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Kubuntu 10.04 Beta (for Geeks)

4 April, 2010 - 14:43 | by fyl

Just in case you are a Linux geek and thinking about Kubuntu or Ubuntu 10.04, I figured I would toss this out. I have a combination of (mostly) 9.04 and 9.10 running on my systems but needed to set up a new system for someone and decided to try the 10.04 beta. This is my very preliminary look.

First, for their system, it was a failure. Well, actually a failure trying to get it on two different systems. Even the try it from CD mode never came up. I was pretty surprised as previous versions of Kubuntu are on these systems and working fine. As it clearly works for some I decided to try the CD on my Toshiba A600 laptop. I'm glad I did.

The A600 is running Kubuntu 9.04. (I tried 9.10 but had network manager problems.) Audio didn't work when I installed it but a quick search and one line change and it was up and running. I was surprised the built-in camera and analog-feel volume control worked. I didn't bother to try to get the fingerprint reader working. The one problem I have had is slow WiFi. Clearly related to the Toshiba and driver as 9.04 running on an old ThinkPad works 10 times faster.

The WiFi issue is what promoted me to try 9.10. Sure enough, that problem is gone. I also didn't need a patch to get the audio working. On the down-side, the volume control no longer works. The one in the panel works fine but I was getting used to the one on the side of the computer. I also (finally) figured out that my keyboard layout is Spanish as in Spain rather than as in Latin America. (Strange considering I bought the computer new in Costa Rica but, whatever.)

That's about it so far. I haven't tried the web cam yet. The only really irritating thing is that Firefox seems to have forgotten all my passwords in spite of asking it to migrate from 3.5 to 3.6. That, of course, is a bit hard to pin on the Linux version.

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Comments

by fyl | 15 April, 2010 - 07:22

Lots of final changes

Since beta two (only a few days ago) I have done hundreds of megabytes of updates. Most of the updates this morning (but not all) are in applications such as FireFox and OpenOffice. The good news is that doing the pre-release updates hasn't broken everything.

Still some issues (such as the volume control on my laptop which worked in 9.04) but, in general, things seem to be converging.

by Anonymous | 7 April, 2010 - 11:50

I think I'm ready to try elsewhere

I've been running Kubuntu 8.04 on two machines, with no problems, except that one suddenly stopped providing audio output, apparently after a routine package update one day. Luckily, I was able to find explicit, step-by-step instructions on how to reload the sound system. Unluckily, they didn't help.

I also bought a new machine, which came with Kubuntu 9.10. Aside from the new KDE, which is almost impossible to understand, everything was fine, until the screen went black on boot-up. I guess there was a lot of this going around.

So I tried Linux Mint 7/KDE and everything was fine until the sound system quit working. I tried the same fix as with the first computer, with the same non-result.

Inexplicably, my third computer continues to work fine with Kubuntu 8.04.

I don't do a bunch of sound stuff, but it's nice to have it when viewing a tutorial video that depends on spoken instructions. Duh!

Now my routine package updates are erroring out with inscrutable messages about possible dependency problems or corrupt packages or something. No clue whatsoever.

Maybe the Ubuntu family isn't there yet, or has gone off the rails. I have Mepis 8.5 waiting on a DVD and will try that. Less glitz, maybe, but maybe more reliable too. We'll see.
by Anonymous | 30 April, 2010 - 23:55

Changed my mind

Mepis 8.5 finally came out, and I loaded it. The CD I burned indicated that there might be an error in converting it from the iso file. Eh. I loaded it anyway.

But I found that Firefox wouldn't work, so I downloaded the file again using a bit torrent client and burned another CD.

Everything OK.

I began installing utilities and configuring things. I even got Emacs configured to send email. And then Firefox wouldn't work unless I used Konqueror first. And Emacs wouldn't send email any more. And Firefox would quit working after I closed Konqueror.

After searching around a bunch I decided that I didn't want to get back into what killed Linux for me in 1996, so I gave up the fight and installed Linux Mint 7 KDE. It should be six months or so before the new (10.04-based) version is out, and I dodn't want to use version 8 (based on 9.10).

But hey. Damn this is nice. Has lots of tweaks that I had to do manually on Kubuntu, and is nicely finished overall. If it keeps working I'll be glad to wait for the volunteer team to come out with the next version.

Note: The Mint folks are working on a system for upgrades so you can back up your data and installed software, upgrade, and then reinstall data and software on top of it. If this ever works it will be fantastic. It can take weeks to get everything reinstalled and configured again. For me anyway.

by fyl | 13 April, 2010 - 15:57

Some good, some bad

I had no problems with 8.04 and, in fact, still have it on a couple of systems. The transition from KDE 3 to KDE 4 has been "difficult" but, at this point, I have decided it is a good thing. That is, while the differences are a bit scary at first, it is worth it.

Another big plus recently has been decreased boot-up time. Significant decreases. As this system is on 24/7 and my laptop is generally sleeping rather than powered off it doesn't change my life but it clearly is the result of some work.

I am still pretty hopeful that 10.04 will be the release that gets us back to the stability we saw with 8.04 except with a new KDE. But, only time will tell.