StephanG
May 1st, 2012, 08:07 AM
Hey Guys, I've been feeling fairly nostalgic recently. And thinking back, I started using Kubuntu at the 6.06 release. Which is actually a surprisingly long amount of time. And through those years, I've battled all kinds of problems. And, I thought it would be fun to post a "timeline" just to show the world how far we've come in 6 short years. Okay, okay... So 6 years is actually a very long time. But anyway:
Joining - Kubuntu 6.06 LTS: This was where I joined the family. Ubuntu was already out, but something about it just made me prefer Kubuntu. Not sure if it was the plain UGLY from Ubuntu's brown, or the fact that Kubuntu's panel could be set to "transparent" by right clicking. Looking at some screenshots, I remember thinking at the time, that I thought all the icons looked wicked awesome. (Actually, even after all these years, they still look kinda cool.) But, somehow, I suspect that it was the 3D dragon on the logout screen that won me over...
This was mostly the year that I spent figuring out how to do things. Having to "mount" USBs where a great mystery to me. And the absence of C & D drives confused the hell out of me, but it was working. Sort of. But, I didn't know how to do anything beyond the most basic of tasks. Writing on a document, opening a USB, etc. And the fact that Oblivion was released that year, was just salt in the wound... I think the main thing that kept me on Linux was probably Amarok. And also, I was broke.
7.04 - 7.10 -> The main bug that I remember about these releases was Kaffeine. The KDE Media Player. I remember thinking it was absolutely, completely awesome. But, to play video files, you needed the right codecs. And, they were surprisingly hard to find, and get working. Thankfully, I eventually discovered Medibuntu, which was sort of a repository with "legally gray" stuff, like codecs and lib files to play DVDs. Strangely, thinking back... The skype I used in those days was almost exactly the Skype we use now :confused:
The biggest highlight had to be GDebi in 7.10. FINALLY, I could just click on a .deb and install it automatically. At this point, I had only 200 MB a month internet. And getting software installed was a MAJOR headache if you couldn't afford to download it with apt-get.
8.04 - 8.10 -> 8.04 was the big switch to KDE 4. I remember all the posts warning that it wasn't ready, and decided that I'm tough now, I can handle a few bugs, and made the switch. And, suprisingly, I stuck through it... But, I think that was mostly just because I never used my PC for anything important.
But, when you made peace with the fact that KDE 4 simply just couldn't do a lot of stuff yet, it wasn't so bad. It would crash now and then, but then start itself back up, and carry on. Admittedly, I did try to run back to KDE 3.5 a few times, but after KDE 4, KDE 3.5 felt like a patched quill: Lots of random bits stuck together. Especially SuperKaramba, which 3.5 used for Widgets. After 4, I suddenly started noticing how heavy Superkaramba was on resources.
But, the only thing that REALLY bothered me, was after changing my resolution, I had to log out, and log back in to have the settings apply. I can understand that it wasn't a big deal for most people, because you set it to native, and then cruise on until you reformat. But, those were also the days that I was trying very hard, with some success to play Oblivion on wine. Which was still a bit of a pain, but worked well enough. The only thing was, my PC wasn't strong enough to handle Oblivion on native resolution, and when I quit, I would have to change my resolution back.
On the plus side, my printers were now easily detected and installed. These releases also saw the introduction of
9.04 -> 9.10 - All I can remember about these releases was that they were the releases where PulseAudio became a royal PITA. It was already installed by default on Ubuntu 8.04 & 8.10, but once you uninstalled it, things went on as they used to. But, in the 9.x releases, it just wouldn't stay out of my way. Skype wouldn't detect my Mic, phonon behaved oddly. And it was the first time that I noticed that if I plug my headphones into the PC, the speakers kept on blaring loudly. (Up until this point, I had simply plugged the headphones directly into the speaker.)
Oh, 9.04 was also the release that saw KPackageKit introduced into Ubuntu. Up until that point, Kubuntu used Adept. It wasn't quite Synaptic, but I liked it. A lot. And thus started the looong dark years.
10.04 -> This was the release where most things started to work out of the box for me. Even Oblivion played perfectly in Wine without any tuning. The only major gripe I had was the evil abomination known as KPackage kit. But, before 10.10 was released, Muon was born. And with a simple PPA, life was... good.
10.10 -> 11.10 : Many things changed many things got better. But Linux was still the same it had always been. Except it working now...
12.04 -> After a long time of only using my speakers, I plugged my headphones into the PC, and then the speakers where silent. And I knew... We have arrived.
Anyway, to whoever bothered to read my long trip down memory lane. Thanks for taking the time. And also, I would be very interested to know what kind of problems you ran into over the years you've been using Linux.
Joining - Kubuntu 6.06 LTS: This was where I joined the family. Ubuntu was already out, but something about it just made me prefer Kubuntu. Not sure if it was the plain UGLY from Ubuntu's brown, or the fact that Kubuntu's panel could be set to "transparent" by right clicking. Looking at some screenshots, I remember thinking at the time, that I thought all the icons looked wicked awesome. (Actually, even after all these years, they still look kinda cool.) But, somehow, I suspect that it was the 3D dragon on the logout screen that won me over...
This was mostly the year that I spent figuring out how to do things. Having to "mount" USBs where a great mystery to me. And the absence of C & D drives confused the hell out of me, but it was working. Sort of. But, I didn't know how to do anything beyond the most basic of tasks. Writing on a document, opening a USB, etc. And the fact that Oblivion was released that year, was just salt in the wound... I think the main thing that kept me on Linux was probably Amarok. And also, I was broke.
7.04 - 7.10 -> The main bug that I remember about these releases was Kaffeine. The KDE Media Player. I remember thinking it was absolutely, completely awesome. But, to play video files, you needed the right codecs. And, they were surprisingly hard to find, and get working. Thankfully, I eventually discovered Medibuntu, which was sort of a repository with "legally gray" stuff, like codecs and lib files to play DVDs. Strangely, thinking back... The skype I used in those days was almost exactly the Skype we use now :confused:
The biggest highlight had to be GDebi in 7.10. FINALLY, I could just click on a .deb and install it automatically. At this point, I had only 200 MB a month internet. And getting software installed was a MAJOR headache if you couldn't afford to download it with apt-get.
8.04 - 8.10 -> 8.04 was the big switch to KDE 4. I remember all the posts warning that it wasn't ready, and decided that I'm tough now, I can handle a few bugs, and made the switch. And, suprisingly, I stuck through it... But, I think that was mostly just because I never used my PC for anything important.
But, when you made peace with the fact that KDE 4 simply just couldn't do a lot of stuff yet, it wasn't so bad. It would crash now and then, but then start itself back up, and carry on. Admittedly, I did try to run back to KDE 3.5 a few times, but after KDE 4, KDE 3.5 felt like a patched quill: Lots of random bits stuck together. Especially SuperKaramba, which 3.5 used for Widgets. After 4, I suddenly started noticing how heavy Superkaramba was on resources.
But, the only thing that REALLY bothered me, was after changing my resolution, I had to log out, and log back in to have the settings apply. I can understand that it wasn't a big deal for most people, because you set it to native, and then cruise on until you reformat. But, those were also the days that I was trying very hard, with some success to play Oblivion on wine. Which was still a bit of a pain, but worked well enough. The only thing was, my PC wasn't strong enough to handle Oblivion on native resolution, and when I quit, I would have to change my resolution back.
On the plus side, my printers were now easily detected and installed. These releases also saw the introduction of
9.04 -> 9.10 - All I can remember about these releases was that they were the releases where PulseAudio became a royal PITA. It was already installed by default on Ubuntu 8.04 & 8.10, but once you uninstalled it, things went on as they used to. But, in the 9.x releases, it just wouldn't stay out of my way. Skype wouldn't detect my Mic, phonon behaved oddly. And it was the first time that I noticed that if I plug my headphones into the PC, the speakers kept on blaring loudly. (Up until this point, I had simply plugged the headphones directly into the speaker.)
Oh, 9.04 was also the release that saw KPackageKit introduced into Ubuntu. Up until that point, Kubuntu used Adept. It wasn't quite Synaptic, but I liked it. A lot. And thus started the looong dark years.
10.04 -> This was the release where most things started to work out of the box for me. Even Oblivion played perfectly in Wine without any tuning. The only major gripe I had was the evil abomination known as KPackage kit. But, before 10.10 was released, Muon was born. And with a simple PPA, life was... good.
10.10 -> 11.10 : Many things changed many things got better. But Linux was still the same it had always been. Except it working now...
12.04 -> After a long time of only using my speakers, I plugged my headphones into the PC, and then the speakers where silent. And I knew... We have arrived.
Anyway, to whoever bothered to read my long trip down memory lane. Thanks for taking the time. And also, I would be very interested to know what kind of problems you ran into over the years you've been using Linux.