Clobbering Kubuntu

For some unknown reason I am unable to visit any blogspot.com address since a few days. Only today did I remember that I could post through blogger.com without having to visit blogspot.com.

In the meantime I downloaded Kubuntu 8.04 with the KDE4 windows manager. Besides a large dose of visual candy, Kubuntu remains incorrigible.
There still is no way to access any graphical interface to install-uninstall programs, change the desktop resolution, mount-unmount partitions selectively. I wonder what is the reasoning behind this continued aloofness.

KDE4 looks quite pleasing in the all black mode, and rounded edges. The problem is that on a 256 MB machine this is not a practical option. While using the Live CD, the slick GUI consumed so much resources that all the swapping that was necessitated as a result left the user waiting for things to happen. I wish every distro also offered the equivalent of the simple tool in Windows, where a single setting to set the installation for Performance would impact all GUI aspects.

While not adding anything to improve a user's experience, Kubuntu did change the startmenu. This addition is similar to the Opensuse 10.3 start menu with the menus opening up in the same menu. I found this feature user hostile then too. This ofcourse could be changed in OPensuse, and hopefully Kubuntu allows it too. I did not see a Firefox icon, with Konqueror being the sole browser. The File manager, Dolphin which I liked a lot in Kubuntu 7.04 is still here. The all important button that I missed was "Open as root". It is probably hidden elsewhere.

I did not spend as much time as I would have liked to. The sluggishness was getting on my nerves.

Eventhough it was the latest distro, hopefully having the latest kernel and all, it did not get the graphics settings right, and I was left with a 800X 600 desktop on the geforce 7025 motherboard. This was disappointing, indeed.

In conclusion, a CD has been wasted. This experience has prompted me to get a CD RW. I will not be installing it on a hard disk.