Ubuntu Wiki

What do you think of Kubuntu 7.10? Keep comments brief, we usually can not respond to comments because there are so many but we do read every one.

• This is the first Kubuntu release which has some negatives compared to previous release (of course it has some positives like gdebi for KDE and restricted drivers). Dolphin and strigi are the most annoying additions. --Chandru
  • Dolphin may be great in KDE 4 but right now it is not worth. In the first day of use I have found two problems. --Chandru
    • There is no way to change file associations without starting konqueror. A module for file associations must be added to "System Settings" or the facility must be integrated into dolphin itself. --Chandru
    • Dolphin doesn't show the right icons for special text files which do not have an extension (shell scripts, python scripts, etc.) in the icon view mode. --Chandru

    • It uses kio_tar to handle .zip files. This kio slave is plagued by [https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137027 this bug]. It is intimidating especially you plug in a removable media to grab a file from a zip file in it and want to remove the media after copying. --Chandru

    • Of course Dolphin is not without positives. It has very nice look and feel. It has a simple but sufficiently powerful UI for a file manager. It is these small things which need to be fixed. --Chandru
  • Strigi is just a toy. Google desktop search is far better. Strigi's user interface looks bad too with lot of white patches in a blue background. The links are also not clearly visible on a blue background. --Chandru
• If Konqueror comes back (at least till KDE 4 is released) and kfind becomes the default way to search files, Gutsy would be a really great release. --Chandru
• I loved it, jriddell
• Thank you, for new Kubuntu version. I was little suspicious about quality of release, it looked that Ubuntu is much more improved. However, I upgraded to gutsy without any problems. I like Kontact enterprice suite. Its good that Kytchensync now is based on opensync. I like Kbluetooh. From now I can sync Kontact whit my sony ericsson. I waited for that so long..., dumas33
• Compiz is not mentioned. Is Compiz working fine in Kubuntu Gutsy?
• Please! A bit of seriousness!.
• Well I am serious! Just upgraded to Gutsy from Feisty and the system crashed! I have an ATI graphic card, and the comments in the Known Issues are totally misleading. Not only you will get a black screen, but the full laptop will hung (no way to get to the tty's). And the proposed workaround does not work. I had to change the driver from "ati" to "vesa" and I have no 3D HW acceleration.

So not only Compiz does not work, but nothing 3D works with my ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 card which was working perfectly in Feisty with the Open Source driver. Yes, I agree this is serious! Gutsy has not been tested enough. As usual it is a nightmare for those having ATI cards. I take my share of blame for not having taking part on the HW testing, I just tested it in Virtual Machines.

And it is : kdesu "adept_manager --version-upgrade"

• "Enable PRE RELEASED updates"? I'm a cautious user, why I need pre-released updates to do the upgrade? ToniHelenius

  • the change of instructions for upgrade and the need for -proposed was caused by a bug in Adept not reading the new distro version file properly. sorry for the inconvenience.

    • Will it eventually upgrade to Gutsy without enabling the option? Or is this a permanent state? I think many would appreciate more automated upgrade process! Anyway, thank you all for providing yet another version of this great piece of software! ToniHelenius

      • yes, it will go into -updates in about a week
• Can't install not even a bit. When going thru the upgrade wizard, it finally returns an error (according to the log, the upgrader tries to install something from us.archive.... which is not trusted) - how do I fix this? ANDREA
  • ok downloaded alternate and then upgraded that way (afterwards there were more updates necessary?!) anyway. Pretty good job but I agree with previous posters that maybe the entire 3D thing should also be included given the advertisement that canonical has been doing ... also, why the heck won't a right click on a file give me any good options anymore?!
• How come compiz isn't enabled and set up by default? I thought that was the big story in Gutsy but it wasn't enabled or even installed by default for me.
  • Compiz is born dead for me on Kubuntu as KDE4 will manage composition natively in kwin. So I prefer waiting for this solution.
• How do I do fast user switching in Kubuntu? It doesn't seem as easy as they show in the screenshots for Gnome.
• Couldn't get my adept manager to match the screenshots. Don't have the repositories listed in the instructions in my /etc/apt/sources.list .
• Kubuntu 7.10 is fine, nothing revoltionary in surface. I use Kubuntu since Breezy and I appreciate the work that has been done since. BUT I don't like :
  1. that "Strigi" app wich is really too immature to be included in such a distro
  2. Dolphin as I can't sort my files by type !!! (otherwise I would have gave it a try)

I have been using Linux since 2001 and Ubuntu/Kubuntu since 2004. For the following reasons, I feel that Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) is a step backwards:

• Dolphin is now the default file manager: Dolphin is no where near as functional as the konqueror file manager. I'll have to learn how to return konqueror to the default file manager. Then I'll have to uninstall Dolphin. I really don't understand how someone can justify switching to an awful file manager and then requiring users to learn how to write service menus to get back the functionality of the file manager that was replaced. How long until Dolphin has the same functionality as konqueror and konqueror is gone entirely? Couldn't we have saved a lot of that work and just kept konqueror as the default file manager? I assume tweaking the "inode > folder" file association will solve this problem.

• System Settings replaced kcontrol: System Settings is much slower than kcontrol and lacks some of the functionality. Such a radical change in User Interface is confusing to those of us who have been using a distro for years. System Settings is also the first time I've ever had anything crash in Kubuntu. I feel that the tree layout in the left pane of kcontrol was much better than the layout provided by System Settings. I'll have to make changes to my kmenu. How long until System Settings has the same speed and functionality as kcontrol and kcontrol is gone entirely? Couldn't we have saved a lot of that work and just kept kcontrol and not included System Settings? Would there be any harm in doing "sudo mv /usr/bin/systemsettings /usr/bin/systemsettings-origin && sudo ln -s /usr/bin/kcontrol /usr/bin/systemsettings"?

• Speaking of GUI's, why was the restricted driver manager even included in Kubuntu? I can understand it being in the gnome desktop because gnome is notorious for sacrificing functionality for simplicity. Installing nvidia/ati drivers via the command line is much faster. I feel that making a GUI for something that is faster and easier on the command line aids in keeping new users afraid of the command line and wastes developer resources. The command line is always going to be there.. new users need to learn how to use it rather than be afraid to use it. What happens when that gui breaks and the user is still afraid of the cli?
• Compiz and Beryl are, in my opinion, nothing more than resource-wasting, annoying toys. Keep them in the repos for those who want them, but don't make users have to switch window managers and then uninstall Compiz/Beryl. After all, KDE does provide a compositing manager (kompmgr) and I have seen it provide shadows, transparency and other effects. I congratulate the Kubuntu developers for not enabling Compiz/Beryl by default.

Don't get me wrong, I love Kubuntu. But, it just seems that functionality is slowly being replaced by someone's idea of "simplicity", which is not a good thing. Installing a new distro/release is a bit of work and I feel that developers should not compound that work unnecessarily.

• - most users dont want to go to command line, even i who know how to use it prefer to avoid it if possible, if you want to use it its always there for you but the option
  • for those that doesnt wand to use it should also be there the more choice you get the batter so why not add things that make life simpler for most while still allowing those who wish it to use the command line (in my opinion the command line is an archaic technology that should pass from this world and every linux distro that allows uses to use it without needing to open the console is batter then the equal one that you need to enter the console just once)

• I second points 1 and 2 of the above statement : dolphin is less ressources-consuming but lacks several functionalities essential like "sort by type". How come this basic functionnality hasn't been included ? Concerning System settings, I've also suggested for several releases (at least since Edgy) that Kubuntu "System settings" should entirely integrate Kcontrol or links to it, to avoid having everything twice and to avoid having a "System settings" lacking a lot of configuration options. Concerning the "too much GUI" comment above, please, give us a break, and go back to your cave... Anyway, really disappointed by this new release... I'm going to switch back to Mandriva (last release 2008 is really great) after 2 years using Kubuntu. Good luck for the improvements you planned --Nikoo October 20th 2007.

There are a couple of sticky problems with Gutsy that I've found and from Googling, so have other people

• The X server crashes as soon as xscreensaver starts up. So if like me you have it in ~/.kde/Autostart things can get messy.
• There seem to be problems with NFS filesystems not being mounted at boot time, even though they mounted OK previously. If anybody else has problems with this, an interim fix is to put "mount -a" in /etc/rc.local which will at least keep your system working until this is fixed.

• As others have said, Strigi really isn't ready. The interface is extremely basic, and it is just too buggy to be useful. For me, after it has indexed 300,000 documents, it then refuses to index any more or answer any queries. Problem recurs if wipe the indexes out and start again. -- LukePlant

• There doesn't seem to be any good way of enabling compiz -- no documentation about it, and big problems with all the methods I've tried. -- LukePlant

• I also had lots of problems with upgrades and bugs and regressions. Overall, I was significantly better off with Feisty: http://lukeplant.me.uk/blog.php?id=1107301679 -- LukePlant

I installed Kubuntu Gutsy i386, and this is my feedback: -- francesko

• when I choose Ubuntu (on GRUB), the screen becomes black and there isn't a progress bar... After different minutes, if I press Ctrl + Alt + F1, the Desktop Env. starts! It is the only way to make it work! A black screen, without a progress bar and a login form isn't nice...
• some software is duplicated in K menu (for eg. 'KDE Groupware Wizard' and 'Kontact'). I think that this can make confusion...
• if there is a directory that contains space in the name (for example 'New Folder'), and I open this directory by 'open as root' option (in Dolphin), Dolphin will open 2 directory: a directory named 'New' and another named 'Folder', and than alert me that these directorys doesn't exists.
• when I want rename a file (in konqueror or dolphin), all the old name is selected. It would be better if the extension doesn't will selected.
• In my opinion, Rank, in Adept, would be visible without click on programs. In the actual situation I have to click on all software to see their rank... It would be better if there is another column, for example next to the software's name, that contains the application's rank.
• in grub menu, it would be better if the operating system is called Kubuntu (and not Ubuntu) :P
• if I open Dolphin, and then I close it, an error occurs: "Impossibile salvare i segnalibri in /home/vale/.kde/share/apps/d3lphin/bookmarks.xml. L'errore riportato è: Permesso negato. Questo messaggio di errore sarà mostrato una volta soltanto. La causa dell'errore deve essere risolta al più presto; quasi sicuramente il disco rigido è pieno.". I runned "sudo chown USER : USER /home/USER/.kde/share/apps/d3lphin/bookmarks.xml", and now it works!