed from the official repositories. Would these be enough to make dist-upgrading like hell? If upgrading KDE is the root of the problem, I wonder why, since the updates come from Kubuntu. Or at least they could warn us. "Warning, users who have upgraded to any KDE version from the special repositories created by Kubuntu may experience difficulties dist-upgrading." I guess if that's the case it would be better to stick to 3.4.3 (the default), but remember that the Administrator Mode bug, which plagues System Settings users more than KControl users, was fixed in KDE 3.5.

I guess I'm ranting, and probably not in the right place. Don't get me wrong, I've loved Kubuntu and the community. I really do. But it's really getting on my nerves. Sure I love the fact that KDE in Dapper works way faster than Breezy, or that Dapper boots 5 seconds faster, but I'm not sure if going through hell, or the prospect of going through hell again, makes it worth it. Right now, I'm getting headaches again. I installed something through Adept (kcemirror, librapi2, libsynce0) without any hiccup. But now I can't uninstall it through any means possible! (but that's a different thread).

Maybe Dapper is going through it's theething (or is it teething) stage. So I could be a bit more understanding, I suppose. But then again, would you release something that is not ready, especially after almost 2 months of delay?

I really hope that Kubuntu's future would be brighter for me. Breezy, although usable, was marred by crashes. Dapper, though fast, was hard to upgrade to. But seeing that Edgy Eft wants to be cutting edge, and does not promise to be that stable, I won't be holding my breath...

[askrieger]

Re: Kubuntu future?

Jucato: I'm inclined to agree with you. If I had a zillion bucks, I would have held off releasing Dapper for another week or two. As it is, I expect there to be some updates in the not too distant future. Before the developers get too involved in Edgy.

[oblio]

Re: Kubuntu future?

Hi,

I have tested all Dapper betas, but I am a regular Mepis-user. While I deeply respect the work of the ubuntu-developers I cannot really be very happy about the recent Kubuntu 6.06 release.

The regular CD [with graphic installer] couldn't perform the install on my system. Bugreport (confirmed) # 48429. The 'alternative' version with its 'text-based' installer worked fine, but I had no internet connection after installation. (No problem in the betas). I have to modprobe forcedeth to get eth0 going.

Adept still sucks, AND there is no kpackage or synaptic installed by default. Sure, apt-get will do the job, but putting in a buggy adept AND leaving out Kpackage/Synaptic feels rather silly to me....... No Firefox installed, and quite a lot of other things. It took me 2 hours to configure/add packages to my liking in Kubuntu. Something that takes me a few minutes in Mepis 6.0betas.

I believe that Mepis 6.0 beta3 and beta4 are already 'better kubuntus' than the Kubuntu 6.06 release. Mepis 6.0 will be released around the June 18th.

Unfortunately by then I will probably be all tangled up in the matches of the 2006 World Soccer Championships (June 9 to July 9)...:-)

Regards, Ko

[Fenyx]

Re: Kubuntu future?

Adept still sucks... I just can't seem to see how some KDE devs, even those not involved with Kubuntu, see this as a very good app. Now we have 4 Adept brothers, and all but Adept Notifier seems to do their job well. KPackage feels a bit sluggish to me, although I like it very, very much. Synaptic is so far the best, but looks really out of place in KDE, no matter what I do.

I also liked SimplyMEPIS 6 beta 3 when I tried it out, and I'm eagerly awaiting it's official release. It's one of the biggest contenders in my mind right now, if ever I decide to leave Kubuntu for a while... () My only qualms with MEPIS is that it's default apps are too many, for me at least. Of course, it's tremendously less than KNOPPIX's choices, but still that's a lot. True, Kubuntu has less installed, but I think it's default choices are good enough. Besides, it's easier (and sometimes safer) to install more things than to remove them, especially when there are dependencies involved.

Another thing that makes me wonder about MEPIS is how much of it is "community driven" or community-oriented. Or is it more of a one man team? I really value the sense of community, in both development and everyday needs.

One last thing (sheesh this is becoming a long post about MEPIS. sorry ). I'm having serious thoughts regarding MEPIS's out of the box support for MP3 and other formats considered to be non-free or propriety. Although I do use those same formats and others might find that extremely convenient, it casts a question on MEPIS's commitment to the Free Software movement.

But I do like MEPIS's name. Reminds me of Egypt, my favorite ancient civilization.