Kubuntu 9.10 is ususable for me :( am I alone?

Mon Nov 2 15:57:18 UTC 2009

I couldn't find your Fujitsu Sylistic 5020D on the Ubuntu hardware
compatibility list (http://www.ubuntuhcl.org). It also doesn't show up much
on the Linux on Laptops website (
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/fujitsu.html).

Therefore I suspect that you would have to make some pretty severe
work-arounds.

On the topic of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), it's one of my best
installations so far. I stayed with 8.04 (Hardy Heron) for over a year since
the upgrade to 8.10 was a complete mess. When 9.04 came out I did a clean
install and that was good. My wireless setup on 8.04 was using ndiswrapper
and Windows XP drivers, however with 9.04 came out, the Broadcom card in my
Dell Latitude D620 needed a few steps to add the restricted drivers
required.

This installation of 9.10 was seamless. After a complete backup, I wiped the
system clean with a fresh install. All hardware devices were successfully
detected. I had to manually install the Broadcom wireless drivers and the
nVidia video drivers but they're in synaptic and easy to install. Once the
nVidia drivers were installed, compiz was a breeze to setup.

I'm now working on getting some of the more esoteric customisations working.
For example, I had ffmpeg converting to AAC. The ffmpeg that's in the
repositories is broken not to include proprietary formats and so to get
support for AAC/MP4, you have to compile it. I also develop with php and
need Oracle support so this has to be manually done.

All in all, it will take a few days to get everything the way I want it but
I have a really good feeling that I won't be going back to 9.04!

One quick word on Kubuntu. I've tried it in the past but it "appears" quite
heavy to me. I've always suspected that the main attraction to Kubuntu is
it's MS-Windows-like look and feel. I've been told that there's a lot better
integration with the Kubuntu applications but that doesn't really concern me
since the apps I use are mainstream Linux apps, not tied to a window
manager. I'll probably take Kubuntu for a spin on a separate machine that I
have and see how it's changed since I last saw it.

Cheers!

Andrew.

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 12:35 PM, Borden Rhodes <jrvp at bordenrhodes.com>wrote:

> It's been a while since I've posted because I reverted back to Debian
> (Lenny)
> a while ago.  I simply found Kubuntu too buggy with KDE 4 and Ubuntu too
> irritating to control with GNOME.
>
> I burnt a Karmic live CD to give it a try and I'm curious what other people
> think.  Have you had similar experiences trying to use it or has it been
> the
> joy to use as I've been reading in reviews?
>
> Specifically, I had my Fujitsu Stylistic 5020D tablet docked at its
> station.
> The dock has given me no shortage of trouble both in Linux and Windows XP
> (for which the tablet was 'designed') and that may explain some of the
> problems.  I wasn't able to verify the CD integrity or boot into Kubuntu
> without checking the `acpi=off` boot option.  If I leave ACPI on, I only
> get
> a black screen and no activity.
>
> I gave Kubuntu the benefit of a doubt by verifying the CD integrity.  It
> was
> hard to track the progress of the check because the status bar kept
> flickering.  I don't know if this is a new feature along with the Kubuntu
> logo fading in and out but I suspect it isn't.  Anyway, the CD passed
> inspection so onto the desktop!
>
> Okay, so Kubuntu loads into the KDE desktop and as soon as I see the
> lovely,
> sleek-looking desktop the screen goes black and the KDE desktop reloads
> again.  Strange.  I try the CTRL+ALT+F# key switch to get into a terminal
> but
> none of them seem to be working (that is, I can only see a black screen).
> Oh, wait, I just heard the KDE start up jingle.  CTRL+ALT+F8 (don't quote
> me
> on that, I was doing it by feel) brings be back to the desktop and... no...
> wait, X has restarted.  Huh.
>
> I eventually found that moving my mouse cursor to the the bottom panel as
> soon
> as I could kept KDE from crashing.  I suspect the problem was with Lancelot
> (is that what it's called?  It's the transparent box where the Install
> Kubuntu icon is) because the loading icon would show just before X
> restarted.
>
> So, I carefully close that and the KDE(mu)blog Plasmoid and I seem to have
> a
> stable desktop.  Yay!  Let's check the logs to see what happened.
>  According
> to the logs, "X server for display :0 terminated unexpectedly".  Well,
> that's
> not a whole lot to help me isolate the problem or file a bug report on.  No
> matter.  Let's see if I can connect to the Internet through PPPoE.
>
> I'm happy to see that DSL has *finally* been integrated into Network
> Manager
> so I don't have to fiddle around with pppoeconf which never worked
> alongside
> Network Manager anyway (Network Manager would switch from DSL to local LAN
> and effectively cut me off the Internet in the past).  So, I excitedly type
> in my DSL username and password and go back to the NM icon to connect
> and...
> wait, there's no DSL option there.  NM only gives me options for local
> Ethernet (which will only get me as far as the router) and wireless
> networks,
> none of which I have (legal) access to.
>
> Okay, so I guess it's back to pppoeconf for the foreseeable future.  I was
> also happy to see that KBluetooth had been (re)added to KDE 4 but I didn't
> bother to try it out with my Nokia phone.
>
> I did want to see whether my brand-spanking-new, UVC-enabled webcam
> (Logitech
> 3000 Quickcam for Business in case you have one) worked with Kopete since
> the
> UVC site (and Logitech, for that matter) says it should.  Although I can
> get
> a picture, it's too dark, too off coloured, and it's covered in blue
> artifacts.  I'm sure I could fiddle around with the brightness, contrast,
> and
> saturation controls for a while and eventually get something resembling
> what
> I look like in real life, but there's no way to get rid of the blue static
> all over the picture.  Maybe it's just a Kopete thing.
>
> It's possible that the Intel video drivers are still broken.  I go to
> reboot
> the machine and instead of getting the usual terminal output telling me
> about
> closing services and prompting me to eject the CD before I restart I just
> get
> a black screen with white lines.  It looks like the terminal has compressed
> lines to two pixels high since, knowing what the lines are supposed to say,
> I
> can kinda see how what does show on my screen resembles what should.
>
> So, I guess I'm back to trusty Lenny running Debian 3.5 at least for
> another 6
> months.  Yes, I realise that this e-mail is a bit of a disappointed flame
> against K/Ubuntu but I am legitimately curious if anyone else has noticed
> these things or if my tablet is unique in the Linux world.
>
> With regards,
>
> Borden
>
> --
> ubuntu-ca mailing list
> ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-ca
>
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