Comments on: Disasterous Kubuntu Hardy upgrade to Intrepid

By: Jerry Gartner

Jerry Gartner — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:36:39 +0000

It’s always a good idea to back up your “precious data” when upgrading ANY operating system. I keep mine on a separate partition. It’s also always a good idea to read release notes and check the HCL prior to upgrades. Again, this applies to any operating system. (to wit: hardware that works just fine for Windows XP or Ubuntu Hardy may not work with Vista or Intrepid).

By: Goodbye Kubuntu, thou foul and fickle temptress. Hello faithful Debian, thy time come round again… « Stochastic Geometry

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:47:12 +0000

[…] and thought about using Ubuntu for a while. In fact, I’d been thinking about it when I wrote the blog post on the upgrade. And the conclusion I came to was this; I started using Linux with Debian, way back in the days […]

By: rm42

rm42 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:14:26 +0000

@Mark,

PCLinuxOS is very stable. I am writing this on a machine that has been getting upgrades continuously since 2007. (That reminds me, there are new updates on the repo. Got to go. 😉

By: Mark Dennehy

Mark Dennehy — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:48:35 +0000

@Dave – thanks, but I installed the linux-backports-modules-intrepid package and now the problem is solved the same way a shotgun to the head cures a headache – I can’t connect to the 802.1X network in the lab now at all, so my laptop is now utterly useless in work.

@Joe – it’s not so much that I like KDE as that I disliked GNOME. I *liked* Windowmaker, but I needed networkmanager as the laptop moves about so much and knetworkmanager/networkmanager-applet was the easier route there.

On rolling releases – yay, so instead of one clusterbleep every six months they can happen randomly and continously? Bleh.

I’m seriously looking at just dropping K/Ubuntu completely and Xubuntu (which I’m hobbling along in right now) and going back to my debian roots. I don’t need it to be flashy, I need this stuff to *work*.

And yes, I have backups (external HDD via IEEE1394) so it’s not as bad as it could have been – but it means a weekend of unnecessary work instead of doing something that produces something, and it means losing time until then. I don’t think I’ll be recommending Ubuntu to anyone for a few more years.

By: tm

tm — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:22:39 +0000

I hear you. What’s with Ubuntu ? Seems like they are doing what Micrsloff has been doing for so many eyars. ” Just get the software out there, who cares if it works or not ” . I agree with Mark and I also agree with a rolling release instead of a whole shebang every six months. I finally broke myself of the bad habit of installing a new distro every time some website says they’ve got the latest cool stuff. Who cares … I just want to be able to to use a word processor, spreadsheet program, get on the internet, remotely connect, have the wi-fi work and use a calendar / PIM all while listening to some music. My vote is for stability and functionality.

By: rb

rb — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:39:02 +0000

Debian. even unstable has _SOME_ quality assurance. I’ve had _two_ packages break using unstable and both were easy to identify and fix.

By: rm42

rm42 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:29:31 +0000

If you want smooth upgrades you are better off going with a “Rolling Release” distro like PCLinuxOS or Arch. PCLinuxOS has a brand new release (with KDE 3.5.10). I highly recommend that you give it a try.

By: David

David — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:54:40 +0000

> K/X/Ubuntu’s upgrades have always been broken.

This is a pretty strong stance. I have followed Kubuntu versions on my home laptop from Dapper to Intrepid, and only the last one was a total gong show. At work, my MacBook Pro is going through the Ubuntu releases since Gutsy and had no issue.

I bitterly regret to have upgraded to Kubuntu Intrepid and will replace it with Ubuntu Intrepid as soon as I will have enough time to do so.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:51:05 +0000

If you like KDE, I suggest Mandriva or openSuSE. After using Kubuntu for a year, opensuse is much nicer.

By: ProducedRaw

ProducedRaw — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:45:12 +0000

K/X/Ubuntu’s upgrades have always been broken. I suggest that you try Arch Linux (www.archlinux.org) as it avoids this problem by implementing a rolling release as opposed to a release every 6 months. I have used it for close to a year without incident.