Give Discoing a go with Kubuntu 19.04 Disco

[acheron]

There were some unresolvable dependencies in some non kubuntu specific base packages like util-linux a day or 2 ago. Iso builds for all flavours failed to build due to those. Should be resolved now AFAIK.

[Flavio R. Cavalcanti]

On Disco, Discover is very good and it also lists what packages are going to be removed and hopefully stops one from system destruction. In the early days of using Disco, I accidentally did this and so I had to rebuild my system.

I have seen old Muon Discover some years ago, but I didn't like it so much, as I was already familiar to Synaptic.

Back then, I found Muon Discover a few simple, as a colorfull "store", better for smartphone screen, but not so useful / powerful as Synaptic.

Then, Muon Discover had no more maintenance, and KDE had to create Plasma Discover to replace it, and I had a very bad experience with it (high CPU usage with slideshow, specially), for a while. I didn't try Plasma Discover again, since then, so I cannot talk about it now.

Plasma Discover is probably nice, as million people use it and like it! And if it was not nice, it wouldn't be a default. Only, I still prefer the old and good Synaptic.

Curiously, originally Synaptic was not a ".deb" application. Synaptic was created by an RPM-based distro "Conectiva", for its APT-RPM tool. (Some time after, Mandrake and Conectiva were mixed in Mandriva). Now, Synaptic is mostly used by ".deb" distros, but also by PCLinuxOS RMP distro, which keeps that RPM-APT tool.

[NoWorries]

I share your preference for Synaptic for the installation of one or more applications, particularly on a new installation. So I can have hundreds of packages selected and then do the install and go and have a coffee.

What I do not like about Discover is that it installs after an application is chosen and you have to wait for this to complete before choosing your next application.

I accept Discover when it shows packages to install after I reboot in the morning, so I let it do its job. At least is warns you of any packages to be removed.

I use the command line to clean my root directory and check on packages that are no longer required.

[Flavio R. Cavalcanti]

It seems that Wine is still incomplete. Didn't find wine-gecko, wine-mono.

WineHQ site offers until 18.10, only.

EDITED (2019-02-18) - No, just my head was incomplete.

Missed to install q4wine, and it was enough to work fine.

[NoWorries]

My only outstanding problem, which is probably a LibreOffice Presentation problem, is that projected videos do not conform to the projector screen size. That is, a 16:9 video is projected at 4:3 aspect ratio.

I hope it is not too long before the above LibreOffice problem is fixed and I can consider using this as a production system.

I have finally found a solution to this problem which works for me at: https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/quest...s-full-screen/. I used the code

sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-plugins-*

The only problem that I have found after doing this is that Discover no longer provides the update tab. So I now use either Synaptic or the command line for updates.

Edit:

This morning after updates, Discover is now back to normal and it can be used for updates.

In addition, for some time now, I have had to deal with an embarrassing white flash at the start of a video in LibreOffice Presentation. This no longer happens and I am eagerly waiting for my next opportunity to have an inserted video for a presentation. Naturally, i will be using Disco on this Laptop which gives me at least 8Hrs on battery - no charger required.

[NoWorries]

I continue to get updates, particularly with the extra repositories that I use. These are:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-kernel-team/unstable
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/staging-plasma

To find out what difference these made, I downloaded the latest build today and noted the Info Centre settings. The difference made is shown in the attached graphic which is from my system and the state of the current build pointing to what I currently have.



The biggest difference that I have noticed is with the new kernel 5.0 which makes quite a difference to laptop battery longevity. I currently have 7.35 hours after being on battery for a couple of hours. I find that on start-up of my Laptop it only shows a couple of hours. Then depending on usage, I may get over 9 hours or a few hours if I render a file with Kdenlive.

I am extremely pleased with the current state of development and all those involved in the development get my sincere congratulations on a job well done.

[Flavio R. Cavalcanti]

Working fine.

Installed November, 23

KDE 5.15 on Feb., 13

Frameworks 5.55 yesterday.

[woodsmoke]

you guys do such cool stuff!

woodsmoke

[NoWorries]

We now have our Son and Grandson (6 years old) staying with us for the foreseeable future. That change has resulted in a sea change for my Wife and I.

My Son has a spare Dell Vostro 1520 which he has kept for his son to learn computing on. He was quite insistent that I install Linux on it and also replace the disc with an SSD. He warned me that Windows 10 only lasted a matter of seconds when on battery. I decided to see how long Windows would stay up after charging the battery. Windows 10 lasted about 6min 30s and gave no warning before a black screen and total failure.

I installed Disco on the Dell laptop and added my favourite repositories which gave the Linux Kernel 5.0.0-6. I had to disable all the options in power management to create a similar test to what I did with Windows 10. At least when the battery was down to 8%, I got warnings to plug in the power supply or shut down! Anyhow, Disco lasted 43min.. It could probably have continued for another 5min, but I decided to stop.

So, I continue to be impressed with Disco and in particular to progress being made with the 5.0 Kernel when it comes to battery life on a Laptop

[TWPonKubuntu]

That is excellent news on Disco vs battery life. I'm running Disco (19.04) now, but my battery is in good shape and lasts between 6 and 7 hours (HP Pavilion). I've only used the battery once, at the public library when I could not get access to a power plug, usually I'm on wall power.

[NoWorries]

It is certainly good news and I have a HP Spectre which lasts about the same time as yours and if I use it for a presentation or any other remote activity, I run on battery. It is certainly great to have that extra freedom.

I must confess that I have stopped using the pre-release updates option for software as the latest rc1 for LibreOffice 6.2.1 Impress is not suitable for presentations - particularly with inserted videos.

[TWPonKubuntu]

I've not tried to use Libreoffice lately, thanks for the warning. I have another system with the stable version, I'll use that instead.

[NoWorries]

I must confess that I have stopped using the pre-release updates option for software as the latest rc1 for LibreOffice 6.2.1 Impress is not suitable for presentations - particularly with inserted videos.

When I started up my system this morning I found that my system was to be updated to LibreOffice 6.2.1 rc1. As I have another system using the pre-release updates, I checked on the current performance of Impress with an inserted video and it is still the same.

So I have now locked all LibreOffice packages at the current version, ie 6.1.4.2. So if you need to use Impress with inserted videos I would highly recommend that you do what I have just done.

[NoWorries]

I consider that a picture is worth a 1000 words, so I have decided to illustrate what I am dealing with when using the latest version of LibreOffice Impress.



As you can see it is not at all useful when it comes to having an inserted video.

[acheron]

Have you investigated this?

Looked for reported bugs against libreoffice on launchpad.net on the documentfoundation bug tracker? Depending on whether this seems a Ubuntu issue, or more general upstream problem with 6.2.x. Plus consider reporting the bug if it is not done already?

Kubuntu does not package Libreoffice for Ubuntu, so we are limited in what we can do, but of course we don't want things to break, for Ubuntu and all other flavours.