It is that time of year again: a new Ubuntu release is upon us. The beta version of Ubuntu 8.04 was released a few days ago, so I decided to give it a try and see what new features and improvements they have shoved into this one. As always, this is as much a preview of the latest GNOME release (2.22) as it is of Ubuntu itself. Read on for the preview.You will be happy to find out that you no longer have to boot the entire live desktop before you can install Ubuntu. On the CD’s GRUB menu, there is now an option called “Install Ubuntu”, which will load the installer, but not the entire live desktop. Good effort, since I do not really use the live desktop anyway.
Ubuntu 8.04 comes with X.org 7.3, which adds some interesting, and long-overdue, capabilities to Ubuntu: dynamic changing of resolutions. As far as I am concerned, we break out the champagne, since this is a feature many, many have waited for. It is a shame it has taken so long, but at least we can enjoy it now. A configuration utility has been included (peculiarly located in the Applications menu, instead of the Configuration menu), which also allows you to manage any secondary displays. Laptop users, rejoice.
Another long-overdue and much-awaited update is that Nautilus can now actually be welcomed into the 21st century. GVFS, the new userspace virtual filesystem, improves Nautilus’ performance across the board, and thanks to PolicyKit, Nautilus will actually prompt for the root password if you try to access a restricted location or file, something other operating systems and file managers have been able to do since Citizen Kane came out. Sadly, PolicyKit does not seem to have been integrated fully just yet. If you open as a normal user, say, sources.list, in gedit, edit it around a bit, and try to save it, you cannot. It will not ask you for the root password – it will just simply say “I’m afraid I can’t do that”, and offer a cancel button. Something to work on for the future.
PolicyKit did find its way to other areas, such as the various configuration panels. This means that you can now authorise just actions, instead of entire applications/panels.
Another interesting back-end feature is PulseAudio, an advanced framework for manipulation of audio during its path from application to the sound hardware. This allows for fancy stuff like per-application volume settings, although I did not see an interface for such behaviour in this beta.
Evolution gained an interesting feature, one that I have been waiting for for a while: it will disable the email preview pane after a crash. In the past, I have had Evolution crash on me during particular emails (even plain-text ones), sometimes for no apparent reason. It would crash on those particular emails consistently, which made it difficult to reload Evolution, as it would default the preview pane to the very email that caused the crash. Now, after a crash, Evolution will tell you it has disabled the preview pane, so you can safely delete the email that is causing the problem.
This is, of course, a case of fighting the symptoms, and not the cause. The offending emails would only crash Evolution; they would display fine on Mail.app or Kmail. I hope the Evolution guys realise that this is a very serious problem, and while this stop-gap solution is welcome, it does not fix the actual problems.
The GNOME guys also merged the Keyboard Layout and Keyboard Accessibility preference panels, resulting in a clean and elegant Keyboard Preferences panel. Even though I am not sure if this is at all related, I have been experiencing many keyboard issues while using this beta. For no apparent reason, my keyboard would stop responding, I would find a numeric pad located in the centre of my keyboard, with all other keys disabled, x keyboard errors upon launch, and more of those issues. Sometimes it could be fixed by re-applying the keymap, sometimes it required a reboot to get fixed. I do use one of those fancy aluminium thin Apple keyboards on my normal desktop, so that might affect the issue too. Interestingly, I tried the alpha 3 release of openSUSE 11.0, also with GNOME 2.22 as the desktop, and it gave me similar problems.
Ubuntu 8.04 also includes a crash reporting tool, which sends information to Ubuntu’s Launchpad. You will encounter this tool quite frequently in this beta – more often than I have come to expect from Ubuntu beta releases. Gedit, Evolution, gnome-screensaver, Firefox, and many other applications and services; they crash quite often, quite randomly, without any apparant cause. This is quite frustrating. For an LTS release, the better start fixing these random crashes – this is the buggiest Ubuntu beta I have ever used. And I used them all.
The beta comes with the latest test version of Firefox 3.0, and for the life of me, I hate its new address bar. When you enter an url, it will, as usual, give you a drop-down list of possibilities, taken from your browsing history. This works just fine on any browser, but for Firefox 3.0, they went a little overboard. Each entry in this menu is now two rows of text, with one showing the name of the webpage, and the other showing the url. This gives for a very crowded menu, which shows fewer possible urls in the same space than the previous menu. I really find it obnoxious to use.
This release of Ubuntu also sees a set of new applications, courtesy of GNOME 2.22. One of them is the Brasero CD/DVD burner utility, a simple but effective application that does what it is supposed to do without being overly complicated. Another newcomer is Transmission, my favourite BitTorrent client (I use it on Mac OS X). A simple, yet powerful client.
Conclusion
All in all, this release packs some interesting new features and frameworks, some of which should have been part of any Linux distribution three years ago. It is quite clearly a beta though, and definitely not ready yet to be labeled as a ‘long term support’ release. Let’s hope they take their time to polish the rough edges, and deliver a stable release. It is needed.
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Noticed that Brasero is included in this release of Ubuntu. I’m not sure about anyone else, but does anyone actually use something other than K3b? I know it’s a KDE application, but that’s one of the first apps that I install when setting up a fresh instance of Ubuntu.
Other than K3b? Sure. cdrkit for teh win.
but does anyone actually use something other than K3b?
I haven’t used a single dedicated cd-burning-app in years. Whenever I need to burn a CD I use Nautilus, or in case of premade images I just right-click and select Burn.. Works like a charm, haven’t had a single issue ever since that functionality was first introduced to Nautilus.
I burn ISOs and files with nautilus, I have no need to install a separate burning app.
I never use K3b anymore, now that I’ve got Brasero. It does what I need it to do, without having a KDE-centric app installed on my GNOME-based machine.
I wonder when all those clever guys will come with the idea of “write verification” in any open source CD/DVD burning application in Linux – except k3b ?
Are they ever burn their DVDs using application they produce ?
I wonder when all those clever guys will come with the idea of “write verification” in any open source CD/DVD burning application in Linux – except k3b ?
Are they ever burn their DVDs using application they produce ?
Why use such an annoying tone in your posts? Would it kill you if you actually tried to be more friendly, or perhaps even _suggest_ that feature somewhere? Besides, quite many apps do have that. I don’t remember about Nautilus though, but that’s just because I have never used that feature even in apps that do have it.
Suggest ? Somewhere ? Disk burning verification ? Isn’t that obvious enough this is essential feature ? I always wonder that there are some technical obstacles to include that in GNOME-based app, since it is present in k3b and not in “CD/DVD Creator”, GnomeBaker and now in Brasero.
I guess you’d better code it if you feel so strongly about it then…
Typical answer to someone making a comment on a feature missing, very basic and important IMHO:
Do it yourself, send a patch, etc, it’s OSS.
Do you mean that using OSS you should patch, report somewhere, otherwise keep your mouth mute ?
I’d just say that the tone he was using doesn’t really encourage anyone else to do it for him either. So, basically, either mind your manner and ask if someone would add the feature you need, or act like a spoiled brat and add the feature yourself. Ok?
Am I the only one that as the verification feature in brasero? I had to disable it with Edit-> Plugins -> md5.
It’s annoying, time consuming and pretty useless these days. Burners are now reliable. Last time I had a coaster was with a 1x pioneer dvd burner, like 8 years ago.
Somehow I expected that. I must use md5 plug-in for thing as simple and obvious as DVD burning verification, because it is “realOS”, not that “lame” Windows, right ?
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”
No. They are not 100% reliable. Or you are using your computer just for fun, and do not care about that 3% of failed sessions ?
No, they’re not 100% reliable, but most of us can spring for the 25 cent CD or slightly more expensive DVD when that 3% strikes, even in a business setting, which is where 95% of my burning is done.
Also, why are you so amazingly abrasive? Perhaps people would value your viewpoint a little more than that of a troll if you didn’t come off so rudely in your posts.
If you use free software, that kind of answer is very common.
Why? Because the nature of free software; you receive something as it is, and you can use it, modify it to fulfill your own needs and distribute your modifications to let everyone “enjoy” your improvements.
If you do not want to share your things with the community that gives you the software, you should not use it.
If you are not technician, you could also help to improve the software you use reporting bugs, doing translations, documentation and a lot of stuff.
Bashing some software application in a destructive way (as the Original Poster did) is not helpful, it just harms.
So… I finally met that person, which is responsible for deleting that “Criticism Of Linux” section in one of the Wikipedia’s articles ? 😉
Oops! I thought I removed the “Criticism of Vista” section!
No, thanks. Nero 7 Essentials already has this feature.
… or at least submit a feature request in gnome’s bugzilla.
Personally I never verify my burned CDs. It takes too long time and they always work anyway.
I don’t remember the last time I burned a dud DVD/CD. I agree that verification is a good feature to have, but I’ve burned hundreds of CDs/DVDs in the last year without verifying the results and they’ve worked like a charm.
It would be nice to have it, but it’s something I can live without.
OK, I’ll bite.
Just clicking a few and I find “Verify written data” in the DVD Copy dialog. Then, just for a trial, I create a DVD Project, drag a few files, click on the “Burn” button, there’s a “Verify written data” in the burn dialog.
Don’t use it if you don’t like it, use whatever gnomeish apps you’d like, but starting a pissing contest will only get you drowned in a strangely smelling pool.
http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=zrzutekranugz3.png
Who’s drowning ? Here you have an “CD/DVD Assistant” window in 8.04 beta. Could you be so kind and guide me – where is that damn “Verify written data” button ?
I think the parent poster was talking about Brasero. Under ¨Tools¨ you´ll find ¨Check Integrity…¨. Hope that clears it up for ya´.
I think I got it. Two plug-ins from Brasero I mean. I still think that such important feature as disc writing verification should be implemented in other way, not in the form of “plug-in”. Also I think it should be visible straight in the main window, in some form of checkbox right to the “Burn it” button or something.
I never consider myself as “geek” – especially when it comes to Linux-specific areas, but after all – Linux-based OS are not targeted at the geeks, who understand such things like “plug-ins”, right ?
I just checked this out in beta, and luckily for all Joe-Sixpacks like myself who are more interested in getting the job done, not in structure of the application itself, those plugins are activated by default in Brasero.
Edited 2008-03-27 23:56 UTC
Why does it matter as long as it works? You’re just looking to complain.
You may have noticed that it’s on by default so why does it need to be in the main window? Such an “important” feature shouldn’t be easy to disable, right?
This sounds a lot like “Nero does it this way and therefore everyone else should too”.
Nero, k3b, Ashampoo Burning Studio, Alcohol 120%, Roxio … to name only a few.
So? You’ve already stated it’s an important feature that should be on by default. It’s on by default in Brasero.
Now you’re complaining that it cant easily be turned off. WTF?
I never use K3B. It’s a nice app and all but anything I need to do can be done either from Nautilus (copy, write) or with Brasero.
There were times, when there simply was no competitor for K3B, as a GUI, for cd/dvd ripping and burning. Times change, and that is a good thing. Still, I sometimes can’t believe how many people just dismiss K3B (don’t take this on you) saying there are other apps. Well, trying to be somewhat objective, I’d say for KDE users it’s really hard to find anything better. For me, under Linux, K3B has always been the ultimate tool for the task.
Well, for more “advanced” burning needs, K3b is still the tool. The thing is, though, that most people (including me) don’t need advanced options, they just want to slap a few mp3s onto an audio CD (Serpentine) or burn some holiday pictures etc. to disc to share with friends and family (Nautilus does that nicely). Even burning ISOs is done hassle-free with the right click menu, so why bother opening up a separate app (even is it’s more functional) to accomplish these basic tasks?
Still, I wish Serpentine would at least burn directly from mp3/whatever to disc without converting the data first. That’s just so win98. I have an Athlon64 3700+, and I think that’s more than capable of decoding a stream while it’s being written to disc. And even with that, I still don’t open up K3b to burn an audio CD. Much easier to just drag a few tracks onto serpentine and let it take its time, and have a cup of coffee while it’s at it.
This is not a dig at K3b,it’s a brilliant app with loads of features, arguably the best GUI util available for burning CDs on Linux, but I just don’t need it. Sometimes, less is more.
edit: and yeah, I remember when K3b was the only app worth mentioning for burning, and it was excellent in a pile of non-working sludge, but times have changed. I commend K3b for its efforts, but it’s just not the be-all-end-all app for burning on Linux anymore.
Edited 2008-03-26 23:35 UTC
That more or less sums up my CD/DVD burning usage in the last 3 years or so. All of that is handled by Nautilus just fine and I really do not see the need of some dedicated disc burning app which has loads of features I do not use.
Yes. And that often precipitates an unfortunate situation. The early adopters of the app which, once upon a time, had no rival… continue to act as if it has no rivals. It took some apt-get fans *years* to get it through their heads that apt was not the only dependency manager anymore. K3b might have been the best at one time. I know that I have never been particularly impressed with it, although many others seemed to be. But today, in 2008, k3b is just another app that happens to be tied to a DE I don’t use anymore.
I, for one, hate using QT apps in Gnome or GTK aps in KDE or non-native looking apps in Windows. I like it all nice and consistent especially when the basic features are the same.
Just install QtCurve for both GTK and Qt and then everything looks the same. And unlike gtk-engines-qt, it’s not an ugly hack.
I know it’s not open source or free but I’ve always liked and used Nero’s linux offering. K3B just hung when I attempted a burn on my laptop.
does anyone actually use something other than K3b?
Never use k3b, why do I need a big gui to call growisofs when I can call growisofs directly?
k3b is just a front-end gui.
I felt the same way about the new firefox history list. I hated it for the first few days until I realized that the URL bar had turned into a search bar. It will autocomplete from past URLs and from bookmarks. From the keyboard you can start typing a bookmark name and easily and quickly select the entry. The two-line display is necessary to support this functionality. Once you get used to it, it’s actually quite nice.
Thing I don’t like about it is that it’s a lot slower when opening the drop down list in FF 2.x…but then again my machine isn’t exactly new =)
Also, previously you just had a big list of URLs and you had to pick out the right one. Now it’s all much clearer, and you’re more likely to find what you’re looking for near the top.
What with bookmarks and all, I never really bothered with the old system because I rarely typed the same URL twice. So I can’t say I share everyone’s sadness at it’s passing. But for those who mourn it, there are extensions to ease the pain.
What I’d really like is if FF/some other browser “scanned” the pages I were viewing and auto-completed URL inputs or google searches based on what I’d been looking at. I guess this isn’t really the appropriate thread for this, but that would be rather nice.
And yes, I know I could just copy+paste, but this is something that, to me, would really make the browser seem “intelligent”. It’d be slowed down a bunch as well, for sure, but that’s not up to me to code
http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.p…
The old screens and resolutions utility (available since 7.10) was moved to the Application menu because it’s not meant to be used actually. It’s using Xinerama which seems to be deprecated and may break X configuration. There’s no xorg.conf and everything should be handled by old/new resolution utility in Gnome. It doesn’t support positioning of screens but has basic multi-display capabilities.
“Ubuntu 8.04 comes with X.org 7.3, which adds some interesting, and long-overdue, capabilities to Ubuntu: dynamic changing of resolutions.”
So far the one and only Ubuntu release, which could correctly detect my monitor parameters was 6.06 LTS. Since then – no one could – 8.04 included.
What kind of monitor do you have? I’ve not had any monitor (and I’ve purchased 2 monitors during that time) issues since 2004.
Philips 15″ LCD panel type: 150B
Hitachi 17″ CRT monitor type: CM621F
Used with video cards based on Nvdia 5200,6200 & 6800.
Edited 2008-03-26 15:52 UTC
That aside, 8.04 so far has been the first and only OS distribution that managed to deal with my multi-monitor setup (docked notebooks LVDS “right-of” a decently sized TFT) without requiring any xorg.conf manipulations or (even more annoying) manual modeline computations. That’s something I surely consider a win.
You say that 6.06 got it right, so maybe this is not the case with your monitor. But manufacturers don’t seem to care that much if their monitors provide correct information or not. They just ship it with a CD that has the right “drivers” for Windows and call it good. As with so much other hardware, it’s cheaper and easier to just ship broken hardware and fix it with drivers. Windows drivers, of course.
What I “don’t like”, I’m using Ubuntu7.10, is that it’s not possible to undo the changes done in preferences.
Example:
System -> Preference -> Screensaver
then change something, it’s not possible to exit without saving the changes.
The changes you do are stored immediately.
Maybe this is Gnome related, I don’t know.
But it’s annoying.
Apply doesn’t really make sense for settings that can quickly take effect. If you want to change something, just click somewhere else.
Instant-apply is part of the gnome human interface guidelines:
<a href=”http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/windows.html#instan…
That’s exactly what he’s saying… he doesn’t like that “feature”…
I sort of agree, there should be a “restore defaults” button or something…
I don’t think he meant that, I’d say he meant a good old Cancel button, that would drop the applied change and “restore” what was there previously (not the defaults). That feature (i.e. “cancel”) should be a real PITA to implement
YES! Awesome. I too hate having to boot into the slow-as-molasses live CD just to install.
If this is the App I think it is it was already included before and, well, as much as I like Ubuntu it sucked ass like there was no tomorrow. Is it still more likely to wreck the X configuration than it is to make secondary displays work?
I’m going to guess it’s because gedit does not yet use GVFS. I’m just guessing though.
Really? I’ve only had it happen a handful of times for some games.
Haven’t gone six minutes without a crash. Of whatever app.
Well, I once also had gutsy, freshly installed, but everything started to crash on startup, panel etc from time to time…
So I started wondering why, because I had another pc with gutsy and it ran just fine.
I discovered the media from which I installed, was bad. It ad copied some files which were broken. Once I burned a new fresh disc & reinstalled, everything was okay.
You could have the same problem, but it’s a guess though :/
Thom,
I find it interesting how different your opinion/experience is compared to mine. I have ran Ubuntu 8.04 since the first alpha that was released on two different computers. One is an IBM Thinkpad T43 and the other is a custom AMD64 4400+ with Nvidia graphics card. I have had no problems at all since the last Alpha to the new Beta.
I have let my laptop update automatically to the newly released software to see if it would break anything and it certainly fixed many issues rather. On the other hand I downloaded and re-installed the new Beta on the desktop PC and I have found it very very stable. Maybe it’s a setup issue, or a hardware compatibility issue. The numpad in the middle of the keyboard sounds like if Ubuntu thinks it’s running on a laptop rather than a regular full sized PC (In laptops, you can lock your numpad and a block of letters become your numpad).
I will keep testing it and hopefully we have a good release. I have my hopes up about this distro and new thing that they are implementing, hopefully they don’t let me down.
Thanks,
I’ve upgraded to Hardy because my HP LCD 17″ wasn’t well detected in Gutsy and I had to use xrandr to get full screen (without a black border on left side) that just gave problems with compisite extensions. Now X is working fine and I’m working on native resolution and even can use compiz.
But yes, this is a very buggy release, but here is the thing, it seems related to gtk. I have KDE4 installed and it’s apps just run fine and smooth, except for some freezes I had that seems related to openGL screensaver, there where some updates in xserver instel drivers yesterday that hopefully fixed this.
But gnome apps sometimes just… stop to think for some seconds (10~30) and then restart as everthing was normal. And more strangely, I have a firefox beta3 installed from mozilla.org site (not the package that comes with ubuntu). And it suffers from the same problem, mostly in the save dialog. It is strange because it comes with a built-in gtk, so probably the small things it uses from the native gtk (theme and file dialog) are giving it problems.
I hope this gets fixed soon, otherwise I’ll have to use konqueror or opera and avoid any gtk app.. gladly I am a KDE user
It think it was a good preview. But to be fair I would like to read same kind of articles about other distros too, like OpenSUSE and Fedora. I think those are a bit more interesting because they have newer softwares and technologies.
Not sure why Ubuntu gets all attention …
On a Thinkpad T61p, FX570 Quadro card. Dual monitors (onboard, plus different res external) also do not work properly yet. The onboard displays properly by itself, but not when the external is used for extended desktop, which happens to display the proper res. Interesting.
I’m not too disappointed, since it is a beta. But hopefully whatever finishing touches they make to the final release will resolve these issues.
I’ve got an odd setup, a Nvidia 7950 GX2 running SLI to one monitor (a 22″ widescreen Samsung) and then an ATI x300 outputting to a 19″ samsung (to the left of the 22″).
I can never get dual monitors to work like I do in windows, I’m hoping that Hardy will be the one to help me work it.
Brasero is not a part of gnome 2.22 like your article says. Brasero was added by the Ubuntu team because nautilus-cd-burner is and always has been crappy.
I think this article is a bit startling for me because I’ve been testing Hardy and I was shocked at how stable it was, even in the Alpha stage – barely any crashing at all.
Remember, the developers can’t polish rough edges they don’t know about – do your part and file/track bug reports!
This isn’t 100% on-topic but anyways… I’ve used GnomeBaker and Brasero, and I am left to wonder if there even exists a decent disc burning software made in GTK… I couldn’t “bake” a single rom with GnomeBaker since it whined about not being able to access my dvd rom or failing to cache the data to be burned, and these failures occured even when running on root.
I sure can burn my medias with Brasero, but since 99% of my cases equal to burning a disc image (cue + bin), I find it very annoying Brasero cannot find the disc image (.bin) unless I manually add the full path of the .bin file to the cuesheet, even when they are located in the same folder. I also dislike some of its other ways of functioning, too, but they’re less important, less annoying.
Edited 2008-03-26 18:24 UTC
I tend to use NeroLinux for my burning needs in Linux,
It’s familiar to me, and works as designed without issue. Plus since it’s one of the first things win converts ask about when I show them Linux
“Does it have Nero?” and I can say BAM! yes it does.
It’s helped me convert a few people to the dark side.
As the title says, Ubuntu is the Linux distribution that frightens me most. Canonical has done some great things to make Ubuntu a household name for Linux, as well as bring many new users over to the operating system. The reason I’m afraid of Ubuntu is because of the power they hold over the future of Linux adoption. Just as Canonical has brought so much to the community, I’m afraid they could end up taking away from it as well. Perhaps it’s only me, but as many strides have been made in each new release of Ubuntu, I feel like it is becoming buggier and more problematic each release. It may just be my hardware, but each new release I have had more problems than the last. I just hope that Canonical can keep things moving forward without losing the reason many people choose Linux in the first place – speed and stability. I’m afraid that if future releases continue the trend of having significant bugs, that it will detract from the same new community that Canonical has helped create, and give some users a bad impression of Linux overall.
If the situation is as bad as you portray it, people will stop advocating Ubuntu and start using other distros as test beds for noobs.
No need to worry. The same thing happened to Mandrake/Mandriva.
I downloaded the LiveCD “daily” for PPC last night and tried it this morning – it looks good. It runs quick, picked up my video settings pretty decently. The only problems I had:
– Broadcom drivers didn’t get detected or setup, so no wireless on my Powerbook G4.
– I can’t enable any of the special Desktop effects, even though I have a competent video card in this ol’ machine (GeForce FX Go5200).
– No Open Office or Abiword (missing?)
I am thinking about doing a dual boot – previous versions didn’t quite work very well at all – lots of video, power management issues, but this one seemed fine and quick for the most part.
Edited 2008-03-26 18:48 UTC
Nvidia does not provide linux ppc drivers so your best hope is probably for nouveau.
Broadcom drivers have always been problematic, as they don’t or wont release specs or try to work with open source community (at least as far as wifi chipsets go, my broadcom bluetooth works fine).
you can get open office or abiword from the repository.
You have to remember that the ppc build is a community build and as a result will not work as well the the canonical supported x86 builds
Now that this has already turned into a k3b thread: Why on earth does a single click on a file make that file being added to the project? That’s such a strange behaviour – and I actually think this would not have happened for a gnome app.
As for Ubuntu: The thrill is gone. Yes each version is adding a litte bit more features, but I can’t remember when and what the last great addition was. Currently I’m just seeing that my wlan doesn’t work and gnome then freezes when I trying to log.
Edited 2008-03-26 19:46 UTC
Because it is a KDE app. It can be changed in the preference stuff in KDE (can’t remember the name).
This has to do with the fact in kde, by default in file manager operations a single click is the same as a double click. You can change it with kcontrol, but If you use it gnome I imagine you have to edit some config file in .kde
oops someone already replied
Edited 2008-03-26 21:42 UTC
While reading through the comments, one point is glaringly obvious: That no one who uses GNOME wants to say anything remotely positive about KDE apps, in particular, and KDE, in general.
Hop over to the KDE forums and you will not see anything like this.
It appears that GNOME users have this attitude of being ‘holier-than-thou’. Maybe its unintentional for most of them but it comes through strongly.
Really sad considering how close in underlying technolgies the two desktop environments now are — courtesy of freedesktop.org.
I used to use gnome and on the whole it is a lot less buggy and well configured. I now use kde because it suits me more (by far more flexible than gnome).
There are many people that also started by using kde then went to gnome.
The people who tend to move around a lot between desktop environments learn to appreciate the differences between them, regardless of their personal preferences. Those that usually bash other desktop environments don’t have a lot of experience with them and so will not be accurate or even have constructive criticism.
I generally ignore those comments, but I will correct someone if I feel from their tone that they might be willing to be corrected. It does not always work but its work a try!
I agree, I’ve been using both DEs extensively, and while I found KDE rather attractive, I decided to stick with Gnome for now, as it comes standard with Ubuntu, and that’s the distro that suits my needs. i could use Kubuntu, but the last time I tried it it seemed buggy and undone compared to vanilla Ubuntu. Over time, Gnome has grown on me as a no-hassle DE that might not provide the level of customization you get with KDE, but still, things work, and they work well.
Oh, and my favorite DE is still Enlightenment, but I’ve yet to find a distro that provides that along with the ease of use of Ubuntu. Elive is great, used it as my main distro for almost a year, but sadly, Ubuntu beats it by miles in usability and support.
you could try OpenGEU/Geubutu: http://opengeu.intilinux.com/
it’s an ubuntu-based distro using Enlightenment.
Thanks, I’ll check it out! 🙂
Maybe it has to do with all those flamewars that a few (KDE) trolls stir, complaining about how much GNOME sux because it won’t let them re-route their flux capacitor to let the tachyon emissions go down the intertubes port 67 without touching gconf
While reading through the comments, one point is glaringly obvious: That no one who uses GNOME wants to say anything remotely positive about KDE apps, in particular, and KDE, in general.
You should actually read the comments, not just assume things. I for one am one of those who actually said that I don’t f.ex. know any MSN Messenger client for GNOME that I’d like more than Kopete.
I actually have a lot of good things to say about KDE. Amarok is a great app and so is k3b (if you need that kind of functionality). kparts is also a great idea. Kontact is a very good app.
There’s a lot of things I like about KDE but in the end it’s soft,fuzzy issues that makes me stay with GNOME. KDE just doesn’t feel right as a whole.
You are painting all Gnome users with a broad brush.
KDE apps are great!…See
The only issues I have with KDE/QT apps is their integration with Gnome.
Why not test Kubuntu? Another Ubuntu preview is simply boring.
because in general these days nothing is happening in kubuntu. There have been plenty of previews and status updates of kde4 which is where all the development energy is atm
I have this currently installed on my new desktop computer and man does programs crash on it. Everyday there is at least one program that crashes, I hope with Beta2 all those bugs would be fixed, I submit the crash reports on Lanuchpad to let the developers know. But it is shaping up to a good release (once the bugs have been worked out).