The migration of a fussy Windows user to Linux
(edit: see comment #60, below; I’m going to switch to PCLinuxOS because it’s far better than Kubuntu, which I chose mainly because of name recognition. Sadly, Kubuntu doesn’t live up to the reputation deserved by Ubuntu (which, even though it uses GNOME, which I can’t stand, is a well put-together distro).
(edit: I have tried Vista at work for over a month and didn’t like it. Apart from the ruined explorer, the print spooler crashes on a daily basis, it forgets my multi-monitor configuration almost as often, and it’s more sluggish than XP on my Dell Latitude D830.)
I’m a very fussy user when it comes to my operating systems and I have managed to get by with Windows XP for a long time, but its days are numbered. Vista is looming and I refuse to install that rubbish, so I have chosen Kubuntu 7.10. Normal Ubuntu users might be wondering why I chose Kubuntu…
To demonstrate just how fussy I am, I installed Kubuntu because it uses Konqueror as the file manager which means I can draw selection rectangles when highlighting files in detailed list view. Ubuntu’s file manager, on the other hand, treats me like an idiot by denying me this basic user right and forcing me to highlight files with the mouse AND keyboard instead of just the mouse. As somebody who does a lot of file management, GNOME just isn’t an option (Mac users might like it since the Finder and Nautilus have a lot in common insofar as the stripped-out configurables are concerned :-).
Having declared myself a part of the KDE crowd in the long-running desktop environment flame war, allow me to describe how this fussy and long time Windows user upgraded from XP to Linux to avoid the impending doom of XP’s old age and the otherwise inevitability of Vista…
Configuration Changes
- /etc/X11/xorg.conf - modified to support back/forward mouse buttons as per this Ubuntu forum post.
- kcontrol (which lets you configure KDE more than the System Settings icon on Kubuntu’s menu) - Appearance & Themes, Launch Feedback, disable Taskbar Notification - unless you like seeing audio player taskbar entries for 30 seconds every time you click on an MP3 file!
- Konqueror - Settings, Configure Konqueror, Behaviour, Show the ‘Delete’ context menu entries which bypass the trashcan (or else it’ll take forever to delete things off USB drives because they’re really copied to your hard drive first).
- nuoveXT icon theme - I installed this icon theme because the default uses far too much blue for my liking, making it hard to differentiate quickly between icons (and I’m just used to yellow folders).
- Set Konqueror as the default file manager - Kubuntu uses Dolphin but you can change it to use Konqueror by going to kcontrol, KDE Components, File Associations, inode, directory and then moving Konqueror up in the pecking order. If Dolphin supported tabbed browsing and had a bookmark toolbar, it would make a nice file manager.
Package Installations
- Pidgin - instant messaging client with guifications (to get little popups just like Windows Live Messenger when people sign on and go offline, etc), the extended preferences plugin (to hide the Buddy List from the KDE taskbar), and the Message Notifications plugin which is part of the pidgin-plugin-pack (to flash new chat windows so that I’ll notice them in the taskbar).
- Audacious (similar to Winamp) - Amarok seems to get a lot of publicity these days but I can’t stand it. I did give it a try but you have to keep searching for and dragging things to the right-hand pane to get them to play and this just won’t do. Whilst I preferred iTunes for music library management I often kept using Winamp in Windows so I’ll get by with Audacious for the time being. Songbird looks good but I haven’t installed it yet (it’s on my to-do list).
- msttcorefonts - to make most web pages that use Microsoft’s fonts appear more readable (though, I still seem to find some pages in Firefox that use a pretty squashy and unreadable Roman font).
- imwheel - to enable back/forward mouse button support (why this isn’t installed by default I’ll never know).
- GKrellM - system monitor program to monitor bandwidth usage and to show my Internode ADSL usage per month (thanks to the WindowMaker Internode Usage Meter + Gkrellm2 plugin).
- mbmon - used by GKrellM to display system temperatures and fan speeds (I’ve added “mbmon -r -P 61234″ to my /etc/rc.local script so that the deamon is available to GKrellM after a reboot; thanks to “biovore” on #kubuntu for that tip).
- Firefox - in Windows I’d say this is the best web browser ever, but the Linux version seems somewhat more flakier; web pages sometimes just won’t render even if the browser seems to go through the motions of downloading it (I have to close Firefox and start it again to get the page the draw). Firefox on Kubuntu also crashes a lot more than I remember it ever did in Windows; for example, every time I click on the zoom for the first icon preview here, it will crash every time. Still, I wouldn’t be without it.
- Thunderbird - email client that I once used in Windows before biting the bullet and using Outlook 2003 (mainly for its integrated calendar but Thunderbird supports that now - see next item). I chose not to use Kontact because I’ve learned my lesson about using programs that require the use of a particular operating system for something as important as email.
- Sunbird and Lightning - Mozilla’s calendar program and plugin to make Sunbird accessible through Thunderbird.
- AllTray - to dock any application to the system tray that doesn’t support it (such as Thunderbird -e.g., by modifying the KDE shortcut command to “alltray thunderbird %u”). Very nifty but it’s not 100% reliable because programs sometimes close instead of minimising to the systray; clicking only on the systray icon when restoring and minimising is more reliable.
- aMule - the closest thing you’re likely to find for eMule (I did try KMLDonkey but the less said about it the better; it was not a very straight forward or pleasant experience!)
- LAME - so that I can rip CDs to MP3 instead of OGG (which is the default in K3b, an excellent replacement for both Nero and Exact Audio Copy).
- VLC Media Player - what can I say? It’s just better.
Important File Association Changes
- Set KWrite as the default text editor - Kate shows an annoyingly large list of currently opened files that takes up a quarter of the window’s area, and what’s worse is that you can’t disable it for good; not exactly what I’m looking for in a simple replacement for Notepad.exe
- Associate picture files with Gwenview - by default Konqueror will preview the image itself and if I click the close button, I’m actually closing Konqueror and not some external image preview like I’m used to with Windows.
Outstanding Issues
- The hack to get Thunderbird to return to the Inbox after deleting a message (found here) didn’t work for me. This behaviour bugs me no end and if I don’t find a fix for it soon, I may even consider Kontact!
- I’d like to get my Vista media center PC to connect to the videos share on my Linux machine using Samba, but getting Samba to cooperate is about as painful as previous encounters with it that I can remember. I’ve tried all sorts of things, including configuring Vista to use LM and NTLM but to no avail. All the more reason to try MythTV, I suppose, but something tells me it will probably involve quite a lot of tinkering. (edit: see comment #54, below, for a solution that I tested whilst using a standard Ubuntu 7.10 live CD)
- K3b complaining that the CD is in use - if I stick an audio CD in the drive, up pops a window allowing me to rip audio from CD, so I click it. I then specify where to save the files and get a long-winded error that starts out: “Device ‘PIONEER - DVD-RW DVR-111D’ is already in use by other applications (kio_audiocd)” giving me the options Check again, Quit the other applications, and Continue. If I can put on my ordinary user hat: “Hey, you’re running this show - don’t blame me for problems you created!” I have to close my existing Konqueror window, which isn’t even viewing the CD, and click Check again before it’ll rip the CD. Pretty stupid, really.
- The back and forward buttons on my mouse actually scroll left and right in Konqueror a few centimetres at a time. I’ve yet to search for or find a fix for this very odd behaviour.
- The spell checker in OpenOffice.org Writer doesn’t seem to work - it seemed to be set to Czech by default but after changing it to English (UK) (there’s no Australian but there is a New Zealand version? no fair!) it still won’t find any spelling mistakes. KWrite’s spell checker works but it doesn’t like contractions. Better than nothing, I guess. (edit: see comment #2, below, for a solution)
- I downloaded and extracted the latest Firefox tarball to /usr/local/firefox but most things that shell out to a browser don’t seem to know about it anymore. Maybe this isn’t the right location? Whatever the case, there needs to be an easy way to update important things like Firefox through the usual repositories. The old version (2.0.0.6) that I was using was probably the reason it was flakey, but getting a proper installation of the latest version (2.0.0.11) is a non-trivial exercise. Firefox took care of all this for me in Windows.
Miscellaneous Observations
- KTorrent is rather nice. It even has built-in support for PeerGuardian’s IP block list. The only thing that would make it better would be built-in previewing, but uTorrent doesn’t have it either, so I’m no worse off.
- KDE’s Lock Session does what it says but it leaves a snapshot of your session as the backdrop to the locked screen instead of a wallpaper or something. Not that I care but it’s still not as nice-looking (I lock the session to prevent the cat from walking on the keyboard, messing things up).
- It would be nice to have better integration with KDE for certain appliations, such as Thunderbird and eMule, for example. Maybe Linux needs some kind of system independent of your desktop environment for systray-like things and other notifications?
- Unlike previous attempts at switching to Linux this time it seems far more viable. I don’t have to return to work until mid-January so I’ve got time to sort out any issues before then. When the bulk of my day is taken up with work I won’t tolerate computer problems as easily so I could still switch back to Windows if things go awry and wait for Kubuntu 8.04. Here’s hoping I can stick it out!
The K3b thing can get annoying at times but its just to help you out. If you know you are not doing anything with that drive, its safe to just press continue.
Also, Firefox should be in the repos. Not sure which one (Medibuntu?) but its there. That way you can update it with the click of a button.
And lastly, for programs that you would like to put in the system tray, try kdocker.
Hope any of that info helps.
Posted by eh? on 27-Dec-2007 at 12:31 am
Install the following packages if you want Australian English spell checking and a thesaurus in OpenOffice.org:
myspell-en-au
openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-au
Posted by dystopianray on 27-Dec-2007 at 2:36 am
“Miscellaneous Observations
KTorrent is rather nice. It even has built-in support for PeerGuardian’s IP block list. The only thing that would make it better would be built-in previewing, but uTorrent doesn’t have it either, so I’m no worse off.”
Not sure if you have tried it yet, but Deluge is an awesome Torrent Client for Linux, I have been using that on my Ubuntu 7.10(Gnome DE) for quite a whlie now, no complaints.
Posted by Matt on 27-Dec-2007 at 2:37 am
Thank for your time in creating this article.
I hope that your experiences will help me in a smoother transition.
I’m still tossed about your choice of Kubuntu tho’.
Was Konqueror the primary reason?
Mike
Posted by Mike Cady on 27-Dec-2007 at 2:40 am
Marc-
I’m curious as to why Vista is rubbish?? Sure there is a requirement for a lot of memory and a nice video card, other than that, what problems constitute it being rubbish?!?
Here’s my reason for asking. I used a couple of betas and ran into problems as many did (as it was a beta, RC1 & RC2) however I’m using it at home on my desktop and it’s smoking fast without any headaches (read, all drivers function with old hardware). Sure I might have to go out to the manufactors website and download a driver, but that’s it.
I’m a linux user as well in my job as we rely on it for several applications and hosting services and I definitely like where it’s headed but as we all know, it’s not entirely there yet. It’s so close it is a viable option, however IMO it needs a little more icing on the cake (with more apps like Wine so I can run what I have and not wait for new software).
I’m now running full time on vista at home and work and truly I’m not exteriencing any problems. SP1 is installed and I’m seeing a little more cleanliness in my day to day (so it’s only been one day) but in reality, it’s running great.
I fear that the Mac ad bashing campaign is taking it’s toll on users are beleiving what they read on the internet and see on TV…..and that is a sad thing for users.
To be honest, my biggest complaint with Vista is the pricing. They should kick it out of the door for $100-150 and call it a day.
Posted by brilo on 27-Dec-2007 at 2:50 am
Ubuntu’s file manager, on the other hand, treats me like an idiot by denying me this basic user right and forcing me to highlight files with the mouse AND keyboard instead of just the mouse.This isn’t completely accurate. If you have Nautilus in Icon View, you can select files with just the mouse. However, in List View, you do have to use both mouse and keyboard to select.
Posted by tyme on 27-Dec-2007 at 2:54 am
I don’t know what version of GNOME you had installed but you can click and drag to select things in any version of GNOME after 2.16 that I know (possibly earlier); it’s identical in functionality to Windows if not better because you can extend it using scripts (so can the other desktop environments).
Posted by CM on 27-Dec-2007 at 2:59 am
You can delete stuff directly with shift + delete, thus bypassing recycle bin .. this works in windows too ..
Posted by Daniel on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:01 am
I also like KDE but use Gnome as I started out with it and got used to it. One note however: you can use gnome and still install and use any or all or just a few KDE applications such as konqueror and konsole. I use these, with Gnome. So saying “Gnome is just not an option” shows you just haven’t explored the options too thoroughly. :)
Posted by Peter Marteinson on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:04 am
ever thought about going to mac?
a lot less configuring than linux and “more powerful”. you can always try out os x on an pc with osx86 to see if you like it.
Posted by chris on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:10 am
Thanks! Your post show that using and migrate to linux is not a pleasure cruise, like all stupid happiness that show many linux “expert” users.
Posted by mantrax on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:12 am
“It would be nice to have better integration with KDE for certain appliations, such as Thunderbird and eMule, for example. Maybe Linux needs some kind of system independent of your desktop environment for systray-like things and other notifications?”
It does, in the form of FreeDesktop specs. Most of the applications in KDE and GNOME follow it, although Firefox and Thunderbird don’t. You’ll notice that if you installed a GNOME application with a tray icon (say, Ekiga) its tray icon would work in KDE. This works in reverse, using Amarok in GNOME (or similar).
Posted by Zachary on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:15 am
You might want to use aMule cvs builds. They’re nicer to work with, imo. This guy makes them, in case you don’t feel like doing the builds yourself.
http://forum.amule.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=d522a93ada0981ad572b49e2bcef6716&topic=13700.0
And as to your mouse problems, I find btnx makes for much easier configuration (from impossible to trivial with some mice). I believe you have to configure it from source for KDE, but it’s not exactly difficult.
Hope this’ll be helpful.
Posted by Stig on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:16 am
-dugg-
Very thorough! Good luck to you. I love Ubuntu and think it’s awesome that so many people are switching over. Unfortunately still there are lots of little things that come up that can devour your time. The good news is people like you make those little quirks more well known to make it a more perfect operating system and application platform.
Will check out the rest of your blog.
Posted by likwidtek on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:21 am
install katapult and leave amarok running on the back. This is the perfect solution for people that dislike amarok’s posture (same as itunes or songbird) and prefers winamp’s with a few strokes you’ll be able to play any song and you’ll learn to appreciate how amarok indexes your files.
I didn’t like amarok at first either, but once you use it for a little bit I learned why people love it so much…
Also, if you are a power user im sure you’ll like katapult
Posted by irco on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:22 am
Good luck. Although, I must say…. KDE SUCKS!!
Posted by Mike on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:27 am
Nice article! This is a quick look at some of the differences the average windows user would come across when making the switch. I did have one issue though. You let your damn cat walk on your keyboard… Other than that, very nice!
Posted by pHreaksYcle on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:29 am
Nice change, I also made the switch to Ubuntu (using Gnome) to avoid the inevitable change to Vista. I had a long fight with the fiancee about her not being able to play her games and stuff, but she has since found new games on linux that she enjoys playing and I have her hating Windows (and Vista) as much as I do now!
Posted by Derrick on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:32 am
Give MythTV a try. I had similar problems with Vista. That is when I decided to give Mythbuntu a try. I put the live CD and checked it out. It works great. I now have Mythbuntu installed on my MediaCenter computer that is attached to the TV. I have my Samba shares automounted every time I start the computer.
That said, MythTV is not complete. It has a few issues of its own - more like small annoying feature holes. It is a 0.20 version under active development. So, I am sure it is only going to get better.
Posted by Kayvee on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:49 am
For Samba issues - look into GSAMBAD
For OpenOffice spelling - https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+question/4682
Also, you shoulden’t need to extract a tarball for Firefox unless you are trying out a cutting edge beta version that isn’t in a repository (the same concept applies to the Windows beta). Even in that case, there are repositories for the betas as well. Have you tried opening up Synaptic Package Manager and searching for “Firefox”?
Glad your Kubuntu experience has been generally pleasant. You do seem to be having an abnormally large amount of issues, though :P
Posted by Andrew on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:56 am
The Vista connectivity may have to do with Vista requiring encryption on its network share connections (Windows 2003 Server does as well). Since this is all proprietary, obviously Samba can’t handle it.
Google around for solutions on disabling encryption on Vista network shares - it probably varies by edition and I’m not sure where yours may fall.
Posted by Chris Meller on 27-Dec-2007 at 4:29 am
What about Wine?
Posted by Ralph on 27-Dec-2007 at 5:08 am
For screen locking you might want to go and configure your screen saver. For me when I lock the screen it runs my screen saver. Not sure if I tripped some option for that, but maybe just at least configuring it once does it, as I used to just see my desktop when locked as well.
As for Kontact you might notice that KDE 4 is making a push to Windows (infact I was under the impression you might be able to take over the windows desktop and use the KDE desktop on Windows as you would linux, which would be neat … OS independant desktop enviroment … although does sound like I would be hoping for a bit much on that haha) so lots of KDE apps are getting ported to Windows. Not much help for you right now I know but I thought I would just get it out there that eventually (if not now with KDE 4 RC2 being out, I think for linux only but I believe Windows/Mac versions are catching up) will be making an appearance in the Windows domain so will be an alternative to Thunderbird. You will have to look it up for further information as I don’t know that much about it and how different it will be, however I have read that in Kubuntu 8.04 you should get the option for KDE 3 or 4 when installing.
When it comes to the better integration of other applications like Thunderbird and emule (for systray and notification), I know at freedesktop.org there is a spec (under new and not widely used) for a standard way for X applications to use a systemtray and notification area that should be independant of the tools the developers use, so expect that kinda stuff to hopefully start working out better in the future (maybe they implemented it in KDE 4 and later versions of Gnome. Although they seem to be able to use each others systemtrays etc ok already … possibly they already use the spec but it’s the thunderbird and emule developers that are at fault, I don’t know :-) but looking at some of the standards at freedesktop hopefully better integration of these kinda apps should be coming soon).
Also the Dolphin in KDE 3 I think is more of a taster app. So I have heard the KDE 4 Dolphin (also the default filemanager in KDE 4 but you can still you konqueror if you like) is meant to be much more feature complete than the KDE 3 version. Not sure if it has the tabs (which I agree on I hope they do) as apparently konqueror is still more heavy weight in kde 4 than dolphin but it is meant to be better and still just as quick as the kde 3 version (try opening /usr/lib in Konqueror compared to Dolphin … tis a bit of a pain).
Good post though, interesting read and good luck with sticking with linux.
Posted by Adam Burton on 27-Dec-2007 at 5:17 am
You said “Vista is looming and I refuse to install that rubbish, so I have chosen Kubuntu 7.10.” which kind of annoys me because vista is not rubbish. I used XP for many years, but I got one to many blue screens so I switched to fedora core 5. Since then I have used OSX, Gentoo, Slackware, Ubuntu, Redhat, OpenSuSE, ect. I have used most of the desktop environments as well, and to say that GNOME “stripped-out configurables are concerned” is also not true.
No I respect others opinions, and I do change around from KDE to GNOME, and vise versa but when it all comes down to it they are both great desktop environments. I just got windows vista, and I think it’s great. The longer you use GNU/Linux operation system on your main computer the more you begin to long for things such as photoshop, itunes, and one click installs.
PS. I agree that Amarok is kind of annoying, especially for someone who likes itunes. I found that the best music player was either Songbird or Rhythmbox
Posted by Tom on 27-Dec-2007 at 6:14 am
Hey Marc, nice to know you’ve switched to (K)Ubuntu. Good for you!
I made the switch right after 7.10 came out (I was having issues with 7.04). I, too being a very fussy windows user, found love in Ubuntu.
I used Vista on my newly bought Sony Vaio laptop but I just couldn’t stand it any longer. Switching to Ubuntu feels like an ‘upgrade’. Its faster, easier to use and beautiful.
Cheers.
Posted by Azad on 27-Dec-2007 at 6:27 am
“Set KWrite as the default text editor - Kate shows an annoyingly large list of currently opened files that takes up a quarter of the window’s area, and what’s worse is that you can’t disable it for good;”
It has a button on the left side of it that says ‘Documents’.
Click it and the list will collapse, click it again and the list will expand.
Posted by AHelper on 27-Dec-2007 at 6:45 am
“I’ve learned my lesson about using programs that require the use of a particular operating system for something as important as email”
—–
“It would be nice to have better integration with KDE for certain appliations, such as Thunderbird and eMule”
—–
Can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Posted by lhr on 27-Dec-2007 at 6:52 am
If you’re looking for a good KDE experience, not that Kubuntu isn’t, you might try PCLinuxOS. One of its strengths is its tight integration of KDE and a carefully tended repository system. I had used Fedora Cores 3 - 6. When I gave PCLinuxOS a whirl, I discovered that I wasn’t getting a full KDE implementation on Fedora. I soon divorced Fedora and my torrid summer affair with PCLinuxOS turned into solid relationship.
Posted by Richard Chapman on 27-Dec-2007 at 9:18 am
well…
it seems you and i are in similar states, but speak very different languages.
after having to reinstall the vista OS three…yes…three times in one week, and after having to return “Vista Compatible!” software and hardware that is not “Vista Compatible!”, i, in a fit of rage (or slight angst) made the switch to linux.
i have tried out Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and now i’m with openSUSE.
but… my problem is a simple one. basically, i have no idea what i’m doing. i just know i can’t stand windows anymore, and after tasting the beauty that is linux…i’m here. but i have NO IDEA how to fix things and i don’t know computer-ese… or code. (i know enough html and CSS to play on myspace…but that’s it.)
so here’s where i stand:
i’m liking openSUSE, but i’m open to Kubuntu. i liked it, i only switched because SUSE was supposed to be more wifi friendly.
i have no idea how to ‘find’ my wifi card. i know it’s there, i keep calmly explaining to my computer that it’s there, but it doesn’t seem to want to listen to me.
i have no sound. as i use my computer 90% of the time for youtubes and itunes… this is not cool.
i have no webcam. wait, i DO have a webcam. it’s staring me in the face, totally integrated into my laptop. it’s just not found.
i understand that some of these issues have to do with the fact that i have an ACER Aspire 4720z, and that my junk isn’t ’supported’. i’m used to this… i played this game with vista.
but i HAVE NO IDEA how to fix any of this.
i only use my laptop for chatting on MSN, music, and playing online. i use google docs mostly for my docs and spreadsheets. when i was hooked into the windows matrix, i already used firefox and openoffice, so i had hoped the switch to linux would be a breeze.
*pout*
it’s not.
i just want to have my flash player work (even though i THOUGHT i had it installed…). i want my webcam to work… i want sound (too much to hope for?) and i want to prove to everyone that i can do this. i want to unplug from my router and actually USE wifi.
any advice oh guru?
Posted by amywithlemon on 27-Dec-2007 at 9:58 am
I wrote you along reply, but your website ate it.
You appear to be doing something stupid with cookies. (If it wasn’t stupid I’d have gotten a warning before it ate my post.)
The important point is that as a Linux newbie you’d better stick with installing _only_ software supplied by your (Ubuntu) distro, or you’ll find your Linux system will turn to muck in a few years just like MS Windows systems do.
Posted by Karl O. Pinc on 27-Dec-2007 at 1:49 pm
amywithlemon,
try PCLinuxOS or Mepis 7
I have a HP tx1115nr laptop and sound required one change to config and as for all laptops NDISwrapper is about the only way to get WiFi working.
Both have very friendly and helpful forums, none of the RTFM nonsense.
I have been on Mepis for over 3 years and 7.0 released Dec 23 is great.
At the office I have a HP DC5300 that amazingly PCLinux picked up and used the internal sound [no speakers] which for noise if fine, but for get the stereo.
Posted by wap3 on 27-Dec-2007 at 1:51 pm
Here are some selected replies to various people’s comments (thanks):
eh?: Thanks. Kdocker does seem better and docks on minimise instead of close, which is good (AllTray, sometimes lets apps close instead of docking).
dystopianray: I installed myspell-en-au and that fixed my OOo spell checking problems (it first complained about breaking things so I removed the en-gb, en-us, and en-za versions, and it’s now fine).
Mike Cady: Konqueror was a big factor but I also prefer KDE’s general look and feel over GNOME.
brilo: I should have pointed out that I have tried Vista (so I have edited the original post, above, to reflect this).
tyme: I did know that GNOME lets you draw selection rectangles in icon view, but I hate icon view. It’s quicker to find things in details view, but GNOME’s details view forces me to use the keyboard AND mouse to make selections, and this just annoys me. I’ve been drawing selection rectangles in details view since Windows 95, and I just can’t break the habit.
Peter Marteinson: I have explored the options, I just prefer the KDE’s look and feel. I’m not opposed to GTK apps, though, such as The GIMP, Pidgin, Audacious, and others.
chris: Yes, I have considered a Mac but the Finder is abominable, keyboard shortcuts are bizarre and non-reassignable unless there’s a menu item for it, and until Apple release a decent and affordable Mac mini tower without a built-in screen, I’ll stick to my much cheaper home-made PC towers and Linux.
Stig: Thanks, I’ll add btnx to my to-do list. It looks good. I might stick to the aMule deb, though. I try to avoid compiling things unless I have to :-)
likwidtek: Is your home page supposed to be just the name and a flashing cursor, or is my Firefox acting up again?
irco: Katapult looks more like Quicksilver for Linux. It can hardly be a better way to quickly and easily browse genres, artists, and albums in Amarok, at least not from what I can gather in this video.
Mike: No, GNOME SUCKS!! :-)
Andrew: What you see as my “abnormally large amount of issues” are indications of my level of fussiness when it comes to software. Previously, I would check out Linux, find some major stumbling block (like no decent media player or instant messenger), and go back to Windows. These “issues” and their resolutions are my way of making Linux acceptable as a replacement for what I’ve been used to for a long time. GSAMBAD seems to offer the same as KDE’s System Settings, Sharing, File Sharing applet.
Chris Meller: Configuring Vista (via secpol.msc) to use LM & NTLM has the effect of making it try old connections without encryption first. This didn’t work, alas.
Ralph: I just installed Wine (100MB package) to get Advanced Disk Catalogue working and it installed flawlessly. I’m not quite ready to find a Linux catalogue and re-index everything :-)
Adam Burton: The users on the #kubuntu IRC channel told me that the screen saver not working is a known bug that will be fixed soon. I’m not losing sleep over it (just yet).
Azad: We are in agreement. May Vista be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and frees everybody from enslavement :-)
AHelper: Yes, but Kate still expands the left column every time and won’t remember the fact that you closed it.
lhr: I have Christmas cake here, right now, and I’m eating it :-)
Richard Chapman: I chose Kubuntu because of its popularity, and therefore, weight behind its development. I’ll keep PCLinuxOS in mind, though. Thanks.
amywithlemon: I think you hit the nail on the head by blaming your ACER Aspire 4720z. My hardware isn’t as proprietary/unsupported as yours so my Linux adoption has been smoother. It may be that you just have to stick to Windows XP, but there’s no reason you couldn’t switch to open source alternatives now, such as Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, The GIMP, Pidgin, Audacity, etc. If you can wean yourself off commercial software now, then your migration to Linux one day, down the track, when you upgrade to a new computer (that you will undoubtedly check first to make sure is Linux friendly :-), your transition will be that much more pleasant.
Karl O. Pinc: Sorry about that. I’m not sure what’s going on. I know this is cold comfort but I usually copy long comments to clipboard before submitting them because I got sick of this kind of thing happening. I have gone back to the version of Firefox in the repositories, now. 2.0.0.11 was no better so I figured I may as well stick to what is packaged properly and other apps can find easily.
Posted by Marc on 27-Dec-2007 at 2:03 pm
I find Ubuntu works a little better than Kubuntu at this point. I’ll try Kubuntu again when they get to KDE 4. I use mythtv and have the backend running on my Ubuntu pc and access it from my Vista Laptop and Mac OS X. The only stumbling block for others access to it is remembering to put the backend IP address in the ‘bind-address’ section in /etc/mysql/my.cnf I might be able to help if you have trouble setting it up.
Posted by Doug Webb on 27-Dec-2007 at 3:11 pm
amywithlemon, some comments for you:
I’m running an Acer Extensa 4620Z on Kubuntu right now.
- Wifi: Acer generally uses either Broadcom or Atheros for their wireless networking. In general, many wireless cards need special software (firmware) loaded to work properly. Many companies have licenses that don;t allow it to be distributed directly. Atheros is supported by the Ubuntu directly as of 7.10, so you probably have Broadcom. To confirm, run “lspci” at a terminal and see what it says. The simple solution is to install “fwcutter”. On the Ubuntu family, it will usually ask if you want to install the firmware. Say yes and it will install the proper files. Reboot and you should be okay.
- Sound: The default for sound is to be turned all the way down and muted. Load up the sound mixer and turn up the volume for both Master and PCM/Wave to 50% and unmute them. Play with the volume once you confirm that worked.
- Camera: Most camera makers don’t give out specs for how their chips work, which means people have to reverse-engineer how to work with the darn thing. The Crystal Eye camera is made by Syuin and looks like a USB device. While it is detected (as /dev/video0), it doesn’t appear to be fully functional at the moment. I’m sure someone will eventually figure out how to talk to it and get it working properly. Do some searching, there have been a few ways posted to get it working if you have the right model of camera.
If you would like some more direct help, you are welcome to post in the forum for my website and I’ll try to help you if I can. I also encourage you to make use of the support for your linux distribution, especially stuff like their live IRC channels.
Posted by Michael Johnson on 27-Dec-2007 at 4:38 pm
OpenOffice Australian dictionaries at http://www.justlocal.com.au/clients/oooau/
Posted by Steve Elliott on 27-Dec-2007 at 5:56 pm
Notepad replacement — you might try “nedit”
(www.nedit.org) — it started at FermiLab as
a UNIX notepad clone, but quickly became such
a good programming editor that the Windows
people demanded that it be back-ported to
Windows…
And (relevant to me, but probably not to you)
it runs on every supercomputer I have access
to, not just Linux boxes…
Posted by Carlie Coats on 27-Dec-2007 at 11:28 pm
Very nice rundown. I’ve been using KDE for years now and I still learned a bunch of useful things from your post. Using kcontrol to globally turn off launch feedback made my day. Thanks!
Posted by somewhere_else on 28-Dec-2007 at 12:36 am
amywithlemon: If you decide to try Ubuntu or Kubuntu again and have trouble with anything, the folks on the Ubuntu community forums are very willing to help. And if you mention in your post that you don’t understand much about how things work and need very detailed instructions, they will explain things step-by-step. If ever you don’t understand some instructions, ask for a clearer description and you’ll get one. They are quite good at helping with the kind of problems you had.
Posted by Helper on 28-Dec-2007 at 6:50 am
As a quick update on my previous post, Linux support for the Acer Crystal Eye webcam can be found at http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/.
It is nice to see device vendors moving toward common protocols.
Posted by Michael Johnson on 28-Dec-2007 at 8:32 am
Have you tried Thunar (XFCE’s file manager) as a file management replacement for Nautilus? It may do what you want with the selection rectangle.
Or it might be a GTK-wide issue, not just a Nautilus bug, in which case you should file a bug in the GTK bug tracker.
Posted by James on 28-Dec-2007 at 11:04 am
Maybe I’ve been lucky choosing distributions, but KDE will lock with the screensaver if I hit ctrl alt l (that’s the letter el).
Have I just been lucky choosing distributions?
Posted by Wanda Round on 28-Dec-2007 at 12:14 pm
I wonder whether you have used opensuse .. I am using linux on my desktop for the past 5 years and after trying out fedora, mandriva, ubuntu, kubuntu and debian I have settled on opensuse .. the admin tool yast alone makes it worth while. try it out once.
Posted by santhosh varma on 28-Dec-2007 at 2:45 pm
about aMule: I’ve tried using aMule (the latest default ubuntu package) but it kept crashing every hour or so on me. So now I’m using eMule for Windows through Wine and it works perfectly.
Posted by jacques on 28-Dec-2007 at 3:18 pm
James: I installed Thunar and it looks a little too Nautilus-like to me, though you can highlight with just the mouse in details view, it still displays the entire row as being highlighted, which I find disconcerting.
santhosh varma: I have tried openSUSE 9 and 10 before and remember good things about it. I may give it a try if I get sick of Kubuntu (which sometimes seems a bit like Ubuntu’s neglected/disfavoured cousin).
jacques: I installed Wine yesterday to get a favourite Windows program working but I might stick to Linux-native apps where I can get them to work (for me, at least).
Posted by Marc on 28-Dec-2007 at 4:18 pm
I thought it was common knowlege that vista has performance problems (even by MS in allowing XP to continue to be installed on new computers now when originally they wanted to discontinue it completely). Vista is pretty and all, but even on a brand new high end machine, it is often snappy, frequently dog slow, crashes every other day or so, and it only shuts down complete at best 50% of the time (this is a classic windows problem since windows 3.11). And to my surprise, the blue screen of death has been reborn!
I think vista will improve ,er, slowly, but I have 4 computers in my office and the machines older than 1 year old can’t run vista (doesn’t pass the “compatible hardware” test..it won’t attempt to install it). So not only do I have to pay > $200 to upgrade my hardware to vista doesn’t puke, I have to pay several hundred dollars for Vista also ?
On the otherhand, I just loaded gOS on a 1995ish laptop with a p4 running at 500mhz for a friend, and it loaded no problems. So far, he’s had no reliability problems either.
Posted by Steve on 28-Dec-2007 at 6:48 pm
Great summary and ongoing debate…just my two cents on an audio player - I agree amorak is a bit “all that glitter is not gold”. I’m OK-ish, with rhythmbox. But I really like the nonsense approach of Herrie (http://herrie.info/). It just works and it is fast and very very little window dressing. I tend to just Herrie on my pc - that hosts my music and Banshee (http://banshee-project.org/Main_Page) on my other linux clients on the network with FireFly Media Server (http://www.fireflymediaserver.org/) - as an excellent audio streaming server.
Posted by zak_neutron on 28-Dec-2007 at 9:53 pm
zak_neutron: My god, Herrie is complete no-nonsense! I think it’s probably just a little too minimalistic, though :-)
Posted by Marc on 28-Dec-2007 at 10:09 pm
linux is just bugggy shit
Posted by asim on 29-Dec-2007 at 1:14 am
Marc,
I enjoyed your article. You obviously put a lot of time and thought into it, so thanks. I recently wrote a comparison of different distros that I think you will be interested in. I too prefer KDE over GNOME, but was a bit disappointed with KUbuntu. Any way, I hope you enjoy this:
http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/finding-the-right-distro-for-my-thinkpad-t61-part1/
Posted by rm42 on 29-Dec-2007 at 4:26 am
Marc you are the kind of person that should get a lot more exposure with an excellent and thoughtful article like this. I would never prefer KDE over GNOME myself but regardless found your article and subsequent comments excellent. Just wish there was a way that someone like you can have a fast track to developers to fix what you
suggest! With the way you setup your environment and making that a default for new GNU/Linux users would really welcome them in in stead of scaring them. Best way would be if you roll a distro and include by default all your good observations but easier said than done. Simple HOWTO’s might have to do. Also the commenter saying he struggles with his Acer laptop. Try as many live cd’s as possible and see which ones detect your particular hw the best. Good luck and this kind of article really shows me that Linux desktops are moving past the “I can’t use it because there is no application X” arguments and moving to the “I need a popup in my messenger” stage. YAY!
BTW: I also got kicked out posting at first but luckily used my clipboard :-)
Posted by Rooijan on 29-Dec-2007 at 4:57 am
It’s possible to preview files in ktorrent. If you go to the plugins setting and activate the Info Widget, you’ll get, among other things, a tab that will list all the files in the torrent. Then you can right-click on any file and it will open in whatever application you have associated for that mime-type.
You can also better integrate the look & feel of gtk applications in kde by installing the gtk-qt-engine (not sure what the package name is in kubuntu). This will let gtk apps like firefox use kde theme elements. It won’t affect things like the file-browser dialogs, but it will make things look more unified.
A warning, however. There’s currently some kind of bug or incompatibility with the gtk-qt-engine that makes audacious throw a fit when you use it. It doesn’t seem to affect the major functions, but it does disable some advanced skinning features, like custom cursors.
Posted by Altair IV on 29-Dec-2007 at 6:49 am
If you do a lot of file management do not talk bad about file managers just better learn how to use bash shell with things like * [] and ?. Then you will feel real power and speed.
“Hunting” things with mouse or keyboard is slow and anoing job.
Posted by Vytas on 29-Dec-2007 at 8:23 am
Oh almost forgot…
Here is link to tutorials:
http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/theshell.html
GL ;)
Posted by Vytas on 29-Dec-2007 at 8:29 am
As a workaround to your Vista networking problem, search for “guest” in /etc/samba/smb.conf and change/add the following lines:
guest account = nobody
invalid users = root
map to guest = bad user
This will let any Windows or other PC connect using smb without authentication from your network, wireless, or the entire Internet unless you have a firewall.
Posted by jhansonxi on 29-Dec-2007 at 11:43 am
I’d recommend Mandriva 2008.0, you’ll find it stable and it comes with all the software you’ve mentioned in the repositories, and most of it installed by default. The most onerous thing you’ll need to do is link to the PLF repositories to install the Media CODECs.
DrakConf is a doddle to use, and (for those who find it a fearful thing) I rarely have to use the command line, unlike the Ubuntus.
Posted by tracyanne on 29-Dec-2007 at 12:09 pm
So you bash kmail because it only works on Linux but used Outlook which only works on, er, Windows. Weird.
Posted by DiBosco on 29-Dec-2007 at 1:17 pm
asim: Thanks for being so constructive.
rm42: I started reading your review but haven’t read pages 2 and 3, yet (I got distracted showing off Compiz to my brother and trying to get Vista connecting to Samba).
Rooijan: Thanks. I don’t profess to an expert on usability but I do know what annoys the hell out of me, so if there’s some way I could help with usability testing, then I’d be only too happy lend a hand. I’m not saying that any of my own preferences should be the default but I do believe a lot of the things I’ve done to “fix” Linux for myself should be made available as configurable options that new users can at least see and enable for themselves rather than having to hunt down utilities or plugins as workarounds. The kind person above who said “linux is just bugggy shit” is probably somebody like myself that was turned off Linux because he/she couldn’t easily find solutions to the issues that I’ve worked around. Linux might win more converts if the GUI and applications were a little more polished and consistent.
Altair: My Info Widget was already enabled so I’ll pay closer attention the next time I download something. Most of my GTK applications already are using my KDE theme, so perhaps this is one thing that works well “out of the box” in Kubuntu. It would be nice if Kontact would use even my KDE theme, then I might consider using it over Thunderbird :-) Strange that a KDE app ignores system-wide preferences like colour schemes because the colour grey it uses is far too bright.
Vytas: GUI file management doesn’t have to be slow or annoying unless you use retarded file manager, such as Nautilus, which is so dumbed-down and stripped of user-configurable options that my brother said he thought it looked like WinZip!. Konqueror is the best I’ve seen so far; Thunar and Dolphin are OK but have a way to go before I could use them. Doing a lot of file moves/copies in the command-line just gets annoying after a while, especially if you want to work with particular selections where simple wildcards aren’t sufficient.
jhansonxi: Tried that, didn’t work :-( Thanks for the suggestion, though. I’ve wasted so much time trying to get Samba to work that I’m just ferrying video files to my media center PC via USB stick for now.
tracyanne: I’ve used Mandrake before, so maybe I should check out Mandriva (given that it shows KDE screen captures prominently, perhaps it’s a good distro that has been well-integrated with KDE). Thanks.
DiBosco: I’ve since discovered that Kontact (which uses Kmail, I believe) can be told to use mbox format instead of maildir, so I’m considering using Kontact now (but until I find a way to get it to obey my KDE colour scheme, and not use the blinding light-grey it forces upon me, then I’m sticking with Thunderbird). I want mbox because I remember using an “mbox2eml” converter before when I wanted to use Outlook, so with mbox I still have an escape plan if I give up on Linux. I chose Outlook before because I was happy in Windows, but now that I’m considering new platforms, I’m now more mindful of not locking myself into a particular operating system.
Posted by Marc on 29-Dec-2007 at 1:25 pm
jhansonxi: I decided to boot off the normal Ubuntu 7.10 CD and tried Samba’s default sharing. It wouldn’t let Vista connect but after uncommenting the “guest account” line and adding the “map to guest” line you mentioned, it works a treat :-) I’m starting to form the considered opinion that I might have been better off choosing a distribution where KDE gets all the love it deserves. Thanks for your help.
Posted by Marc on 29-Dec-2007 at 3:35 pm
jhansonxi: I reinstalled Samba and used a fresh smb.conf out of /usr/share/samba (since re-installing the package didn’t create a fresh smb.conf, and doing a ‘rm -rf /etc/samba’ isn’t a good idea either, because re-installing doesn’t put the conf file back, not even with a ‘dpkg -i –force-confmiss’). Anyway, with a fresh Samba and your additions, I’m now at the point where Vista can at least see the share and the printers share, but as soon as I double-click on the file share, it tells me to check the spelling and offers to run a diagnostic. I’ve tried yes and no for “encrypt passwords” but still can’t get Vista to play ball. In short, I’m beginning to dislike Kubuntu. It seems to have the smell of neglect about it, so my brother is downloading PCLinuxOS on his 8mb broadband connection, which I’ll try soon enough :-)
Posted by Marc on 29-Dec-2007 at 5:09 pm
I’ve just helped my brother install PCLinuxOS on his system and apart from having to add an option to his xorg.conf file to disable some power check for the video card (that the crash info advised us to specify and which I can’t now remember) and not being able to install the NVidia driver until we had configured our third repository in Synaptic, the installation went rather well.
The integration between KDE and Compiz (still called Beryl in this installation) is far superior to the experience I had with Kubuntu. It even has a better GUI configuration screen for Compiz than Kubuntu.
Come tomorrow morning I’ll be backing up my home directory, formatting my Kubuntu partition, and installing PCLinuxOS :-)
Posted by Marc on 29-Dec-2007 at 10:22 pm
I appreciate the reasons you for using KDE. I, like you, really like Konqueror for a file manager.
I was a long time Mandrake user because for years they had the best KDE distro. When I finally couldn’t take the rpm package system anymore, I tried the Debian world. I have used Mepis, Kubuntu and Etch. I have become quite comfortable with Kubuntu on my main desktop and Etch on my old P3 laptop.
I love APT! I still try various distros under VMWare Server, but I still have not found anything I like better than Kubuntu for now. It does get treated like the little brother, but the 8.04 development cycle looks to be an interesting one.
Posted by Rick G on 30-Dec-2007 at 4:12 am
Marc, you should check the Konqueror Preload feature (Control Center, Components, KDE Performance). It happened to me that when you close Konqueror window, it is not destroyed but kept hidden, as a “preloaded” instance in order to reduce the time needed to display a new window when required.
Sadly, hidden the window doesn’t change to “about:blank” or something like that, but keeps the current view, so if you were looking a removable media the thing can’t be unmounted.
I’m not sure if it happened to me while trying to burn something, but I suffered all the time while browsing CDs or pen drives.
Posted by Shulai on 30-Dec-2007 at 7:50 am
stupid security code messup causing me to lose my post…
OK WELL, SAMBA AND VISTA….
install rinetd
edit /etc/rinetd.conf
include the line “192.168.123.123 445 192.168.123.123 139″ where 192.168.123.123 is the IP of the Samba server; 445 is the port of Vista’s smb use, and 139 is Samba’s smb port…
Posted by lefty.crupps on 30-Dec-2007 at 11:10 am
Some advice from me on kde stuff;
You can avoid turning off launch feedback (which is rather nice IMO) by working around the kubuntu bug of the mp3 thingy. If you open kcontrol and find the mimetypes kcm you can remove all applications that are registered for the mp3 mimetype so kde will just complain there is no app instead.
Konqueror has a feature of ‘right button is back’ which you might want to use instead of the (IMOHO obsolete) imwheel.
KMail can use maildir and mbox dirs without problems; even have different folders of different formats. This is really useful since you can ‘convert’ your mailbox by just dragging all of them to another folder. Note the kmail configuration option of the default format for new mailboxes.
The systray is a open-desktop wide spec; so all apps should implement it and thus being able to show up in your systray. If they don’t (and claim to support systray docking) thats a buggy app.
Posted by Thomas Zander on 30-Dec-2007 at 8:22 pm
Kubuntu is real mess….doesn’t stand anywhere in front of Ubuntu….
But there are problems with Ubuntu as well…..biggest of all is that Ubuntu defaults to GNOME….
I have used Ubuntu for long time…..currently using Gutsy….everything works fine….but the problem is of customization….GNOME doesn’t allow me to change things the way i want….with time i get bored and a little frustrated with this fact….although things work fine but this should not mean that one can not change his/her system….
other is that Ubuntu seems really slow to me….may be it is something related to GNOME….
and finally Amarok….this is something i can’t live without…..its the best Music player you will ever play with…..Although i can run it in GNOME, but it takes too much time to load and also takes up too much of RAM in GNOME causing further slow down of system…K3b is also great app (though Brasero in GNOME has filled this void)
You wrote that you are using PCLinuxOS….thats a really fine OS….one of best of KDE distro….but its development cycle seems slow….and apps are limitedin repoistories….and the fact that they have concept of paid servers under which they provide updates first to paid user makes me reluctant to use PCLinuxOS….this is something against Linux principles (at least i think so…..)
i am currently downloading Mandriva 2008…..seems its a really good KDE distro….
Posted by cyneuron on 1-Jan-2008 at 11:42 pm
cyneuron,
Mandriva is a great distro, but don’t give up on PCLinuxOS for the wrong reasons. While it is true that updates appear first on the Pass servers, this seems to be more due to logistics than to a desire of encouraging more donations. Updates appear on the regular servers withing a couple of days, usually. It is not like the old practice Mandriva used to have of releasing first to Club members and a month or more latter to the community. I really like the fact that PCLinuxOS offers the option of faster, more reliable, servers to those willing to give a small donation ($20 is barely more than a meal at a Chinese restaurant for crying out loud.) I wish all distros offered this choice, including Mandriva who’s mirrors are often slow.
Any way, the Mini Me version of PClinuxOS 2008 is out, and it is awesome!
Posted by rm42 on 11-Jan-2008 at 7:58 am
Hello
I understand you, I just bought the Aspire 4720Z, and tried
Ubuntu, everything worked except for the sound(it’s seems to be
detected, all volume up, but I got no sound from the speakers) and the wifi, (atheros AR5700EG). Wi’ll like to hear from your experiences.
Posted by Nemea Lion on 22-Jan-2008 at 6:41 am