Richard Jones' Log: Ubuntu is really cool

In the last few weeks, I've installed both Fedora Core 3 and Kubuntu 5.04. Some observations:

• Kubuntu required me to download and burn a single CD. Fedora Core 3 required me to download and burn 4 CDs.
• Kubuntu installation was very fast and seemed easier. I think it took me about 30 minutes from start to finish. The only messy bit was the text-based interface for handling disk partitions - Mandrake does this sooo much better with DiskDrake.
• KDE 3.4!

Kubuntu is a re-packaging of Ubutnu which uses the KDE (personal preference) desktop instead of Gnome. It's a separate project from Ubuntu, but has their complete support. On the FC3 machine I set up, one of the first things installed was an apt layer for the native RPM system, making it effectively look a lot like a Debian system. I was therefore a little familiar with apt-get, but had to ask a friend how to actually search for a package (the non-obvious "apt-cache search" does the job). I've previously been using Mandrake's urpmi approach which seems a little messier.

I noticed that I was only getting around 1,000 fps or so from glxgears, so I "apt-cache search nvidia" and installed the binary nvidia drivers (and while I was at it, a k7 kernel). Including reboot, that took about 5 minutes, maybe less. Now glxgears reports around 11,000 fps. Much nicer :)

The only hiccup I had was that the KDE Mailer decided to move its mail directory again - previously I'd temporarily lost all my mail because they renamed "Mail" to ".Mail". This time, they moved ".Mail" into ".kde/share/apps/kmail/mail" (or similar, this is from memory). Sigh. Once I'd also reinstalled spambayes (not using a package, as this was before I'd learnt about the "apt-cache search" doohickey) my mail worked fine again.