I downloaded and installed Kubuntu Feisty Herd 2 yesterday. I started using Kubuntu in my laptop for the past couple of weeks. I’m using Ubuntu in my desktop. I didn’t use Kubuntu for a long time since KDE was very buggy. I wanted to give it a try to see how it is now, so I installed Kubuntu couple of weeks back. I’ll write more on what I like and dislike in Kubuntu later, but kDE is much more matured now. Though it’s still buggy, the applications didn’t crash as many times as they used to. It’s much more stable now than it was a year or 2 back, so I wanted to continue using Kubuntu in my laptop and Ubuntu in my desktop. Since my laptop is dual core, it can handle the bulky KDE pretty well. I kept Ubuntu on my desktop since it’s single core and GNOME is faster and slim.

I downloaded the ISO image of Feisty Herd 2 from Kubuntu’s website. I booted my system with the live CD and as with Ubuntu Edgy, the screen was a garbage. The screen was not readable. I then followed the instruction left by Jojacoder in the comments and it worked. This is what I did. You can try the same if the xserver doesn’t work:

Press Ctrl+Alt+F1. You’ll be presented with a terminal (text based) screen.

Type vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down to the section where you see the screen resolution. My xorg file had 1600*1280. I changed it to 1280*1024 wherever it had 1600*1280. I then saved and closed the file. I then pressed Ctrl+Alt+F7 to get back to Xserver screen and then pressed Ctlr+Alt+Backspace. It restarted the xserver and now the screen was readable and back to normal.

I then installed Kubuntu Herd2 from the live CD. The installation went fine without any hiccups and I was presented with the login screen.

Once I logged in, I couldn’t find the wireless manager (or wireless network manager, I don’t remember) which I was using in Kubuntu Edgy. I used to manually start the wireless manager and click on my network to connect each time I boot my laptop. I then found KNetwork Manager. Once I started it, it showed a square icon on the taskbar. When I clicked on the icon, it showed me the available wireless network in my area, as shown below.

I selected my home network and entered the encryption key. It then prompted me to create a password (similar to keyring in Ubuntu) to access the key. Once I did, it connected my laptop to the network. The problem was, whenever I rebooted my machine and entered the password to access the network, it asked me to enter the encryption key each time (instead of connecting on it’s own). The problem went away after I upgraded my system with the latest updates.

After I logged in the first time, the adept package manager notified me that there were updates available. When I clicked on the icon, it tried to start the application and failed thrice. When it finally managed to start the adept update manager, I clicked on fetch available updates. It then showed me an upgrade wizard with the message “A new version of Kubuntu is available. Click next if you wish to upgrade“, as shown below.

I clicked next and nothing happened. The adept upgrade manager closed. I tried to upgrade 10 times and each time I pressed next, the wizard closed and nothing happened. I then tried to upgrade using a terminal. I typed sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, I was presented with the list of updates available and asked for my confirmation. Once I pressed ‘Y’, it downloaded all the packages and when it tried to install, it errored out, while updating adept, I think. I couldn’t continue and couldn’t find a fix in Kubuntu or Ubuntu forums. I then rebooted my system and logged in recovery mode. The update still didn’t work. I then rebooted and logged back in normally, closed the adept updater and tried again through the terminal. It worked this time and I updated the system with the latest updates.

Since I read that Fesity is going to support proprietary video drivers, I wanted to install it. I have ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 video card. I installed Synaptic package manager (since I had problems opening adept at time) and searched for fglrx. I got the fglrx xorg driver and installed that. I then rebooted my system, but when I typed fglrxinfo in the terminal, it was still showing the vesa driver. I then reconfigured my xserver using sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg in the terminal. I selected fglrx in the video card list and reconfigured everything. After I reconfigured, I rebooted the system and it worked. I’m still not sure if that’s the right way, but when I typed fglrxinfo in the terminal after those steps, I got mesa3d as the driver instead of ATI. I used to get ATI information in Edgy, but this one gives me the driver as mesa3d. The installation creates an ATI control panel as shown below.

Please leave your comments if you know what I did was right or wrong. Once those were done, I used the system for couple of hours and didn’t encounter any major crashes. I didn’t see as many major changes in Kubuntu Feisty as in Ubuntu Feisty. As of now the system is pretty stable for normal use, but I can’t assure that with updates coming in everyday. I have to see if the adept update manager works with the new list of available updates or if it’s going to show the same upgrade manager wizard and do nothing. I can still use synaptic to install the updates or I can use the terminal.

Here are some of the new features in Kubuntu Feisty Herd:

The password dialog was changed as shown below:

It used to be thin box with *******.

There are very few multimedia applications in Feisty that take care of all the functionalities. It reduces the clutter and makes it easy for end users.

The system settings now has tabs for general and advanced as shown below:

According to Kubuntu Herd2 release note, upgrading using adept is easy in Feisty compared to Edgy, but as I wrote above, that’s not the case. The upgrade manager is not working. They have to fix it. The funny part is, I didn’t upgrade from Edgy to Feisty. I did a clean install, so I’m not sure why it said a new version of Kubuntu is available. May be they forgot to take the test wizard out?

Another improvement in Kubuntu is power manager. You now have lot more options to select when you use the battery power in your laptop. The battery icon is also new and much bigger and better.

Overall, it’s good to use cutting edge system, but there’s no compelling reason to upgrade to Fesity Herd now. You can wait for the stable release to  upgrade.

 

 

 

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