Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu ... just one!

[Rick]

On Fri, 2008-07-04 at 09:39 -0700, Steven Davies-Morris wrote:
> 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.

No! I was writing from Windows because I could no longer get into
Ubuntu. I'm writing this from a clean installation of Ubuntu. Suddenly
in the last three days, wonderful advice has appeared. For the month or
so previous to that, there were either no answers or misleading ones. I
thank you for your advice.

Rick