Erik Anderson wrote: >On 5/18/05, ptbecker <pt-becker at comcast.net> wrote: > > >>Hi >>Well I'm not a total newbie as I had Suse on this machine for a few >>years and now moved to ubuntu. I'm pleasantly surprised with ubuntu even >>though I'm not hip with gnome. >> >> > >I haven't used this, but there *is* a project out there called kubuntu >(http://www.kubuntu.org/) that, from what I can tell, is ubuntu w/ a >KDE GUI. You may want to try that if you're not happy w/ gnome. > >-Erik > > > Here are some of my experiences with Ubuntu, for what they're worth. I have installed both the KDE and Gnome varieties: Ubuntu Warty and Hoary (Gnome), and Kubuntu Hoary. Also, on this system I'm using now, I started with the Gnome, then changed to KDE by installing the kde and kde-desktop packages. I've been pleased with all of the installations; for the most part everything "just works", though there are a few annoying bugs (as there are in any distribution I have seen). I had some of the same problems you did with synaptic calling for the cdrom. I don't know exactly what I did to solve the problem -- it just went away. I think the trick is to be sure your internet connection is working when you do the install. Then synaptic will be configured during the initial set-up and you don't have to fuss with finding the base repositories. You do have to go back and add the "Universe" repositories if you want the extended set of packages, but that can be done after the rest of the install is complete. I like to run Knoppix first on any system before I start an install -- Knoppix is pretty good at figuring out your hardware, and if networks, drives, etc work with Knoppix then chances are good the other install will go smoothly. But if Knoppix has a problem, prepare for headaches and googling for hints. I've heard of a live CD for Ubuntu, but I've never used it. KDE and Gnome each have their pros and cons; I personally prefer KDE. But I have run into a couple of real annoying bugs with the KDE install (though they may be fixed by now, I found work-arounds). One, Ubuntu uses su for administration; you never log in as root. But KDE would not allow me to go to "administrator mode" in the Control Center. I found one fix, which is: edit /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc, and change AllowRootLogin to =true. The other major bug is described here: https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=10035 Briefly, synaptic has a dependency conflict with a kdedata-libs package. Attempts to fix it will sometimes remove all your icons and menus from the KDE desktop and panel. The fix found in the bug report worked for me: Same problem on two Kubuntu PCs. I worked around the problem with: dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/kdelibs-data_4%3a3.4.0-0ubuntu3.1_all.deb apt-get -f install Another minor thing is that Kubuntu installs "kynaptic" by default, instead of synaptic. kynaptic seems to be missing some of synaptic's functions (or maybe they're just different and I can't see them). Anyway, I just installed synaptic, and use that. There are a few differences between my straight Kubuntu installation and the Ubuntu (gnome) with KDE added. The most significant, to me, is the login manager. With my laptop here (gnome>KDE) I have to log out of KDE, then wait to get back to the gnome logout in order to shut down. With the pure KDE system, shutting down is only one step. I could probably fix this, but I haven't yet figured out how. Anyway, good luck with Ubuntu. I think you'll like it. Kraig