A Final Word on Kubuntu 8.10

I have been so deep in my new job lately (my position has changed twice in the last year) to really blog much, but I wanted to report on my experiences with KDE 4.1 and Kubuntu 8.10. I first downloaded KDE-4.1 over last summer and had a good first impression because of its sleek design, and I moved to Kubuntu as my job needed a solid and usable terminal environment. Ubuntu's default Gnome terminal just doesn't cut it for me, and I live in Konsole in work and at home. In November I succumbed to the temptation to upgrade from Kubuntu 8.04 (which uses the KDE 3.5.9 version - screenshot) to Kubuntu 8.10 and KDE 4.1. My initial enthusiasm quickly faded, as I found the desktop environment to be buggy and non-usable for my work needs. My main complaints have to do with the strictures on environment configuration. In KDE 3.5 I can drag an icon from the menu to the task launcher bar and I then have a quick launch for any given program, I can drop a file I need to use on the desktop and pick it right back up and drop it somewhere else. This is the way I (and most users) expect desktop environments to act.

By contrast, KDE 4.1 requires that I add a "widget" to either the desktop or task panel that I can then use in prescribed and limited ways. The default menu in KDE 4.1 stopped making sense to me and I reverted to "classic view" fairly quickly, though since I never did figure out how to create a task launcher in the panel, I had to tailor the menu to have my most-used programs all together and visible. These issues had me briefly running back to Gnome, but I can't really go back at this point - I like KDE too much. [There were also Ubuntu-Intrepid-level issues (unrelated to KDE) that bothered me, the most annoying of which was that my CD-ROM drive would only mount sporadically. I'm concerned that Intrepid is not up to my high Ubuntu expectations :-(]

Because of all this, I reverted to Kubuntu 8.04 last weekend, and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. Everything works, everything looks great, and I realized that I needed a fresh install. I hope that the KDE developers will consider keeping a 3.5-level strain of development around for awhile, as I don't plan to try a newer KDE again until at least the end of Hardy Heron LTS support in 2011. . .

UPDATE: Linus Torvalds, original author of the Linux kernel agrees:

I used to be a KDE user. I thought KDE 4.0 was such a disaster, I switched to GNOME. I hate the fact that my right button doesn't do what I want it to do. But the whole "break everything" model is painful for users, and they can choose to use something else.

I realize the reason for the 4.0 release, but I think they did it badly. They did so may changes, it was a half-baked release. It may turn out to be the right decision in the end, and I will retry KDE, but I suspect I'm not the only person they lost.

More on KDE 4.1

Okay, I've only used KDE 4.1 for a couple of days and I have a little more to report. The first thing to say that this is my favorite KDE "straight out of the box" that I've encountered so far in my limited experience. Aesthetically, this couldn't be better - I think it's much sleeker than Gnome (we'll see what Gnome 3.0 brings) and rivals the design of Mac OS X (sorry - prejudice aside, Vista's not in the running here!). The eye candy is abundant, but not overdone. The last thing to say about the "look" factor is that in all my years as a computer end-user, I have never just wanted to sit there and admire the desktop, especially without changing the default wallpaper. I can't help it - I'm posting another screenshot:


So let's consider it a settled point that KDE 4.1 is very pretty.

There are, though, some issues I've encountered. I've always found KDE to be a bit buggy, and this one seems to be no exception:

• The "startup" music clip is truncated (I hear dramatic piano that begins, then suddenly stops). Strangely, the "shutdown" clip works fine.
• As a Firefox - Thunderbird user, I always have problems setting them as my default browser/mail client - this has been true in all my KDE experience.
• I tried to configure Kopete as my Google chat client, but it failed, saying that I didn't have a certain plugin installed (which I do see on my package list as installed).
• I'll mention here that my KDE 4.1 is installed onto my existing Kubuntu KDE 3.5 installation, which may be a factor in these issues.
  

And just a couple of usability complaints:

• Well, (and this was lambasted in KDE 4.0 from what I've read) the desktop is no longer a "desktop" in the sense that you can just, say, download a file and put it there (which is something I do all the time). It is now a palate to place "widgets," some of which are actually useful, but are mostly nonessential eye candy as far as I can tell.
• Things are not as "configurable" as they were before. I can't, for instance, change my clock to display in a "12 hour" mode - not a huge deal, just a preference. Some of the things that are configurable are things I'm not that interested in changing, like the length of my task panel at the bottom of the screen.

All in all, though, this is an impressive program, and I will keep it going alongside my "normal" Ubuntu Hardy installation.

KDE 4.1 - Wow!

Okay, I'll just start with the screenshot, because, I'm just a little speechless:



Can you believe this is Linux?!? As anyone who has followed my blog knows, I've had mixed reviews of KDE in the past. I first saw KDE in Knoppix, my first experience using Linux, and it just looked foreign and strange, and not that inviting. I tried KDE again when I first installed Ubuntu and liked it okay. Actually I thought it was nice enough, but just a little boring maybe - a little too Windows-y looking for my taste. And I know it's shallow, but all the "K" names (Klipper, Konsole, Konqueror) were really bugging me there for a while. Since then, though I've kept a separate Kubuntu partition, just to be able to use it from time to time, if for no other reason than that it's free and that it gives me a well-rounded Linux experience to use both Gnome and KDE.

I replaced my monitor today, the CRT model that came with my Dell in 2004 with an LG 19" flat panel, and I wanted to see how KDE looks on it. Then decided to see if I could give KDE 4.1 a whirl. So I downloaded it to work alongside KDE 3.5 and wow, is it awesome! It's almost like an entirely different program, making my darling Ubuntu Gnome desktop look a little boring itself. I may even do a fresh install of Kubuntu in this partition with KDE 4, then upgrade to KDE 4.1. In any case, I'm sure I'll report back with more to say!

Taking a Closer Look at KDE

I actually have a lot to report, but I'll have to get to it bit by bit in more than one post. For the moment I'll stick to one topic - my renewed interest in the K Desktop Environment (KDE). To review, Linux distributions can come with different desktop environments, even if the same file structure lies underneath. This is a very foreign concept to users of computer systems like Windows or Mac (which is like, everybody) that might allow you to change things like fonts and color schemes, but if you really want your computer to look and act a different way you have to buy a new computer (or at least upgrade operating systems). In Linux, there are choices that are just not present in proprietary software programs.

As faithful readers of my blog may recall, I added KDE to my regular Ubuntu installation, just to give it a test drive. Since I have so far generally preferred Ubuntu's default desktop environment (called Gnome), I didn't want to keep KDE and all of its many programs installed, so I worked tirelessly for a few days to remove it. I have since been satisfied with Gnome and KDE just hasn't been on my radar until several things happened over the last couple of weeks.

First of all, my poor Ubuntu laptop, which my wife had claimed as hers, died a pitiful death as it gave me chilling messages like "kernel panic!" Fortunately (miraculously), I was able to save much of my wife's data - she's a student so there was a lot of important information on there. (Take this as a cautionary tale to back up your data regularly!) As a replacement, we bought a new laptop running Windows Vista, which meant I was able to offload my wife's Windows data from my desktop and shrink the Windows partition (the mechanics of which I will note later). After some thought about how to use the freed disk space, and some conversations with a new co-worker who prefers KDE, I decided to install Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with KDE as the native desktop environment.

Here's a screenshot of my new desktop:


I've decided I'm going to try and live and work in KDE for a while, just to get to know it better. I'm told it's the favorite of many Linux users, including Linux kernel author Linus Torvalds. I'd say that's a pretty good recommendation!

I'll report more as I form opinions about it.

Removing KDE!

Well, I really just downloaded KDE because I wanted to try it out, but there was a pretty big down side: now I don't want it anymore! I had read in an online article about Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu that the reviewer had settled on a dual boot between the two because he likes a "clean install." Now I know what he meant. When I downloaded KDE from the repositories, it added all of KDE's programs, not just to KDE's menus, but to Gnome's menus as well. So what began a very easy to read, manageable list of programs became an explosion of "k" games, applications, clocks, timers, etc. I edited the menus in Gnome to reduce this factor, but I settled on removing KDE altogether. The problem is, what was a one-step installation process is now a multi multi multi-step removal process. Maybe with my next Ubuntu upgrade I can remove these in some automated way!

Oh, and here's a similar take on Gnome vs. KDE on Linux.com.

Memories of GUIs . . .

I found an interesting site today called GUIdebook that has screen shots, timelines, and other information about operating systems and desktop environments, including Gnome and KDE. I'm getting interested in the history of GNU, Linux, and other open source software projects. It's like all the while the wider world has been focused on Apple vs. IBM, then Apple vs. Microsoft, then Windows vs. MacIntosh, then IE vs. Netscape, etc., there has been this undercurrent of production that encourages freedom from those very limited choices. I'm looking for a book about the history of this, but I don't see one. I think this might be a subject worth exploring.

A First Look at KDE

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are options about which desktop environment to use in Linux. This is difficult to wrap your mind around when you're used to using either Windows or Mac, which only have their own displays that you can only slightly modify or configure. When it comes down to it, if you want Windows to look drastically different, you have to buy another version (which often means buying a new computer!). Linux GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) have basic functionalities you can't modify, but with know-how, it seems like you could tailor it to whatever you want. This is part of what is meant by "free software" in the GNU and Debian definitions of the term (also mentioned in that other post) - you can modify it however you want. Anyway, the major GUIs for Linux are Gnome and KDE.

As I mentioned, Gnome is the default desktop environment for Ubuntu, and it is the only option that comes with the initial installation. There is an Ubuntu variant called Kubuntu that has KDE as the native environment, and I was considering giving that a shot sometime soon, but after doing some reading on the Ubuntu Forums, I learned that using both is quite easy, and that I just have to download it from the software repositories and install it. This I did, and I got a chance to give it a whirl. Here's a screenshot:



My first impression is that everything is blue (I changed the default blue background to the photograph you see), which is a shock after the orange-brown "Human" theme of Ubuntu's Gnome. All of my installed files and programs are still available, plus a positive slew of KDE programs: games, widgets, educational software, and many others. With the Gnome programs also available in each menu, I'm actually having a hard time finding anything. One thing about KDE that grates on my nerves a little is that all of its applications either begin with the letter "K" (Konqueror - the default browser, KNotes, KPilot, etc.) or have the letter "K" prominently in the name. The names also often don't correlate with any function of the program ("Kaffeine" is a music player, I learned), which makes the menus a little more overwhelming. This is strange (in my view) for a program touted for its usability. Here's a shot of the screen with the start menu:



The other thing I noticed is that KDE looks a lot like Windows, and moving from Windows to KDE, at least visually, would be a more intuitive switch. Other things to mention:

• I found that Firefox does not display as well in KDE. The default text size is too small.
• Konqueror, the native Internet browser and file manager is very nice, and in some ways, I like it better than Firefox. It actually resembles Opera a little.
• The "eye candy" factor is quite impressive. It seems that Linux desktop environments rival Windows Vista and Mac in this respect.

There are many features and applications I have yet to explore. I'll report back when I have more to say!

A Basic Take on Using Ubuntu

Well, last month I took the plunge and installed a dual-boot installation of Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux, and I wanted to share my thoughts about the choice of using Linux and the experience I've gained.

Why Would You Want to Use Linux?

A basic question that you need a good answer to before embarking on any Linux project. My answer is that I began using open source software while in grad school and have been interested in what Linux is and what it does for about three years now. In one my classes we were required to learn UNIX commands (a predecessor to Linux), which gave me some basic ideas about how UNIX-derived systems work. The main thing I learned from this experience is that Linux is an alternative operating system that achieves many of the same purposes as Windows (or any other operating system).

There is a great deal of politics that surrounds the "free" or "open source" (another viewpoint here) software world. For many within this world, the whole point is to be free of corporate control over what you do on your computer. Computer software companies learned that they can license their products in ways that limit the way they are used. Free or open source software is almost always licensed to require the user to release the software from any proprietary limits and allow others to use, modify, or adapt the software in any way they see fit. Truly living this way requires sacrifices that I imagine most computer users are not willing to make. In any case, most users would not give up all proprietary software for the sake of a fairly obscure political stance that requires constant definition and clarification and that even its proponents do not always agree on.

So my own interest in using Linux is not political, even if I am not a fan of big corporations. I'm pragmatic enough to allow myself to continue to use Windows. To be even more heretical from the open source standpoint, I've found that I still like Windows, particularly Windows XP. Yes, it's not as secure. Yes, it sometimes takes a long time to load. etc. etc. But I'm not really a power user anyway. :-) I have no plans to "upgrade" to Vista anytime soon. By the time XP stops being supported, I will probably be in a position to fully commit to a Linux box.

What are Similarities Between Linux and Windows?

Well, I'm not a programmer, and with the exception of HTML and its variants, computer code looks like hieroglyphics to me. The desktop versions of Linux I've used mostly look and act a lot like Windows. Here's a screen shot of my current Ubuntu desktop:


Ubuntu uses Gnome, which is only one option for a desktop program on Linux operating systems (the other most popular one is called KDE - there is actually a historic competition between these two - I prefer the aesthetics of Gnome, myself). Visually, the layout is very similar to Windows, with an added "menu bar" at the top. There are menus and files and folders just like you'd be used to. Your mouse, printer, network card, and sound cards all work the same. I don't know why this impresses me so much, but it does. This is the power Microsoft has - that we think they're the only ones who know how to program for our PCs. There are many differences, though.

I'll go into the differences in another post.