LWN: Comments on "Testing Kubuntu 5.04"

Testing Kubuntu 5.04

zakaelri — Mon, 16 May 2005 18:15:45 +0000

I must agree: the Gentoo documentation is some of the best I have read with regard to Linux.

I wanted to set up a 64 bit version of Linux for my Athlon 64 box, so I downloaded the Kubutu liveCD and tried running it. Overall, my experience was prety good. The only gripe I had was that it ran rather slowly. I chalked this up to it loading off my CD drive, and decided to install the official desktop on my machine.

Unfortunately, after I had installed it, I found it lacking. For any binary-distributed distro, I believe that things such as the nVidia drivers should be included on-disk. Also, like the article above says, the devs for Kubuntu neglected to include apps that KDE doesn't currently provide, such as image editing software. And, on top of that, it was still running woefully slow.

So, I am now back on gentoo (compiled -O2 -march=athlon64) and am *mostly* happy (Gentoo has problems of it's own, but I digress). Other than the DE (I am not a fan of GNOME), I found Ubuntu to be a very polished distribution. Having been a witness to that, I belive I may have put too much faith in Kubuntu. Hopefully 5.10 will have more of what I am looking for.

-- My 2 cents

Testing Kubuntu 5.04

joib — Thu, 12 May 2005 08:41:58 +0000

After using debian since 1996 or so, I finally got tired of waiting for the next stable release, and upgraded from sarge to hoary when hoary was released. The upgrade went smoothly, although it required some messing with apt pinning to downgrade some packages to the official supported ubuntu versions. In general I have been very happy, Ubuntu is very polished.

The one thing that really annoys me though, is that a security update to kdelibs-data was broken (couldn't be installed since it conflicted with the knetworkconf package IIRC), and AFAIK they still haven't fixed it even though it was something like 3 weeks ago.

Install Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu -- then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

fergal — Fri, 06 May 2005 22:38:43 +0000

Actually, that's a very good point. I've been thinking of install Ubuntu for a while but I use KDE. The separate Kubuntu disc sounded a big dodgy to me. It's good to know I can start from standard Ubuntu and add KDE.

Install Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu -- then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

dowdle — Fri, 06 May 2005 22:26:28 +0000

Ok, I did read the article... but somehow I missed that detail. I wish I could say that the article was edited and that part added after I commented... but that would be a lie. In an attempt to throw off some of the embarrisment, I think there are more packages associated with Gnome than KDE so again, it still might be worth it for those who want both to download / install Ubuntu rather than Kubuntu. I mean, Kubuntu only has Konqueror for a browser. Now Konqueror is nice, but I want more...and I have to have GIMP too!

I have installed both and I can tell you that Kubuntu has so few applications... it's like there isn't much there... other than KDE... and a subset of KDE at that (no kdeedu, kdegames, etc). Compared to say Knoppix (where they use miraculous compression), it is skimpy.

I have to admit though, it is good to see both install disks available.

Install Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu -- then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

fergal — Fri, 06 May 2005 22:11:27 +0000

Cool. I'm glad I brought it up... as an opportunity for someone to tell me how.

Another way to find out was to actually read the article before commenting :) Paragraph 4.

Testing Kubuntu 5.04

dberkholz — Fri, 06 May 2005 00:31:02 +0000

> But to our knowledge, none of them can boast an existence of a
> comprehensive free manual that tells its users how to install, configure
> and use some of the useful non-free software and how to enhance their Linux
> operating system to get, in terms of usability, as close as possible to Mac
> OS or MS Windows.

I usually try to avoid being a Gentoo fanatic, but documentation is one instance in which it really shines. If you look at its desktop docs <http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml?catid=desktop>> and its handbook <http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml>>, along with the rest of Gentoo's docs, I bet you'd find much of the same information and more.

Install Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu -- then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

dowdle — Thu, 05 May 2005 18:59:50 +0000

Cool. I'm glad I brought it up... as an opportunity for someone to tell me how. I was thinking that it might be something like that but I didn't see it documented anywhere. Now I know.

I wonder which is a bigger package download, kubuntu-desktop or ubuntu-desktop?

Install Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu -- then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

busterb — Thu, 05 May 2005 18:54:37 +0000

apt-get install ubuntu-desktop gives you the Gnome stuff.

Install Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu -- then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

dowdle — Thu, 05 May 2005 12:10:32 +0000

Don't get me wrong, Kubuntu is great... but it is so stripped down. And let's say you want both KDE and Gnome? Well, sure... you can use apt-get to grab whatever you want... but what packages exactly make up the default Gnome desktop on Ubuntu? I couldn't tell you. I can tell you an easy way to install all of Kubuntu's KDE stuff on Ubuntu... simply apt-get kubuntu-desktop... and luckily the Kubuntu website tells you howto do everything.

If you install Kubuntu, you don't get Firefox nor GIMP by default.

Reguarding the unofficial Ubuntu Guide, I'd have to give the FedoraFAQ folks some props too... they come pretty close to providing the same info about how to add all of the juicy mutlimedia apps to Fedora Core... basically just add a repository (DAG) or two to your yum.conf and away you go.

I've seen mention of a DVD iso of Ubuntu but so far, I haven't been able to find it. I know so many people like having only 1 install CD (less to initially download) but I prefer the bloated, multi-CD distros where I have less to download after the install (other than updates and adding the multimedia apps). Just think about it... download the CD set once... copy all you want. With a single CD install, download the install CD... and then on every machine you install on, you are downloading all of the additional stuff you want that wasn't part of the single CD. That's a lot of downloading. Yes, I know there are ways around that (make your own repository and carry it around on CD) but that takes some work.

Testing Kubuntu 5.04

stevan — Thu, 05 May 2005 08:27:26 +0000

Same here. And the ability to type "server" at the CD boot prompt and get
working server in under 10 minutes has been a great.

S

Testing Kubuntu 5.04

emak — Thu, 05 May 2005 01:38:53 +0000

Chances are that it will find a permanent home on your hard disk. It did...