Kubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish review - Okay, not LTS-y enough

Let us do some distro testing! Today, we have a detailed, somewhat mildly negative review of Kubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish, tested in a mixed triple-boot Windows-and-Linux configuration on a laptop with UEFI, AMD Ryzen processor, Vega graphics, and NVMe storage, covering live session, installation, and post-install usage, including first impression, partitioning and setup, look and feel, visual customization, theming, fonts, and display scaling, package management, applications, everyday use, media playback, Samba sharing, performance, responsiveness, resource utilization, battery life, various bugs and problems, and more. Take a look.

https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/kubuntu-jammy.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Thanks very much for the review.
As you said, the dot release will probably be better, but that doesn't take away the frustration with 22.04.
And how annoying that KSysGuard is no longer in the repos for 22.04, I didn't expect that.
Regarding VLC and Elisa, the latter being the default, no configuration available for the default media player - it was rather similar with Kubuntu 20.04. What I did, in Dolphin, for several file types, in file properties, I changed the application preference order, I moved VLC media player up (and even removed Elisa as preferential application). That works, but it should be simpler.

 

Thanks.

 

Kate was also mentioned in the review.
The new tab navigation arrows caught my attention, as for a moment I had some hope it could be helpful in regard to one certain issue - but I don't think so.
Therefore, the following is off topic, if that's OK - just in case someone has a solution to my problem.

In Kate on Kubuntu 20.04, and earlier, on 18.04, when one opens a series of documents in Kate, the next document is opened in a tab to the left to the first one. If I open a series of documents, I like the next ones to open in tabs to the right of the first one. The only way to accomplish that, is opening a series of documents in reverse order, or to rearrange the tabs afterwards. If anyone knows of another way, please tell. Thanks!

 

Great read as always, @Mrkvonic . Thanks!

Has this been fixed yet?

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...-fossa-purrs-like-a-bear.428457/#post-3027086

A small annoyance but one that finally made me decide to delete my Kubuntu partition.

 

Hi Krusty,
Wow, you deleted your Kubuntu partition because of that?

The issue wasn't fixed in Kubuntu 20.04.
But I think the issue is fixed in 22.04, according to the info in this thread, in particular comment 36, which says the issue no longer affects plasma-discover on Jammy (22.04):
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ source/fwupd/ bug/1943833
To be sure, I asked in this thread, this post:
https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/issues/3652#issuecomment-1127374049

 

Hi Stupendous Man,

Yeah, I know it was probably a very minor bug but it irked me. I felt like I was using a broken OS and wondered what else more important may have been broken "under the hood". It obviously wasn't considered as needing a fix in any case.

Thanks for the links. I shall watch with great interest.

I've temporarily installed 22.04 in dual boot with Windows to see if I find any new bugs that annoy me.

Cheers!

 

Most likely.

 

Not the solution you want, but Featherpad, a small qt-based text editor in the standard repos, opens new docs to the right. But it lacks block selection mode which is a pity. If I need that mode, I use Kate or Vim.

 

Thanks, vasa1. I read FeatherPad has been the default text editor in Lubuntu since 18.10. I find a few articles mentioning FeatherPad as the Lubuntu text editor and a Dedoimedo article mentioning it as MX Linux text editor, I see it's also mentioned at the MX Linux forum.
I will keep FeatherPad in mind, for if I really need a text editor that opens new documents to the right, instead of in tabs to the left as in Kate.

 

KDE is a powerful and big desktop environment and requries the same amount of QA and patching.
While Kubuntu is an official spin of Ubuntu the bulk of QA goes on the “default“ spin which is Ubuntu.
Sad but true.

 

@Krusty,

LightTemplar confirmed the issue is fixed in Kubuntu 22.04,
https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/issues/3652#issuecomment-1133778966

And I understand you were testing Kubuntu 22.04, as well?
Can you confirm the 'Failed to update metadata for lvfs' issue in Discover is fixed in Kubuntu 22.04?

 

There's often a lot of murk within the Linux world but as I understand it Kubuntu is owned by Blue Systems and not by Canonical. If this is still the case I'm not sure how much they might talk to each other regarding bugs and development.

 

I updated to Kubuntu 22.04 and I still have that issue.

 

Kubuntu is a trademark of Canonical Ltd.
It seems that Blue Systems sponsored Kubuntu development officially and directly in the past . I don't know if it is still the case.

 

Oh, that's not good.
I wonder if the difference could be in an upgrade vs a clean install.

 

I can't confirm whether the issue is fixed or not because I didn't have Kubuntu 22.04 installed long enough. It ran fine until it installed updates at which point the system became useless. Everything locked up and took ages for any programs to open, if at all, as well as losing internet connection. I tried probably a dozen installs all ending up in the same situation after installing updates. Losing internet connection was weird because I was using an Ethernet lead, not WiFi.

 

Me neither. I was aware Canonical hold copyright to the name but not how much they might be involved with the development. Among the projects listed by BlueSystems no mention of Kubuntu.

 

Eek! That's terrible!
I wonder what went wrong. I hope someone reports those issues and they get fixed.
Thanks for testing, Krusty.

 

@Mrkvonic,
For your Kubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish review, I suppose you let it install updates. If that resulted in the kind of mishap like Krusty experienced, I reckon you would have mentioned.
Do you have any idea what went wrong with Krusty's installation, after installing updates?

 

Yup, but then every machine is different. No idea really. I would need to do a much deeper investigation.
Mrk

 

I tried one more time. With Ethernet, although it said I was connected it would not transfer data at all = no download / upload speed = updates failing and no connections in Firefox. I even tried an Ethernet to USB adapter but got the same result.

WiFi seemed to work, and I could just about live with that, but trying to enter text for some reason had a delayed effect. For example, I opened Firefox and started typing wilderssecurity.com only to look up and see only the last half of text displayed. I played with this by typing slower but again, keystroked were not displaying.

I never had these particular bugs with 20.4 so I don't know why now.

I've tried different ISO downloads, multiple bootable media created by RUFUS, different UFDs so I am all out of ideas and patience. Kubuntu 22.04 is not for this machine. Shame, because I really wanted to like it.

 

@Krusty,
Thanks again for testing.
I cannot say what can be the cause of your issues, but I wonder if your network adapter may not be fully supported, for some reason.
Could you share your network adapter brand and version?
Perhaps in time we can find some information in relation to poorly supported network adapters.
Also: In the installation process, in the Software section, have you checked "Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware and additional media formats"? This is not checked by default. I would think it should not be a necessity for Ethernet controllers, but I cannot rule out it may now be a necessity for your specific network adapter.

 

A Google search reports a lot of issues with both new installs of 22.04 or upgrades from 20.04. Most list Wi-Fi but some also Network Manager and it's my guess this is where the issue is rather than with a specific card or adapter. If you have or can borrow a USB Wi-Fi adapter with luck this might work otherwise I'd install a different system until they get this fixed.

 

Hi @Stupendous Man ,

Windows Device Manager reports it as, "Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller".

I considered this during one of the previous installs but no propriety drivers got installed.

Hi @Gringo95 ,

This PC has WiFi onboard and that did appear to work but as I mentioned earlier, I was also having keystroke issues too so for that reason I shall pass on 22.04.