As I figured, kubuntu dist-upgrade is crap

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 11:42 pm

For grins I decided to see how well kubuntu would upgrade from breezy to dapper. In a word (or two), it was "completely fscked." Upgrading removed kde, hal, dbus, and nearly everything else besides a totally bare bones system. So to the fanbois out there, please don't tell me that the upgrade process is quick and easy - it's totally broken, and has been since warty. I'm sure that you can point me to a wiki or forum post somewhere that will show how I made some grave error - I actually don't care. Sure, some breakage can be expected - a totally useless system should not be.

I was planning on doing a fresh install anyway, but I have to admit that this was even beyond my expectations of crappiness.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 12:32 am

Yeah, I usually don't have much luck upgrading Linux distros from one release to another. Usually I experience exactly what you mentioned. In order to upgrade, half the packages need to be removed, and you're left with a broken system. That happened awhile back when I tried upgrading Slack 10.2 to current, and tried upgrading Debian Sarge to Etch. Both times they left my system borked.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 8:24 am

Well, I've been through several upgrades of many different systems, and I can honestly say that this one was the worst. Oh, and FWIW, although I've heard several people say it's possible to get a "clean" install of kde with kubuntu, I certainly don't see how. Even kdebase is completely kubuntu-ized.

Post by **Patrick** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 8:27 am

I still think Ubuntu+KDE is more stable and reliable than Kubuntu. My upgrade for the most part was painless.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 8:55 am

Wally Balljacker wrote:Yeah, I usually don't have much luck upgrading Linux distros from one release to another. Usually I experience exactly what you mentioned. In order to upgrade, half the packages need to be removed, and you're left with a broken system. That happened awhile back when I tried upgrading Slack 10.2 to current, and tried upgrading Debian Sarge to Etch. Both times they left my system borked.

I have the same experience, especially if you add a lot of custom packages from community repositories, and tweak the system a lot during the months you use it.
One thing I know can be troublesome when upgrading SUSE, at in my cases, is that when I add a lot of community repositories to get a non-crippled (I don't blame SUSE for shipping a not-so-featured Xine) versions of Xine and other goof stuff like ffmpeg, MPlayer, VLC etc. etc. etc., YaST can't really take that into consideration because the new version of SUSE also has a crippled Xine, so it generally gets very very messy. What I did when I upgraded from 10.0 to 10.1 was that I told YaST that I wanted to do a new install, and it should just format /boot, / and /usr/local (Yes, I do have a seperate partition for that) and mount /home without doing anything, that way I got a clean install without risinking anything braking, and it didn't take me any longer than an upgrade process would.

Patrick wrote:I still think Ubuntu+KDE is more stable and reliable than Kubuntu.

How can that be since it's the same packages you use? The kubuntu-desktop packages is just a dummy package that depends on all the stuff a clean Kubuntu installation gets you out of the box.

By the way, I installed Kubuntu 6.06 on my Mac mini, and I was pleasantly surprised, stable and quite snappy, and what really blew me away was that it's support for danish is very good (Which has been a huge roadblock for me when trying to get my friends to use Linux).

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 10:44 am

Patrick wrote:I still think Ubuntu+KDE is more stable and reliable than Kubuntu. My upgrade for the most part was painless.

My only problem with installing KDE, or Xfce, or whatever on top of standard Ubuntu, is that it ends up turning my system into a frankenstein mess. I installed Xfce + Xubuntu-desktop onto Ubuntu, and it changed my GDM display theme, and boot up splash to Xubuntu, but my shut down splash remained Ubuntu. The menus also end up getting all borked up with apps from each desktop bleeding into the other.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 10:48 am

Wally Balljacker wrote:
Patrick wrote:I still think Ubuntu+KDE is more stable and reliable than Kubuntu. My upgrade for the most part was painless.
My only problem with installing KDE, or Xfce, or whatever on top of standard Ubuntu, is that it ends up turning my system into a frankenstein mess. I installed Xfce + Xubuntu-desktop onto Ubuntu, and it changed my GDM display theme, and boot up splash to Xubuntu, but my shut down splash remained Ubuntu. The menus also end up getting all borked up with apps from each desktop bleeding into the other.

I agree, last time I tried installing KDE on "Ubuntu" I had GNOME icons all over the place, no offense to any GNOME users in here, but the GNOME icons just don't fit in with KDE's default color schemes, likewise KDE icons fit very well into GNOME's default color scheme.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 9:24 pm

what really blew me away was that it's support for danish is very good

Mmmm - danish.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 2:11 am

Well, I did the nasty and clean-installed it on my lappy - turned out pretty nice. I used the classic installer, AKA the "Alternative Installer" since I don't really find installing from a live disk enjoyable - didn't like it on knoppix, didn't like it on kanotix, and doubt I'll like it on kubuntu. As I've mentioned before, so far I find Dapper much nicer than Breezy or Hoary, and a lot of the issues that really bothered me have been cleared up. I guess that a few weeks of regular use will be required before I can say anything for sure. One thing I like so far is that they seem to have abandoned the macintosh ripoff kcontrol they favored for so long - after upgrading to kde 3.5.3 it's back to good old kcontrol without my having to change a thing - nice! Next to work on changing back from the "simple browser" which I can't stand - I completely understand that it might be a better design for web browsing (though I disagree) - it is certainly NOT a better choice for file-browsing.

So, final score:

dist-upgrade: sucktastic, though I fully expected it to be
actual install: so far so good

I've also ordered a bunch of different pressed disks - I work at an ISP and so far have given away a bunch of disks there, and though I realize most people probably just toss them in the corner and never look at them again, it's something to do. I don't belong to a lug, and the gen-pop *really* prefer pressed disks over SharpieWare.

curuxz · Post by **curuxz** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 3:37 am

Kubuntu can be a real pain in the ass, while Im a KDE user my self (because both my pc's have 2 screens and Gnome sucks with multi-monitor) I always install ubuntu and then KDE.

Personaly I think the problem stems from the lib's in Kubuntu are way less than the ones in gnome and to run loads of applications without crashing in a fireball after 3 seconds you need to have gnome installed even if you dont use it

In my experience using KDE in Ubuntu is a really good idea but it will take you a few hours of converting things and setting up the system else like others have said you will have a very odd install.

StoneChucker · Post by **StoneChucker** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 11:51 am

I used a 5.10 Ubuntu CD to clean install on my new laptop, then added the kubuntu-desktop option.

After rebooting, I logged into a console, and performed a dist-upgrade.

2 hours or so later (over a wifi connection), I'm running a Kubuntu Dapper setup.

no1important · Post by **no1important** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 5:04 pm

I upgraded from breezy to Dapper on my one hard drive and Firefox won't work, it starts and asks if I want to re star previous session and if I hit yes or no it just crashes.

I can use firefox under su root but it is not the same one as I have.

Xine is all messed up, won't play anything....as is amaroK....

I just noticed a bunch of bugs and glitches with it. I upgraded through adept.

Maybe I should of waited a while before upgrading as I had Breezer set up sweet and was running great. But I like to keep up to date.

If you go to the Kubuntu forums you can see the problems people are having with dapper.

It works fine for the most part and looks good but the firefox/amaroK/Xine problems annoy the hell out of me. I just hope I do not find anymore.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 8:35 pm

So far, for some reason fn+f12 no longer hibernates my lappy, and it's possible swsuspend has gotten slower - either that or I was really hoping for a speedup. It litterally seems to take as long to unsuspend my lappy at this point as it did to boot my lappy when I had arch on it. For some reason the ubuntu folk decided not to upgrade to the most recent kaffeine, and the old issue with seriously blown out sound if the kaffeine volume isn't set to max is still around. It does, however, remind me how much I preferred the layout of the 7 series over the new 8 series - I still like kaffeine a lot, but I really think they screwed up the interface recently.