Feedback

Introduction

  • Add your feedback like this w/o the bold, and then use the @SIG@ at the end of your line, look at the first post for reference

  • We do not usually respond to comments here, there are too many, but we do read all of them

  • All serious issues should be still submitted as bugs!

WARNING

  • Post known issues here
  • There are reports of the open source ATI drivers being very slow.
    • Be sure to not have Virtual size set to high and try with XAA instead of EXA; fixes it in some cases.
  • Nvidia 64 computer chipsets still cannot boot kernel without pci=nomsi option
  • Connection to non-broadcasting (hidden SSID) wireless networks with the network-manager widget isn't possible bug 330811

  • Qt shows repaint bugs with some but not all Intel Gfx Chips. Using XXA or UXA fixes them in some cases, but hurts performance, please report UXA here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1058915. bug 338669

  • Qt repaint bugs also seen in some situations using the open source ati driver; XAA fixes this in some cases. bug 350120

  • Network Manager is not added to the panel on upgrades Bug 349066

  • Network Manager does not connect to some networks Bug 339313

  • KPackageKit (which is now the default package manager for Kubuntu Jaunty) doesn't support installations which require a removal or updates which require additional software. The packages to be removed / installed will be shown as blocked. Bug 342671

Feedback

  • Post feedback here -- claydoh 2009-04-21 19:30:24

  • As per the details page:
    • Architecture Ports: Intel Atom Support Kubuntu 9.04 is now available for the lpia architecture, so you can now enjoy KDE on your Intel Atom based netbook.

    Where is the lpia download link? Would love Kubuntu 9.04 lpia live cds. -- zorael 2009-04-23 18:43:33

    • Connection to non-broadcasting (hidden SSID) wireless networks with the network-manager widget isn't possible Bug 330811
    • KPackageKit (which is now the default package manager for Kubuntu Jaunty) doesn't support installations which require a removal or updates which require additional software. The packages to be removed / installed will be shown as blocked. Bug 342671
    • Kmail sieve functionality is buggy and causes CPU hang. You shouldn't use it at the moment.
    Seriously? These "known issues" have been such since alpha and are all significant deficits in a modern distro. Why did this get pushed out the door with no resolution of the major "known issues"?
    • I'll be installing when I get home only because I am desperate after 6 months of 8.10. I can't believe it's been released with a broken Network Manager. Can not believe it. Maybe I'll be gonig back to Hardy, I don't know, or switch to Gnome. I've been using Kubuntu since 5.10 by the way, installed it on friends machines, my girlfriend's.... I don't know what's happened to the Kubuntu maintainers but you seem to have lost sight of the whole point: ease of use. In 8.10 my scanner, sound, suspend/hibernate, knetworkmanager, and all video playing applications are seriously broken - and they all used to work. That's really pathetic, but I hung on waiting for this release thinking it was just an aberration. Guess I was wrong and Kubuntu have just forgotten what testing is for.
    • "This computer is currently using the AMD 'fglrx' graphics driver. No version of this driver is available that works with your hardware in Ubuntu 9.04." Oh well, that's my upgrade stuffed then. @Tony Green@

    Feedback from Helge

I really like KDE4 and Jaunty and all but there are some small but annoying bugs that I have issues with:

* Every time I restart Kubuntu the PCM in Kmix is at zero which means there will be no sound and I have to manually increase it. I also had other sound issues after install, hard to say if it all came down to this one small problem or not.

* KDE wallet is troublesome and it seems every time I restart I have to type passwords again and close the wallet window and so on. It would certainly be easier not using the wallet as it is for now.

* I am having problems with the kpackage app. Also confusing when I wanted to install Firefox, so many versions to choose from and difficult to choose the right one. I think Kpackage will be good sometime in the future, but for now I rather use Synaptic.

* I seriously enjoy the Gmail plasmoid, lovely! Only thing is that after restart the plasmoid falls back to its default size and not to the size I chose for it.

* CPU-usage is quite high and it should not be. Not sure if this is simply a read-out error or if the usage really is high.

On the plus side I say it is really fast and responsive and that makes up for the minor bugs that I have found.

  • For me it is certainly the best OS ever. Its incredibly fast and beautiful. Finally all the things I was longing to are working. Now I am waiting for a working nvidia driver for my geforce 4 and a working package for digikam.
  • I cannot connect to my wireless network due to the bug mentioned in the "known issues" section. This is the second release in a row in which I experience a network related problem. I will use nm-applet instead, but for a regular user this defect is just unacceptable and a reason to ditch Kubuntu.
  • I use Konqueror because it is better integrated into my desktop, but KHTML is getting far behind the others. My use of Firefox has increased a lot lately.
  • On my laptop, log-out doesn't work... -- franceskop 2009-04-27 19:16:30

* I don't know if anyone from Kubuntu actually reads this, but anyway, I'll report my experience. Note I'm not trying to be overly critical, I wrote above that I've been using Kubuntu from the beginning and have been a big fanboy until the last two releases. I held out for six months with a horribly buggy 8.10, but 9.04 was a disappointment and now I'm on Ubuntu. The first thing I tried and one of the most important parts of the system to me and most people is the net connection. I have a huawei mobile broadband modem (E220) and with 8.10 and knetworkmanager I could connect, albeit in a horrifically annoying way (knetworkmanager would erase my setting every time it started, so I had to reinput them - it would also crash 10% of the time). The new network-manager applet detected the modem but worked even worse than knetworkmanager had: I input my settings, but it wouldn't even save them for the session, it just reset them every time so I could not connect. After this and the general buggy and unstable feel I threw my hands up and installed Ubuntu. And I'm amazed: after so long with 8.10 I had grown used to instability and things that almost work but then don't. Ubuntu is as polished as Kubuntu used to be. *Everything* just works. I don't say this to piss off Kubuntu devs, but to try and wake them up - this is how Kubuntu *used* to be before KDE4. I was as excited about KDE4 as anyone, I even managed to use it for 6 months, thinking the bugs would go away soon, but after seeing the stability and polish of Ubuntu I can't go back to that unstable environment, wondering what's going to crash next, and using workarounds for everything. I hope Kubuntu will listen up to the users and use the next cycle, maybe the next two, just to bugfix. I'm sure it could get back to the the Hardy days when it was solid and fun to use. Then I'll be back, but until then I can't handle the crap. Please concentrate on bugs.

* Generally I'm pleased, and KDE4.2.2 is a big improvement over previous. I'm finding it about as stable as 3.5.x now, but maybe I'm lucky? One this which pleases me out of proportion is the fact that grub kicks in much much faster. It used to take 5 seconds or more for the menu to show up after POST, and now it is instant! I only have small issues. Kopete crashes quite often without my assistance (I assume it is receiving some kind of message from on of the servers that it can't handle gracefully), and it still can't do client-to-client file transfers on WLM (MSN), only the excruciatingly slow server-mediated version. Also, kaffeine seems unable to disable the screensaver anymore, which it did in Intrepid (which I dist-upgraded from). Bug logged at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kaffeine/+bug/365770 -- mishgosh 2009-04-30 03:24:59

*I really like KDE, but one year ago I switched to GNOME (because of ubuntu integration) , now I want to get KDE back, so Installed Kubuntu again:

  • The Live CD didn't connected to my network (it's not hidden).
  • Live CD had problems to start X, it opend all the ttys and finaly got KDE.
  • Once installed
    • Network connects, but password not remembered.
    • Updated plasma-networkmanager, from kubuntu-experimental seemd to solved it.
    • Amarok, once installed mp3 support crashes the system.
    • Openoffice looks better with gtk support than with the kde one....
  • After sometime I decided to better go with GNOME...
    • In GNOME desktop effects din't work in my laptop... 6 hours later officual update, and it's working.
    • This is the interpreation (I want to help, not hurt) I got, if there is a problem in KDE, the kubuntu guys works as hard as they can, on their own, but if there is a problem in GNOME it seems like an army of developers comes to get everything solved... unfair to KDE.
  • Now I will wait another 6 months...

I have hardy running on a dell 3000 2Ghz 2Gb ram gw520+ wireless intel onboard graphics 82865G I downloaded kubuntu/jaunty and it runs well in Virtualbox and also boots on HP NC6000 laptop I tried to boot cd on the dell and it freezes with caps-lock and scroll-lock flashing at various times - usually around the big K in splash screen - have to power off dell to restart. I tried kubuntu forums but no comments - any comments here (please!)? nogg321

* I do agree with other users (i.e. Tony Green): I really like Kubuntu, I see a lot of improvements from 8.10 to 9.04, and I'm very happy with this, but again you have choosen to substitute working programs with new software wich has unresolved major known bugs (network-manager instead of KNetworkManager and KPackageKit instead of Adept). I am quite disappointed with this... it's not funny to upgrade and see that things were working out of the box before, now don't work any more... and I don't even understand why you choose to change one very good software with another one wich is still not so mature to be used by everybody. I think that Kubuntu is a very good OS, but using it sometimes become VERY frustrating because of annoying things like tese. That's why I still haven't decided to upgrade the 6 pcs I manage at work, and they still run the stable and very good Kubuntu 8.04. -- Xian00 2009-05-08 09:57:51


I do agree too with what others said. I use Kubuntu (or at least try to) for quite some time, starting from 5.04. But lately it gave me the impression of an OS which is still in a perpetual Beta stage, centered around eye-candy, with some serious functional deficiencies. I mean, look at some of the problems:

  • Network Management in System Settings is practically not working: I can't even manage my wired LAN connection with static IP.
  • Add/Remove Software is not working as it should. It can't update or install new software sometimes.
  • Can't even transfer files from my phone using Bluetooth. I don't even know why there even is a notification icon for Bluetooth, because nothing works. Why don't you just say "currently there is no Bluetooth support, except maybe for wireless headphones"? It would be a lot better than making users loose whole days trying to make something work.
  • Packages marked as stable that crash and/or don't work as they are supposed to.
  • "Cool" Plasma widgets included by default, that freeze/have artefacts/not really work.
  • And a lot other minor annoyances.

How can you possibly release an OS as stable that lacks network management and add/remove?! I use Linux for quite some time, and even my first distro, RedHat 4.2 did not had problems like these...

As others have already said, I think you should forget about all that fixed release cycle. Release a new version when it's ready, not at a fixed date.

And maybe you shouldn't have switched to KDE4, because is clearly in Alpha/Beta stage (even if they don't say so), and incomplete as functionality. -- enachebogdan 2009-06-18 07:49:02

So, I have found about the only thing I am glad about with my 9.04 "upgrade" - I am not alone. I was happy in 8.04, except I would like to get a second monitor up more easily - I figured that 9.04 would be past the immediate release issues.

Boy, was I ever wrong. How can KDE4 even be released as a beta, let alone included in an actual distribution?

I mean, you took away the bloody desktop concept. You completely rearranged how I do ANYTHING. No warning, no questions on install "Hey, want to totally do things in a neato future-geek way? We're so past the concept of a 'desktop' If not, click here, and we'll automagically put you in classic mode" Even if you do get to "classic" mode - it only gets you halfway there. How about my Konqueror? Sure, it's advertised as a web browser, but I LIKE it as a file manager. It's smart, and useful that way - unlike the bloody dolphin.

Heck, right click on the mouse does bloody nothing useful on KDE4.

Don't even get me started on the networking problems.

Send it back, bar the door and go back to KDE 3.x for 9.10 - maybe after another couple of years KDE4 will be past a beta release.

As a further aside, wasn't the community trying to actually appeal to a wider demographic? I've been a geek for decades, but only moved to Linux fulltime with 8.04 - really, this experience makes me want to actually go look at Windows 7


JauntyJackalope/Final/Kubuntu/Feedback (last edited 2023-12-04 16:42:36 by jbicha)