Installing Ubuntu 9.04

So, I finally decided to update things, including my operating system.

I’ve been using some version of Suse as my desktop distro ever since I switched to Linux.  Suse is okay, and not bad, but I had had enough.  Suse had become slow, bloated, and difficult.  I could have just fixed Suse, but where is the fun in that?

I decided to try something new. I installed Ubuntu (the KDE version).

While (K)Ubuntu is Linux and will do whatever I need it to, any major change isn’t without issues and I have had plenty. Some are just nuisances, some have been minor problems, and I still have some major ones. So, for the sake of sharing my experience to help others, here is a list of what I’ve gone through so far:

Little Things:

• Firefox, Kwrite, VLC, and many common programs are not installed by default in Kubuntu.
• LVM isn’t installed on the livecd and there was not easy way to enable it. I was forced to use the Alternate install instead.
• .bashrc had autocomplete disabled. Uncommenting the lines about bash-completion in /etc/bash.bashrc fixed this.
• .bashrc also didn’t colorize anything. echo "alias ls='ls --color=auto'" >> ~/.bashrc made bash a little more pretty.
• GFX Grub is not used by Ubuntu. Tux Enclave has a writeup on making that happen: How to : Install GFX Grub In Ubuntu.
• Bluetooth started on boot, but my computer doesn’t have Bluetooth. update-rc.d del bluetooth makes that go away.
• Restarting X by Ctrl-Alt-Bksp is disabled by default. dontzap --disable is a quick way to restore that.
• Firefox looks ugly when first installed in Kubuntu. Installing gtk-qt-engines and qt-curve fixes that.

Problems:

• Nvidia drivers were not detected automatically, and once installed were not configured by Ubuntu. I’ve dealt with my xorg.conf file many times in the past, but I thought Ubuntu was supposed to do this.
• AIGLX must be enabled for KWin/Compiz desktop effects. I couldn’t find how to do this in the Ubuntu community. Luckly, I did in the openSUSE wiki.

Major and Un-Fixed Issues:

• GRUB. Two out of three installs I did, GRUB did not install correctly. While I know how to install and edit GRUB manually, this one would be a showstopper for a new user.
• Pulse Audio just didn’t work correctly out of the box. I installed a lot of things, but what it comes down to is installing padevchooser. A detailed writeup on configuring pulse can be found in the Ubuntu forums.
• NetBeans does not use Sun’s JDK by default, and my install does not work properly (will not import many of the Java libraries). I’m using Eclipse for the time being.
• The Omnibook kernel module is not included in Ubuntu, and I have to compile this one myself. Worse yet, Ubuntu does not make compiling modules easy (and I have yet to successfully do so).

Kubuntu definitely doesn’t have the polish of its GNOME sibling. Most of KDE’s settings were at their default, while GNOME seems to get a variety of little tweaks and extras. While tweaking Kubuntu was not difficult for me, I must admit I’m a little disappointed by Kubuntu’s default offering and feel it could be better, faster, and easier.

One little extra tweak:

For those of us who like KDE but find 4.2 a bit too heavy, I have an interesting solution. Install Openbox. It is just a window manager–not a full desktop–and can be used in place of KWin.

Once installed, go to System Settings → Default Programs → Window Manager, and change KWin to Openbox. Once applied, you’ll notice some things are a little different, but Openbox should be easier on your memory than KWin.