So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

[gregwalton]

I tried Kubuntu back in the days of Breezy Badger and found it an excellent and stable replacement for Windows. Although I multibooted with a couple of copies of Windows (one for general work and one for my music studio) I never used the general XP for over a year. Breezy was good, Dapper Drake was better.

Then along came Edgy Eft, which was a bit too edgy and didn't work properly so I stuck with Dapper, waiting for Feisty. The kernel that (IIRC) Feisty used had a problem with the iP965 chipset and the whole waiting game put me off Linux. I defected back to Windows - Vista, even!

I've tried Kubuntu/Mint KDE a couple of times since but have not been impressed. The emphasis seems to be on trying new stuff before it's ready: KDE 4, before it was usable; Compiz... need I say more?; ext4, before it is safe; grub2, before anyone knows how to use it. What's going on, guys?

Now I know these are problems which can be avoided by reconfiguring your Kubuntu installation but why default to the most dangerous options? Surely a noob coming to Kubuntu would rather it work than have all the flashy bells & whistles and not be useful as an OS.

So, I'd like to know - if I try Karmic Koala Kubuntu will it be a reasonably safe & reliable operating system out-of-the-box or will it be another useless, risky toy unless I'm prepared to make a full-time hobby out of setting it up and maintaining it?

Greg

[c_martini]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

I defected back to Windows - Vista, even!

So, I'd like to know - if I try Karmic Koala Kubuntu will it be a reasonably safe & reliable operating system out-of-the-box or will it be another useless, risky toy unless I'm prepared to make a full-time hobby out of setting it up and maintaining it?

I have had a very similar history and operating system upgrade path as you have. I also defected back to Windows a little over a year ago as I was just having too many issues with Kubuntu 8.10.

I finished a test run of Windows 7 for the last several months and though its a nice operating system (what Vista should have been), I wanted to return to and evaluate Linux again to see how far the community has come in the last year or two.

I have tested Ubuntu 9.10 rc, Kubuntu 9.10rc, & Linux Mint 7 as they seem to be some of the more user friendly distros. I also seem to favor the debian based Ubuntu distros as they have better financial backing and a stronger community.

Though all three of these have their strengths and weaknesses, I returned to Kubuntu as I really like the KDE desktop environment.

KDE4 has really come quite a long way in a short time. I have to say i'm very impressed. It is a very powerful desktop environment.

As far as ease of use and reliability goes; Its really hard to compare to Windows. In fact I would go so far as to say: You really cannot compare it to Windows at all. It is a different animal (no pun intended)...

In my opinion it is generally an operating system for users that are not afraid to get under the hood a bit and tinker once in awhile. There is a learning curve with all things Linux and you really cannot get away without occasionally opening a terminal window. Don't get me wrong, it has come a long, long way even since you and I first started playing with it. The latest versions are allot more user friendly and easy to use.

As far as my own experience with Karmic release candidate, it installed on my Asus M51se laptop with absolutely no problems at all and I had a usable system right away. There are some issues that have come up after that, but I am working through them one at a time.

I fully expect to replace Windows aside from testing scenarios in my working environment within the next month or two...

[gregwalton]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

Thanks, guys. It sounds pretty hopeful - definitely looking forward to trying it out now. Looking to escape from Vista without paying a small fortune to buy what I thought I was getting when I paid for Vista (Windows 7).

BTW, I've always found Windows tends to need a bit of "tinkering around under the hood", so I'm not too daunted if Karmic is basically "there", i.e. usable. I had to learn the basics back in the Breezy days, so I'm hoping that will stand me in good stead.

I think I'll run Karmic for a while before I start recommending it to new users, though...

Thanks again

Greg

[pansz]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

So, I'd like to know - if I try Karmic Koala Kubuntu will it be a reasonably safe & reliable operating system out-of-the-box or will it be another useless, risky toy unless I'm prepared to make a full-time hobby out of setting it up and maintaining it?

Greg

No and never, kubuntu is designed to be a personal hobby, it is only intend to show new stuffs, not meant to be a useful os out-of-box.

I'm saying that is what the current kubuntu developers think. they think kubuntu is designed to show new stuffs.


However, despite the fact that kubuntu never works great out-of-box, it has a very good base: the ubuntu deb repository. what I can do is to use ubuntu source debs and create my own "distribution", from this point of view, kubuntu developers are really doing something useful.

[dibl]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

So, I'd like to know - if I try Karmic Koala Kubuntu will it be a reasonably safe & reliable operating system out-of-the-box or will it be another useless, risky toy unless I'm prepared to make a full-time hobby out of setting it up and maintaining it?

I hate to get all philosophical, but there is no single truth here. I'd say "what do you want it to be?" is the best answer. I will give you two examples from the real world:

1. A cheapo E-Machines desktop machine, bought new in summer 2007, had Kubuntu 7.04 installed and configured with Firefox, OOO, and a printer, and was put in the hands of a nice 65-year old lady who never used a computer before in her life. A month or so after each new version release, I have gone over to her house and pushed the "update" button and walked away for an hour while it did its thing. The motherboard failed a few months back, and I replaced it. Once reassembled, Kubuntu came right back up -- the OS was totally unaffected. I know for a fact that she has nailed the power button multiple times, instead of shutting it down properly, like I showed her (multiple times). But it is happily running 9.04 today, and probably at Thanksgiving I'll update it to 9.10 in the same fashion as I have for 2+ years now. She does all her banking through the browser, plus a bit of e-mailing, recipe searching and printing, family photo printing, and such.

2. My personal desktop, an overclocked Intel X6800 with 3 hard drives and 10 partitions of varying filesystem types, normally gets Alpha 4 or Alpha 5 of each new release installed, gets beat on mercilessly with large VMware VMs, graphics hardware tests with Beta drivers, and sometimes Debian software that's not from the repos. It's not unusual that I have to nuke the OS and re-install at least once before the release date, and it's also not unusual that I do a clean installation of the new release just so I can see if it works right on my hardware. I don't count on it booting, although it normally does -- I have a second OS on the system, for backup, because you can't rely on experimental stuff to work every time.

So, is it reliable, or is it a hobby toy?

[GreyGeek]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

So, I'd like to know - if I try Karmic Koala Kubuntu will it be a reasonably safe & reliable operating system out-of-the-box or will it be another useless, risky toy unless I'm prepared to make a full-time hobby out of setting it up and maintaining it?

Greg

No and never, kubuntu is designed to be a personal hobby, it is only intend to show new stuffs, not meant to be a useful os out-of-box.

I'm saying that is what the current kubuntu developers think. they think kubuntu is designed to show new stuffs.


However, despite the fact that kubuntu never works great out-of-box, it has a very good base: the ubuntu deb repository. what I can do is to use ubuntu source debs and create my own "distribution", from this point of view, kubuntu developers are really doing something useful.

No -- not reasonably safe? Never -- reliable? Never useful out of the box? Never works great out of the box?

Who do you work for, Microsoft?

Reliable:
The developers are saying Karmic Koala PRIOR TO RELEASE should not be used as a PRODUCTION machine. A production machine is one used as a server or workstation where downtimes should be less than 1 hour per year, or uptimes greater than 99.99% Personal users don't need that kind of uptime because they turn their machines on and off at least once each day. Usually, only servers are left on 24/7 because employees turn off their workstations at the close of work each day. And, most servers are headless, or don't use a graphical desktop, which adds to their security. Most home based PCs are now laptops and users rarely leave them on 24/7.

Safe:
ANY Linux installation that the user does not run as root is MUCH SAFER than ANY version of Windows has ever been. Recently it was discovered that bad guys in Eastern Europe corralled 1.3 MILLION Windows zombies into the largest bot farm ever discovered. Another bot farm was recently discovered. It was a 700 Linux zombie bot farm and it took the bad guys EIGHT MONTHS to create it. That's the difference in security, and that is with Linux currently owning more than a 10% desktop market share, and growing. IF Linux were as insecure as Windows one expect the Linux bot farm to have 130,000 Linux zombies in it. The ONLY reason a Linux user installs AV software is as a courtesy to users of Windows to whom the Linux user may pass on an email.

Useful out of the box:
What do YOU use your computer for that Kubuntu cannot do?

Add to that the fact that KDE 4.3.2 is the MOST powerful desktop ever developed and you have usefulness and ease of use that even Win7 is trying to copy. Sure, there are applications written for Windows for which no comparable application exists in Linux, but the opposite is also true. And, there are lots of applications in Linux that are "good enough" (a standard adopted nearly 20 years ago to justify moving from Lotus Notes spread sheet to Excel, as part of Microsoft's campaign to get corporate Amerca to adopt Windows and thus get locked in). GIMP isn't equal to PhotoShop, but it is good enough for most users of graphic editing software. KMyMoney is certainly good enough. K3b is MORE than good enough, it is world class! Dolphin is the most powerful file manager on any platform. And, the price is right!

Works great out of the box:
One of the nice things about Linux, and a fact that some complain about as if it were a detriment, is that there is more than one application filling a niche. If KNetworkManager works for your hardware then great! If it doesn't you can move to wicd. If that doesn't then there is plasma-networks. There is almost always more than one way to do a task or get a job done, and all of them are at the right price. I prefer PostgreSQL over Oracle. Others prefer MySQL. Others prefer SQLite. All have an excellent price point.

Did I mention that the support on all of these apps is as close as your nearest Linux forum, and it, too, is at an excellent price point! I can tell you from personal experience that the support found on open forums like this one, and others around the Internet, are superior to paid support, because my former employer paid for support and the open forums always beat the paid support with both timeliness and usefulness. The reason is obvious as to why this is true.... there are just a few paid support staff working for those services, they can't afford to hire dozens or hundreds, but open forums can and do have dozens of expert volunteers. No one or two people have to "know it all", but each contributes from their specific expertise and the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

Did I mention that the price is right, and that there is NO data lockin?

[vinnywright]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

VEREY nice Mr GreyGeek ..... (applause from the room)

Well for me a home desktop user that dose absalutley NO work (shuder the thought) on his box just playing around and all the stuff a home box is suposed to do........as I see it ha ha ha.

Karmic Koala is great and has ben for about a month.

I have had no problem doing enething that I do.........and hears the mane thing's I do.

browse the net......no prob Knqueror or firefox.

lisen to musick ......amarok dragon vlc kscd audacious2 (mplayer G&K) rithembox totem meney more

watch vidio's .....vlc totem mplaer dragon

burn cd's, dvd's, data, ISO's .......K3b, K9copy, DeVeDe (ok and brasareo I have Gnome on hear to)

DL torrents........Ktorrent

converting audio & vidio.........K3b, K9cpoy, soundconverter, winff, audasity

manipulate and create images.....Gimp, inkscape, thars more

IM frends.......Kopete & pidgen (thares more)

if I must work (he!! no) thars open office and a bunch more that can be added like koffice swete

some of these have ben added after the inishall install but thay all work every time

so as you asked YES I think it's totaley usable and I do every day ....... 8)

VINNY

[kubicle]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

There are distros that focus on providing well tested and stable (but rather old) software, and distros that focus on providing new technologies/software for it's users.

Neither choice is "the correct" one, it depends on what you want/require as a user...stable and tested software is usually essential for enterprise servers, while newer libraries/software are often an advantage in software development, for example.

Of course there aren't clear cut rules for home desktop users...some prefer "new things", and some prefer "solidity"...one can't really have both.

If one wants only well tested and stable software, "bleeding edge" distros (like kubuntu) are usually not the best choice, but that doesn't mean they are just "hobby" distros. There are many private (and professional) use cases for all of them.

[clockworks]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

I haven't been into Linux since I got a Mac two years ago, but I've kinda half heartedly been following KDE 4 because I was a huge fan of KDE 3 when Linux was my primary operating system.

I'm going to throw Karmic Koala on an old laptop, but I'm skeptical. I tried the latest beta and it crashes all the time (I mean windows pop up all the time saying some process has crashed).

[dibl]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

I'm going to throw Karmic Koala on an old laptop

Heh heh heh -- that says a lot, right there!

Why do I never read "I'm throwing OS X onto a random old lappie, to see how it plays"?



How about "OK, I'll throw Win 7 onto an old junk lappie, and see if performs flawlessly"?

[ukchucktown]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

I haven't been into Linux since I got a Mac two years ago.

I bought a MAC laptop two weeks ago and OS X blows. I'm probably in the minority, so what... It's better than Windows but I still like Linux a lot more. Once I have grub2 booting OS X I will be replacing it with Kubuntu 9.10.

[clockworks]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

Heh heh heh -- that says a lot, right there!

Why do I never read "I'm throwing OS X onto a random old lappie, to see how it plays"?



How about "OK, I'll throw Win 7 onto an old junk lappie, and see if performs flawlessly"?

It's a Dell Inspiron 6000. Pentium M, Radeon Mobility x300, pretty standard stuff.

[clockworks]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

I haven't been into Linux since I got a Mac two years ago.

I bought a MAC laptop two weeks ago and OS X blows. I'm probably in the minority, so what... It's better than Windows but I still like Linux a lot more. Once I have grub2 booting OS X I will be replacing it with Kubuntu 9.10.

Give it a chance, it took me a while get used to it (I still wish it had a focus follows mouse policy). Yeah, the UI can be a bit quirky, but it's pretty consistent. The thing I like best about OS X is that most of the apps are extremely high quality, even the 3rd party, independently developed stuff. I love that it's fully POSIX compliant! I've never not been able to compile a Unix app from source!

On a side note, KDE needs something like TextMate. Kate is good, but is missing some features or *almost* implements some features (which is annoying).

I wrote a Kate plugin that mimic's TextMate's famous "Find File" functionality, but it has some short comings...
http://blog.stochasticbytes.com/2007...-for-kate.html

And I lost interested in developing that plugin because, well... I use TextMate now, hehe.

Umm, sorry for going way off topic. Karmic Koala... yeah... high hopes, going to install it tomorrow, can't wait!

[KeithZG]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

Why do I never read "I'm throwing OS X onto a random old lappie, to see how it plays"?

Actually I totally did that once, haha! Yeah, it's pretty funny when people use old machines to test out Linux and then find it wanting...but buy new machines pre-loaded with OS X or Win7 and go "yeah, see, so much better." But yeah, I installed OS X (10.5 if I recall...how silly is that, "Operating System 10 version 10 point 5") on the abused and delinquent 13.3" laptop I'm in fact typing from right now...and obviously, it didn't stay on here It was predictably laborious in its deliberations at every step (and dear gods, 10 gigs for printer drivers? WTF mate?) and the equally-snazzy KDE4 ran much faster (albeit about as buggy...hey, this was 4.0).

Of course, I tend to just run an OpenBox session on this machine with KRunner in the background, which for something as aging and ailing as this laptop is a good mashup of snazzy and slim. Furthermore I've been running Karmic on it for about a month and it's been quite good!

(Although the continued absence of the Services Configuration utility which was in System Settings in KDE3 mystifies me, and makes me worry a bit about what the Kubuntu and KDE devs are thinking...but likely I just don't have the full story. Still, I'm using it myself, copied from SVN almost a year ago, and it even works flawlessly in Karmic, so what gives? Okay, mini-rant over. And at least with Karmic, since PPAs are even easier to use, I can just create one which adds the Services Configuration utility if I can find out how one tells System Services to load a module.)

[ukchucktown]

Re: So... is Karmic Koala going to be usable?

Give it a chance, it took me a while get used to it (I still wish it had a focus follows mouse policy). Yeah, the UI can be a bit quirky, but it's pretty consistent. The thing I like best about OS X is that most of the apps are extremely high quality, even the 3rd party, independently developed stuff. I love that it's fully POSIX compliant! I've never not been able to compile a Unix app from source!

I like the hyperbole.

I don't think OS X is that bad. I also like the POSIX compliance. I think they all have something to offer including Windows. I have tried a lot of Linux distros along with the popular commercial options and Kubuntu 9.10 is a definite contender and my personal favorite. I can't wait for 10.04 in six months.