Submitted by It’s no secret that when it comes to KDE-based distributions, Kubuntu isn’t exactly the cream of the crop. With the release of Kubuntu Karmic Alpha 5, the KDE4 desktop delivered with Kubuntu received some much-needed love. Let’s take a look at what the Kubuntu people are doing.
First and foremost, with the upcoming 9.10 “Karmic Koala” release of Kubuntu, the distribution upgrades KDE to KDE 4.3, and this alpha release already contains the recently released KDE 4.3.1 bugfix release. KDE 4.3 brings many needed improvements to the KDE4 desktop. This release also comes with Plasma’s new netbook-oriented interface.
Finally, Kubuntu also takes the nessecary steps to make Gtk+/GNOME applications look nice and well-integrated in a Qt/KDE environment by shipping the QtCurve engine. The Gtk+ Appearance System Settings module also makes a comeback so you get fine-grained control over the Gtk+/GNOME applications running in KDE. About time, I’d say, other KDE distributions have had this for a while.
They’ve also focussed quite a bit on making OpenOffice.org integrate well within a KDE environment. “Written by our very own elite Kubuntu developers, OpenOffice 3.1.1 introduces KDE integration. This means that all OpenOffice applications will look at home with the default ‘Oxygen’ KDE theme and use the KDE file dialog for opening and saving documents.” I’m just wondering if this is a static solution or a flexible one; in other words, if you change KDE4 styles, will OpenOffice.org be changed accordingly, or will it continue to use Oxygen?
There’s also some “bad” news (depends on hoe you look at it). Previous alpha releases defaulted to the webkit-based Arora browser, but alpha 5 defaults back to Konqueror. “It was decided that it’s [sic] superior integration with KDE was worth more than the hassle of switching default web browsers a lot. However, Arora 0.8 will still be shipped on the DVD for those who want to [sic] Arora for it’s [sic] superior performance with social web applications such as Facebook.”
Kubuntu is a distribution which always felt a bit like the stepchild Canonical never really wanted to have. It could really use some love and it’s good to see they are making improvements. Kubuntu 9.10 is scheduled for release October 29.
Has the bug with GRUB2 and Vista/Win7 boot loader been fixed with this Alpha release? Last time I tried to install one of these Alpha releases it stuffed up my Vista/Win-7 loader and I had to use ‘bootrec.exe’ of the Vista CD to re-write my Vista/W7 loader.
Thats not a bug its a feature!
LOL … Although I really do not have any major issues with Vista, that still made me laugh.
So Kubuntu will contain:
1.) A current version of KDE.
2.) OpenOffice.
3.) Konqueror.
4.) QtCurve.
5.) Beta-quality netbook GUI.
I don’t see anything extraordinary “lovely” about that. Pretty much every KDE distro ships 1.)-4.).
In fact, the netbook GUI will officially make its debut with KDE 4.4 in January, not October. So Canonical continues the Kubuntu tradition with shipping beta applications with a “stable” release (before that Adept, Printer config, etc. were those beta tools).
Defaulting to Konqueor shows also no love at all. Ship Firefox by default, for god’s sake.
Agreed but I like the look of the new installer.
Konqueror is good enough for most people and Firefox lacks any kind of KDE integration.
I think it’s more ‘polish’ than “love”.
Wrong. http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/FirefoxIntegration
“Work in progress” says it all, just like the Qt4 version which has yet again gone quiet.
Edited 2009-09-04 14:02 UTC
Novell develops the integration features for openSUSE 11.2 and that one itself is still WIP.
Bull. Novell is true KDE supporter and won’t drop that code anytime soon.
That said, please mind that the integration work is in no way a full Qt port. The amount of code required is actually quite small.
Using KDE dialogs within GTK apps is by no means anything new.
Refitting the settings window just requires a few changes default FF settings. You can also manually set its behavior using about:config.
KDE notification support is provided by a very small (20kb) FF extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12196
Some features that don’t work with KDE (like “Set as desktop background”) are just removed. You can do the same manually using the Menu Editor extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/710
Considering that the actually required code for those isn’t that big, it’s likely that other sane distributors also use and maintain it.
But Nokia try to port Firefox to Qt, a real Qt port, and yes, it have been quiet lately.
Chakra ships the Qt port of Firefox as default browser.
That port doesn’t automatically turn FF into a KDE-friendly browser, because it’s actually just a port of Cairo to Qt. Similar modifications as SUSE does today to FF have to be applied anyway.
Chakra is still in alpha state, hence they can afford to ship buggy browsers.
Nokia (or Trolltech as they were back then) looked at using Gecko as an engine and utilising better Qt integration with Firefox. They found that not only was it rather complex to do technically but they encountered, not resistance exactly, but a lack of willingness to smooth things along at Mozilla. They then decided that WebKit was the way to go.
If Mozilla is unwilling, why is the Qt port part of Mozilla trunk?
Why do you think it’s stillborne?
I don’t think it is. All previous attempts to port Gecko to Qt rotted in (AFAIK) a separate dev branch. This one is part of mainline trunk development. It’s not high priority at this moment, but it is still actively developed. Development priority will likely shift to it once Maemo 6 is out and Nokia ships Qt-based phones.
Being in trunk also means that it’s unlikely that a stable Qt-based FF release is even planed before FF 4.0.
Not really – “most” people want a web browser that’s good at browsing the web, and won’t put up with non-renderable pages (esp. if the pages themselves are not relying on anything special like flash).
Arora is nice (it can actually be faster than FF 3.5), but perhaps Kubuntu should work on standardizing on Chrom[e,ium] instread. It already integrates with the kde desktop better than Firefox. And man, is it fast & light, even with slow hardware.
I do miss konqueror. It was such a lightweight browser which worked fine for non-bloated pages. But I had to quit kubuntu (after 8.04), basically because of lack for a proper network manager. Now I am extremely happy with crunchbang.
Well, maybe, but it can be made to look fairly nice. I’ll put up a screenshot when I get home.
http://i29.tinypic.com/v6jli1.jpg
This on kubuntu jaunty. Also, the file picker and the rest of the menus are nicely intregrated. If you meant that firefox should look like this out-of-the-box without jumping through hoops, then you might have a point.
I tried arora and I like what I see so far. It is fast and simple reminding me firefox’s early days (see phoenix).
Do yourself a favor and try chromium too:
https://launchpad.net/~chromium-daily/+archive/ppa
You won’t regret it.
Chromium as a secondary browser works nicely.
However, it doesn’t support printing, and will occasionally cause KWin desktop effects to go haywire (disabling compositing will make things work for a bit, but restarting X is required to fix things). There’s also a lack of extensions/plugins/addons.
But, as an adjunct to Firefox, it makes web browsing on Linux very good .. even fun again.
If you’ve done nothing but beat your dog, then petting it once will mean giving it love.
If you’ve done nothing but pet your dog, it’s a little different.
That’s an appropriate comparison. I have to use Ubuntu at work and it’s as if they go out of their way to damage KDE, so that people will get so disgusted with it that they’ll switch to Gnome.
The problem with Kubuntu is not that it’s being intentionally broken – it’s just their shortage of resources. Blaming Kubuntu is stupid, because it’s only so much a few guys can do.
It’s a shame, really. It would be in KDE upstreams best interest to see that Kubuntu works well, because that’s the distro they are going to get the majority of the users from. If you have a company policy specifying “Ubuntu”, that’s what you are going to use – and install kubuntu-desktop metapackage to get the kde environment.
Most of the breakage is done by other teams — mostly Canonical’s Launchpad developers who can’t (refuse?) to make Rosetta compatible with KDE’s language files.
Why should KDE wish that other distribute broken packages? Of course it’s in KDE’s interest that Kubuntu works well
Wishful thinking.
Why would a company mandate the use of a bleeding edge distro instead of SUSE Linux Enterprise or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (or CentOS)?
Because… Most of the time it works better (under GNOME) than those two you just mentioned?
Under KDE, Ubuntu is complete disaster!
Edited 2009-09-04 15:28 UTC
I can’t confirm that. With a few minor exceptions, GNOME is pretty much the same under every distro.
Is l10n the only thing broken in Kubuntu these days? I don’t think that will be a big problem, since you can always use english (I think most “professional” users of Windows use english too).
I mean this in the sense that the upstream should really test Kubuntu and put some time in ensuring that it works ok. Instead of bitching about how you can’t judge KDE because of Kubuntu.
Because those cost (lots of) money, are targeted for server, and are not .deb based. If you are developing for a deb based system (e.g. Maemo/Debian), you’ll want a deb based host distro as well. Also, Ubuntu has a non-bleeding-edge LTS version.
CentOS costs money?????
No, not really.
No user cares. zypper works really well — RPM or not.
Huh? Build Service happily generates debs as well as RPMs.
Their “LTS” versions are only non-bleeding edge after months of bug fixing. Desktop components have only 3 years of support on Ubuntu LTS.
As someone who happens to have a lot of experience in this particular area, I would say that CentOS can be used on the desktop. But even in an enterprise environment, where stability (in the sense of “unchanging”) is a major plus… I still prefer something a little more current for desktops. My clients and I have run the gamut, over the years, from CentOS to Ubuntu to Fedora. And currently, Ubuntu fits the bill most optimally. Which probably annoys you, Kurt. But it’s true enough.
Part of development is debugging the .deb build and installation process. You’ll want to be in a native deb environment for that.
Also, packaging is not a trivial skillset. It’s best to bank on one packaging system that your employees will have to get familiar with.
But after those 3 years, you’ll be running the next LTS (which has, in turn, managed to stabilize).
Sometimes, the distro you are to use is dictated by the other software you’ll have to use. Sometimes the choice is between Debian or Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is arguably the better of the two for desktop use.
CentOS may be alright, but the community is nowhere near that of Debian/Ubuntu – and community matters, even if many of them are clueless.
No, but it’s the most visible and easiest to document part.
Very arrogant, anglo-centristic view.
Not outside of English-speaking countries.
Well, I don’t think in countries like Spain, France or even Germany – but I can confirm that in the Netherlands probably the majority of ppl run windows in English. Most companies here do… Then again, the dutch pretty much all speak English and aren’t chauvinistic
Windows is not translated into every language of the world, let alone 3rd party apps.
Windows and pretty much every somewhat major app, however, is translated into the major languages of the world: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and AFAIK also Arabic.
Why shouldn’t native speakers of those languages not use programs in their language?
Free desktops are translated into even more languages, sometimes even including local dialects.
I saw a recording of a talk about translating KDE into an African language. I forgot its name, though. This talk details some of the major effort put into translating KDE.
Then Canonical comes and smashed all that effort onto the ground. And then a poster nick-named vivainio also comes along, basically says “F*ck you. Read English or die.” to all critics.
I have been involved in (open source) projects where we dropped all translations.
The reason was this: in the start there were enthusiastic groups doing the translations. Everywhing was fine. But as it often is with enthusiastic people and long-term software development, the latter wears out the former. So we were left with translations that we could not understand, let alone update.
So, basically, just a reminder that there are also valid reasons for critique.
Sure, dumping some translation can make sense, esp if it is unmaintained. Dumping them all and doing it again – less sane.
Sure. I was just trying to say that long-term commitment to the translations is often much more important than the amount of translated languages.
The latter sadly seems to be often the case with open source software, IMHO. And even more importantly, it would be better to get the (Linux) documentation right in English before even considering translation. This actually so ironic that it is sad, like so many things in the Linux world.
Someone still reads documentation?
I did say “as if”. I certainly didn’t meant that they go deliberately out of their way to break KDE.
I disagree, have a look at Mint KDE CE .. only few people are working on it, but they’re doing a real good work, and they’re building it on top of Ubuntu not Kubuntu …
Even distros with smaller communities are managing to deliver a high quality KDE Desktop (like Pardus) ..
Canonical(Kubuntu) folks should learn from them if they’re serious about KDE …
Mint’s KDE is almost the same as Kubuntu’s. They don’t compile KDE on their own or use Debian’s KDE packages. Mint KDE has the same language pack bugs as Kubuntu:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19616885@N00/3358984527/in/set-7215760…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19616885@N00/3786255180/in/set-7215760…
“If you’ve done nothing but beat your dog, then petting it once will mean giving it love.
If you’ve done nothing but pet your dog, it’s a little different.”
QFT.
Kurt, if you channeled just half the energy that you expend complaining into actually helping, then I have no doubt that Kubuntu would be an absolute showcase distro for KDE4. But that is not your objective, is it.
Edited 2009-09-04 19:44 UTC
Huh? I just made a very short list of 4 features that every KDE distro has — even older Kubuntus had them.
The netbook GUI is targeted for KDE 4.4 (=January). No “help” is going to change that.
And: Why does Kubuntu deserve more help than other distros?
Why should one help a specific distro anyway instead of putting ones work into upstream projects?
Edited 2009-09-04 19:59 UTC
Why do you conduct such an ongoing vendetta against *buntu?
The KDE project refuses to do distro packaging. If you do a Google search, you will find that one of the most major excuses^Wreasons put forth for KDE4 breakage is… distro packaging.
Maybe it’s true. And maybe it’s not. But you make a good point for reducing duplication of effort. Perhaps you could volunteer to do upstream packaging for major distros? Much duplicated effort could be eliminated in that way.
I contribute to upstream projects and won’t waste my time doing work for Kubuntu that every other distro already does well.
Like what, specifically?
I’m mostly a translator. I’m not telling exactly in which project I’m most active, because for legal reasons I contribute with my full name, but I also care deeply about privacy and don’t like my real full name floating through forums / comment sections.
Occasionally I also submit source code patches. Those usually improve usability (fix icons etc), because I can’t really program very well.
Then there’s the usual bug reporting.
Your attitude towards Kubuntu might be unfriendly, but it is kind-of deserved imho. Esp if you’re a translator I can understand the frustration. I know and respect the two KDE-canonical employees (Aurelien and Riddell) but agree that Ubuntu puts less work in Kubuntu as it’s user base would justify.
Because the work of upstream goes to waste if the packagers screw it up. Kubuntu is the most important delivery route of the software to end users, mainly because the popularity of Ubuntu dwarves the other distros.
I haven’t checked how many patches Kubuntu applies to KDE (over the ones already applied for Debian), but I can’t believe they can break it that much; basically they don’t have enough manpower to break it ;-).
That is not the result of packaging: http://www.flickr.com/photos/19616885@N00/sets/72157608562200171/
No. it is not. KDE is nearly fully translated to German so that English string *shouldn’t* be there. ref: http://l10n.kde.org/stats/gui/trunk-kde4/team/de/
It’s because Ubuntu doesn’t sync upstream translations automatically but expects team coordinators to sync them back and forth… and this is supposing a lot!. Distros like suse, mandriva or fedora just give their l10n volunteers the strings they have modified from any given project so they have only to translate suse-specific, fedora-specific (about 10000-15000 strings… packages and then they get the rest of the language packs from upstream. Ubuntu not. Ubuntu has decided that is better to give l10n volunteers the whole lot to translate (about 1/2 million!!) .
And speaking of quality, Canonical permits any user fooling upstream translations (done upstream by people like me at l10n.kde.org) through Rosetta. l10n is not meant for everyone! but for people who cares and knows how to do things right, keeps translation coherent and so on… Most Rosetta people are amateurs that don’t even know English or their native language basic grammar rules. Once we had a troll in my language’s rosetta team that introduced absolute nonsense, insults and bad language.
Then, isn’t fault of kubuntu devs for not having packaged according to upstream guideline or because of not having enough feedback from devs upstream so they get things right?. Just ask.
I wasn’t awared of Ubuntu being the centre of the universe.
Jokes aside, I don’t think Ubuntu is the *main* KDE “distribution channel”. If KDE is to make it to a wider audience is not gonna be Kubuntu, IMHO.
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve read “It sounds like your distro didn’t package KDE4 properly” I’d be rich.
And yet upstream refuses to get involved in packaging. Go figure.
The KDE devs have said over and over again that they do what they do for fun. And that is quite cool. Fun, love, and respect are about the only motivators out there that are worth a damn.
But doing something for fun does not automatically translate into something that is optimally usable by others.
Edited 2009-09-04 23:11 UTC
I mean, there should be a reciprocal feedback between KDE and distros so they can integrate the DE well. But not packaging. Why KDE devs should loose time packaging for an specific distro when they should be putting its whole efforts into closing bugs, developing the best DE they can…?. then, what is a distro supposed to do then if packaging is not their thing?.
Miguel,
I understand your concern about taking KDE devs away from what they likely do best. But this packaging issue, reason, excuse, whatever, has been going on for coming up on two years. Much more than that if you consider the somewhat lower volume of claims regarding poor KDE3 packaging. At a certain point, it makes sense for the project to stop blaming, running around in circles, and criticizing… and just do something to fix the problem, regardless of the fact that it shouldn’t “have to be” their job.
Edited 2009-09-04 23:34 UTC
At least WRT to language packs: It’s perfectly possible to install Debian’s KDE language packs on Kubuntu. I did this more than once.
Canonical’s behaviour is so very weird. Every (K)Ubuntu release cycle starts with forking Debian Unstable, but when it comes to language files, suddenly NIH syndrome kicks in and they want to do everything alone instead of just using Debians language packs by default.
question is also what the KDE devs can do about the packaging. Besides, if it was their fault, why do distro’s like suse and pardus have no such issues?
They can review the patches downstream is applying over their code, and complain the maintainer if necessary.
Considering that all downstream KDE guys also work upstream on KDE itself (even Canonical’s Jonathan Riddel), your comment makes no sense.
Besides, if downstream would submit the patches to KDE, they would get review. Having KDE devs hunt all over the web in search of patches for KDE makes no sense…
You hardly need to hunt the patch. Just download the source deb and check the stuff in debian/ directory. It’s something you can do in 15 minutes while drinking beer.
Regarding whether the packager is also an upstream kde contributor – it would still help if the author for that particular package would check it too. At least that should reduce the cries about how Kubuntu is killing kde.
Many of the developers who do KDE packaging are also working directly in/on KDE. Or you could say that a lot of KDE people are also doing packaging but their “distro” cap on.
Waiting for OpenSuse 11.2 here, doesn’t look like Kubuntu will be able to beat its polished KDE implementation anytime soon.
What about implementing a KDE4 package manager that really works? With the current KPackageKit included in Jaunty I cannot install updates that depend on the installation or removal of another packages. Personally I think that this is a bug that should have blocked the release but it hasn’t been resolved in all the Jaunty lifecycle. As always, Ubuntu doesn’t fix bugs in a release but, with a bit of luck, they fix them between releases. I don’t know if it will be resolved in Karmic but the package manager has always been a problem with Kubuntu. In Intrepid you couldn’t search for packages reliably , which in my opinion is another major bug but not as serious as the former. And before all of this, there was an Adept version without any usability guideline and extremely slow.
Then it comes the unstability of KDE in general which is accentuated by Kubuntu and the lack of features like being the second implementing any application or feature that implements Ubuntu like Network and printer management and so on.
In a few weeks, when I have Internet access at home, I will install it on my laptop. Let’s see the surprises that the Kubuntu team has prepared then.
Yeah, even the decrepit adept was better than kpackagekit. That is how bad their current gui-based package manager is. Why can’t they theme synaptic (a simple ln to ~/.gtkrc-2.0) and use that instead? Still, as long as they do not mess with apt, they can slap on any package manager gui frontend they want, as I won’t be using it.
Pray tell, gently, what you have against the apt tools?
Most notably, it crashes during updates and installs and, in some cases, has glitchy dependency resolution. I last used it a few months ago just to see how it worked. Synaptic, in my experience, has been far more stable. Nowadays, however, I use neither, as apt offers me far more in flexibility and stability when managing my software packages.
Edited 2009-09-04 18:53 UTC
You do realize that *all* of these things use apt, right?
Why do you think I state that I do not need any of those apt frontends?
Edited 2009-09-05 07:03 UTC
First the person you replied to says:
And to that you say:
So, you are complaining that apt crashes and has problems.
But then you say, very confusingly, that:
Synaptic more stable than apt? Stuff and nonsense! Synatpic uses apt. So what are you trying to say?
What someone needs to do is “port” Synaptic to QT. Don’t try to make something “better” … it’s obvious all those attempts (adept, kpackage, kpackagekit, etc) have failed. Just take the synaptic look/feel and port it to QT4. With that, everyone will be happy.
The first thing I do with any KDE-oriented distro is to install Synaptic. It’s the only bit of GTK/GNOME that’s on any of my systems.
No, Synaptic is on the same route as the Dodo before.
PackageKit is the distro-agnostic layer to do package management in the future.
Ubuntu’s AppCenter / Software Store also uses PackageKit instead of directly interfacing with apt.
Saying that KPackageKit has failed, is way to early. KPackageKit is a young application.
Well, the GUI layer certainly has. What’s behind it may be good, but the user-visible bits aren’t.
Can’t you read? KPackageKit is still work in progress.
In KDE’s SVN it’s still in “playground”. Maybe for KDE 4.4 it’ll move out there.
Can’t you be polite?
I can read just fine. Can you?
The KPackageKit GUIs are horrible beyond belief. All the KDE apt GUIs are horrible. Until someone comes along and develops something along the lines of the Synaptic GUI for KDE, they will always be horrible. Simple as that.
KPackageKit didn’t even have a usability review, yet.
Yes, its GUI currently sucks. Will it stay that way? No.
Do I know that for sure? Yeah, quite.
In fact I’m currently preparing a set of mock-ups to improve KPackageKit’s GUI. I’m already in contact with its main developer. I can’t give you a time frame, though, He says that is time is constrained by some other project. If we’re lucky, it’ll be done by KDE 4.4.
Kubuntu has always been a little unstable in my experience – even with KDE3, but since the switch to KDE4 it’s been nearly unusable. openSUSE and Mandriva, for example, have the resources to work through a lot of the issues that have come up with KDE4, and I think on a whole both have done a great job. Kubuntu seems at a disadvantage, and I can’t imagine recommending it to anyone as a good distro to showcase KDE or even linux. It’s just too buggy and frustrating. I have a lot of respect for the Kubuntu developers and their efforts, but they have a steep hill to climb.
I thought that Kubuntu 7.10 was a fine release. That was the one where they integrated Dolphin with KDE3. Very stable, but 8.04 wouldn’t work on the same hardware and that being the last of the KDE 3.x series, I haven’t looked back.
d3lphin wasn’t stable at all. I occasionally even got crashes and file managers seldom crash.
Is it only me that is happy with Kubuntu?
It merges my favorite things I love, the stable Debian system including apt package management and with the ease and improvements from Ubuntu and of course the KDE desktop.
Granted I run KDE 4.3 on my Kubuntu 9.04 installation, but that was one line in /etc/apt/sources.lst file.
No, I’m quite happy with Kubuntu 8.x and 9.x as well, especially with KDE 4.3 for Kubuntu 9.04.
I’m running it on my eeePC 701 with only 512 MB RAM, my Celeron 2.8 GHz laptop with only 512 MB RAM, and my AMD Sempron 1.8 GHz with 1 GB of RAM.
Works quite nicely for all the things I do (OpenOffice, Firefox, Chromium, Flash videos, Kaffeine playing Xvid over wireless, Konsole sessions, and so on).
Whatever they call it and cover it with, it’s still a badly designed, misconfigured Ubuntu that doesn’t deserve its popularity in terms of quality.
No offence to all of the Ubuntu users out there.
If they still haven’t fixed that 5 year old bug – https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdenetwork/+bug/16575 – then I don’t want to know.
“Triaged” “Importance low”
Its hard to believe that a bug SO important to smooth networking with other machines STILL has not been fixed and apparently is seen as of little importance.
Of course the more instructed of us can work round it but that isn’t the point.
I installed a KDE based distro for someone a few months ago and they later tried to bring it into a network – only after many days of frustrated tinkering did it occur to them that perhaps something was busted and they called me. Their comments when I replied that it was a very old and known bug were unprintable. They plan to rip Linux out and install Windows 7.
“Not a serious environment” was their comment and I have to agree with them.
Harald Albrecht wrote in bugs.launchpad.net recently: “This bug report was filed almost four years ago. This is a standard use case: add a user to allow sharing files. And still this hasn’t been resolved? Balmer must be laughing very hard.”
Gotta agree with him.
The Cutter
Yeah… Thats so true of my experience trying to do any administrative tasks from a gui in any linux distro ( ubuntu, opensuse, debian, gentoo). I’m trying out fedora now ( finally letting that old wound of the fedora /RHEL split heal),but I just instinctualy gravitate towards the command line.
Actually, come to think of it, I’ve had the same experience in OSX as well.
I decided to dist-upgrade to 9.10 alpha 4. The upgrade didn’t go well, and Gnome was horribly broken (it wouldn’t start).
I installed KDE, and it worked beautifully. The underlying system needed some work, kept kernel panicking on me, so I’ve put 9.04 back; but I was impressed that KDE was in better shape than Gnome.
Looks like a problem with incompatible config/theme files. If I understand you correct, KDE was not installed before. That’s why there weren’t be any old (possibly incompatible) KDE config/theme files.
Edited 2009-09-05 18:49 UTC
“the nessecary steps…” “hoe you look at it…”
Maybe you should get your own house in order before dropping “[sic]” on text quoted from other people, hmm?
“sic” is no abbreviation for “stupid, incomeptent, clown” or anything like that. “sic” just means that it’s a verbatim quote. Nothing more, nothing less.
It really looks cool!!