Kubuntu 9.10

[growbag]

I tried Kubuntu 9.10 today.

The liveCD was great, I really liked the "hardware drivers" thing that allowed me to install the Broadcom wireless driver. I was on the network within 5 minutes. Very nice.

I installed it to a USB stick, the installer was very nice, much more intuitive than suse, and a lot easier. But sadly the hardware driver thing no longer wanted to help me. It showed no hardware needing drivers anymore!

Quite sad really, it was looking quite good up till then.

It also took me a while to figure out that to install any package, you have to click on a big greyed-out arrow thing on the RHS of the package manager to select it for installation.

I was excited about the file encryption that I enabled at install time, and once logged in it prompted me to remember an auto generated password and enter the one I wanted to use. I didn't really understand what it meant, so I entered my password and it just sat there asking me to press enter (I think). I just closed the window in the end because nothing was happening.

It has a few nice touches, but sadly is not quite there in my opinion. If that hardware thing had functioned properly, I would have been very impressed.

[consused]

Originally Posted by growbag

I tried Kubuntu 9.10 today...

It also took me a while to figure out that to install any package, you have to click on a big greyed-out arrow thing on the RHS of the package manager to select it for installation.

I think you must be referring to KPackageKit as the package manager. Not surprised by your comment since it has been criticized for not being intuitive. Once you work out what to click, it's quite a (too) simple gui. That's my experience with the previous jaunty release.

It has a few nice touches, but sadly is not quite there in my opinion.

Again that's my impression about the previous jaunty, so overall not surprised by your assessment and that's probably a fair one. I will still try the upgrade soon, so will comment, more after that.

[BrownieCat]

Originally Posted by growbag

I tried Kubuntu 9.10 today.

The liveCD was great, I really liked the "hardware drivers" thing that allowed me to install the Broadcom wireless driver. I was on the network within 5 minutes. Very nice.

I installed it to a USB stick, the installer was very nice, much more intuitive than suse, and a lot easier. But sadly the hardware driver thing no longer wanted to help me. It showed no hardware needing drivers anymore!

Quite sad really, it was looking quite good up till then.

It also took me a while to figure out that to install any package, you have to click on a big greyed-out arrow thing on the RHS of the package manager to select it for installation.

I was excited about the file encryption that I enabled at install time, and once logged in it prompted me to remember an auto generated password and enter the one I wanted to use. I didn't really understand what it meant, so I entered my password and it just sat there asking me to press enter (I think). I just closed the window in the end because nothing was happening.

It has a few nice touches, but sadly is not quite there in my opinion. If that hardware thing had functioned properly, I would have been very impressed.

Some people say Kubuntu 9.10 has the best installer, a good-looking KDE 4.3, and good KDE integration, but those are things you can find in openSUSE too. There's virtually nothing in Kubuntu 9.10 that you can't find in other KDE distros like openSUSE.

[vpiercy]

I'll use any distro that has KDE 4.3, is tailored for netbook, and works with Broadcom wireless off the *.img stick.

Haven't found one yet.

I couldn't even get OpenSUSE to boot from the flashdrive after creating a bootable flashdrive using Unetbootin.

[consused]

Originally Posted by BrownieCat

Some people say Kubuntu 9.10 has the best installer, a good-looking KDE 4.3, and good KDE integration, but those are things you can find in openSUSE too. There's virtually nothing in Kubuntu 9.10 that you can't find in other KDE distros like openSUSE.

That's a fair point, assuming you think the openSUSE installer is better or at least as good. Some users will say that the best installer allows plenty of advanced options, and others will say that the best installer provides the shortest path to a working desktop (GUI). Personally I like the current openSUSE installer as the one that caters for both viewpoints. It's easy to forget in making a comparison that openSUSE is really the equivalent of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu , and all the other little ?ubuntus rolled into a single installer. It isn't difficult therefore for Kubuntu's (or Ubuntu's) installer to appear more straightforward. Anyway, for some it often boils down to which one has the better partitioner. I can't comment on 9.10's installer because I choose the upgrade route.

For Hardy (8.04, IIRC it's installer was straightforward) to Jaunty (9.04) I got away with the perfect distro upgrade, that was impressive going from KDE3.5 to KDE 4.2, and missing out 8.10. Not so lucky with today's Jaunty to Karmic (9.10) upgrade.

The full upgrade executed smoothly up to the restart, taking about 50 minutes (including 15-20 mins at 9+ Mbits/sec downloading). Each milestone was listed and ticked off successfully, and detailed progress displayed. The initial restart got as far as loading the new KDE 4.3 desktop, and while populating it, crashed back to the kdm login screen. The desktop looked good during my all too brief sighting of it. My video driver appears to have installed correctly according to the Xorg.0.log, but there seems to be a serious I/O error in the X session. I haven't solved it yet, having tried all the kubuntu forum suggestions and tricks so far, as there are several not quite the same upgrade problems posted already.

On Kubuntu, having had two successes at full version upgrades out of four attempted, on exactly the same hardware, I would now suggest it's a bit of a lottery with a no better than 50% chance for success.

[CloudLion_ca]

Originally Posted by growbag

I tried Kubuntu 9.10 today.

Bah!

You looked upon it's demonic installer and you didn't burst into flames?

Infidel!!!!!

[consused]

Originally Posted by consused

The initial restart got as far as loading the new KDE 4.3 desktop, and while populating it, crashed back to the kdm login screen. The desktop looked good during my all too brief sighting of it. My video driver appears to have installed correctly according to the Xorg.0.log, but there seems to be a serious I/O error in the X session. I haven't solved it yet, having tried all the kubuntu forum suggestions and tricks so far, as there are several not quite the same upgrade problems posted already.

Appearances can be misleading, so I decided on a hunch to substitute the vesa driver for my usual openchrome driver, and successfully completed the 9.10 upgrade. Hmm, since the the previous release that worked so well, Kubuntu has used a newer release of my video driver that appears to have caused the problem. This does rather fit the recent criticism about drivers not working and lack of testing time through rigid deadlines (cf. release of openSUSE 11.1). It feels like an old problem fixed in the previous release has been reintroduced. Wouldn't be the first time that has happened with either kubuntu or openSUSE, et al. Without that driver failure, Kubuntu would have achieved the perfect upgrade.

Having got over that hurdle, although Karmic is pretty raw KDE 4.3.2 it looks attractive and feels solid enough. Upgraded apps performed well, including Amarok 2.2, Firefox 3.5.4, and the Flash internet video streaming (BBC iPlayer) still worked flawlessly at 24bit colour depth even with the vesa driver. That streaming delivers a more stable picture on my desktop hardware than openSUSE 11.1/2 does at 16bit depth. Apart from that, I still prefer the openSUSE KDE integration, and Yast's software management seriously outclasses Kubuntu's KPackageKit.