Kubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)
Last week I looked at Ubuntu Linux 10.04 and found it to be a delightful surprise. This week I thought it would be fun to look at the KDE version, Kubuntu 10.04.
Alas, I was not nearly as pleased with Kubuntu as I was with Ubuntu. While there have definitely been some improvements in Kubuntu 10.04, it lacks some of the important things that defined Ubuntu 10.04.
Read on to find out why you should avoid Kubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS.
What’s New In This Release
Here’s a list of some of what’s new in this release:
The Kubuntu logo has been updated on the splash screen and in the desktop menus
KDE Plasma Desktop 4.4
Linux kernel 2.6.32
Amarok 2.3
Installer slideshow
Touchpad configuration
Firefox KDE integration
System notification updates
Gnome application system tray integration
The updated Kubuntu logo is fine but seems to only appear on the bootsplash screen and the desktop menus. Beyond that there is no other branding to indicate that Canonical is behind the release of this distro.
The new Plasma desktop has some goodies in it including an improved system tray that includes widgets, better search via Dolphin and the ability to let you browse through a recently used timeline. You can now also group windows into tabs.
The inclusion of a slideshow during the install is a great idea. It lets newbies know what’s available in this distro and helps keep the user entertained while the install concludes.
If you’re using a laptop then the touchpad configuration in System Settings is a welcome addition. I rarely use my laptop so it’s not particularly relevant for me but I’m glad to see it in this release.
The system notification updates are also helpful. When I first opened Konqueror, I was greeted with a menu asking if I wanted to install additional codecs. See the screenshot of this in the Sound and Multimedia section of the review to see what it looks like.
I’m very happy to see Firefox integrated with KDE. That’s an excellent thing for those of us who prefer Firefox as our default browsers instead of Konqueror. It’s also good to see GNOME apps blending into the KDE Plasma desktop in a more cohesive way.
The new Kubuntu logo appears in the desktop menus.
(89 votes, average: 1.97 out of 5)
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(4.75 out of 5)
I could be wrong, but I believe Kubuntu is completely a community project and other than the logo and the repos, the project is not driven by Canonical at all.
Hi Jeff,
If you go to the official Kubuntu site and look down, you’ll find this text at the bottom of the page:
“Kubuntu and Canonical are registered trademarks of Canonical Ltd. ”
And if you look on the FAQ page, you see this:
“What is Kubuntu?
Kubuntu one of the distributions from the Ubuntu family (alongside Ubuntu Desktop and several other variants). Our Kubuntu CDs are made up of Ubuntu’s base plus KDE Software Compilation. You can get exactly the same effect by installing Ubuntu and adding the KDE Software Compilation packages (and removing the Gnome packages) from the Ubuntu archives.
Is this a fork of Ubuntu?
No, it is an official part of Ubuntu. All our packages are in the same archives.”
All of that means that users are probably going to think that Kubuntu is simply the KDE version of Ubuntu and would be as polished in all respects. Unfortunately it’s not, as I indicated in the review.
Hey Jim Lynch! do you happen to be Dan Lynch’s Brother? from Linux Outlaws? that would be so cool/awesome!
Anyways a very great review as always it was in-depth and showed everything! Kubuntu sadly seems to have its own mind of what packages they want. (mostly KDE ones?) I’m surprised not to see a video editor installed either they could do Kdenlive if they love kde apps so much.(it’s kinda buggy though) but maybe they are running out of space on the small CD they use? so thats not an option.
BTW. Fedora has said they will be using DVDs (Only about 900 MB) from now on to distribute it in KDE and Gnome Edtions Plus the huge multi installer. this means they hopefully won’t have to cut out things. I think ubuntu should consider this. CDs are now becoming a limitation sadly.
Hi JD,
No, no relation to Dan Lynch that I know of…but I do have a lot of relatives so you never know!
Thanks for the positive feedback. Much appreciated.
I agree, CDs are passe to a certain extent at this point. Too small for today’s desktop distros, for the most part. Although some of the smaller, light-weight ones are still fine on them.
wow. one of the best review i have read. very detailed and still to the point. it seems you have discovered all the flaws in kubuntu and i totally agree with you. canonicle treat kubuntu like step child whom they don’t love. there are lots of distros thriving on kde desktop, if same attention could be paid on kubuntu then they can have best of both world (well best of all the world considering xfce and lxde) this is the reason i install kde in regular ubuntu.. its plain vanilla kde so i dont miss a thing.
Are you seriously complaining about the KDE4 theme? Have you SEEN how many KDE Themes are available? There are like 20 and only about 10 of them are any good. ALL KDE4 based Distros use one of 2 themes. Oxygen or Air, period.
@ abhifx:
Actually, Kubuntu 10:04 is 1000 times better than its Ubuntu counterpart for this release. Ubuntu is completely worthless for the next 6 months, and if Shuttleworthlesses ideas for 10:10 are any indication … the next year as well.
The best KDE-Buntu is Mint KDE Edition. Mint Kde is Kubuntu derivatif with some fine tuning here and there.
The English translation for the word Kubuntu is “Krap”.
quote: Jim
I suspect I will be hammered for this review by some KDE users. But I said what had to be said. Canonical needs to make Kubuntu its own or stop releasing it altogether and just focus on the GNOME version.
Do you want me to hammer you then? You know better than that. I respect your viewpoint and the viewpoint of others. I do have some issues to take with your review, however.
I respect your viewpoint that Canonical, if it intends to brand itself with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Mythbuntu, ought to take branding into consideration. Clearly they did in this release with Ubuntu. However, I am not certain just how many employees of Canonical are a part of the other four projects. I suspect it is not more than a tenth to a quarter as many, and that explains the difference in focus, at least to me.
Jim, the reason that I follow Kubuntu is that it is always the very first Debian based system that has binary packages built for versions of KDE. It is ironic. In Debian, the GNOME distribution is quite stable – and fairly clearly the preferred desktop in the Debian Stable release, but it takes a back seat in Unstable, where it can be quite erratic. Canonical’s first significant contribution to the party is that they really flesh out GNOME and help both Debian and Mint, to name two Debian-oriented distributions.
We don’t see the emphasis quite as directly with KDE because the Debian KDE packagers only release every 2-4 maintenance releases (in fact, until last night, their last release was KDE SC 4.3.4, which is 3-4 months old now. As of today, KDE SC 4.4.3 – four updates later, is FINALLY in Debian Sid.) In contrast, Kubuntu has been building updates within days of new packages, and is a reference release for KDE. OpenSUSE DEFINITELY gets the crown in this respect – it is THE release that KDE itself uses for Live CD sample releases (not too surprising, given the long time German roots).
My point in this is that Canonical focuses most of its KDE effort on building binaries early and often so that KDE Alpha and Beta testers have a platform to use. Arch, Sabayan, Gentoo, OpenSUSE, and Mandriva are the other leaders, most everyone else lags by at least a month, sometimes six months or more, in this area.
I therefore consider your review this time a bit too strongly tilted to the visual effects, which we all know are easy to modify. I do respect your view on branding, and if they had more time and money to spend, it might be nice to throw more into Kubuntu and Lubuntu. In time, that may happen. Curiously, Xubuntu, while not heavily branded, generally has the best appearance, from an artistic viewpoint, of any of the releases. I’ve not seen strong branding there, either, though, at least not in the past. I’d like to read your viewpoint on that.
A 2.5/5, simply based on weak branding is not what the average consumer cares about. How does it work? My experience throughout the Alpha and Beta test cycle suggests that this release works every bit as well as Ubuntu. The only thing it lacks are those small points. A 3.5 rating at the least is a more reasonable rating, considering that the installation is trivial, the packages you want to add are omitted only for space reasons to fit on a CD instead of mandating a DVD. Grabbing the Ubuntu Package Manager, or for that matter, low level tools, such as gdebi or aptitude, are only as far away as a kpackage, dpkg, or apt-get installation request.