Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu ... just one!

[Steven Davies-Morris]

Rick wrote:
> Nils Kassube wrote:
> 
>> Rick wrote:
>>   
>>> Since several of my requests for information about applications to do
>>> certain things either went unnoticed or there simply was no one who
>>> knew the answers, 
>>>     
>> There was probably nobody who had an answer. It is unlikely that you would 
>> be completely ignored by everybody.
>>
>>   
>>> I began to explore in Kubuntu. I used the following 
>>> advice:
>>> You could do $ sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop to cleanly
>>> install KDE and $ sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop to cleanly
>>> remove GNOME
>>>     
>> Who's advice? "sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop" will not remove all of 
>> Gnome. "ubuntu-desktop" is a meta package to invoke everything needed for 
>> the Gnome desktop, but if you remove it, all the other packages it  
>> depends on, will still be there.
>>
>>   
>>> Well, I did find some suitable KDE applications and gained a little
>>> insight into Kubuntu, BUT
>>> the above command lines did NOT do what they were supposed to do. I
>>> have repeated the above lines several times to uninstall and install
>>> Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Right now I have both Ubuntu and Kubuntu  ...  and
>>> KDE 4 as alternatives at login. I do not want all those alternatives.
>>>     
>> What is the problem of having alternatives? I don't know about GDM, but 
>> with KDM I don't see the alternatives for the login, unless I invoke the 
>> appropriate menu. It uses the last used desktop for the next login. 
>> Therefore, I usually login to KDE without any extra selection unless I 
>> really have a need to use Gnome. I think, the same should apply to GDM.
>>
>>   
>>> There are some K-programs which are clearly superior to what I found in
>>> GNOME, like Dolphin and NoteCase and the font installation system. What
>>> confuses things to an incredible degree is that shortcut icons
>>> (launchers) are not deleted together with the program, and often they
>>> continue to work even after they have been deleted / uninstalled.
>>>     
>> If the shortcuts continue to work, the programs aren't really removed.
>>
>>   
>>> How can I now (short of a clean installation) return the computer to
>>> Ubuntu, with a few selected KDE programs to supplement the Ubuntu
>>> arsenal?
>>>     
>> Sorry, can't help you there. I would start synaptic and select the 
>> individual packages to remove. But that would take a long time, so I 
>> usually just leave unused packages installed. I can't imagine why that 
>> could be a problem unless you only have little disk space left.
>>
>>
>> Nils
>>
>>   
> It's all over. I'm writing this from Windows, because I can no longer 
> get into Ubuntu. I removed the KDM and made sure GDM was still intact, 
> but something still wanted a Kubuntu startup. Some data I saved; some is 
> lost inside Ubuntu, but when I pass GRUB there's only chaos. Too bad. 
> I'd just bought the Turbo driver for my printer, which Ubuntu doesn't 
> support. Now I have to decide whether to dry my tears from the 8.04 
> installation disk and try again, or wait six months for the next 
> release. I do want to free myself from MS, but doesn't it seem just a 
> little ridiculous to require so much fiddling just to achieve minimum 
> functionality? Especially when I can already do everything on Windows. I 
> do have things to do with the computer. I was hoping to do them (or some 
> of them) in Linux, but when I look back on the hours, days and weeks 
> spent just setting up the system, I feel foolish. TTFN!
> 
> Rick

I have a friend who is a WD engineer.  A brilliant guy, but he too has 
had enormous problems emigrating from Windows XP to Ubuntu. Ironically 
it was his awful experiences with Vista that finally drove him to ask 
me for help in geting him liberated from the MS world.  Even so, 
during the transition process, almost every day when we dealt with 
issues (like making Java work and USB work inside vBox for the few 
Windows things he still had to have) he would bitch and whine about 
how hard this was and why didn't things just work properly like in XP 
-- patience not being one of his many virtues!

Inevitably we would fix things and discover that the reason things 
didn't work was because he (a) hadn't followed instructions properly 
and/or (b) presumed he knew what he was doing and then dynamited the 
bridge under his feet in frustration, or (c) was trying to do 'step 
10" when hadn't yet made "step 7" work...making it harder for me to 
help him fix things.

Anyway, the point is that is this thread all the information you need 
to know to clean up your 8.04 back to gdm without any kdm has been 
provided.  Shame that you've gone back to Windows, but if and when 
you're ready to try again, if you can be a little less hasty in your 
actions, and a little more specific in detail, there's plenty of help 
here on this list that will get you to the promised land.
-- 
Cheers, SDM -- a 21st Century Schizoid Man
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