Review: KDE neon 5.9.1

It has been a while since I've done a review of a Linux distribution. Lately, I've seen a few reviews of KDE neon (the second word being intentionally written in lowercase), and some of them have praised it as being much better than Kubuntu (the traditionally KDE spin of Ubuntu). That got my attention, so I figured I should check it out.

Main Screen + Kickoff Menu

KDE neon is essentially a showcase of the latest and greatest version of KDE, packaged atop the most recent LTS release of Ubuntu. It specifically does not officially support any other DEs (though of course users can try as they like), and it is meant to provide the stability of the Ubuntu LTS base in conjunction with the newest features from KDE. It has several versions available, depending on how adventurous one feels in using new software; some of the versions claim to be made for "everyday users", which I take to include Linux newbies, so as usual, I will evaluate this distribution from that perspective. In particular, I downloaded the User Edition (not the User LTS Edition, which features the latest LTS version of KDE, though all editions feature the latest Ubuntu LTS base) and wrote it to a USB via UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2015 May 24

There was one post that got a few comments this past week, so I'll repost all of those.

Review: Kubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet"

An anonymous reader said, "I agree with you, kubuntu is still not stable and cannot be recommended for production."
Commenter jongleren countered, "It might not be stable. I like it though on my vivobook. And it looks great! And it is much faster than kde4. So promosing at least."
Another anonymous reader had this suggestion: "I had similar issues on a notebook with nVidia graphics when using the nouveau driver. Installing the proprietary nvidia driver fixed it."

Thanks to all of those people for those comments. This coming week, I do plan to have another post out, given that I may have a little more time to write such a post. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Kubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet"

This month has been quite busy for me with classes. Now that the semester is finally over, I have a little more time, and that means I have enough time to do a review. It has been a few years since I've reviewed Kubuntu, the officially-supported variant of Ubuntu that uses KDE. Moreover, Kubuntu now features KDE 5 (I know the KDE naming and numbering system has become a lot more complicated, so this is, as a physicist might say, an intentional abuse of notation) as stable for the first time, so I figured I should try this version. I tried it as a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like. (It should become progressively clearer through this review why there are no pictures.)

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 July 15

There were two posts this past week that got several comments each, so I'll repost a few from each.

Long-Term Review: Kubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin"

An anonymous reader suggested, "Please can you try Mageia 2, the KDE edition. Use the livecd version and have a great time with it. Only problem is mupen64plus is not in the repos, but you can make package request or try out mupen64plus from Mandriva Cooker. Should work without any issue. I have used many KDE edition pass this year and Mageia 2 is the best of them all."
Commenter avelinus also suggested, "Please, can you try Sabayon 9, the KDE edition. I am very pleased with it. I installed the 64 bit version on my HP dv6 2180 with an i5 520M I tried all versions since 4 and 9 is the best ever. Appears to be the safest and friendliest of user friendly OS.. I haven't any problems so far with any of the programs that I added. Only the update that i decided to do, I canceled twice due to the delay. the older versions, did not like the installer."
In addition, reader Stefan Ivić suggested, "Did you tried openSUSE KDE? Best KDE experiance by far..."
Another anonymous commenter had this tip with regard to my comment about Mageia not playing nicely with live USB creation even with the "dd" command: "I had the exact same issue with one of my usb-stick. It failed with both Mageia and Chakra. But then I tried my other usb and with that usb it worked like dream with dd. So if you have more then 1 usb it could work for you also."

Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce

An anonymous reader said, "I agree with you regarding MATE and Cinnamon. I wonder why it is necessary to create them when LXDE and XFCE already exist in a stable state. I am using Lubuntu + Ubuntu Studio (xfce). I add Gnome-fallback and Enlightenment to have some alternatives to boot into and try out, and they don't seem to fight too much or use too many resources. I like Nautilus for its double-pane but since that is on the way out, I may be done with all gnome bits. Good riddance, gnome. Lxde and Xfce are my favorites, and I rarely notice that I am no longer using gnome. In gnome or unity, I cannot really function anymore. I am also not accustomed to using KDE. Enlightenment E17 would be my third choice after xfce and lxde (tied). I have tried Mint a few times but see no advantages and some disadvantages to the *buntus. I wonder also if you don't think a *buntu has a better upgrade (and sidegrade?) path than Mint. In fact, even on Distrowatch, Mint has not yet reached the level of Ubuntu+Lubuntu+Xubuntu+Kubuntu+Ubuntu-Studio. Mint just seems like Ubuntu done right, and I do hate almost all of the decisions made at the head Ubuntu office, but the spinoffs that are still in the Ubuntu family seem to get it right, too."
Commenter Chris had this to say: "yes i really really think also that xfce mint is one of the best distro oute there for guys of old school...  I cannot understand this unity thing (although it seems it is getting somewhere), gnome 3 is out of question while kde is stable now but i use too many gnome apps...What is going with linux DE??"
Reader crabbos had the following suggestions: "I'm surprised that there's been little to no mention of PCLinuxOS Phoenix XFCE on this and other popular sites. I've been testing it myself over the last few days and it's brilliant. I'm also quite fond of VoyagerOS and Porteus, both XFCE and both I feel deserve more attention. Voyager is a bit more resource heavy but works nicely and Porteus is amazingly quick and responsive."
Another anonymous commenter clarified, "PCLinuxOS XFCE has no maintainer right now and it is not considered an 'official edition' any longer. There is some political back story there from what I gather from reading their support forums. I briefly installed it a couple of weeks ago and ran into a few small bugs, like issues with numlock causing me to be locked out with my password after I updated it."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" KDE is now unofficially released on the mirrors, though no official announcement has been made yet, so I will review that this week. Aside from that, there may be other random posts too, but the next long-term review won't come out until the following week because it started this past Friday. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Long-Term Review: Kubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin"

This is the second of a handful of long-term reviews I will be doing this summer. The initial subject of this was the 64-bit edition of #! 11 "Waldorf", so follow the jump to see how that turned out.

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 April 29

There was one post that got a few comments this past week, so I will repost most of those.

Review: Kubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin"

Reader DarkDuck said, "Mine findings on Kubuntu 12.04 are rather different. I am preparing my review of it. :-)"
An anonymous commenter said nothing more than "700 megabytes?! Wow."
Reader Brian Masinick had this experience to share: "I originally started with Kubuntu 12.04 Daily Build from a 02/25/12 build. A couple of times, I ran into intermittent issues where dialog boxes would appear, indicating that some back end feature in the Plasma desktop (usually indexed searching) was not working properly. Very early in my testing cycle, the Rekonq Web browser also malfunctioned, but by release it was working great and most of the dialog warning and error boxes disappeared. I ran into another problem when my final upgrade, bringing me to the 04/24/12 release was ready. Unplanned, and without any warning at all, the default desktop changed from the way I had it set up, which was with the Classic Style Menu and the classic, traditional "K" menu, rather than the classic slab menu. But when I started, I was greeting with a netbook-oriented Activity Style View! It actually worked without any issues, but it took me a couple of days to locate the System Preferences Menu in the Activity View. Once I was able to locate it, I was able to change back to the Classic Style View, and moreover, I was able to use a combination of traditional KDE work spaces and mix in the Activity Views as well. I view the combination of traditional work spaces and activities as a great advantage. I suspect that the reason that the final installation update configuration defaulted me to the Activity View was because I am using a laptop computer, albeit a large 17" display laptop, which I always use as if it were a desktop, not a laptop at all. After all, this beast, while a mobile computer, is hardly a laptop - I call it a mobile portable; it's heavy. I can, yes, I really can, put it in my lap, but it's sure a lot easier to use when it's on a movable stand, card table, or other fixture, rather than on my lap! For me, then, the Kubuntu 12.04 installation and configuration, upgrading from the daily builds to the final release, had some real surprises in it. My personal opinion is that for upgrades, whatever configurations were previously used ought to remain the default. If it REALLY wants to alter the appearance and function that much, it should at least allow you the choice to make that change or retain the previous behavior. Being able to change it back, but having to research in order to even locate the setting, at least to me, is a significant regression in friendly user behavior. Since KDE gives you the choice, at least make that choice obvious. The intermittent dialog box errors still seem to occasionally appear, so there are still some Plasma infrastructure issues looming beneath the surface. Perhaps they are artifacts from the transition from daily builds to release. If that's the case, then the transition configurations are defective and should be fixed. I'd give the overall experience a "B" grade. Once it's actually running, it runs quite well; it can be quite disconcerting to unexpectedly encounter the behaviors that I've mentioned, and that's the reason for a "B" instead of an "A" grade."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I don't have anything planned, and I may not be able to write anything anyway because I will be quite busy with exams and other work. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Kubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin"

Main Screen

Well, it's that time of the year again. Canonical just released the spring editions of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Edubuntu (and with those have come releases of the officially-recognized derivatives Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Mythbuntu). Today, I'm reviewing Kubuntu, for a few different reasons.


The first is that this is the last version of Kubuntu that will be officially maintained by Canonical. After the announcement about that over a month ago, the future of Kubuntu appeared to be in flux, but thankfully an announcement was made a few days ago that Blue Systems, the maintainer of Netrunner and primary sponsor of Ubuntu-based Linux Mint with KDE, would also sponsor Kubuntu and would take a couple developers from Kubuntu who were previously at Canonical.
The second is that this is a long-term support (LTS) release, and as this is still going to be supported by Canonical, that means this version will get 5 years of support. To match that, Kubuntu needs to be quite stable and bug-free, so I want to see how well that works out.
The third is that I am looking to replace Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" GNOME with something that will in all likelihood be based in some way upon Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin". I want to see how this version of Ubuntu can fill that role.
The fourth is that this is the 500th post on Das U-Blog! I think that warrants a pretty big review like this one.

I tested the 64-bit edition of this as a live USB system made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Review: Razor-Qt 0.4.0 (via Ubuntu Razor-Qt Remix)

Razor-Qt: Main Screen + Right-Click Menu

It seems like the recent discontent over GNOME 3 and Unity has caused a renaissance in DEs that act more traditionally. Xfce is gaining popularity as it basically replicates GNOME 2.X and can do even more now, while KDE is winning over users attracted to its shininess and power. LXDE is also gaining attention as a DE that pushes the limit of how stripped-down a DE can be before it is just a WM again, while Enlightenment seems to be gaining renewed interest thanks to Bodhi Linux. Linux Mint has modified GNOME 3 through MGSE, and now it is replacing GNOME 3/Shell with GNOME 3/Cinnamon. Yet only one of these alternatives (KDE) uses the Qt toolkit; save Enlightenment, which uses the E17 toolkit, all the others use GTK+. Until now.

There's a new kid on the DE block, and it's called Razor-Qt. It aims to be a lightweight, traditional-style DE, sort of like KDE, Xfce, and LXDE. The best way to put it is that it aims to be to KDE what LXDE has been to GNOME; it is stripped-down and manages the desktop in a more minimalistic way, but it is still compatible with KDE and Qt applications, just as LXDE can still take GNOME and GTK+ applications just fine.

I am trying Razor-Qt as a MultiSystem-made live USB in the form of Ubuntu Razor-Qt Remix. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 October 23

There were no featured comments the previous week because the comments on the post that week came after the end of the week. That's because I published that post quite late that week. This past week, though, there was one post that got a handful of comments, so I'll repost most of those.

Review: Kubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot"

An anonymous reader said, "The installer now has a checkbox for installing codecs, as well as a box for installing updates, it's pretty handy. Previews for inactive windows in the taskbar has always been on by default for me in Kubuntu, either way you can turn it on from the desktop effects settings. I have used Kubuntu for many years as my main desktop and it really has improved a lot. I don't mind the vanilla KDE so much as I always customize KDE to my liking. I don't know why they keep trying to push rekonq though, it will never be as good as FF or Chrome."
Another anonymous commenter had this to say: "Took a look at Rekonq recently in another distro; crashed on me about 3 times, during something like a 5 minute session. I would have played around with it longer, but that was enough for me. If I installed Kubuntu, I'd add another web browser right away. Nice review as always, but I'm still hoping you'll start doing reviews with actual installations. Yeah, I've read all of your explanations about why you don't, so no need to repeat all of that. But it's the only area where your reviews fall short, at least for me. (Please don't take offense -- just calling 'em like I see 'em.)"
Reader Kelhim2 had this suggestion, of sorts: "One downside of Kubuntu 11.10 is the inclusion of KMail2 which uses Akonadi and therefore needs all of your mails migrated to the new database - and inevitably fails to do so. People who don't read the official release statement, which makes it quite clear that the KMail2 migration assistent is unreliable and explains how to migrate manually, will be put off entrusting their data to KMail2."
Commenter carretillo said, "Some lost features from kde 4.5, are comeback, like daysi task and fancy task. I recommend strongly change kickoff for lancelot. Another tweak is install xfwm4 for use instead kwin. Is a really good kde distro. I use like my principal distro. But I still waiting for LMDE KDE."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I hope to have another review out, but that's not guaranteed. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Kubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot"

You can consider this to be the second part of a series of reviews of the relatives of Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot. Today I'm reviewing Kubuntu.

Main Screen

I've said some bad things about Kubuntu in the past. Mainly, it has to do with how a couple years ago on Ubuntu, KDE and GNOME would not mix very well, and Kubuntu's implementation of KDE, while vanilla-looking, wasn't very vanilla-working (and really didn't work well at all). Things have improved since then: Kubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" was generally lauded as the first good Kubuntu release since the transition from KDE 3 to KDE 4. Kubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" was even better, and this version has been reviewed by others as the best ever; not only that, but the aforementioned other reviewers have also said this is among the best KDE distributions out today, period. That's quite a lot of praise, so I'm seeing if (1) that praise is warranted and (2) I need to change my previously sour opinion of Kubuntu.

I tested Kubuntu on a live USB made with UnetBootin. I was going to test the installation...on a real computer! A $friend of mine in college heard me and another friend discussing computer-related things and how I thought it would be interesting and ironic if I could put Linux on an Apple iMac/MacBook and use it instead of Apple's Mac OS X. $friend had a slightly older Intel-based Apple iMac that $friend wasn't using, so $friend was willing to lend it to me for the year; $friend was cool with me using it to test and install Linux distributions on the hard drive, because $friend actually used a triple-boot Linux setup on the Apple iMac on a regular basis before it fell into disuse. I figured I should use this opportunity to try to install Kubuntu, so I followed the instructions on the Ubuntu website to create the appropriate live USB with another 2 GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB stick I got 4 years ago but haven't used at all since high school; unfortunately, while the Refit bootloader (that I installed beforehand) did apparently recognize the live USB, booting just hung at the white screen. While I am aware of a few potential solutions, I've also read on the Refit website that different Apple iMac generations tolerate live USB booting at different levels: some are fully cooperative, while others pretend live USBs don't exist. I believe this particular Apple iMac is closer to the latter end of that spectrum, so I didn't pursue it further. I do know another friend who has been collecting many desktop computers that are a few years old, so I might ask that friend to borrow a working one for such installations. That'll have to wait for a future review though. In any case, this time around, despite my best efforts, installation did not occur. Follow the jump to see what Kubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" is like.

Introducing Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze"

This is something that I have wanted to do for the last week and a half or so, but I haven't been able to do it because I've been really busy.
I said in my review of Debian 6 "Squeeze" Standard that I wanted to customize that installation with Trinity 3.5.12. Well, now it has finally happened: please welcome the newest member of the Oxidized Trinity family, Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze"!
There are a couple differences between this and the original (Kubuntu-based) Oxidized Trinity 10.04, the most significant being that the only way to install Oxidized Trinity 6 is to use the Remastersys installer, and that's not guaranteed to work. Also, Trinity 3.5.12 packs a whole lot more stuff for Debian than for Ubuntu; I didn't even want half the stuff included, but I was too lazy to remove all of it. (This is also why Synaptic Package Manager isn't included (it would consume even more space).) Thankfully, despite that, the Oxidized Trinity 6 ISO file is actually smaller than the Oxidized Trinity 10.04 ISO file. I guess that goes to show just how lightweight and versatile Debian really is. Finally, on that note, I have uploaded this to the Oxidized Trinity SourceForge page; also, here is the direct download link. Please do try this out and let me know what I can improve. Thanks! (Also, stay tuned for a brand-new respin!)

How to Oxidize KDE 3.5

What's the title supposed to mean? You will figure this out by the end of the article.
I mentioned in my review of Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity that while the Trinity revival of KDE 3.5.11 has huge potential as a new contender in the field of DEs for old computers (competing with Xfce and LXDE, among others), KDE 3.5 looks pretty bad. Sure, it looks quite cool/cute when it first came out. That said, the KDE 3.5 developers themselves said that they benchmarked the speed and looks (and went over and above the stability of) Microsoft Windows XP when developing KDE 3.5. As a result, it is very fast, very stable (unlike Microsoft Windows XP), and bears more than a passing resemblance in its icon, panel, and window decoration themes to the latter. I haven't ever particularly cared for the default look of Microsoft Windows XP (and honestly, Microsoft Windows 7 is pretty good looking, making Microsoft Windows XP even worse to look at), and KDE 3.5 looks even more cartoonish (and this is exaggerated further with the KDE 4 looks).
What does all this mean? If KDE 3.5 is here to stay, it needs at least a visual overhaul to stay competitive with other DEs optimized for low-resource environments. So I tried to do just that. Follow the jump to read how I tried (and failed).

Review: Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity "Lucid Lynx" (Idea by Candid of Linux Today)

Main Screen: Ethais Wallpaper + Kicker

First off, I want to give a huge thanks and a shout-out to Linux Today reader Candid for suggesting that I take a look at Trinity. Your suggestion piqued my curiosity enough to make me want to do a full review and write-up. This one is for you. Thanks!
Reviewing this Linux distribution has reminded me of automotive news site Edmunds Inside Line's final review of the 2010 Mercury Grand Marquis in honor of Mercury's impending demise. It was a great nostalgic piece, as the car itself had turned into a weird mishmash of throwback controls and modern safety technology. For example, antilock brakes are present (as is traction control), yet the frame itself is a ladder-frame (like a truck, rather than a car's unibody frame) and the turn signals are operated by actual switches (as opposed to computerized systems). This is how I felt when testing Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity. It's a weird mishmash of old-school and new-school KDE.
So what is Trinity? For one, it's not the codename of this distribution — this version of Kubuntu 10.04 is still called "Lucid Lynx". Trinity is actually the name of a project that aims to revive, maintain, and further develop KDE 3.5 as a fork from the main KDE project. Yes, folks, KDE 3.5 has risen from the dead! [Insert dramatic sound effects here.] The project itself has had to overcome a lot of obstacles, chief among them the facts that Qt 3 has not been officially supported for 3 years (and rewriting the Qt code is just what the developers did for KDE 4) and that KDE 3.5 itself has not been actively developed or maintained for over 3 years. (Trinity is only a few months old.) That said, the Trinity packages are available for Ubuntu systems and can be installed alongside existing GNOME or KDE installations as a separate desktop environment. Trinity labels this newest release of KDE as KDE 3.5.11 (as the last official release was 3.5.10). Follow the jump to accompany me on a trip back to the future. (I had to say it. Sorry.)

A Disappointing Review of Kubuntu 10.04

Before you continue reading, a word of warning: I am sick, so I am not quite in the clearest state of mind. All I am asking is for you to forgive me if my level of writing is not quite up to snuff (which is already at a pretty low level anyway).
I am a fan of DistroWatch and try to look for reviews of popular Linux and BSD (and, occasionally, Solaris) distributions. As Ubuntu 10.04 and its derivative distributions came out last week, I wanted to find out if any new reviews had been posted to DistroWatch, as Ubuntu 10.04 was being heralded as a landmark release (and of course, as always (but, sadly, never truly so), the distribution to make 2010 "the year of Linux on the desktop"). I had already seen a few reviews of Ubuntu 10.04 [GNOME] but not yet one of Kubuntu 10.04 [KDE]. I've read a few reviews on the site called Desktop Linux Reviews by Jim Lynch; they are all very well-written, giving nice screenshots, a comprehensive overview of features, a thorough review of how well it works, and a nice summary recommending it to certain audiences over others (and giving it a rating out of 5).
This review, however, has brought the standard down to a low never seen before. Follow the jump to find out why.