Ubuntu or Kubuntu

[Joel Oliver]

Chris Taylor wrote:
>  is there any real benefit in Kubuntu over Ubuntu I guess this is like
>  asking how long is a piece of string
>  I have been using Ubuntu for a short time still lots to learn. I use Open
>  Office, KMyMOney, K3B, Thunderbird, Firefox and VirtualBox as I run
>  windoze still
>
>

You can always install both!  Best to start with gnome (Ubuntu) first 
and keep gdm.

All you need to do is at the command line or in your favorite package 
manager:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop


When it finishes downloading everything and goes to configure, an 
Ncurses box will pop up prompting you on which desktop manager you wish 
to use (Either gdm or kdm4 IIRC)  keep gdm as default (Again my 
preference) and then at the login prompt, you can select which desktop 
to start.  The best of both worlds!  Be sure to disable autologon or you 
will need to log out every time to switch desktops.

You can even install xubuntu-desktop and select between gnome, kde4 and 
xfce!   Many more desktops can be used such as fluxbox (one of my 
personal lightweight desktops), fvwm, enlightenment, flwm, uwm, 
ratpoison, wmaker, (w)9wm, (c)twm, tinywm, sawfish, sapphire, qvwm, 
pekwm, oroborus, olwm, wlvwm, lwm, jwm, icewm, evilwm, dwm, blackbox, 
dwm, afterstep, nextstep, awesome, amaterus, amiwm, aewm......   These 
are just the window managers in the repositories!

There's more than kde and gnome!  Of course most of these are 
lightweight and specialized window managers, but you can try them out! 
It's fun to experiment... I like the Amiga amiwm for fun.  Like I said 
though, for a fast and somewhat flashy manager it's hard to beat 
Fluxbox.  This window manager can take a Pentium-II 128MB computer and 
turn it into a very functional desktop for many uses.  Windows 2000 
drags on a system like this and XP is near painful.  Even XFCE is a 
little plump.

Another thing I recommend doing is ditching network manager for wicd.  
Network manager has a backend and a frontend.  There's a seperate 
frontend for gnome and kde and a single backend.  The three packages are:

network-manager
network-manager-gnome
network-manager-kde

The kde version is just a mess of bugs and broken/borked crap which 
causes all kinds of problems, especially with static ip's and uncommon 
wireless settings.  I don't care if it's fixed now or mostly fixed, 
there's a better solution called wicd which is very powerful, very 
configurable, and the single python frontend works for all desktops 
beautifully.  I use it for ALL installs, even wired only desktops.

sudo apt-get install wicd

This will conflict with the network manager bits, and also force the 
removal of ubuntu and kubuntu-desktop metapackages.  This is normal... 
Once you try wicd, you'll probably never go back!

Happy [k-x]ubuntu'in.

Joel.