Saturday, November 9, 2013

From Kubuntu to Xubuntu

I am happy I made the switch from Kubuntu 13.10 to Xubuntu 13.10. The problem with Kubuntu centered around the update process. I don't know why, but every program with a "Muon" noun in the title is buggy. My desktop got to the point where I had to disconnect the power cord from the back of the computer in order, not to stop Muon from spinning its wheels, but simply to turn the computer off. You see, Muon seizes control of the shutdown and restart commands and will not permit the user to power off until Eternity arrives, or is that Infinity? In other words, Kubuntu has decided in its infinite wisdom that the user does not need to control the computer. The user is irrelevant. Kubuntu is the supreme commander, not the human being, not I, a mere peon. Now, I begged to differ, since I am the one that actually purchased the computer in the first place. Perhaps I am impudent in the eyes of Kubuntu. I deleted Kubuntu from my system and searched for a replacement.

My first pick to replace Kubuntu was actually SolydX, because I admire one of the principals behind it, zerozero, who has helped me and many others on more than one occasion in the Linux Mint forums. However, to my dismay and bewilderment, SolydX/K does not work on my system and I do not know why. All I ever got was a terminal screen with "grub rescue" on it. Based on my reading, perhaps this has something to do with my motherboard's support of UEFI. I haven't the foggiest idea. I found a thread on the SolydXK forums that discussed the commands needed to recover, and after a brief stab at following the recommendations, I decided I did not want to bother with all of that jazz. If installation is so difficult, I can only imagine what maintenance will be like. Instead, I installed Xubuntu, which just worked, at least, after the second attempt at installation. So far, Xubuntu has been smooth and easy, although of all things in the KDE world, I do miss Dolphin.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

As many great reviews that I have read about Kubuntu, I've never liked Muon. Seems I always go back to Linux Mint KDE. Currently I have dual boot with Mint KDE current and Ubuntu 12.04. Mostly I use Mint, but recently VLC has become unstable in Mint. Seems always something. I might jump "again" back to OpenSuse 13.1, but then dealing with Yast makes me hesitant.

I like Xubuntu for its speed, but KDE offers the eye candy that I seem to enjoy.

igor said...

I've been pleased with Xubuntu so far, although I am missing "Edit file as root" and a lot of other nice Dolphin plug-in modules that added so much convenience to the file manager. Perhaps I will simply install Dolphin and see whether it works well in Xubuntu. I know there's some card trick to getting this functionality in Thunar, but that's probably an hour of Internet research away.

Muon basically drove me away from Kubuntu. I found Kubuntu to be unusable, because Muon cannot complete any software update. Kubuntu always has issues in my experience. I don't know whether I will ever go back. They always seem to release what smacks of beta-quality to me. Bugs, error messages, random glitches, always something different.

Xubuntu has been nothing but smooth sailing for me. I miss Synaptic, but Ubuntu Software Center works okay at least, far better than Muon. I may abandon KDE altogether and just stick with XFCE because it just works, and I can probably iron out the little features I miss, given a rainy day and the motivation.

Eric said...

Any computer, frozen or not, can instantly be switched off by pressing the power button for 5 - 10 seconds. No need to pull the plug.

igor said...

Unless the power button has been redefined by the operating system.

Eric said...

Not so. Holding down the power button for several seconds to turn off a computer, invokes hardware on the motherboard directly, bypassing any operating system. It's not the same as pressing a power button configured to invoke Windows' or Linux's 'power off' function.

igor said...

I think you're right about that.

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