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Don't forget Kubuntu! It's got KDE 4.2 now!

Until you run into a niche app that's not in the official repository. How many weeks does a needs-packaging request in Launchpad typically take, even if the free app builds from the source tarball with few to no issues?

Please note that any repository can be used to install things from, not only those made by the distribution. For example, KDE 4.2 is not available in the official Kubuntu repositories right now, but by adding another repository one can still easily install it using the package manager.

Like so:
http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2

Unoffical packages like these are typically available a day or so after the release, or very often they are available on the day of release. One does not have to compile anything for oneself.

I appreciate not having to connect an external mouse to my notebook computer just to copy text.

Just to be clear here, in an attempt to reduce the copious misinformation being spewed on this thread in vain attempts to defend Windows, one does not have to install an external mouse on a laptop in order to copy and paste text in Linux.

Here are the available alternatives to select-then-middle-click for copy and paste in Linux:

(1) select-then-click-left-and-right-together
(2) select-then-right-click-and-choose-copy-then-right-click-and-choose-paste
(3) select-then-type-ctrl-C-then-left-click-and-type-ctrl-V

So in Linux, there are (at least) four ways to do it, only one of which requires a third mouse button or scroll wheel.

In Windows, only the last two of the four are available.

This page: http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2 has the install instructions for Kubuntu

...I stopped using Debian when it was still called "Potato"

I just upgraded on kubuntu 8.10, and I'm very happy with it. It's considerably more polished than 4.1. The dialogs look more polished, the eye candy is faster and smoother, the new taskbar looks great -- and you can now have other applications cover the taskbar.

I was thinking of switching to XFCE this week (after about 8 years on KDE), but I think I'll hold off.

good job devs!

If you MUST use Windows:

http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en

If you're partial to macs you have the same options:

http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en

If you're fed up with Microsoft and don't have a Mac (or if you have a Mac but are tiring of OS X):

http://www.opensuse.org/en/
http://www.kubuntu.org/
http://www.xandros.com/
http://www.centos.org/
http://fedoraproject.org/

Here's your best bet for KDE4.1.2 on 8.04.1:

http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.1.2

Real painless, and a great desktop experience afterwards (IMO).

The Mandriva/PCLOS drakconf isn't terribly different from KDE's system settings as seen in Kubuntu:
http://www.kubuntu.org/docs/kquickguide/C/ch03s07.html

Mandriva rips off Windows, KDE4 rips off Mac OS X :)
I still find it amazing how different configuration of the system is between different Ubuntu desktop flavours. Gnome likes to hide or even completely remove options, while KDE likes to give it to you firehose-style.

Ibex looked fine to me, after I installed the graphics driver. On further investigation, it was not so hot - 64-bit kernel didn't detect all 4 gigs of memory. Now I can't trust it to do anything right :(

I'm hoping it well be speedily fixed, like last time. 7.10 was useless to me in beta and the first week after release, but then suddenly problems disappeared. 8.04 didn't use the full screen (resolution set right, but not using all of it), and used two different keymaps before and after login.

Ubuntu used to be easiest to set up, but too many weird problems have cropped up in the last three releases.

I'm having a really bad Linux day, because I installed KDE 4.1 on my Hardy Heron Ubuntu box, and found that, after the dust settled, I was booting with an extra kernel, my graphics were destroyed and my networking was f--- up.

May I ask how you installed KDE 4.1? Because there are packages of KDE4 made for Hardy, which say: "KDE 4.1 has been released and packages are available for Kubuntu 8.04, the Hardy Heron. These packages install to /usr/lib/kde4 and can be installed along side your existing KDE 3 installation." Particularly since you got an extra kernel and other WTFs, did you update your distribution with Intrepid Ibex updates that pulled in all sorts of strange packages? From what I understand, they now install to "kde" causing all sorts of crazy conflicts unless they fix it with a distro upgrade script moving the old KDE bits to kde3 (I don't know if that'll even be supported). Unfortunately, cross-mixing packages from different distros can have very bad effects despite the package manager thinking it's consistent. I'm sorry if you that is what happened to you, but I don't think this is anything like the ordinary experience of installing KDE4.

I consider Macs to be well worth their price, I'm typing this on a $3000 Macbook Pro. :) $30 is what Best Buy charges to remove the bloatware, who knows the actual amount OEM's receive from these companies per PC. It could be significantly higher than $30.

I find Macs more expensive, hell, just look at my current laptop:

My HP DV6000 widescreen laptop which came with 2GB RAM, built in webcam, nvidia graphics card with 512MB dedicated RAM with all the essentials including wireless, bluetooth. Has HDMI, a built in SD card reader, remote control. It came with Vista, but I installed Kubuntu (A OS I currently prefer to Vista and OS X for workstation purposes at the moment) on it (which worked out of the box with it).

I bought this from Comet store for £399, and guess what... That is the cheapest price I can pay for a Mac, and a Mac Mini (I would provide a direct link, but Apple's store links expire) costs £399.

The only 'advantage' the Mac Mini has over this laptop is that it has a 1.83GHz processor, while this laptop has a 1.66GHz processor. But - this machine has been the best gaming and work machine I've ever had, I doubt the Mac mini would live up to that with just a tiny bit faster processor, it doesn't even have a decent graphic card with dedicated RAM.

Macs are certainly affordable now, but you seriously cannot tell me Macs are cheaper.

Nothing's changed, it's still apples to oranges. Just as you might not have needed built in sound then, you may not need FW, BT, dig audio, wireless net, IR remote, stack of dvds form factor now.

I find Macs more expensive, hell, just look at my current laptop:

My HP DV6000 widescreen laptop which came with 2GB RAM, built in webcam, nvidia graphics card with 512MB dedicated RAM with all the essentials including wireless, bluetooth. Has HDMI, a built in SD card reader, remote control. It came with Vista, but I installed Kubuntu on it (which worked out of the box with it).

I bought this from comet for £399, and guess what... That is the cheapest price I can pay for a Mac, and a Mac Mini costs £399.

The only 'advantage' the Mac Mini has over this laptop is that it's 1.83GHz, while this laptop has a 1.66GHz processor. But - this machine has been the best gaming and work machine I've ever had, I doubt the Mac mini would live up to that with just a tiny bit faster processor, it doesn't even have a decent graphic card with dedicated RAM.

Macs are certainly affordable now, but you seriously cannot tell me Macs are cheaper.

I stop now joking. I really appreciate that Thunderbird now deflate. What use for RSS ou newsgroups or Calendar for the most people ? And why not having these functions as addons, for having Tb lightweight enough for being used on ... say... an eee pc ?

I use Kontact on my laptop and Eee PC. Both are running Kubuntu hardy.

I use the calendar, e-mail, RSS, news group and notes features of Kontact.

I've been waiting for the 4.1 release before trying 4.x. I didn't care for 3.x and while I'm not a huge fan of GNOME, I like it well enough for daily use. So, good news for be because it looks like Kubuntu has deb packages ready to install with a few easy steps ... thinkin' I'll give it a whirl tonight.

I said "no credible reason", not "no reason". Perhaps I should've simply said "no good reason".

The simplest answer I have heard is, they released it as 4.0 to get developers to start using it.

In other words, it was a simple publicity stunt, and they did, in fact, want to trick users into trying it, even though it wasn't ready. And it's kind of imploded on them -- many users (myself included) reacted badly, so not that great of a publicity stunt.

I just disagree, and that's all there is to it. I think there was a hype problem, I don't think it really came from the KDE camp so much as from the general free software noise machine (yes, Slashdot, I do mean you). There was a lot of talk about it, but through it all the message I got for 4.0.0 was "Here it is, it's rough, we're gonna be doing rolling bux-fixes on it in the midst of working on 4.1 (hence the rapid progression through 4.0.x releases), it might eat your children but we hope not. Have fun." In fact, that is almost exactly what Aaron Seigo said the moment 4.0.0 got out the door.

Regarding the following: Bear in mind that these are based on impressions from very close after the 4.0.0 release. Some things may have improved.

As stated, I'm on Kubuntu8.04-KDE4.1 RC, so I'll try to fill the following in with up-to-date information as I have it...

The problem is that changing the panel size to "tiny" introduced a brand-new bug, at least on Kubuntu-KDE4: The menu now wrapped around to the top of the screen.

I had that once on a Saturday afternoon as well, I think. The problem was fixed almost instantly, but unfortunately a lot of these critical buxfixes haven't moved out of the ppa repository into main yet for Kubuntu, and some may not be fixed in Kubuntu until 8.10. If you weren't aware, you can get very up-to-date packages for KDE4 here (thanks to the unceasing work of people who love you).

Regarding Katapult, the menus, and so forth: You can manually bind a shortcut for the menu now, but I don't remember how to do so (because I haven't done so, that's why). There is no option for it in preferences yet. This is "coming soon to a theatre near you." I agree that it's a major lack. Alt-F2 right now has most of the Katapult functionality (search menu entries, address book contacts, web bookmarks, run one-liners, all that happy crap). One thing I really like about it over Katapult is it shows all your options as you type instead one at a time, and you can arrow through them. Really and truly, Alt-F2 is the Katapult replacement. And last but certainly not least, the menu editor is there now and you can assign shortcuts to menu items (but not the menu itself, grrrr).

How's Kmail? Especially on large IMAP folders?

[sarcasm] Every bit as wonderful as it always was. [/sarcasm] Not especially great. Evolution and Thunderbird still beat the pants off it, at least for me (although I credit a lot of my problems to Gmail's pisspoor IMAP service).

best regards
-p.

What distribution ships with KDE4 as the desktop by default? I'm not aware of any.

kubuntu.

according to this page you could have aptituded it on January 11th (less than 24 hours later). Similar was available with RC1 and RC2, though as the page mentions, you would have to have unisntalled them if you had them installed first.

I d admit to somtimes having to find a package on the internet or some third party repository or even a seperate .deb file, to get the latest and greatest features (KDE4 or Compiz Fuzion for example). At one point the new release of devede had a kiler feature that the ubuntu copy was missing (menu authoring), there is more DVD authoring software in general at getdeb.net than in the distro, but all of this is easy enough to install and ends up in synaptic with no compiling. In fact the only thing I can think of that I would need to compile that I personally want is the KDE 4.1 alpha that came out today.

Of course it'll run in Windows! You just need to apply the patch first. It's available for free at here.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main

sudo apt-get install kde4-core

It gotten modded funny because it's really amusing how fucking stupid you are.

Look at the download page: http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php

See the link to BitTorrent? Torrents are a sanctioned and encouraged method of download.

Click the link and read. Educate yourself, Jackson.

Don't forget Kubuntu!

There are some of us who don't (or kan't) run Gnome...

"Kubuntu-KDE4 Hardy Alpha is here. There will be two editions of Kubuntu with the 8.04 release, a commercially supported KDE 3 edition and a community supported KDE 4 edition. We recommend the KDE 4 edition to those who want to try this exciting new desktop version and can put up with some missing features."

( https://wiki.kubuntu.org/HardyHeron/Alpha5/KubuntuKDE4 )

I fully admit might be misunderstanding what they meant by that comment, but it looks like a lesser featured free version and a full featured commercial version.

I've not seen the same statement for Ubuntu, which is what prompted my question. And i hope i did misunderstand their future direction.

Kubuntu

• Rock solid KDE 3
• Commercial support provided by Canonical for a term of 18 months
• Release available through ShipIt for everybody as well as downloading

Kubuntu KDE 4 Remix

• Cutting edge KDE 4.0
• Support provided by the Kubuntu community via Ubuntu Forums, Kubuntu Forums, IRC, and the Kubuntu Users Mailing List.
• Release available through CDs for groups who need it (ie. LoCo teams, conference teams, etc.) as well as downloading

Kubuntu

• Rock solid KDE 3
• Commercial support provided by Canonical for a term of 18 months
• Release available through ShipIt for everybody as well as downloading

Kubuntu KDE 4 Remix

• Cutting edge KDE 4.0
• Support provided by the Kubuntu community via Ubuntu Forums, Kubuntu Forums, IRC, and the Kubuntu Users Mailing List.
• Release available through CDs for groups who need it (ie. LoCo teams, conference teams, etc.) as well as downloading

'with limited functionality'

Where did you read that? If you look at the official page https://wiki.kubuntu.org/HardyHeron/Beta/Kubuntu you'll see that the difference is the commercial support available. Since KDE 4 is not intended to be used by the general public just yet, there will be one version of Kubuntu 8.04 with KDE 3.5 that is supported, and one with 4.0 that isn't.

Even better, if time is not a priority, https://shipit.kubuntu.org/. If you can burn CD's, DVD's and have a decent internet connection, you need not even wait that long(as the parent rightly points out.). :-)

Nearly all OEMs still allow you to upgrade to XP, but you have to ask. They won't tell you about it, you have to be active about it. But then, those that make active decisions about hardware and systems rarely end up with Windows, let alone MS Vista. Lots of people are getting burned by leaving too much of the decision up to the sales staff.

But even if you can't upgrade to XP, unless she's playing heavily some games that don't run in WINE or surfing a lot of WMV porn, then she'll get more mileage out of a linux distro like CentOS and Kubuntu. Try it. If they suck, then you can crow about it. If they save you time and effort, then it was time well spent and you can go around to any MS Vista users and rub their noses in it. Nowadays even Photoshop runs in WINE.

If it's for school only, then the 13" macbook is perfect for the backpack and can run your choice of Linux or OS X or both, plus a number of legacy applications from Windows.

here you go: http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php#latest I think it will please you.

That's the wrong link - you are on the Kubuntu site (where wiki.kubuntu.org maps to wiki.ubuntu.org it seems) but on the Ubuntu Hardy Alpha 4 page. Try https://wiki.kubuntu.org/HardyHeron/Alpha4/Kubuntu instead which talks about new KDE stuff in Alpha 4.

Kde 4.0 supposed to be a rapid improvement and Kubuntu is supposed to be alot more polished and integrated

Actually, KDE 4.0 is more of a beta quality release (like Mac OS/X 10.0 or pre-SP1 Vista) - it's 4.1 or so that'll really be ready for daily use by normal users. Unfortunately, Hardy falls at an awkward time with respect to 4.0 (or vice versa) - 4.0 isn't ready for long term support, but 3.5 isn't likely to be relevant for 3 long years. As a result, while Ubuntu 8.04 will be a Long Term Support (LTS) release, Kubuntu 8.04 will not be.

I agree with your opinion of Gnome (I use it myself), and with your assessment of KDE 4 (I look forward to trying it out - looks great so far!). And I'm very suspicious that Mono contains Microsoft-patented technology, and believe free software developers should avoid it until the title is clear. But that's just my $0.02 worth (and it seems to be worth less every day...) I don't believe any critical part of Gnome is dependent on Mono, however.

I've just checked the article and it's only about Gnome

Rather oddly, the Kubuntu Alpha 4 site talks only about Gnome applications as well. Go figure.

"Step two: have your dial-up ISP hang up on you before the download completes, "

Use a Windows download client that allows resuming. They have been available for many years. I downloaded many Linux .isos on my crappy emachines 400 back in the day.

"Workaround: Buy a copy of Kubuntu on CD."

BUY? 'buntu CDs are famously free:

https://shipit.kubuntu.org/

"Many PCs from the Windows 98 era had 128 MB of RAM, but the Kubuntu live CD needs about twice that. Instead, you will need the alternate installer CD. But by this time, you might as well use Xubuntu instead."

I haven't run Window 98 on that little memory since 1999. If you are looking for a light,fast distro that runs sweetly on old junk I recommend Damn Small Linux. Anyone running a Windows 98-level box already has to research what will work with their obsolete Windows software, and has had years to obtain more memory.

"Step four: Have the CD fail to recognize at least one of sound, networking, and printing. Many older video cards have decent Free 2D drivers in X.Org, but winmodems and winprinters were unfortunately common in that era."

Check hardware support first. Good external hardware modems are dirt cheap used. They were an upgrade back in the day and still are. Network cards are very well supported.

Offer to loan them a spare to run along side their legacy system. Walk them through it on a spare, start with the full installation all the way up to adding packages with the package manager. Fedora KDE or Kubuntu are recommended. By then most fears are allayed. They'll see how darn easy is to install and configure. They'll see how darn easy it is to install programs and ask why it can't be so easy on the legacy system.

Usually what happens next, at least for the power users, is that they go out on their own and set up their main computer as dual boot during the next "reformat and re-install" phase. After that, they'll be looking for open source programs almost exclusively.

http://www.kubuntu.org/ also has instructions for installing kde4 alongside your kde3 packages by adding a repository. You can either run the kde4 apps from within your regular kde session, or you can choose kde4 as an option from the login screen.

I just spent 20 minutes playing around with it via this method, and have seamlessly switched between kde3 and kde4 and back again.

Looks like Kubuntu already released a CD to install KDE 4.0 alongside your KDE 3.0. There are releases for openSUSE and Debian also, but it looks like other distributions are still working on it (including Fedora/Red Hat and Madriva).

The actual patch is here: http://www.kubuntu.org/

Along with the SuSE disc, (K)Ubuntu users can add it to their repos: http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde4-rc1.php

I'm sure that KDE 4 RC1 will be added to Debian's experimental repos shortly.

Has anyone done the Adept managed upgrade from 7.04? I'm about to try it out.

There are simple upgrade instructions for upgrading using adept on the ubuntu website. Also on the Kubuntu 7.10 release notes

Instructions are available here. 3.92.0 is not available as of this moment.

Holy crap, how many versions of Ubuntu are there now? So far, I'm counting:

• Kubuntu
• Xubuntu
• Edubuntu
• Christian Edition
• Satanic Edition
• Muslim Edition

When is it going to be enough already?!!

1. Go to this homepage, choose a mirror and download image.
2. Burn image on CD
3. Insert CD, follow instructions
4. ???
5. Profit!

Hey, let's just disassemble the OS entirely piece by piece

and put it all back together with 3rd party

How about I answer you right here?

As you know, Windows has a particular look to it's User Interface (the windows, the task bar, the buttons, all the stuff you interact with to make the computer do stuff for you.) In Windows XP, the User Interface (or UI) is called Luna. In Windows Vista there are Two UI's; Aero (the core UI), and Aero Glass (the nifty 3D one)

Well Linux has MANY available UI's that can be loaded. GNOME and KDE are the two most popular. Most distributions ("brands", if you prefer) of Linux choose at least one UI to start with. Ubuntu Linux uses the GNOME UI. Kubuntu uses the KDE UI.

As far as selecting one over the other, it's really a matter of personal taste:

KDE is the traditional "Windowsy" looking UI. It has a task bar along the bottom of the screen, and the KDE equivalent to the "Start" button in the lower left corner, right where it is in Windows. However, it is more complex than Windows with far more options to work with. This can be confusing to new users, but many users who like to tinker find this interface enjoyable to use.

GNOME is the more "Mac-like" interface. It uses two task bars, one at the top, and one at the bottom. The top bar has all the menus on it, and yes, there is more than one. It is somewhat less configurable than KDE, but no less powerful. It is preferred among those who like a cleaner interface with a more mac-like approach to menus and usage.

Again, there isn't necessarily a "better" choice here. They are both equally good at what they do, they just do it in different ways. I would recommend using the Live CD's to explore the UI options you have without having to commit to one or the other right away. You can run the live CD, and then just rboot when you are done, with no changes made to your PC.

You can download the Ubuntu live CD here: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
You can download a Kubuntu live CD here: http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php#latest

Just download, burn to CD with your favorite burning software, insert into CD drive, reboot and enjoy!

I would recommend trying Kubuntu, OpenSUSE (or SUSE even, although that would involve supporting that damn Microsoft-Novell patent deal), Mandriva, or Linspire/Freespire. These distributions use KDE (K Desktop Environment), which in my opinion (and even Linus himself along with many, many others) is far more usable, customisable, and useful than GNOME, the default desktop environment for many other distributions such as Ubuntu. Although GNOME tends to look cleaner than KDE, its usability is quite, well, limited. I don't understand the circle jerk going on between most distributions and their need to use GNOME by default, but I do know that a lot of people's complaints in regards to the GUI on Linux are GNOME-specific and are not a problem with KDE.

Kubuntu 7.04

http://kubuntu.org/announcements/7.04-beta.php

Ok, I think I've got a box sitting around at home that could handle it. What are the steps to getting this up and running?

Go here and download the Kubuntu ISO/cd image, and burn that to a CD...you can do that with Nero or something similar in Windows if your computer has a CD recorder, as most do these days.

Once you've done that...if you're putting it on another, lower end machine which doesn't have anything else on its' hard drive that you want...simply put the CD in its' drive and reboot the machine. It should boot up into the LiveCD...and when it does that, there should also be a shortcut on the desktop that comes up to run an installer program which can format the hard drive and install the contents of the Live CD onto the hard drive. Once that is done, simply take the CD out of the drive and reboot the computer again, and it should be installed.

I've been beta-testing Kubuntu Feisty for about a month now, and it's amazing. It's already a huge improvement over Edgy. Everything is so intuitive and easy to use; Feisty is going to kick ass.

Some of the new stuff they've added are a new wireless network manager by default, big improvements to the package installation system, easy codec/flash installation, lots of user interface tweaks... It looks so polished now, I love it.

Here are the Herd release announcements, containing a subset of the changes Feisty brings:
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd1/Kubuntu
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd2/Kubuntu
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd3/Kubuntu
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd4/Kubuntu

I've been beta-testing Kubuntu Feisty for about a month now, and it's amazing. It's already a huge improvement over Edgy. Everything is so intuitive and easy to use; Feisty is going to kick ass.

Some of the new stuff they've added are a new wireless network manager by default, big improvements to the package installation system, easy codec/flash installation, lots of user interface tweaks... It looks so polished now, I love it.

Here are the Herd release announcements, containing a subset of the changes Feisty brings:
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd1/Kubuntu
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd2/Kubuntu
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd3/Kubuntu
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/FeistyFawn/Herd4/Kubuntu