Kubuntu Natty Narwhal review - KDElicious!

I've written a long and rather enthusiastic review of Kubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, with KDE 4.6 desktop, covering live session, installation and post-install usage; topics include Wireless, Samba sharing, look and feel, desktop effects, applications, Firefox 4 installation wizard, application desktop integration, package management, system stability, responsiveness, resource usage, battery life optimization, suspend & resume, extras, future outlook, and more. This ought to be pretty interesting.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/kubuntu-natty.html


Regards,
Mrk

 

Hah ! Looks like something for me. That and SL6 should do the trick.
Brilliant review and thanks.

PS. The 9.9/10 ... starting to sound like gymnasts scorecards, for more fine-grained 'depth' to those interesting ratings how about upping the scale to X/100 .. ha ..ha

(tlu has made a good decision in choosing kde.)

 

The scale is not linear, btw
Mrk

 

didnt try kubuntu 11.04 yet nice review i download and try it soon

for me after fedora 13 ( i hate they didnt made SL on fedora 13 which is best fedora distro so far)

choices are SL + ubuntu unity (kubuntu 11.04 ) or linux mint

or

opensuse + ubuntu unity or linux mint

or

fedora 15 kde + linux mint or unity


also love to see your review on mandriva linux

kde 4.6 is welcome but gnome 3 and unity not left much options even for gnome powers users

hope unity mature by that time

 

Before I switch to Kubuntu: does anyone know if there are keyboard shortcuts to maximize/minimize windows? They aren't present in other KDE-based distros, as far as I can tell.

 

Wonder how much time Mrk spent on coming up with that thread title? And did it influence his review? KDElicious. Who would have seen or thought of that? Anyway, nice review, Mrk. It almost made me want to try KDE again...key word here is "almost"...but not quite.

Later...

Bob

 

I only have one remark.

I disagree. One of the things i hated in GNOME, and had to tweak, was fonts and buttons. I was ok with the colors, but huge buttons and fonts were awful.
I hope they keep teh professional look.

 

Hi , encouraged by Mrk's review I've loaded up Kubuntu but a couple of things have completely foxed me . At some point I've lost today's date in the bottom task bar line and readding the Digital Clock widget doesn't help . Ditto I've lost the 'Return to Desktop Icon' which originally was next to the Kickoff Launcher . The default colour for the Taskbar has a black background which I'd dearly like to change , and it's been floundering around trying to do that which has caused most of the problems . Is there also a way to do that ?

 

Look in KDE System Settings. There you can customize icons and colors. As for the Desktop icon, its really a widget and you have to unlock widgets to find and install it. Then lock it in place to prevent accidental removal.

 

Thanks for your review, Mrk - you confirmed my positive impression Moving to Kubuntu again was the right decision

 

Inspired by this flavorful article, I installed Debian Wheezy KDE (4.6.3) and I do notice that my laptop is running hot to the point that it shuts off.
This is not my experience with Debian Wheezy Gnome (2.3)
I basically use my laptop the same way with the same applications (Google Chrome for browsing, for example)

Thought I should mention my experience.
(happens also with disabled desktop effects)

 

From what i saw, kubuntu uses the performance power mode.
If you turn this to balanced, do you see a difference in performance/heating?

Mrk

 

wilbertnl, clean the fan!
Seriously though, something's wrong there (duh). I'm running Wheezy with KDE too, and i don't have that problem. I actually only ever had that, when the fan was stuck.

 

Yes, default is 'performance' when AC adapter is plugged in, I changed that to 'power save' mode, which is default for AC adapter unplugged.

That does help, but not as much that I won't worry about it anymore.
Interesting, I have noticed this before when playing with different distro's. I assumed it was the distro and never thought of the difference being the desktop environment.

Ah, Pedro, great suggestion, I think that part of the problem is the design of this HP laptop, which has the vent at the back downwards. It already helps when I lift up the back to improve the flow. Google says this is a common problem with certain laptop models.
I tried to get to the fan before, it's a pain. And then: Windows and Gnome run much cooler!

 

I made JANUSVM to work in Windows
...so how do I make it run in Kubuntu?

 

Perhaps you need to install VMware player?

 

Notes from a non expert:

Besides looking around in System Settings, maybe you can try laptop-mode-tools.
It's purpose is battery saving, turning off the HD when idle, but it may run the laptop cooler.
And check 'cat /proc/cpuinfo', and 'cpufreq-info' to see the CPU frequency. The latter needs cpufrequtils, and will tell you among other things, what governor is being used.
What i'm not sure about is if cpufrequtils changes that on install, and i don't know what Debian does on install by default. Mine is ondemand. Maybe there's a way to check before installing cpufrequtils? Mrk?
More:
http://wiki.debian.org/HowTo/CpuFrequencyScaling

Disclaimer: .... catches fire... electrocution.. Mike Tyson knocking on your door.. etc.

 

Thank you very much, non-expert Pedro
I have also noticed that the nouveau video driver runs the system hotter than the NVidia video driver (which is quickly fixed).
Anyway, I thought I would mention my experience, perhaps your laptop runs well, but at the same time power consumption might be higher compared to other desktop environments.

 

I have a few other geeky ideas in mind, but your advice is sound.
Mrk

 

According to http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nouveau_linux3&num=1 the proprietary Nvidia driver is still considerably faster than Nouveau.

 

I'd love to see an article that can acclimate Gnome users to KDE. I've been wanting to move to KDE but when I use it doesn't conform to my style or usage. I guess I need to read a book or something.

 

If you have a proper card, use the proper driver, I say
I always go for the proprietary one.
Mrk

 

It's probably hard to believe, but after reinstalling a different desktop environment from Debian Wheezy (and no optimalizations) while performing the same activity (rsync over local network) the laptop stays considerably cooler. With KDE it would shut off after a short time.

 

I've got to agree, 11.04 is a polished release. The only changes i'd make is removing amarok for clementine. Amarok imo, is a nightmare to use. Big and clunky and slow while being difficult to navigate. Clementine is the polar opposite and works well, I urge any kde users to give it a try. Also rekonq is buggy at the moment. Arora or opera are far better, maturer qt browsers.

 

For me still the best is Songbird. Although it's no longer "officially" developed for Linux, the deb's from getdeb work flawlessly for me.