Hi Kubuntu, bye Ubuntu

Title says it all.

I like rekonq browser, it is super fast. I am going to install Kubuntu 11.10

Hi Kubuntu

Here is the screen after Kubuntu live cd boots into

Here are the installation screenshots

Nice option asking to unmount mounted partitions before installing (see below)

See the top status bar showing installation in progress, while the front screen asking configuration questions, nice

I tried to attach screenshots using rekonq, it crashed

Rekonq asking to restore, but it could not restore like full fledged browsers

KInfoCenter in action

Kubuntu is good in utilizing RAM (if you have a lots of RAM!!)

Dolphin in action

Meanwhile installation completed, asking me to restart and giving an option to continue

Here is Konsole profile and I love the dark pastels theme

If you have SSD (Solid State Drive) add discard option to activate TRIM (trim is for wear leveling and increasing longevity of SSD life and is a must)

here is my root partition with discard entry


# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=90f606ab-567a-4336-8afe-292e1ffd3551 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro,discard 0       1

I mounted tmp on RAM,

see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fstab#tmpfs

this above arch linux article is full of excellent tips

The above step of mounting tmp on RAM caused nvidia scripts to fail and after removing this entry of mounting tmp on RAM I got a full blown 3d effects in Kubuntu with my graphics card

After I changed wallpaper and added an analog clock, amazing isn't it

Right click task manager --> Task manager settings, and checked to show only apps from current desktop

System settings --> Application Appearnce --> Fonts --> enabled antialiasing like Ubuntu for nicer fonts (and increased font sizes)

Enabled additional drivers for nvidia (now supports post release update, no need to install bin files)

Nvidia driver installed and asking to restart

After rebooting, Kde 4.7 could not enable desktop effects with nvidia driver and it crashed, I tried to renable it and still it remains the same (my graphics card is Nvidia GTX 460 (nvidia fermi))

Color coding of the crash makes it look gorgeous

Funny, with nouveau driver graphics effects worked (but not very fast it ran slowly when doing effects)

Trying to renable desktop effects with nvidia driver and crash :(

After enabling canonical in software sources, I installed adobe flash plugin (yes 64 bit flash plugin)

After installing flashplugin, here is how I checked it

Adobe flashplayer in action (yes my favorite naruto)

To enable mp3 playback and mp4 playback, I installed kubuntu-restricted-extras


sudo apt-get install kubuntu-restricted-extras 

I tested an ogg sample from wikipedia article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine_dion

Sample here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MyHeartWillGoOnSample.ogg

It played fine in browser, but Amarok failed to play it

Amarok in action, the beats are awesome after enabling equalizer (but no ogg by default)

I tried to save the sample ogg file and it crashed rekonq and I used chromium to save

Installed kaffeine player and tested an mp4 which I shot when I went to Mayiladuthurai, it could not play, default Dragon player was able to play

After installing xine plugins and restarting, I was able to play in Kaffeine!

To install all xine plugins here is how

sudo apt-get install libxine1-all-plugins

Kaffeine in action after installing xine plugins and restarting system

Kubuntu is very tempting, but I am ready for another distro hop


After I figured out that mounting tmp on RAM was causing failure in installing nvidia drivers properly, I removed it and reinstalled nvidia drivers.

See below screenshots to peek what a superb desktop Kubuntu is

Removed rekonq and kopete, installed firefox and pidgin

Software upates is unintrusive and shows a small popup on the right hand bottom corner, when clicked and confirmed to update, it started updating. Even the way it updates looks very attractive

Now Kubuntu looks close to my dream desktop