Kubuntu is not suitable as productive OS and has a major issue.

[Vaira]

Hi,

I came from Mint to Kubuntu since I love the KDE plasma desktop.
I have chosen 18.04 LTS since I want a reliable OS.

The day when I tried it anything was fine and also the updates were installed properly.

One day the plasma discover, Kubuntu's default updater suddenly rendered my OS useless.
I was shocked and disappointed. It should be my productive OS replacing windows 10 and a reliable successor to Mint.

I decided to go for a clean and fresh installation.
Anything was fine until I booted Kubuntu the first time from metal and discover prompted me for new updates.

In the meantime the ISO is that far away from current state that there are more than 400 updates to be installed.
I ran discover and the same happened. It rendered again the OS useless.

Discover is the default updater which is run by anyone after first installation.

It is the most important app and it is not able to get the OS to the latest state anymore!!!

It's quite obvious that people who have interest in migrating to Kubuntu the very first time will run away again.

I cannot get why the developers do not consider that as the most major issue an OS can have.
There are some threads about. But the scope of the issue is not really posted there.

Sure skilled people do update from terminal via apt to circumvent the issue, but hey what about all those who are new to Kubuntu?

It's embarrassing...

I myself stick to it, but only because I like the KDE plasma desktop.
Should there happen anything serious again I'll be back to Mint.

Friends who also gave Kubuntu a try and were suffering from the same issue are away already. I am sure they are not alone.

It's a shame.

Regards,
Vaira.

[Snowhog]

You sound frustrated with 'your' Kubuntu 18.04 experience, but you haven't given us anything really useful that would allow anyone here to 'help' you, if help is what you are looking for (you haven't stated that either). Posts like this are not productive. Many; a great many in fact; users of Kubuntu 18.04 would strongly disagree with your sentiment and would counter that in fact, Kubuntu 18.04 is great production OS. It is widely accepted that Discover is a POS, especially by experienced users who don't/won't use it for maintenance of installed packages. There are much better alternatives.

[GreyGeek]

Hi,

I came from Mint to Kubuntu since I love the KDE plasma desktop.
I have chosen 18.04 LTS since I want a reliable OS.

The day when I tried it anything was fine and also the updates were installed properly.

One day the plasma discover, Kubuntu's default updater suddenly rendered my OS useless.
I was shocked and disappointed. It should be my productive OS replacing windows 10 and a reliable successor to Mint.

I decided to go for a clean and fresh installation.
Anything was fine until I booted Kubuntu the first time from metal and discover prompted me for new updates.

In the meantime the ISO is that far away from current state that there are more than 400 updates to be installed.
I ran discover and the same happened. It rendered again the OS useless.

Discover is the default updater which is run by anyone after first installation.

It is the most important app and it is not able to get the OS to the latest state anymore!!!

It's quite obvious that people who have interest in migrating to Kubuntu the very first time will run away again.

I cannot get why the developers do not consider that as the most major issue an OS can have.
There are some threads about. But the scope of the issue is not really posted there.

Sure skilled people do update from terminal via apt to circumvent the issue, but hey what about all those who are new to Kubuntu?

It's embarrassing...

I myself stick to it, but only because I like the KDE plasma desktop.
Should there happen anything serious again I'll be back to Mint.

Friends who also gave Kubuntu a try and were suffering from the same issue are away already. I am sure they are not alone.

It's a shame.

Regards,
Vaira.

IF it is a shame, then it is a shame on you. Didn't you make regular backups? And you only come here to complain when you had a problem?

I've been using Kubuntu since Feb of 2004 and it has been a wonderful experience. Bionic is the cherry on the cake. (And Neon is just as good, too! )

Of course, when I installed Bionic I check summed the ISO and again after I burned it to a USB. Then I installed it using Btrfs as the root filesystem, and I take regular snapshots of my system, especially before updates. Not that I've had to roll back after an update. I haven't. I uninstalled Discover and installed muon, but I use
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
in a Konsole to get updated. I use muon to find packages for which I do not know the exact name. And, for about a dozen of my most useful apps I use AppImage.

What do I do with my system besides browsing and email? Everything else I ever did on Windows, except crash a lot, or get infected. I even run some Windows executables using WINE. I've posted a screen capture of the PCL dev tool from IQUAN that I used from 2004 up until a couple months ago.

I run Pluto.tv from my FF browser. I used to code using the Qt API and the PostgreSQL database but haven't done that in a while. Am I some hot young computer guru? No, I'm a forgetful 77 year old fossil, and I am not the only one on this forum. IF we can learn to use Kubuntu as a rock solid experience so can you.

Follow Snowhog's advice and when you ask for help give relevant data. Our crystal ball broke over a decade ago.

[Vaira]

Hi again,

thank you for your replies.

As already posted I have found the solution already. I did not post for trouble shooting or tech help, hence I have chosen the soap box.

I myself am quite familiar with Linux distros and we already had run UNIX in the 90s on a SGI O2 machine.
I also run a Linux based server on a MIPS machine.
I did not lose any data being admin myself I know about a proper backup concept.

The solution is of course to run the apt commands right after fresh installation and run apt whenever there are updates and ditch discover.
I have read the corresponding threads and nobody knows under which exact circumstances discover fails.

I am speaking for those who want to gather their first experiences from a linux distro such as Kubuntu.
Kubuntu is modern and stylish and attracts a lot of people. People who are coming from windows.

It is not funny when a simple update renders the OS useless, though. It is not funny when the history of development of discover is running through a it is broken, it got fixed cycle.
Have you tried to install Kubuntu from scratch -today- and then ran discover to get your system fully updated? Did it complete successfully?
These are the common steps any newcomer would apply.

I know 3 examples of hardware configurations, mine included where it fails.
Discover either freezes or it crashes without further notice. No new updates reported and after reboot blank screen.
Or when trying to shutdown one cannot anymore...I myself know how to kill an app with the red skull...that's not the point.

I have opened this thread because I want Kubuntu being a successful OS (KDE plasma rocks) and I am posting from it right now. And I talk about 'ordinary' users, users who are simple users who even have to ask friends for the installation, because an installation is already too much tech for them.

From their perspective it is comprehensible not the get further involved into Kubuntu and to choose another distro.
Discover is unreliable, behaves incomprehensible and that unnoticed until something seriously is broken...

And I stick to the statement of my thread title. For a LTS release from April with current issues I cannot recommend it as a reliable productive OS. Rolling releases OK..but LTS no.

Constructive criticism. No personal.

Shouldn't Kubuntu be an option for people who are sick about windows 10? And accessible and reliable for newcomers?

Regards
Vaira

[MadMage999]

I'm going to chime in and express that I believe Vaira has some valid points. I don't think the default package manager ought to be a broken one that anyone who knows better refuses to use.

This kind of thing is why people try Linux (insert favorite distro here), conclude that it is broken out of the box and move on.

[Snowhog]

Discover isn't a 'Package Manager', it's a 'Software Store'. Big difference.

[wartnose]

Discover isn't a 'Package Manager', it's a 'Software Store'. Big difference.

Yes but Discover is the notification you see on the Task bar when updates are available and it seems logical to click it and update from there for people not familiar with it's inadequacies as a package manager. Would it not be more logical for the developers to develop a notifier that opens Muon when you are notified that updates are available? Don't get me wrong I think Kubuntu is awesome and those who decide the update notifier is a deal breaker are missing out.

[Scorpa54]

Yes but Discover is the notification you see on the Task bar when updates are available and it seems logical to click it and update from there for people not familiar with it's inadequacies as a package manager. Would it not be more logical for the developers to develop a notifier that opens Muon when you are notified that updates are available? Don't get me wrong I think Kubuntu is awesome and those who decide the update notifier is a deal breaker are missing out.

I have to agree, clicking on the update in the taskbar opens up discover, why would anyone think it's broken? I came from Opensuse where Yast is the updater and it works flawlessly. Opensuse's leap version of "Nvidia hell" just happens to be much worse and made me move on.

[Qqmike]

I think Kubuntu should

(1) provide updates,
and
(2) tell people that an update is available,
and
(3) tell them how to get the update.

!

After all, it is an OS.

But I can imagine that on (3) what would happen if we told people that they need to: kill Discover, then open Konsole and issue the command(s) ... etc ... I don't think that would fly. If I sign up for Arch or Slackware or such, I might expect that and suck it up. But not for the Ubuntu derivative-family.

One of our resident experts predicted (in another similar thread recently) that we will get updates to Discover that will fix this soon. This is at least the third thread on this subject.

I'm OK with the command line or any other way "we" have to do it. My only concern is for new users and/or for users who would rather not have to get too technical in their use of Kubuntu, or for users who are technical but just want to press the magic GUI button and be done with it each time.

[jlittle]

One day the plasma discover, Kubuntu's default updater suddenly rendered my OS useless.
...
I ran discover and the same happened. It rendered again the OS useless.

Why do you say it was the updater?

I would expect, in the absence of any other indication, that the updates borked the OS, and that it would have happened with the other updating methods. (Not that I wish to defend Discover, nor argue against your point that this shouldn't happen.)

Another possibility is a bad iso originally; was it the same iso on both install attempts, and did you check its md5sums? One of our members here always raises that point, and I used to think "yeah, yeah...", but it happened to me earlier this year, and I was glad that I'd checked.

"Rendered my OS useless" could be many different problems, even classes of problems. If you'd like some help with this stuff, just ask, but we'd need a bit more info.

If you try again, posting a list of the updates (apt list --upgradable) before you update might be useful to someone.

[SpecialEd]

I have problems with Discover off and on as everyone else has. (Today it is working fine... for me at least). BUT, The worst Discover has ever done is freeze my system. Never have I experienced "my os being rendered useless" and that is on two separate laptops.

[vinnywright]

Humm ,,,,just got prompted by this thread to let discover do updates on 2 systems .

1-a Neon-user with "plasma-discover-5.13.5"

2-a Kubuntu-18.04 with "plasma-discover-5.12.6"

both on a BTRFS filesystem so I did snapshots first ,,,, would I recommend BTRFS for a totally new user , maybe not , but it is very useful for getting your system back to where it was before something like what was described by the OP happens.

both of the systems updated fine with discover , BUT Discover gives vary little output of whats happening so if something was to go wrong you would not know what it was .

I did check in the konsole before and after with

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

to see what was going to be updated first , and to see that discover had in fact done all it was supposed to .

I have had updates go south in the console before but at least in the console you will get some info on the fact , like could not remove or add this or that , or "try with -f", giving you a clue that hay I better do some more work hear , and in fact the last time 1/2 the unpacked packages had not been configured yet and if I had rebooted I probably would have been at a black screen , discover will not give you any idea what wint wrong.

so I will half to agree that it is of some dismay that the default way that a new user is prompted for updates gets you Discover.

VINNY

[Qqmike]

so I will half to agree that it is of some dismay that the default way that a new user is prompted for updates gets you Discover.

And just to be clear, Vinny, users are saying that Discover updater is not working consistently. Sometimes Discover freezes before or after getting updates; or before or after giving your password. When it freezes trying to get/do updates, you have to kill Discover and go another route. Easy for you and me, not so easy for casual users. But as I said above, presumably, fixes are on their way.

[Qqmike]

fyi on this:
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post418604

[Rod J]

I have problems with Discover off and on as everyone else has.

Well, I must be one of the fortunate few who have had no problems with Discover updates at all. I like the way Discover instantly tells me there are updates available and I've quite honestly had no issues with the updates ... so far! OK, now that I've said that maybe something will go wrong tomorrow, but who knows, nothing's perfect in this world.

I also wish the OP would give us some detail about what went wrong, maybe it was a corrupted ISO to begin with, but we're just left guessing again.

As I'm a little pessimistic I routinely run the sha256 check on the ISO after downloading it (especially as I download my ISO's via torrents) and I also run the MD5 check when booting it to make sure everything is as it should be before committing to the install.