Comments on Kubuntu unhappiness

  1. You seem like a pretty capable debian dude...

    Are you running special repo's for APT? Or are you using the run of the mill entries?
    How much are you running which has been compiled from scratch?

    I've also experienced a bit of pain with Breezy, particularly with some changes to 2.6.12, their insistence upon compiling the kernel with gcc-3.4 and only including gcc-4.0, and a minor Kontact bug which slows down my email filing process.

    The 2.6.12 and gcc issues caused VMware to break, requiring a patch and an explicit setting of CC=/usr/bin/gcc-3.4
    2.6.12 also causes some pain with the Cisco VPN client (not included in distro) and the Atheros wifi a/b/g card I like. Whenever the wifi card loses signal, the machine completely freezes.

    Well, I got the VMware patch applied and stuff compiled and working fine, and I downgraded to an older Cisco 350 wifi 11b card and I no longer freeze up. Now things seem good... but I'm still cautious about upgrading using the method you mention. Some of the benefits of new versions are improved default configurations (which are often skipped in an upgrade). I also find that fresh installs give me warm fuzzies and teach me about the state of the distro (which is important when deciding whether to recommend it to several demographics).

    Good luck!

    • Comment posted on Thursday 14 Dec 2006 at 5:13pm
    • By Matt Carpenter

  2. I'm glad somebody thinks so...

    Well, that's the thing: I don't really konw which are repositories are the safe ones. I pretty much just copied what was in the Kubuntu FAQ and hoped everything went well. I guess it worked, since I no longer have any problems that I didn't have before the upgrade.

    As for programs built from source, not having to do that was half the reason I switched to Kubuntu. So far, it's worked - I can count the number of programs I've had to compile on my fingers. And I've converted all of those in to .DEBs for easy removal/upgrade.

    As for the "fresh install" upgrade method, I did that for my first couple of years with Slackware. After that, I realized that upgrading was pretty safe and that spending half a week redoing all my changes to the default configuration was a collosal waste of time. And to be honest, I really don't enjoy the system installation and configuration process. Yeah, I can do it without any major problems, but I'd rather be coding. So my attitude is, why start again from scratch when I have a configured system that I can just upgrade?

  3. Fair enough

    Hey Peter,

    There are always incremental things which get fixed or broken worse. In my case, Breezy solved some Kontact issues with IMAP storage of stuff. It also broke the VMware config process. It looks cool, and all that jazz.

    I moved to Kubuntu for much the same reason, availability of packages and freedom... and I had to try this new Debian approach, having spent my entire Linux-lifespan in RPM-hell.

    And that, I guess, is my reason for not doing the "in-place" upgrades. I just don't trust it enough yet. Years of Winders and RPM-based distros taught me to have warm fuzzies over fresh installs. Also, my role as evangelist and support person leads me to desire understanding of what a new install is going to look like. Add to that my predisposition to installing the beta versions prior to release, and you'll see why I install fresh. Perhaps this next go 'round I'll try doing the in-place upgrade.

    Have fun.

    • Comment posted on Thursday 14 Dec 2006 at 5:13pm
    • By Matthew Carpenter

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