A blue monday, it seems. Behold, a grumpy, mostly negative review of Kubuntu 24.04 LTS, tested on a 10-year-old laptop with hybrid Intel and Nvidia graphics and recent SSD upgrade, covering live session, installation, and post-install usage, including bland look and feel, sluggish mouse pointer, non-intuitive partitioning and encryption step, blurry installer wizard slides, enormous difficulties with the graphics driver setup, lack of GUI-driven drivers utility, use of CLI-driven drivers tool recommended autoinstall option and subsequent loss of network and display-resolution anomaly, previous kernel recovery, manual driver setup, boot time, responsiveness, suspend and resume behavior, average default program set, extra software setup - GIMP, VLC and Steam, severe Plasma System Monitor lag, numerous functional and performance regressions in comparison to Linux distributions from a decade ago, various bugs and issues related to the desktop, other observations, and more. Take a look, if you want. https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/kubuntu-24-04-review.html Cheers, Mrk
I have used it for a few days too, got a few problems with Virtualbox (Kubuntu being the host), moved to MX KDE, so far so good.
@Mrkvonic, In Kubuntu 24.04, with the default "Kubuntu" global theme, and the "Kubuntu Focus" Plasma style, I notice elements like the panel and the application launcher menu have higher transparency than was the case with Kubuntu 22.04. I don't like this high transparency. Most importantly, I don't like the desktop wallpaper colors showing through the panel. Unfortunately, in panel edit mode, more options, the default "Kubuntu" global theme and "Kubuntu Focus" Plasma style do not offer the option to change panel transparency or opacity. I could try changing the global theme to "Breeze Twilight", and see if that offers options to change panel transparency or opacity. However, I don't know if switching theme or style and switching back could mess up things. I haven't dared to try it yet. I vaguely remember you once wrote you didn't have best results with switching themes or styles, but I could be wrong, I may be remembering incorrectly. In your Kubuntu 24.04 review - Back in 2007 article, I noticed one image in which transparency had changed to opaque. First: transparent panel; next: opaque panel. The final desktop screenshot showed panel transparency was back. Now I wonder, the moment the panel was opaque, was that just a temporal glitch, or was it because of some setting you tried?
Thanks very much. Indeed, that helps. The result is very much as was in your image with the opaque panel. Did you remember that was what you did back then - turn compositing off? I never thought I would need or even want to turn compositing off. But I was wrong. I found the option to disable compositing on startup in System Settings > Hardware > Display and Monitor > Compositor. But for quick testing, the option you mentioned last year was ideal: Shift + Alt + F12. Thanks again!
I notice a drawback of disabling compositing. With compositing disabled, in Firefox I see a thin horizontal line with distortion when scrolling. Perhaps disabling compositing does not work nicely with Firefox smooth scrolling. I prefer the transparent panel annoyance over the distortion in Firefox.
Kubuntu 24.04 third review - It's shaping up nicely Here's a third follow-up, mostly positive review of Kubuntu 24.04 LTS, tested on a 10-year-old laptop with hybrid Intel and Nvidia graphics and recent SSD upgrade, covering system updates and associated problems, old and new bugs, improved boot speed, improved system responsiveness and performance, everyday use, modern and latest software, battery life, some other observations, and more. Enjoy. https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/kubuntu-24-04-third.html Cheers, Mrk
@Mrkvonic, Thanks for the third Kubuntu 24.04 review. (Or indeed fourth, including "Kubuntu 24.04 slowly but majorly improving") Good that it's shaping up. In the article, I notice the opaque panel. Was that because of disabling compositing? If so, did you try Firefox with smooth scrolling and Plasma compositing disabled? Did you notice a thin horizontal line with distortion when scrolling, like I mentioned? If not, then I guess what I noticed had something to do with my old graphics or something else entirely.
Yes, it's because of the compositing. I didn't notice any lines. Remind me what card do you have? Mrk
@Mrkvonic, Good that you didn't see any distortion line when scrolling in Firefox, with Plasma compositing disabled. Web searching and reading, I found one person describing a similar distortion line as the distortion lines that could sometimes be seen when viewing an old VHS tape. Web searching, all kind of causes, links, and solutions were mentioned. One was a link with vsync. With earlier versions of KDE Plasma, there was a vsync setting in Compositor settings. With the current version in Kubuntu 24.04, there is no such setting. But I guess there is some link between disabling compositing and the distortion line that I noticed in Firefox with smooth scrolling. I tried disabling Firefox smooth scrolling, but that's not for me. Non-smooth scrolling drives me insane. Regarding my graphics, that is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 (ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 ZONE Edition ZT-60204-20L) (2012). The graphics driver for it in Kubuntu 24.04 is nvidia-driver-470. I have been looking in NVIDIA X Server Settings. I have no idea if there is anything in there that would resolve the distortion lines with Firefox smooth scrolling and Plasma compositing disabled. Same thing with Firefox about:config preferences. Web searching, I found a host of conflicting suggestions and opinions.
Do you have vsync enabled/disabled for your card in nvidia control panel? Try the opposite of whatever's selected, see if that makes a difference. Mrk
Thanks. In NVIDIA X Server Settings / X Screen 0 / OpenGL Settings / there is "Sync to VBlank". Am I correct to assume that is the vsync setting? I disabled "Sync to VBlank" and disabled compositing using Shift + Alt + F12. The distortion line in Firefox with smooth scrolling was still there. Or would the change for "Sync to VBlank" require a logout or reboot to see the result? If so, then I could try that later.
Thanks. In System Settings, I disabled compositing, and in NVIDIA X Server Settings, I disabled Sync to VBlank, and rebooted. Unfortunately, it didn't help; the distortion line in Firefox with smooth scrolling was still there. Enabling compositing by using Shift + Alt + F12 resolved the issue. I restored settings and rebooted. On my system, the distortion line in Firefox with smooth scrolling and compositing disabled is best noticeable in large images. My screen is a 27" iiyama ProLite E2773HDS, 1920x1080; the refresh rate is limited to 60 Hz. Edit As a non-native English speaker, I confused translucency and transparency. In this thread, where I wrote "transparent" or "transparency", I meant translucent and translucency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_and_translucency Compared to Kubuntu 22.04 and earlier, panel translucency is higher in Kubuntu 24.04 with the default "Kubuntu" global theme and the "Kubuntu Focus" Plasma style. In Kubuntu 22.04 and earlier, panel translucency was low, it was almost opaque. In Kubuntu 24.04, desktop and translucent panel look magnificent, but as soon as I use applications with maximized windows, the translucent panel at the bottom is a bit of an eyesore. @Mrkvonic, Thanks again for the suggestions.
@Mrkvonic, Thanks again for the suggestions. Regarding the matter of panel translucency, I found a way in Kubuntu 24.04 settings to change the panel to dark opaque. System Settings/ Appearance/ Global Theme/ default: Kubuntu. System Settings/ Appearance/ Application Style/ default: Breeze. System Settings/ Appearance/ Cursors/ set to Breeze Light, since I started using Kubuntu in 2020. System Settings/ Appearance/ Plasma Style/ I now changed the default Kubuntu Focus style to Breeze Dark. Next, Enter Edit Mode/ Configure Panel/ More Options/ Opacity/ I changed Adaptive to Opaque. (N.B. This option is not available for the default Kubuntu Focus style, but it is for Breeze Dark.) This does what I want: the panel (and Kickoff application launcher menu as well) is now dark opaque, no longer translucent. Very nice. Just the way I want it. [Edit: 2x \ to / ]
