An Interesting review of 12.04

[BlueDaisy]

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/k...-pangolin.html

What is odd is he thought 11.04 was a great one, better than 12.04. Also, he thinks that Kubuntu is "Hiding" behind KDE, rather than utilizing it, and he was annoyed about configuring it too much and installing more things. He thought the main wallpaper was poor, and he probably put a bit of burden on it when rating the whole distro. But he didn't get that infuriated with muon, fortunately...

If you read it, what points do you think are valid/invalid?

[bubblecruntz]

This seems on par with a few reviews I've read, or watched on youtube. The general consensus seems to be that the reviewers would, as would I, like to see some "Kubuntu branding" I know that the original bases behind Kubunut is to have a "pure" KDE and I guess i can understand holding to those guns, but I also think that because of ... shall I call it stubbornness? I feel it's hurting what could be a very popular alternative to Unity. I think the Kubuntu community should have a wallpaper contest a month or so before the release of the next version. This would get some buzz on the net. In one review on youtube I forget the name of the fella I think it was "linux4unme" but not 100% sure. He made mention of another area that bothers me, not a deal breaker, but a thing that just kinda bothers me. That is the Grub boot menu saying "Ubuntu" not Kubuntu. Now i am not a Guru of Linux by any means, but as the reviewer said, that shouldn't be to hard to fix. So it seems the people who use and review this lovely disto wonder why we, and I say we cause I feel part of this community now, seem to not care about the look. Why don't we want to shine as a distro. Simple things. A kickoff that isn't a KDE logo and instead is a Kubuntu logo, a wallpaper that came from the Kubuntu community and not the KDE community. Have the grub menu say our distos name proudly. just some small possible insignificant things to some, can and do make a big impact. And yes I know the user can change all these things. But should we have to? also I switch to Lancelot over the basic KDE kick off menu, another possible change that could be made.
Sorry it seems i turned my small post into a review of my own.

[BlueDaisy]

This "grub entry" was the same in Xubuntu 11.10 when I tried it - "Ubuntu" and not "Xubuntu". I wonder if if it's a requirement for derivatives?

I, too use the Lancelot menu myself over kickoff, so you're not alone. Maybe this could be a round table topic!

[BlueDaisy]

This "grub entry" was the same in Xubuntu 11.10 when I tried it - "Ubuntu" and not "Xubuntu". I wonder if if it's a requirement for derivatives?

I, too use the Lancelot menu myself over kickoff, so you're not alone. Maybe this could be a round table topic!

[capt-zero]

Bluedaisy,

I hate to say it, but there is much that the writer says that is right on the money. I love Kubuntu and the KDE desktop enviornment, but to truly get the "snazz" as he referred to it, one must work hard. One must scratch beneath the surface to find the beauty and functionality of this OS. Most people will not go through the effort. They can see the corlorful default of Ubuntu, or the professionally sharp tones of LinuxMint and, on an unconsious level, are more attracted and are then willing to give those OS's a closer look.

Put yourself in the shoes of a new user, perhaps someone who has never been exposed to Linux at all. Then, on advice of a friend, you go through the trouble of downloading, partitioning (which can be daunting to a new user), and then installing Kubuntu. What then is the first impression Kubuntu gives; a gray on gray Plymouth screen, followed by the even more gray on gray rainbow(?) of the login, splash and desktop enviornments. The subliminal message given is " Move on, there's nothing exciting here". I firmly believe that, if Kubuntu wants to catch the eye of the world, then it must, indeed, catch the eye. In todays overly marketed world, it is flash and glitter that attracts the user for a closer look. It is unreasonable for the developers to expect the general public to go the extra mile to find out what Kubuntu is all about, instead it should be presented to the user right out of the "box".

Anyway, didn't mean to go in for a rant there.

thanx,
capt-zero

[dequire]

Bluedaisy,

I hate to say it, but there is much that the writer says that is right on the money. I love Kubuntu and the KDE desktop enviornment, but to truly get the "snazz" as he referred to it, one must work hard. One must scratch beneath the surface to find the beauty and functionality of this OS. Most people will not go through the effort. They can see the corlorful default of Ubuntu, or the professionally sharp tones of LinuxMint and, on an unconsious level, are more attracted and are then willing to give those OS's a closer look.

Put yourself in the shoes of a new user, perhaps someone who has never been exposed to Linux at all. Then, on advice of a friend, you go through the trouble of downloading, partitioning (which can be daunting to a new user), and then installing Kubuntu. What then is the first impression Kubuntu gives; a gray on gray Plymouth screen, followed by the even more gray on gray rainbow(?) of the login, splash and desktop enviornments. The subliminal message given is " Move on, there's nothing exciting here". I firmly believe that, if Kubuntu wants to catch the eye of the world, then it must, indeed, catch the eye. In todays overly marketed world, it is flash and glitter that attracts the user for a closer look. It is unreasonable for the developers to expect the general public to go the extra mile to find out what Kubuntu is all about, instead it should be presented to the user right out of the "box".

Anyway, didn't mean to go in for a rant there.

thanx,
capt-zero

+1. I think this is pretty much right on the money. I know there is nothing on from a stock Kubuntu from an asthetics-standpoint that remains unchanged after a new install. This is not Kubuntu's fault, BTW; rather it is a commentary on the defaults found in the stock KDE tarballs and source code. Kubuntu does not usually mess with stock KDE from an appearance standpoint.

[abear]

Wow, I guess flash is nice, however, I'll take the functionality of Kubuntu over any amount flash or sizzle useless extras. I guess I'm a purest.

[Qqmike]

BlueDaisy, dedo's been quite a credible Linux writer for some time now. I've tried to contact him so he can talk for himself here.

[rfakhrai]

I've never understood the idea that linux distros should be "pretty" and "snazzy". Didn't we all switch here to get a more stable, open-minded experience? Who cares if your desktop is "cute" to begin with. All that matters is that it's functional. Window decorations, fun widgets, etc. can easily be done! It's not like the Kubuntu developers are asking us to compile a new desktop from source if we want to make a menu bar transparent.

Really, how difficult is it to go to System Settings and download new looks and customizations? Has this smartphone movement really made us that lazy? And for new users, they're coming from Win7 which offers little customization options, so I am not concerned whatsoever that they will come to Kubuntu and complain that it's not pretty, or it can't be made pretty with an hour of "work".

I do concede, however, that bubblecruntz has a good point that Kubuntu should focus a little bit on branding to make it seem like it's a genuinely unique experience, different from SUSE, Mint, etc.

[rms]

Kubuntu does not usually mess with stock KDE from an appearance standpoint.

I think they should, as much as that is possible, if they have the ambition to move to the top 10 of distrowatch. This grayish desktop and everything is probably not appealing to anybody except "ergonomysts".

Totally agree with capt-zero & bubblecruntz, let's give it a unique look!

[BlueDaisy]

BlueDaisy, dedo's been quite a credible Linux writer for some time now. I've tried to contact him so he can talk for himself here.

Oh my... Well, I'm not asking for trouble, nor do I mean to criticize this reviewer. I mean to convey information of the reviewer's side of things, and see how legitimate such opinions he had were valid to you guys in this forum. Note that I, too, check out many linux distributions, and land judgement of whether their overall experience are good. There are goods and bads, but I do acknowledge why people like certain distros over others. It's a matter of taste over anything else, I believe.

[capt-zero]

I believe I was largely misunderstood. I'm only saying that first impressions count. The first impression we get with Kubuntu is drab and gray. A little hint of what's inside might be appropriate. I agree that all are here for what Kubuntu offers us; choice, stability, and functionality. I wouldn't use this as my main OS if I didn't feel that Kubuntu is the best of the hundreds of choices I could have made. I do not want style over function, but given the opportunity, I would like both. As I said earlier, if we want to catch the worlds eye, we must be eye catching.

capt-zero

[bra|10n]

A couple of things from the article,

Remember how I praised Kubuntu for properly detecting my keyboard based on the language setup? Well, not anymore. Just like Ubuntu, it now defaults to whatever region you're in, which is bloody stupid.

Now I've always installed the default option (US keyboard) in any *ubuntu, so can I assume from his statement he has some fancy keyboard? Wait...isn't his test machine a middle of the road laptop?

Finally, all of the slides feature a rather weird text overlap over displayed images, as if the two come from different sources, and are not well integrated.

Correct. IIRC it's the Ubuntu installer tweaked.

The resource usage is about 600MB RAM, a fairly high figure overall, with CPU being moderately noisy.

What has his noisy CPU to do with Kubuntu? As I type this with 3 tabs open in Rekonq I'm sitting at 508 MB. Was his claim of 600MB at idle, surely not...

I have read his reviews in the past and found him to put together a reasonable and fair review of whichever o/s.

This time it seems his expectations of 12.04 were unfortunately not met.

But as was noted above, 11.04 seemed to meet his expectations visually in terms of wallpaper/icon-set/themes... what?

[rms]

@rfakhrai
It is true, what matters eventually is what is under the hood. +1 But a new user has to come to that point. What's more, if he/she has not been exposed to plasma, the process of customization can take much more than an hour. We've seen posts here about moving items on the panel.

So, a good starting point and favourable first impression do count for reasons well explained by previous posters.

[Nayar]

I liked the 11.10 much much much more than 12.04. It was much more stable. I really miss it.