Is Kubuntu really this bad?

[x-shaney-x]

I wouldn't say one (unity/kde) was buggier than the other, they just both have different bugs so depends on what you use and rely on as to how buggy you find them

[uRock]

You may get better help at http://www.kubuntuforums.net/

[TomB19]

Every single KDE distro I have tried has had some show stopper problem. When the computer rebooted, my entire desktop was just scrambled - a complete mess.

Over the last couple weeks of experimenting with KDE (primarily Kubuntu and openSuse) I have not had a single installation that worked without major problems like the one above.

My opinion is that yes, it really is that bad, but not for the reasons you are citing.

Yeah, it doesn't work. In terms of having a distro that you can stream in and have a working desktop, mailer, and web browser, it fails. It fails because of mail.

Kmail itself was great, until it was ruined with akonadi. The Kaddressbook is the same, along with Kjots, and Amarok2. All of these apps are nice programs that would be great to use if they worked. No amount of configuration or deleting ~/.local/share/akonadki seems to do the trick for me.

If you mention akonadi errors on kde.org, a bunch of other users will chime in with "same here" and, eventually, a developer will come into the thread and flame you for asking how to fix it. They are super defensive, but I can't say I blame them. A lot of people are angry over the akonadi thing and the posts are getting nasty.

Gnome is becoming corrupted with akonadi, too.

As for corrupted desktop, you might have a bad video card there. Something is weird. I run a bunch of linux desktops and haven't had a problem in that regard. The last screen glitches I had were cured with an nVidia driver update back in the KDE 3.5 days.

I still have two KDE desktops and one is my main workstation. It's fine, other than the akonadi issues. I tried Gnome but I couldn't deal with it. I run a lot of gtk apps, though. Gnome is fine everywhere else.

By the way, the distros I run are Arch, Ubuntu/Kubuntu, and Debian. I've spent some time with gentoo and a few others but I need something that will just stream in and work. Not finding that, I stick with Ubuntu.

Microsft isn't beating linux. Poor version control and over-complex design is beating linux.

I'm looking forward to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Sometime toward the end of the year, I'll listen to feedback in the forum and upgrade to it if all sounds well. I don't need the state of the art. I just need something that is going to work and not stop working or booting every second or third time I take an update.

As a defense to the update issue, I use a firewall appliance and then don't upgrade my machines. I used to use my server as a firewall but it's not reliable enough for that.

[TomB19]

I wouldn't say one (unity/kde) was buggier than the other, they just both have different bugs so depends on what you use and rely on as to how buggy you find them

For what it's worth, I consider KDE 4.7.3 to be perfect, except for akonadi. The only critical apps that fail for me are the ones built on akonadi.

The GUI, plasmoids, and window management seem perfect here. I'm running the foss ATI drivers but I think the proprietary driver works great too (I haven't run it in several months, though).

If some folks were to fork KDE and strip akonadi out of the key apps, they would be my hero and, judging from the number of sour users on KDE.org, probably a lot of other people's heroes, as well.

Akonadi is a great idea but it either needs to be fixed or moved back to the dev tree. If akonadi is fine and the distros are not implementing it properly, the distros should strip it out until they figure out how to make it work.

[MountainX]

I don't need the state of the art. I just need something that is going to work and not stop working or booting every second or third time I take an update.

Same here. But I need it now. I can't wait weeks or months to get back to productive work. I need to get something installed this weekend that will work for me. The only option I know of so far is Linux Mint 12.

But again, I have been hoping KDE would be the solution because of its features. But since I need stability, I guess KDE is not going to work for me from what I gather based on the replies so far.

Unity won't work because I have 3 large monitors. Unity is a very poor ergonomic design for large monitors. The design direction of Unity is not appropriate for the way I work, so Unity will never be a choice for me, even when it is more feature rich or bug free. The core design is no ergonomical for large monitors.

My choices seem to be either KDE or MGSE or Cinnamon...

[MountainX]

For what it's worth, I consider KDE 4.7.3 to be perfect, except for akonadi. The only critical apps that fail for me are the ones built on akonadi.

The GUI, plasmoids, and window management seem perfect here. I'm running the foss ATI drivers but I think the proprietary driver works great too (I haven't run it in several months, though).
.

Interesting about akonadi... that really makes it difficult for me to choose to go with KDE. But my experiences so far have all ended badly well before I got around to setting up my PIM and mail apps.

I've tried both video drivers. First I was on the foss drivers, but this thread convinced me to try the proprietary drivers: http://forums.opensuse.org/english/g...ml#post2430684

My experience is the opposite of yours: netiher foss nor proprietary drivers work very well. Each has different problems tho.

[oldos2er]

It's fairly easy to disable akonadi: http://ubuntuku.org/16/how-to-disable-nepomuk-akonadi/

[whatthefunk]

My Kubuntu install works perfectly. Outside of a couple minor glitches, Ive never had a problem and its never crashed.

[rudihawk]

I've never have a properly working KDE desktop. I've given up on it as a DE.

I mostly use Unity/Gnome-shell/XFCE nowadays.

[techvish81]

i tried to use kde 2-3 times and was never able to bear it for more than 5 days. the plasma stuff is far unstable to be released and the network management framework is worst of all de. i was never able to connect to my dsl using it.


some of the kde apps are really really good, like k3b, kolour paint which i always install regardless of whatever DE i use.