kubuntu 9.10

[oldgeek]

This is not a request for help, but rather a trip down memory lane. I recently found an old cd with Kubuntu 9.10 on it (and another with 8.10, but it didn't load), so I decided to see if it was still good. I joined this forum at the end of 2009, so I was using this version when I signed up. I originally tried Linux with Ubuntu, which I read about in an article and decided to try out. This was in 2008, and after a year or so I decided to try other flavors, and ended up with kubuntu 8.10. I don't remember much about it, but the 9.10 version still loads and gives me a good glimpse of what I liked about Kubuntu nine years ago. I liked the blue tones of the desktop, the bubbles rising from the left corner, the icon progress chart as the OS loaded, the choice of programs when fully loaded. I don't know if this was KDE 3 or 4, but it looked better than Ubuntu's brown and orange wallpaper. Things were simpler then--I loaded Open Office Writer, and what a simple start page compared to Libre Office's latest! In retrospect, it all looks rather, well, old now.

Plasma is beautiful in comparison, and the graphics which go into the KDE presentation are far superior to what I thought was modern and advanced in 2009. Although I originally liked Ubuntu, Kubuntu seduced me and I've never looked back (I don't even understand the Unity controversy). The best version I had before was 14.04, and it was with much trepidation that I upgraded to 16.04. After a fling with Neon, I'm back with Kubuntu and still loving it. Plasma 5 is way superior to KDE 4, which I liked very much at the time. There certainly has been very much progress made, and all it takes is a glimpse into Kubuntu 9.10 to see how far KDE and Ubuntu have advanced.

[Rod J]

Interesting read, thanks oldgeek!

I had a similar introduction to Linux too, although I did have a brief play around with Linux Mandrake and Red Hat around 2002 but didn't stick with it then. I think the first version of Ubuntu I tried was 8.10 and I was hooked very quickly, amazed at the progress that had been made since my first foray into Linux. I kept dual-booting Windows XP for some time (mostly to play games). I stuck with Ubuntu for longer, I remember using 10.04 LTS for quite a long time. It was when Ubuntu introduced Unity that I gave up on it. I tried to like it but I just didn't like being constrained so much as I've always preferred my panel at the bottom (just not an option with Unity). That was when I made the change to Kubuntu with 11.10 and never looked back.

Yes, I agree Plasma is truly great now although I liked KDE4 too and stuck with it until 18.04 came out. One of the things I'm liking the most about Plasma 5 is the speed, it boots much faster on my hardware than 14.04 did and programs load faster too. Kudos to the developers for their hard work!

[GreyGeek]

My wife runs Kubuntu 14.04 on her Acer Aspire One Notebook AO521 Model # ZH9
I just upgraded her to FF 60.0.2
It is slow, but it's fast enough for her and what she does: browsing and email.

[oldgeek]

One thing I noticed was how simple the display of Open Office was in Kubuntu 9.10, especially compared to Libre Office now. I don't think I use even 10% of the options available, and the page is littered with icons. at the top and sides. When I was fooling around with an Atari 800 XL computer in the late 80s and early 90s (nice little 8-bit job that) the WYSIWYG format was all the rage, and Atari couldn't provide it because it only had 40 characters across!

[kc1di]

The Good old day in 2000 I was running Vector kde and used that for a few years. Then remember moving to Kubuntu but don't remember which version it was This was on a home built desktop with pentium cpu. Today I down to a dell laptop and Kubuntu 18.04 - which does everything I need. Those old machines were fun and remember it took hours or days to get them set up the way I wanted. Enjoy the new stuff can have it up and running in 20 Minutes and all configured with all the programs I need in less than an hour

[oldgeek]

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[oldgeek]

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-81 with 1Kb RAM! Even with a 16K extension, it was slow and not useful for much beyond a few games and number crunching. And how slow it was to download from a tape recorder! Yes, the new machines and operating systems are definitely light years ahead, but I did learn a lot from those old 8-bit computers. I also found an old cd with Kubuntu 8.10, which was my first KDE experience, but unfortunately the disc is damaged and will not boot.

[GreyGeek]

My first computer, in 1978, was an Apple ][+ with 64Kb of RAM and a Panasonic 12" Color TV, a Panasonic tape recorder for storage of programs and data, and a Panasonic Kx-p1150 9 pin dot matrix printer. I quickly switched to two Disk ][ drivers. Two or three years later I sold it for what I paid for it and bought an IBM PC with a 5 or 10 Mb HD, I can't remember which. My first Linux was RH 5.0 on a Sony VAIO in 1998. I've always followed the best implementation of KDE, which initially led me to SuSE 5.3 in Sept of 1998. After a variety of RPM based distros I began trying those that used the deb package manager. I hit the jackpot with Kubuntu 9.04 in Febuary of 2009, and I struck it rich again that same month when I discovered the KFN. Been with Kubuntu for almost 10 years.

[oldgeek]

The first computers in the school where I worked in Lima were Apples, and they were great. I think Apple was trying to corner the education market at that time, and I liked them a lot. My office had an Apple IIc, which was small with a green monitor and nor very comfortable to use. Later, Windows seduced the authorities and it was all downhill after that. I remember playing Conan the Barbarian on the first Apples, and it was a lot of fun.

[woodsmoke]

This is not a request for help, but rather a trip down memory lane.

Plasma is beautiful in comparison, and the graphics which go into the KDE presentation are far superior to what I thought was modern and advanced in 2009. .

fter a fling with Neon, I'm back with Kubuntu and still loving it. Plasma 5 is way superior to KDE 4, which I liked very much at the time.

There certainly has been very much progress made, and all it takes is a glimpse into Kubuntu 9.10 to see how far KDE and Ubuntu have advanced.

Hi Old Geek!

Your comments bring an old bugaboo of mine about the situation at DistroWatch that Kubu never really has risen into even the top third of downloads.

I have complained often that the commentary of the "talking heads" about Kubuntu being hard to learn has been a deterrent to people experimenting with Kubu. I, personally have thought that it is a situation of either the talking head unknowingly giving bad press because they never actually tried to use the OS in other than a virtual machine or a situation of them actually WANTING to denigrate KDE in general

And also there was the just horrid situation with Akonadai and associated software and being able to integrate with different e-mail clients...

which is now gone...if one does not want to force the issue to be a "pure" KDE user..

But, back to your point...yeah the very first time i tried a KDE distro back in 2005? the machine was way to under powered, as was the MONITOR... a situation STILL TALKED about by the talking heads that Kubu needs a POWERFUL machine...well...ALL machines are powerful nowadays...

so why do they keep repeating tired old saw... dunno...

But, yeah...when I saw the next version of the KDE distro, don't remember which I fell in love with it...

I mean... I tried Mint...and everybody seems to forget the MASSIVE number of comments about this basic item or that basic item not being there and no ability to "tweak" the appearance...yada yada...

so...Kubu all the way!

woodsmok

[oldgeek]

I tried Mint as well, and it was all right, but not enough to get me to switch. On virtual machines I've also tried Manjaro, Mx Linux, Elementary, Deepin, Peppermint, Ubuntu Mate, Maui, and probably a couple of others--not to mention a hybrid Neon, which I erased in May in order to get btrfs. Kubuntu rocks, as the kids say. Don't know why it is so low on the Distrowatch list, but as long as it keeps coming, I don't mind.

[kc1di]

there are several reason Kubuntu remain low on DW list.
1. Kubuntu users download from Kubuntu sight without going through D.W.
2. Users have gone over to KDE Neon and again don't use D.W.
3. There was a time when there was a split among Kubuntu and Ubuntu. and Ubuntu pulled it's support for a time. (This is not a critical comment. Just that ubuntu had a different take on the Desktop)
4. Many newer users are guided to other Distros Like Manjaro or Mint because they are preconceived by the Linux media to be new user friendly.
5. Others you fill in the Blanks

In any event D.W. does not reflect the real usages figures.

[oldgeek]

In any event D.W. does not reflect the real usages figures.

Is there anything that does? I can't believe that Manjaro is by far the most popular distro. I checked it out on a virtual machine and it wouldn't download anything at all. If I want to use a rolling release, I'd like to know how well it works after downloads. That's why I am sticking with Kubuntu--it just works (and looks nice as well).

[GreyGeek]

Around 2007 I was using PCLinuxOS, which is a very good distro, using at the time RPM. In their forum there was a constant push to go out and click on their listing in the PageHit ranking. For about 6 months it was ranked #1 on DW. The PageHit ranking mean absolutely nothing about the popularity of any given distro.

What is interesting is the DW OS detail page:
https://distrowatch.com/awstats/awst....osdetail.html

It give the percentage of visitors according to the OS agent their browser reveals. This, too, is somewhat meaningless because many Linux users set their browsers to mimic Internet Explorer, or used to.

About 42% are WIndows users and 50% are Linux users.
Here is the Linux users breakdown as of today:

Linux		3,145,557	49.8 %	20,651,229	49.7 %
	Ubuntu	149,354	2.3 %	870,903	2 %
	Suse	19	0 %	82	0 %
	Red Hat	110	0 %	835	0 %
	Mandriva (or Mandrake)	2	0 %	2	0 %
	Gentoo	59	0 %	213	0 %
	Fedora	122	0 %	580	0 %
	Debian	946	0 %	4,878	0 %
	Centos	2	0 %	2	0 %
	Google Android	365,027	5.7 %	1,933,626	4.6 %
	GNU Linux (Unknown or unspecified distribution)	2,629,916	41.7 %	17,840,108	42.9 %

About 42% identify as "Unknown Linux" users. 6% as a Google Android phone users. And 2.3% as Ubuntu users. All the rest are bips in the grass.
Maybe 1% of all Linux users, if that many, visit DW, so these statistics are somewhat useless as well if you wanted to use them to determine the most popular Linux distro.

[oldgeek]

So the statistics include telephones as well (Google Android). I wouldn't use Android on my computer! The unspecified part is by far the largest, but it could mean anything. Do the Ubuntu users include all the forks as well, like Lubuntu and Xubuntu and of course Kubuntu? I guess there's no way to really find out.