Kubuntu 9.04
Desktop & Apps
It’s definitely a change of pace for me booting into a KDE desktop rather than Gnome. The first thing I saw was the Desktop folder open. I closed it as I dislike having it open. The sound also worked fine as my desktop booted up.
The KDE panel is attractive to look at and clicking on the K button is the functional equivalent of the Start menu in Windows. The folder with a star allows you easy access to the following parts of your computer:
Desktop
Documents
Music
Pictures
Public
Templates
Videos
You’ll also notice on the panel that you can configure multiple desktops and access the Plasma Dashboard that will let you configure widgets for your desktop. Widget options include but are not limited to the following:
Notes
Weather
Dictionary
Life (Game)
Comic Strip
Binary Click
System Tray
Eyes (XEyes clone)
Network Manager
Luna (display moon phases)
Timer
Twitter
Fuzzy Clock
There are quite a few widgets to choose from, more than enough to clutter up your desktop and drive you mad as you try to organize them. As you can tell I am not really a widget person. My desktops usually end up cluttered enough with this or that so adding a lot of widgets could potentially make it worse. Your mileage may vary, however.
Note also that there is a software updates icon on the panel too. Click that and you can begin updating your newly installed Kubuntu system. I had no problem downloading and installing all of my updates. My system was connected to the internet right after booting into my KDE desktop, no additional network configuration was necessary on my end.
Kubuntu 9.04 includes some of the following in its base install:
OpenOffice.org
Konqueror
Gwenview (image viewer)
KSnapshot (screenies)
Okular (doc viewer)
Kontact (PIM)
Kopete (IM)
Amarok
KTorrent
Akregator (feed reader)
Krfb (desktop sharing)
K3b (CD & DVD burning)
Dragon Player (video player)
KAddressBook
KOrganizer
KMail
If you want to add more software you can click the K button then System Settings and then Add/Remove Software under the Computer Administration menu section.
(6 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)
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2.5/5.0? Agreed. I have really tried to like the KDE 4 series, but it just does not work for me. Invariably I wind up going back to what is termed the “classic” menu, which works quit nicely.
Your virtual setup might not allow a good wireless test? I had trouble using knetwork manager in Kubuntu with an Intel 5100 chip. Not sure why. I had no problem when I tested with the hew Mandriva. The current PCLOS09 also works.
Aaaah, so I’m not the only one eh? I didn’t notice the ability to switch to classic. That’s a good thing to point out, thanks for posting about it. I wondered whether it was my Gnome-ish tendencies that made me dislike that menu system so much but it’s nice to hear it wasn’t just me.
No, the virtual setup doesn’t do the wireless thing well so I can’t be of too much help there. But you might post a note in the forum and see if anybody else has run into a similar problem.
I also find Kubuntu a bit lacking for many of the same reasons. However, I do disagree on the point about Gimp being included. While I have used Gimp from time to time out of necessity, I have never really liked it. The explosion of windows when you launch it has always been a sore spot. I can only imagine what it looks like to a new user.
When I set up a distro for someone, I usually delete Gimp, and install Gthumb instead. It works just fine in any desktop environment, contains rudimentary editing tools suitable for most folks, and has a simple clean interface. It is not as feature laden as something such as Irfanview, but still good enough.
Well, you guys are GNOME buffs, so taking shots at a KDE distro… well…
Kubuntu 8.10 was the first distro I can think of that at least had some of the working components in KDE 4.1 set up in a usable distribution. Maybe that is not fair; actually, Mandriva has done it, too, but they made theirs a hybrid for a long time and even recent versions looked like more of a hybrid between KDE 3 and 4 than a pure implementation. openSUSE has provided KDE builds from day one – but I’ve had trouble with them, so Kubuntu has been the main platform I’ve used to get a good idea of where KDE is heading.
Because it has been a KDE testbed, Kubuntu has not exactly been a stable partner ever since it departed from the stability of the LTS, the Long Term Support release. The 8.04 release was a good solid one – all of the Ubuntu variations, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu were (I have not gotten into all of the variations, but all I’ve used based on the current LTS have been solid).
Where does that leave me with Kubuntu 9.04? Well, you guys were talking about issues with Wireless, and I have to tell you that I fought with Network Manager and Knetworkmanager from Alpha 2 to Alpha 4. Apparently there have been some pretty long standing defects in this space, and I seemed to find them. Often, I’d have to go wired, fiddle around, and SOMETIMES get wireless going. Finally, at Alpha 4, I said “Enough is enough!” I wired up, downloaded wicd, which effectively cut off both network manager and knetworkmanager, replacing them with wicd, a generally well regarded multifunction network manager that also happens to work independently of the desktop environment, and does a good job of remembering and retaining information, but gives you the flexibility to roam, wire up, or change access points when you need to do so.
Once I did that, I only found one other issue with Kubuntu, but it did annoy me. The network time protocol daemon, NTPD, seemed to be perpetually acting up – some goofy interaction between ntpd and ntpdate client. I seemed to uninstall and reinstall them often to get the time right. Otherwise, my clock on Kubuntu kept going to UTC, which I was certain that I had NOT set, so that bothered me too.
Other than that, though, this system has worked well for me, and that even goes back to Alpha 2, quite a number of months ago. Upgrades between Alpha builds, other than wireless and NTP issues, were fine, no badly broken packages, generally good quality.
One other thing that I would like to say about that is that I have been able to upgrade a few of my Ubuntu based systems from release to release to release. I have at least one or two of them that have gone from 8.04 to 8.10 to 9.04. I’ve been able to do that with Mandriva, using the Cooker to have a perpetually bleeding edge system, but these are STABLE release upgrades and they work. I do prefer ROLLING RELEASE systems, such as Debian Testing, Debian Sid, sidux, antiX, and distros like them (and Arch Linux, the classic perpetually rolling release system, as well as Mandriva Cooker, the one cooked “Rare” at all times), but for a release upgrade system, this one does it as well as any.
Ubuntu is arguably a bit more polished in some areas than Kubuntu, which is moderately close to a clean KDE release. I think that of the three primary Canonical versions, Xubuntu is the best looking and best performing of the three, but I would not ding this release hard. I’d give it a subjective 4 out of 5. Tell me what the criteria are to get that rating. Actually, I’d like a ten point scale, with two, one, or zero points possible for five different categories. That might give us something that we could reproduce.
For me, the only dings here are initial wireless packaging and issues with the time server; all else has done remarkably well. I will upgrade my system and report back. Last time I did so, there were two or three updates, an indication of either dormancy or stability. On my system, it was stability.
I am here once again, this time with Kubuntu, and I have been using it for most of the time since I wrote the previous post.
There were 22 updates since the last time I used it; more than the previous time, but most of them were library and browser related, always the most volatile stuff.
Speaking of volatile, on most of the systems that I visit, I have been installing the Nightly Builds of both Firefox and Seamonkey. I am using the Release Candidate of Firefox 3.5 in upgradable form in the firefox folder on my desktop, and I am doing the same thing with Seamonkey. I am very happy with both.
No weirdness at all on this Kubuntu 9.04 desktop. Time is fine, wireless is fine; all I want to do now is change the stock appearance, which doesn’t impress me much. I know that there are some really nice Plasma appearance items – oh, wait a minute, I DID already change the appearance – it is quite nice, with a mountain ledge overlooking several green mountains and a partly cloudy blue sky – I tend to like those kinds of scenes. On Mandriva, I have a scene with a nice tree surrounded by water – a swamp or flooded scene, also quite beautiful, so you can get that with KDE 4.
Performance? Fine, solid, steady, have not seen any indications of problems at all. Navigation? Well, I’ve been working with this stuff now, so I’ve figured out how to use it effectively without a lot of menu traversal, which frustrates me tremendously. KDE 4 has the stuff you need, but you may need to do it differently than you’ve done it in the past. I’m still building up my personal repertoire in it. Meanwhile, for basic use, it is more than fine, it has all that I need. I stick with the four out of five rating; if anything, I’d kick it up, but not to 5, there were some chinks that I needed to fix; it is my fixed system that rates a 5! ;-)
@ Brian Masinick:
tlmck wrote:
Hmmm…well I guess we will have to agree to disagree about Gimp. I still love it. I even use it on my macs via x11. But I will play around with Gthumb and see how it matches up. Perhaps it’s a good alternative for people to consider.
When I first started using Linux, I was a bigger fan of KDE than Gnome. It just seemed more friendly and easy to use. A couple years down the road, Red Hat came out with their last desktop distro before turning all that over to the Fedora core group (Version 9? I don’t remember the release number).
Anyway, they included both desktops with the distro, as many did in those days, only they had Gnome and KDE both configured to look and function more or less the same. I had run the distro for a week or so before I even realized I was running Gnome.
After that, more by chance than anything, most distros I tried happened to default to Gnome. Today I can say it’s probably been 3 years since I’ve used KDE. But, I don’t experiment like I used to, either. Mint/Ubuntu work great, so I just use those, and they’re Gnome distros by default.
I enjoy eye candy as much as the next user, but I don’t need it as much as some seem to. To me, that’s all KDE used to bring to the party – a prettier face. Now that Gnome’s no slouch either, I don’t see a reason to chase around.
I have started reading your linux reviews as a gentle entry into the world of Linux. As a complete nube some, (ok alot) of the terminlogy escapes me. I am happy to hear that you are beginning this blog, as I wanted to follow your writings post ET. Hers my noob question of the day: KDE/Knome. what are they and what is the difference between them? You reference reviewing one type more than another, what is the preference, if any? BTW love the wallpaper, would you know where I can find it?
Brad wrote:
Hi Brad,
Welcome to DLR. I’m glad that you are enjoying the reviews so far.
KDE and Gnome are desktop environments. Some distros use one, some use the other, some are available in both and some don’t use either one.
You can get more info here:
KDE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE
Gnome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME
Don’t forget that you can also post questions in the DLR forum too. That’s a good place to pick the brains of some of our resident Linux gurus. The link is always in the upper right of the sidebar on this blog. But here it is so you don’t have to find it:
http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/forum
I am a bit torn on this one. I am more of a KDE person than an Gnome one, but I don’t think that Kubuntu provides the best KDE experience. Kubuntu was actually my first experience of KDE 4, followed by a test install of OpenSuse. At that point I was ready to switch over to Gnome, but then I got hold of Mandriva, which provides a much better experience, and won my heart back.
There are two issues here really. The first is that the Mandriva people feel like be folks who use KDE all the time and want it to be the best possible desktop for their users, even if it takes them away from some of the defaults (eg classic menus rather than the new style and the default desktop hosting of shortcuts). The second issue is that, for some reason, KDE adaptations of Gnome centric distributions tend to omit things like Firefox for KDE but not Gnome (even though Gnome has its own browser in Epiphany). If you are prepared to be convinced about KDE, you might try Mandriva, but I agree that I would rather use Ubuntu than Kubuntu, for many of the reasons you cite.