Staying with Hardy

[Billie Walsh]

Neil Winchurst wrote:
> A liitle while ago I decided to move from Edgy Kubuntu to a more up to 
> date version. I did a backup of Edgy and then a new install of Gutsy. A 
> little tweaking was needed but it all went very well. Meanwhile I had 
> read plenty of praise for Hardy and I had the CD's so a while later I 
> installed Hardy as a dual boot with Gutsy. So some first impressions.
>
> I made a few changes.
>
> I sorted out the NumLock  problem. That is, I set it to switch NumLock 
> on automatically, then found that the  light did not show the correct 
> state of the set-up. The light was off when NumLock was on and vice 
> versa. A search in Google showed that this was a known problem and also 
> showed me how to sort it out.
>
> I prefer to double click the mouse to launch a program so I changed that 
> too.
>
> I installed Firefox (version 2) and Thunderbird. I do not like kmail for 
> email nor konqueror as a browser.
>
> I installed the Gimp.
>
> I set konqueror to be the default file manager, as I do not like Dolphin.
>
> I installed GnuCash.
>
> I use floppies for small backups. Yes, I know, still in the stone age, 
> but I find them useful to backup my accounts in GnuCash. When I tried to 
> use them in Hardy there were some problems which I eventually tracked 
> down to an error in the relevant line in fstab.
>
> The install had not found my printer properly so I added my printer and 
> made it the default.
>
> I added some more programs which I like, eg Opera, Scribus, Abiword, 
> Krusader, Kexi.
>
> Now it all seems to be going along nicely thank you.
>
> So my comments ...
>
> all this tweaking was simple enough for me, and I do not consider myself 
> to be an expert at all. However, a newbie would get a bit lost I suggest.
>   

I'm definitely not an expert but I've never had to do that much tweaking 
on any of my systems. The numlock thing was very annoying and should be 
set to on as default but was dead simple to do. Shouldn't be a problem 
for a novice. I've never seen a problem with the status light.

> I chose version two of Firefox because I have read that there are still 
> some problems with version three.
>   

I've been using FF 3 since it came out. It was a bit twitchy at first 
but is now as stable as any version before. In fact there was another 
update this morning. Went without a hitch [ so far ].

> I avoided KDE4 due to all the problems I read about in this list.
>
> I am not considering Intrepid at all as an upgrade after reading about 
> so many people who are having difficulties with it, especially KDE4. I 
> also do not like the idea of being forced to use Dolphin instead of 
> Konqueror. I thought that personal choice was one of the main reasons 
> for using Linux.
>   

I set up 8.10/4.x as a dual boot on my computer. I have to admit there 
are some things I don't care for all that much but as far as I'm 
concerned it seems to be fairly good. I expect it will get better when 
4.2 is released.  For my simple needs I could use it every day without 
difficulty but, like many, I'm sort of partial to 8.04/3.5.10.

I quite like Dolphin for most simple file management, the kind I do 
most. I've been copying a lot of my personal files from the 8.04 drive 
to the 8.10 drive and it works very smooth, very simple.

> So, I am happy so far with Hardy (Kubuntu)  and I expect to stay with it 
> for a long time to come. If it ain't broke ........
>
> Neil Winchurst
>   

I intend to keep 8.10/4.x updated and check it fairly often. BUT, I do 
expect to keep using 8.04/3.5.10 as my main OS for a while yet.

-- 
Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.