I finally managed to find some time to install Kubuntu 8.10 last Friday 9 November. I got the Live Kubuntu CD and installation is as usual, simple and easy (with the graphical interface) and within 30 mins, I had Kubuntu up and running.
Tip for those who don’t already know: since I had Kubuntu 8.04 and didn’t want to lose my files when “upgrading”. I backed them up, to be safe, and then when installing, I chose not to format my existing ext3 partition. This works wonders since I didn’t lose any data from this partition and I didn’t even have to use my saves, after reinstalling firefox and thunderbird, all my mails and plugins were there – really awesome!
Once up, everything is as smooth and sleek as usual. Compared to Kubuntu 8.04 which was very unstable with KDE 4.0, Kubuntu 8.10 appears rock solid like the previous versions.
But … the looks!
Yeah, there need to be a big but coming! I use Kubuntu coz I prefer the KDE interface to Gnome. However, since KDE has moved over to version 4, I’m not really happy with the interface…
- Katapult: It has disappeared. It’s not really that bad since ALT+F2 is now much better and does what Katapult used to do and is much better than the previous ALT+F2, yet not as good as Spotlight or Quicksilver on Mac. I quickly changed the shortcut to ALT+Space … old habits don’t die easily
- Window borders: The default is Plastik! I changed over to Oxygen and Ozone and it still looks ugly! It’s a pity and a shame!
- The Dashboard: On Macs, the dashboard is messily packed with useful stuff but it’s hidden. I surely don’t want my desktop to be as crowded as that and so Macs wisely hides the dashboard with F4. Kubuntu 8.10 has a dashboard but it’s your desktop and surely looks messy
- LTS: Since we’ve moved to KDE 4, we’ve not had any LTS version for Kubuntu while we have it for Ubuntu. This makes Kubuntu look like the ugly duckling of the Ubuntu family
I’ve only had it for a few days and maybe I’ll get used to it but if I don’t I think that I’ll be moving to Ubuntu soon. Gnome looks much better these days, why not try it.
November 24, 2008 at 5:51 pm
gnome was always better
btw, why didn’t you use the upgrade tool? this would’ve been faster!
November 24, 2008 at 7:51 pm
It would just have taken far too long to download on my poor internet connection. When re-installing, if the CD is available, the PC is ready to be used in 30 mins.
November 25, 2008 at 3:05 pm
there should be some rich dude to have opensource stuffs mirrored on akamai :p
April 4, 2009 at 7:22 pm
How did you manage to change the shortcut key of katapult from alt+F2 to alt+space?? I’m new to kubuntu 8.10 and i still can’t find the settings to do that!! Seems that i made a mistake install 8.10!