Showing posts with label Kubuntu. Show all posts

April 22, 2019

Kubuntu 14.04 And 16.04 Officially Hit End Of Life And Users Asked To Upgrade

Over on the Kubuntu mailing list it was announced today that the two previous long term support incarnations of Kubuntu have officially been retired, leaving the current 18.04 LTS release as the only remaining supported LTS version.

Users are encouraged to upgrade to a newer version - either Kubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver LTS or the current 19.04 Disco Dingo release.

Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, running KDE 4.13

Kubuntu developer and council member Rick Mills stated today:

"As the newly released Kubuntu 19.04 makes it's way into the world,
inevitably other things come to their end.

Kubuntu 14.04 LTS was released in April 2014, and reaches 'End of Life'
for support on 25th April 2019. All Kubuntu users should therefore
switch to a newer supported release. Upgrades from 14.04 to a newer
release are not advised, so please install a fresh copy of 18.04 or
newer after running a backup of all your data.

Kubuntu 16.04 LTS was released on 21st April 2016, and was supported for
Kubuntu for a period of year 3 years [1]. Kubuntu 16.04 LTS support
therefore ends 21st April 2019, and users are invited to upgrade to
18.04 LTS, or perform a fresh install of that or newer release.

I would thank users of both releases, especially for the amazing
additional community support on IRC, forums, mailing lists, and elsewhere."

In either case, do note that users are recommended to perform a fresh install rather than trying t to perform a distribution upgrade multiple times to get there. The experience will go much better that way, from all that we've gathered so far.

The new Disco Dingo, as well as the Bionic Beaver LTS releases can be torrented or downloaded from the Kubuntu website.

As an aside, this would officially mark the end of any kind of "officially supported" version of KDE 4 from Canonical, which from a nostalgia-perspective is kind of sad.

April 5, 2018

Kubuntu Bionic Beaver Beta 2 Release Images Prepping For Release - i386 Testers Badly Needed

For those wanting to test out what will become Kubuntu Bionic Beaver 18.04, release candidate images have been published and are available for download. One area in particular that needs more testing are the i386 images.

While many distributions have moved away from i386, designating it as a relic of the past, the Kubuntu development team is willing to publish and support this older architecture - but only if the community supports such a move.

Over on Kubuntu-development mailing list, board member Valorie Zimmerman laid out the situation rather succinctly:

"Anyway, i386 users, now or never! I mean literally if we don't get
testing on this LTS on i386 hardware, we will NOT be offering it from
here forward. This is a community-produced product, and if those who
want it are not willing to test it, we simply cannot provide untested
stuff.

Please login to the qatracker at
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/milestones/388/builds/169616/testcases,
click the little disk symbol to download or zsync an image, and test
test test!

File bug reports for bugs you find using `ubuntu-bug ubuiquity` or
whatever the packagename is (ubiquity is the installer) and add those
BR numbers to your report.

Please, today or at latest tomorrow."

So basically if there are not enough tests performed over the next few days, the i386 releases will disappear forever. The developers have made it clear that they will make every attempt to support these older computers so long as the community wants it's.

As of this writing, there were no QA tests completed for the dated architecture, however at least one user was stepping up saying they would perform the test. Even still, that's hardly enough to warrant confidence.

Again, most other distributions have already stopped spinning .iso files for this particular architecture. Which, if successful, would leave Kubuntu as a participant in an increasingly smaller circle.

Link:

- amd64 Beta 2 candidate testing going well; i386 testing -- none?

</K*Digest!>

March 5, 2018

Checking In With Kubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver Daily Build - Here Are Some Thoughts

A long time ago in a land not so far away I ran Kubuntu, the KDE Plasma flavor of Ubuntu. These days I run KDE Neon, but I try to keep a close eye on Kubuntu and like to check in from time to time to see how things are progressing as we near the release of Bionic Beaver in April. Based on all accounts from what I've read and seen on social media and the YouTubez things are pretty solid over in the blue-tinted version of 'Buntu. For example, the Total OS Today YouTube channel gave a good review of Kubuntu a few days ago, which can be seen below, where the host doing the review even titled the article "Kubuntu 18.04 Linux Future Looking Good". A few years ago I'm not sure this would have been a likely review title. The highlight of the video is, for me, at the 10:30 mark when he says "A lot faster then Ubuntu Gnome, I can tell you that". Coming from a user who does not use Plasma as his daily driver, that is a pleasant observation. There are a few reasons for this newfound way of looking at a distribution that was once referred to as Canonical's "Blue Headed Step Child". Let's investigate a bit further.

There's been a lot of press recently about improvements in KDE Plasma and all of the praise is certainly well deserved. The quality improvements of the desktop environment are certainly one factor in the polish and overall feel of the distro of late, and this can in no small way be discounted. Plasma is getting better each month and it certainly shows. Just read Planet KDE and try to keep up - it's almost a daily occurrence. But there's more to it than that.

The new-ish team at Kubuntu has been getting better at doing it's collective job, as well as getting faster at getting new Plasma releases, KDE Frameworks, and KDE Applications into the hands of users. What once took possibly weeks before (if such backports occurred at all, which was never an absolute guarantee) now takes mere hours or days. If a user chooses, they can stay current with the very latest KDE has to offer. Additionally, there is a sense of really wanting Kubuntu to return to being a hallmark KDE Plasma distro; One that represents KDE well and equips users with all the tools, codecs, drivers, and applications they need to work, learn, and play.

Latest kernel series, latest Plasma & Frameworks
strive to ensure a quality user experience

As the video above states, Kubuntu's future is looking good. While it still does not deviate from stock Plasma too much in the looks department (and there are some who wish it did), it does deliver a rock solid Plasma experience out of the box, along with an extensive set of applications that aim to cover just about any use-case one might have for computing on a laptop or desktop computer. So instead of a likely boring and in-depth review, I'll cover a few brief observations. Here are a few good points and also a wish list I wrote down as I took Kubuntu for a spin in VirtualBox:

Nice touches:

Fast, snappy feel
Breeze Dark as the default theme is a welcome change and, in my opinion, superior to the more vanilla Breeze theme
Inclusion of Cantana Music Player, which can be set up on first run as a single-user or client-server setup was an interesting choice

Not a native KDE app (though still using Qt5), likely due to Amarok's slowness in getting up to snuff in the post KDE 4 era, along with newly-minted Elise and Babe music players not quite baked enough for inclusion on an LTS release, which Kubuntu 18.04 will be

Inclusion of Qt dev tools was, in retrospect a nice touch. Anything to encourage users to explore and learn to better understand and create code is a Good Thing^TM
Inclusion of the sometimes maligned KDE PIM

More users, the better. And it does everything a user of a PIM suite could possibly want. More users = more bug reports and more code fixes and ultimately a better product
It even includes Outlook tools for those users who are not 100% Microsoft-free in their day jobs. Nice

K3b disc tool and KDE Partition Manager's inclusion were thoughtful additions

Of course there are a few things I'd add or do differently if I were king of the Kubuntu Universe.

Wish list:

While there's Spectacle for taking screen shots, it does not do simple graphical edits. I'd like to see Kolourpaint included here, as one thing Spectacle can do is export an image into an application like Kolourpint for these minor edits that so often need to be made to screenshots. This functionality is coming in Spectacle, but for now this work-around could represent a thoughtful addition

Using KolourPaint with Spectacle gives a good user
experience in being able to make graphical
notations on captured screenshots

If Kubuntu came with a USB creation tool for making a bootable USB image, I missed it
Would be a bit more functional and aesthetically-pleasing if the default home screen showed the Home and Computer icons. This again likely comes from stock Plasma, but leaves the desktop in a live session rather empty-looking and barren
The addition of useful tools one might want to run, like KDiskFree, prior to installation to metal would be a nice touch
In my opinion Steam should be installed by default in a distro like Kubuntu

If media players, office suites, a full PIM suite, and dev tools are included, why not Steam for Games?

Would like to see KBackup or similar backup solution included by default
The inclusion of a few more themes or Look and Feel packs would be welcome

Although Breeze Dark is a stock theme, it's a welcome
change of pace to this author from the lighter, stock Breeze

All in all however Kubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver is shaping up to be a both a solid release and a good representation of all that the Plasma desktop has to offer. It's default application set represents some thought given to cover most anything a user would likely need to do in order to be both productive and entertained.

If you'd like to check it out yourself, the daily images can be found at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/current/, and the full release is slated for April 2018.

Addendum 03/09/2018 - Kubuntu Beta 1 was released for testing

October 23, 2013

Own A Small Business? KDE's Kraft Is Here To Help With Document And Invoice Generation

One of the issues facing small and middle-size businesses is how to create and manage all of the necessary documentation in order to run your business. Additionally, you also want to look good while running your business. By this I mean looking professional. Like a good website, nice looking letters, forms, and invoices are necessary in order for you to convey the right image. A tool to help design and manage all of your forms would be great, as long as it was also easy to use and still powerful. Enter Kraft.

October 22, 2013

KDE Grub-2 Editor: What it is & How To Install It (AKA Why Isn't It Installed By Default?)

One of the most common types of questions that come up in various forums and mailing lists pertain to how to manage the most important of Grub2's features. Inquiries like how one changes the default boot kernel, how to easily pass various boot parameters, or how to remove older kernel entries to free up hard drive space are common questions. Of course all of these functions are available to those who are command line wizards. For the more graphically-oriented among us, however, it might be preferred to have a handy and easy to use graphical tool to handle these jobs and more. Enter KDE's Grub2 Editor.

October 17, 2013

Stylish Kubuntu Polo Shirts Available To Show Your Support For Your Favorite Linux Distribution

Kubuntu Council member Jussi Schultink recently announced the availability of new polo shirts for sale. As of right now, there are limited numbers of men's Kubuntu shirts in (extra) large, medium, and small. International shipping is available. All proceeds from the shirts go to supporting the Kubuntu Council and their endeavors. You can also just simply make a donation to the Council as well via available shopping cart options for various monetary amounts, if you wish to support Kubuntu without ordering a shirt.

The blog post also indicates that upon a successful sales campaign of the men's shirts, ladies shirts will be added. Payment options include direct withdrawal via various banks as well as the acceptance of Visa and Mastercard. As of this writing, there are a few of each size left so it would be recommended that you act now if you would like to get in on this initial run.

I spoke with Jussi via email and asked if we can expect other items to be added to the Kubuntu Store, such as coffee mugs, etc. He indicated that it was possible going forward dependent upon cost and finding the right supplier, among other things.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a new era for Kubuntu merchandise since the Canonical store dropped Kubuntu items a while back, thereby creating a void for these kinds of things. It's also a great way to support Kubuntu financially and get something in return. After all, who doesn't love Kubuntu Blue?

Where's the real-life pictures of Jussi or Jonathan modeling the new threads?

Links:
(1) Kubuntu polo shirts have arrived!
(2) Kubuntu Merchandise

February 6, 2013

KDE 4.10 Officially Released And Available For Kubuntu

After months of testing and three release candidates, KDE Software Compilation 4.10 has been unleashed to the general public. In typical Kubuntu fashion, the update is already available for users of both the LTS and current releases, as well as the Raring development release. Numerous changes, improvements, and refinements abound in this, one of the last few point releases leading up to KDE SC 5.0. Changes, improvements, new features, and fixes abound in this release and include, but are not limited to:

Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces -- Qt Quick is continuing to make its way into the Plasma Workspaces. Plasma Quick, KDE's extensions on top of QtQuick allow deeper integration with the system and more powerful apps and Plasma components. Plasma Containments can now be written in QtQuick. Various Plasma widgets have been rewritten in QtQuick, notably the system tray, pager, notifications, lock & logout, weather and weather station, comic strip and calculator plasmoids. Many performance, quality and usability improvements make Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces easier to use.
New Screen Locker -- A new screen locking mechanism based on QtQuick brings more flexibility and security to Plasma Desktop.
Animated Wallpapers -- Thanks to a new QtQuick-based wallpaper engine, animated wallpapers are now much easier to create.
Improved Zooming in Okular -- A technique called tiled rendering allows Okular to zoom in much further while reducing memory consumption. Okular Active, the touch-friendly version of the powerful document reader is now part of KDE SC.
Faster indexing -- Improvements in the Nepomuk semantic engine allow faster indexing of files. The new Tags kioslave allows users to browse their files by tags in any KDE-powered application.
Color Correction -- Gwenview, KDE's smart image viewer and Plasma's window manager now support color correction and can be adjusted to the color profile of different monitors, allowing for more natural representation of photos and graphics.
Notifications -- Plasma's notifications are now rendered using QtQuick, notifications themselves, especially concerning power management have been cleaned up.
New Print Manager -- Setup of printers and monitoring jobs was improved thanks to a new implementation of the Print Manager.
Kate, KDE's Advanced Text Editor received multiple improvements regarding user feedback. It is now extensible using Python plugins.
KTouch -- KDE's touch-typing learning utility has been rewritten and features a cleaner, more elegant user interface.
libkdegames improvements -- Many parts of libkdegames have been rewritten, porting instructions for 3rd party developers are available.
KSudoku now allows printing puzzles.
KJumpingCube has seen a large number of improvements making the game more enjoyable.

KDE 4.10

For many users, the improvements in Nepomuk will be the highlight of this release. According to the official release announcement the was a lot of work done in this area that was sponsored by Blue Systems, so the work they are doing since bringing on board select Kubuntu developers is already being felt in this and other areas. Which is great to see.

"Thanks to the work sponsored by Blue Systems, the KDE cross-application semantic search and storage backend has seen over 240 bugs fixed and a significant number of other improvements. Chief among these is the new indexer, which makes indexing faster and more robust. A nice feature is that it first quickly indexes the basic information of new files (name and mimetype) so the files are available at once, and then delays full data extraction until the system is idle (or connected to AC!), so it doesn't interfere with the user's workflow. In addition, it is now far simpler to write extractors for new file formats."

"The introduction of the Tags KIO slave allows users to browse their files by tags from any KDE application."

"Nepomuk Cleaner is a simple new tool for managing semantic storage. It is useful for cleaning up legacy, invalid or duplicate data. Running the Cleaner after upgrading can provide a significant speed improvement. More information on this and other changes in the KDE search technologies can be found in Vishesh Handa's blog"

240 bugs is an impressive number, to be sure. KDE's schematic desktop simply has to shine if KDE is to continue to gain market share.

Another thorny area for many users to get some love in this release is the often-maligned KMail. Better search, indexing, account setting import, and many other bug fixes and improvements abound.

Other new features abound in KWin regarding menus and new display and behaviour options that are configurable (see Martin Gräßlin's blog, and specifically this post for further information).

Finally, an obvious change one will immediately notice is the new, seemingly lighter and crisper Air Theme and default wallpaper. There are many more highlights to this release than are listed here. For a detailed look at what's new, check out the official release announcement from KDE.org.

There are a lot more changes here than could realistically be listed. Needless to say, this is an important release and a vital stepping stone towards making KDE the most stable, functional, configurable, and beautiful DE out there.

Getting IT

If you are running Kubuntu's development release, Raring Ringtail, SC 4.10 will come as part of your normal system updates. For 12.04 LTS and 12.10 users, you simply need to enable the backports PPA.

ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

December 11, 2012

KDE And Kubuntu Well Represented In New Google Communities

A few days ago, Google launched a new service over on Google+ that you may or may not be aware of. The new feature is called Communities, and it's function, according to Google, is to

"Talk about the stuff you’re into with people who love it too"

Straight forward enough. There are some cool aspects to Communities on G+, such as:

Real-time communication and collaboration
Every member can contribute
Can have updates sent via email
Posts show up in your G+ stream
You can share articles via your stream or social media
You can schedule and have live Hangouts

Of course, in a matter of minutes, there were KDE and Kubuntu communities popping up all over the place. If you already use G+, then joining these communities makes a lot of sense. If not, now may be a good time to try G+ out or try it again if you tried it a while ago and just didn't get it. According to Mashable, there are 400 million G+ users and counting (as of Sep. 2012).

For the convenience of our readers, here are just a few that you may want to join and participate in. If you are aware of others we have missed, just leave them in a comment below. Happy Google Plus-ing!

The G+ Community for this blog
The Kubuntu Community on G+
The KDE Community on G+
The KDE-USA Community (If you love KDE and live in the USA, join here and let's discuss promoting KDE in the States!)

December 7, 2012

Ubuntu Minecraft Installer Script Released

It's the weekend - Time for many Linux users to think about getting some quality gaming time in now that the work week is done. Traditionally, getting Minecraft to install and play nice on Kubuntu and it's kin has been a challenge for some. Java issues and graphics card issues occasionally pop up, not to mention learning the how and where all those files get installed to (hint: in Dolphin, press [alt]+[.] to show hidden files. All Minecraft-related files and folders, including your saved games, are found in .Minecraft).

To help with installing Minecraft in a seamless manner, one contributor has written a fully editable and tweakable bash script to handle the installation, including making sure that you are using the proprietary Sun Java as opposed to OpenJKD, per Mojang's reccomendations. Highlights include:

Install Minecraft on Ubuntu and it's derivatives[sp]

Install the Vanilla Minecraft Server

Apply patches[sp] to fix the black screen issue users experience when attempting to play on Xubuntu

Installs Sun-Java not crappy OpenJDK

Has a trouble shooting option if your install isn't working

It's a free and open source script so you can tweak it to your liking

Scripted in bash so you can install on ANY computer running Ubuntu without dealing with dependencies

The script can be downloaded from the original post over at the Minecraft Forum. If you try the installer let us know how it works in the comments below. What other Minecraft tools / scripts / management apps. have you found to be useful?

Minecraft running on Kubuntu in my personal world 1

Minecraft running on Kubuntu in my personal world 2

Minecraft running on Kubuntu in my personal world 3

Minecraft running on Kubuntu in my personal world 4

August 16, 2012

Looking To Make Muon Discover Even More Versatile And Install More Than Just Apps

Since I had earlier reported on the latest Muon release, which inlcuded Muon Discover, the author has come up with a few new ways in which to use this versatile front end. If you are new to Muon Discover, it is basically like the Ubuntu Software Center except it is for Kubuntu! See my linked post above for installing.

Alex Pol, the program's author, has stated:

"The first Muon Discover iteration was centered into building a new GUI to figure out your system’s available applications. The second iteration though, was meant to be an engine overhaul. The GUI wouldn’t change much but technically it changed a lot. Muon’s internal library was repurposed into a backend-based system where APT is only a backend, which means basically two things:

Now we can have multiple backends

Now we don’t depend on QApt"

What the author has done already is to create front ends that allow for installing plasmoids as well as one for installing comics to the comics plasmoid. What this in essence means is that Muon Discover could be used for almost anything we can think of - from installing plasmoids to maybe being a front end to DiviantArt for searching for photos and wallpapers and the like. Some other uses that come to mind are, for example, being as front-end for:

KDE-Look.org wallpapers, fonts, and color schemes
KDE-Files.org for downloading templates and sample documents
DiviantArt.com, as listed above
Any good GPL-licensed sound and/or clipart websites or databases

Muon Discover, KNS Backend from Aleix Pol on Vimeo.

What do you think? What good uses could you see from this? Most importantly, what do you think of Muon Discover?

Resources:
Follow Muon development here: https://projects.kde.org/projects/extragear/sysadmin/muon/news
Alex Pol's Blog, The Blind Cow: http://www.proli.net/

August 9, 2012

Digia Acquires Qt from Nokia, Has plans To Go Cross-Platform

Digia announced it was acquiring Qt's business, software, and staff from Nokia today. Over a year ago Digia had already purchased Nokia's commercial Qt business.

August 8, 2012

Y PPA Repository Manager Hits 0.9.0 Release, Can Install Packages Directly

A few weeks I told you about an application called Y PPA Manager that allows you to manage your Launchpad PPA List (sources.list file) though a GUI interface and some other neat things related to maintaining the software on your system.

According to Launchpad:

"Y PPA Manager is a tool for easily searching for packages in Ubuntu PPAs as well as perform various PPA actions: add, remove, purge, backup PPAs and more"

If you read the article you'll recall we liked the application for a few really good features it brought t to the table. These mainly were backing up your current software sources, restoring them, and eliminating duplicate entries.

Kubuntu Gets KDE Support In Firefox Again

Somehow this little innocuous post from our friends at Blue Systems went under the radar. It might be because the interwebs are always about the bad news. You may recall back in March that the news broke that Kubuntu was dropping support for Firefox. Specifically, this was originally reported by our friends over at Phoronix.com, and was taken from an IRC chat log whereby the Kubuntu developers discussed the situation.

August 4, 2012

What Are The First 10 Things You Install After A New Kubuntu Installation?

Over on the Kubuntu Forums (you do visit there, right? If not, shame on you for six weeks!), a user recently posed a question we often discuss amongst ourselves and perhaps tweak a bit over time. That is, what are the top ten things you add to your system after a clean Kubuntu install? Currently, answers are varying from the usual suspects like VLC, Thunderbird, and Skype - to the more eccentric such as Yakuake, Minitube, and Krusader. Mentioned also are various widgets some users added to their desktop.

And that, of course, is the great thing about Linux - We are free to tweak and customize away as we wish. We can add everything including the kitchen sink for a robust experience, or strip things down to a minimalist, near-stock installation. What we end up with is both a reflection of our personalities as well as the way we find ourselves using our computers on a daily basis.

Other factors are likely to include whether the person plays games on their computer, works from home, or is into specific things like photography or multimedia editing. A final consideration as to what these top ten things may be in a particular case would likely be a reflection of the form-factor that the device running KDE was on. in other words, one might not install the Calligra Office Suite on a tablet, opting instead for a more light-weight Google Docs set-up for light document editing.

Here is my "top ten that is definitely more than ten list" for things added when Kubuntu is freshly put to iron directly from a CD or USB stick. Note that this is how I would set up Kubuntu for me, not necessarily how I would set it up for someone else (a friend, customer, etc.), although the two would possibly be very similar. I've organized it by category to make things a bit easier.

General

Add Medibuntu repository

Packaging project dedicated to distributing software that cannot be included in Kubuntu for various reasons, related to geographical variations in legislation regarding intellectual property, security and other issues
I Add all Medibuntu packages except for hot-babe. These packages are still deemed necessary by 95 percent of the computing world (it's a fact, you can look it up)

Add openjre-6-jre (Open source Java implementation)
Add Ubuntu One

Cloud based storage and sync from within KDE and integrated right into the Dolphin File Manager

Compile and add Daisy Launcher

Simple, clean, elegant, and round
Can also be configured as a traditional, MacOS-style dock

Compile and add FDesktopRecorder

Qt based, unlike RecordMyDesktop
Outputs as .avi file which KDEnlive can import

System

Add Muon Discover

As close to a Kubuntu App Store as you'll find

Office

Add Calligra Suite

A full Office Productivity Suite and then some
Includes the excellent Krita drawing program, as well as the brainstorming tool Braindump
Imports MS Office documents better then Libre Office
Native KDE application
No other Linux office suite comes close to it's breadth of functionality

Add KMyMoney

Full-featured Quicken-type financial suite for Linux

Multimedia

Add VLC

The Swiss Army Knife of Linux media players
If VLC won't play it, nothing will

Add Rosa Media Player

Quicky replacing VLC as the go-to media player in our circles
In addition to playing media, ROMP also can stream via HTTP/FTP, RTP/RTSP, MMS/MMST, MPST, SDP, as well as capture / record (via mencoder) of television signals
ROMP allows you to trim a particular piece of video, extract audio from multimedia files as well as record screen presentations. Can you say "do it all"?

Add KDEnlive

Full featured video editor
Also has support for title screens, a definite plus

Add Kamerka

"take photos using your webcam and shiny animated QML interface"

Internet

Add Firefox
Add Chromium

Only for the much better behavior with Youtube videos than can be had with any other browser, thanks to the Youtube Options For Google Chrome plugin

Add QupZilla Browser

Best Webkit-based browser for Kubuntu right now in our opinion

Add Kompozer

A must if you work with websites

Add Choqok

A must of you microblog on Twitter and/or Identi.ca
Lots of features make it better than web-based Twitter apps

Add KGet

Often overlooked and not installed by default in Kubuntu
Powerful download management functions

Add Mumble

Open source voice chat software

Games

Add Minecraft

Non-free but certainly a fun and rewarding indulgence
Search Minecraft on Youtube and you might start to get an idea of why this game is so popular around the world

Add Urban Terror

Sometimes you just want to blow stuff up (ok, we mean people)
Easy, quick install via Playdeb.net

Add PokerTH

You gotta know when to fold 'em

Add OpenTTD

Model railroads for geeks. Serious fun once you get the gist of it
Also has blimps!

Education

Add Marble

We marvel at Marble's unique views of the world we live in

Graphics

Add DigiKam (with kipi-plugins)

Lets you organize and manage your photos the KDE-way

Add Screenie

If you blog, you'll want this one

Add Gimp

And there you have it - our DE-facto list of things to install post...er....install. Other honorable mentions that I sometimes give a nod and a download to include Blogilo and Wine. I would install and use Blogilo more but many Blogger.com functions do not work due to API limitations that had existed in the past. Definitely an issue, as Blogger is our platform of choice, at least for the present. Perhaps there have been improvements in this area since, but the application has not been updated in a few years now. As for Wine, I find no compelling reason at the moment to run any Windows application on my production box at this point in time. Although, truth be told, I did come close with wanting to install and play Skyrim!

So what are your Top Ten (more or less) things you add as soon as your computer reboots and you're staring a blank new system running the latest KDE release? Leave a comment below and let us know. You can also see and comment on the original Kubuntu Forums thread here to see what others have said so far.

July 23, 2012

The QupZilla Browser Continues Rapid Development, Makes Case For Top Browser In Kubuntu

With all of the well-deserved kudos and coverage that I have been giving to the rekonq web browser the last few days, I would be remiss to forget to mention another Qt-based web browser that is available for Kubuntu and it's derivatives (as well as other Linux distros, Mac, Windows, and Haiku) that has seen massive development in a short period of time. We're talking the QupZilla browser here. This browser flies under the radar in Kubuntu circles, mainly because it's not included by default in Kubuntu like rekonq is. Also, it may not help that it is yet another app with a "Zilla" at the end. That does not mean, however, that it should be overlooked as a worthy contender in filling your web surfing needs.

What It Has Going For It

QupZilla defines itself as a

"new and very fast QtWebKit browser. It aims to be a lightweight web browser available through all major platforms. This project has been originally started only for educational purposes. But from its start, QupZilla has grown into a feature-rich browser.

QupZilla has all standard functions you expect from a web browser. It includes bookmarks, history (both also in sidebar) and tabs. Above that, you can manage RSS feeds with an included RSS reader, block ads with a builtin AdBlock plugin, block Flash content with Click2Flash and edit the local CA Certificates database with an SSL Manager.

QupZilla's main aim is to be a very fast and very stable QtWebKit browser available to everyone. There are already a lot of QtWebKit browsers available, but they are either bound to the KDE environment (rekonq), are not actively developed or very unstable and miss important features. But there is missing a multiplatform, modern and actively developed browser. QupZilla is trying to fill this gap by providing a very stable browsing experience." - source

So far, so good, as WebKit for the most part rocks. It's no coincidence that both QupZilla and rekonq use WebKit for the job of heavy HTML lifting. Recent updates to QupZilla have brought a slew of new features. Mainly, tab previews, new address bar popup completion, improvements to AdBlock, and initial plugins support. The two initial plugins are a PIM Manager, which is like a form-fill tool that highlights form fields that can be automatically populated with data stored in the PIM from a key-stroke, and GreaseMonkey support. GreaseMonkey is definitely a power-user's dream, as can be seen with other browsers that have GreaseMonkey support. Finally, AdBlock is included as well, as again many power users insist on their browser of choice having this functionality.

QupZilla 1.3.1 Running In Kubuntu 12.04

Browsing DeviantArt using QupZilla

Giving QupZilla A Try On Kubuntu / Netrunner / Linux Mint KDE

Make sure you're running a recent version of Kubuntu. Note that the standard repositories have an older version of QupZilla that you'll likely want to avoid installing. Instead to get the latest and greatest, using your Muon Package Manager, click on Settings > Configure Software Sources, then enter your password. Click on the second tab on the top, labelled "Other Software". Then click "Add". Paste or type the following into Muon:

ppa:nowrep/qupzilla

Click "OK" and allow your system to update and then simply search for and install the "qupzilla" package. You're all set to try QupZilla out and give it a spin.

Is It The Best Alternative Browser Out There?

Well, it does have a lot going for it. It's real competition in the native Qt web browser wars in Kubuntu is rekonq, which is the default browser on install. The only way to settle this is a good 'ole fashioned App Showdown. So stay tuned for that, which we should have up later this week. As for you, what do you think?

July 20, 2012

Calligra Suite Upgraded To 2.5 - Release Candidate Available For Kubuntu

Following our previous post about the continuing and rapid development of the Calligra Office Suite, another announcement was made today indicating that the flagship KDE office suite has realized release candidate status. From the announcement:

"Compared to the beta, this new release contains many bug fixes."

A cursory look through KDE Commit Digest seems to confirm that a number of bug fix patches have been steadily coming through since the beta release. Apparently the team has been very busy indeed.

Installation / Upgrading

If you would like to install the release candidate in Kubuntu 12.04, simply make sure you have the Kubuntu Beta repository (ppa:kubuntu-ppa/beta) installed and activated. Then install or update the package "calligra" and you're all set! The Calligra package is a meta-package that will install all of the Calligra Suite components: Words, Sheets, Stage, Plan, Krita, Kexi, Karbon, Flow, and Braindump. That's a whole lot of office suite bang for the proverbial buck.

And do provide some feedback as to what you think about Calligra. Is it ready to replace Libre Office in Kubuntu as the default Office Suite?

Calligra Words Word Processor

July 18, 2012

digiKam Photo Management Application Gets A Shiny New 2.7.0 Release

A few days ago, digiKam 2.7.0 was unleashed for the use and enjoyment of amateur and professional photographers alike. If you are a photographer or deal with managing photographs you'll want to check out digiKam as it is definitely a powerful and robust photo collection tool.


More Photos At http://www.flickr.com/photos/digikam

As far as what's new in version 2.7.0, some more cameras were tested and added, including: Canon 5D Mark III, G1 X, 1D X and Powershot SX200; Nikon D4,D800/D800E and D3200;Fuji X-S1 and HS30EXR; Casio EX-Z8; Olympus E-M5; Panasonic GF5; Sony NEX-F3, SLT-A37 and SLT-A57; Samsung NX20 and NX210; and Support for updated Samsung NX200 firmware.Other enhancements were improved thumbnail processing speed when in icon-view.

More importantly, nearly 30 bugs were squashed for this release, making it more stable and usable than ever.

If you are running Kubuntu 12.04, you'll notice that the version available for installation in Kubuntu as of today's date is 2.5.0. To get the latest and greatest digiKam 2.7.0 release, add the phillip5/extra PPA to your Software Sources in the Muon Package Manager. Then simply search for and install "digikam" and you're all set. While you're at it, make sure you install the "kipi-plugins" package to really extend the power of digiKam.

July 17, 2012

Muon Suite 1.4 Release Candidate Announced

Recently the latest release candidate for version 1.4 of the Muon Software Suite was announced. For those new users out there or those considering installing Kubuntu coming from another Linux variant, Muon is the flagship software manager in Kubuntu that is composed of a software center, package manager, and an update manager.


The Packages That Make Up The Muon Software Suite In Kubuntu 12.04

This Kubuntu Computer Is Currently All Up To Date Via The Muon Updater

Starting with the first release after the last stable one four months ago (1.3), here is a cumulative change log showcasing the work that has went into this 1.4 Release Candidate:

Features:

Introducing Muon Discover, a new type of software center focused around finding applications. Uses QML and will be the eventual successor of the Muon Software Center.
The Muon Software Center can now reload the APT database without kicking the user back to the home page. (BKO: #278721)
Use the KDE proxy, if defined (BKO: #284167) (Common)
Add the ability to filter by package architecture (BKO: #290437) (MPM)
Add the option to filter out (uninstalled) foreign-architecture packages that duplicate their native-arch equivalents, and turn it on by default. (MPM)
Add support to the Muon Software Center for fetching additional pages of reviews.
Add an "In Progress" view to the Muon Software Center, to show in-progress and pending transactions.
Display the archive component of the selected package. (LP: #883996) (MPM)
Added support for Debian's "education" and "introspection" package categories in the Muon Package Manager.
Added a "busy indication" throbber to the central view of the Muon Software Center to denote initialization progress. (BKO: #295045)
Keep a local cache of the ratings file for use without internet connections. (libmuon)
Add sorting capabilities to the Muon Sofware Center. Software can be sorted by name, rating, buzz, usage. (Also by relevancy in the case of searches)
Add an option to the Muon Software Center to display technical items. (BKO: #297700)
Show the package name for technical items in the Muon Update Manager and Muon Software Center. (BKO: #294172) (LP: #976071)
The Muon Software Center and Muon Discover now can automatically utilize the check-language-support utility shipped with Ubuntu's language-selector to automatically install localization and internationalization files for the package being installed.
The color-coded columns within the Muon Package Manager now take their colors from the KDE color scheme.
The Muon Update Manager has been given a version column
The updates within the Muon Update Manager are now sorted alphabetically by name.
Miscellaneous layout improvements to Muon Discover UI elements.
The applications list in Muon Discover is now keyboard-navigable.
Plasma Search-and-Launch integration for Muon Discover.

Bugfixes:

If a user manually clicks the package name column header, sort alphabetically even if we are showing relevancy-based quicksearch results. (BKO: #284181)
Fixed language pack support not installing the proper packages due to incorrect arguments being passed to check-language-support.

Optimizations:

Do not create package/application objects if we know before hand that there aren't any updates to display. (MUM)
At startup, the Muon Notifier will wait 2 minutes before showing update notifications, helping to make the login process less busy.

As you can see, the team has been busy getting Muon better and more polished all the time. Great work!

You can try out the latest Muon release candidate in Kubuntu by heading over to Launchpad and adding Jonathan Thomas' QApt Experimental software repository.

Coming soon: A detailed look at Muon Discover, which in the future will look to provide more of a software center like experience in Kubuntu. Stay tuned.

Source: Muon - News

July 16, 2012

Another Sign Of The (Linux Gaming) Times - The Steam Client Cometh

More and more gaming news for Linux just keeps pouring in this week! Just a short post that over on Phoronix, they have pointed out that there is a new blog over at Valve Software.....entitled....get ready for it....are you ready? Ok. It's called "Valve Linux: A blog by the Valve Linux Team"! Yes, you read that right. The Valve Linux Team.

There's a lot of goodness to digest here but to keep from being redundant just go to the links above get the official blog post, as well as the Phoronix link to get their take on the post and some thoughts and implications as to what it all means. To Phoronix's credit they have followed this story for a very long time, so it's good to see them get the credit of being the first to float the idea out there, as well as to keep on the story and sticking by their words even in the midst of a lot of doubters. Good job, Michael.

The one thing I will note specific to the concerns of this blog and presumably our readers, however, is that the first (and perhaps only) supported Linux flavor for Valve is Ubuntu. That should mean that we as Kubuntu users (and you, if you are using a (K)Ubuntu-based derivative like Linux Mint KDE or Netrunner) will get a supported OS out of the gate. I use the word should because, as we saw with the Desura client for Linux, there were things about Desura that just do not play well with Kubuntu. The developers assumptions apparently were that everyone using a 'Buntu based system uses GTK. On our systems, many Desura linux games will simply not run due to missing libraries that are not present by default in Kubuntu. Let's hope there's nothing like this on the horizon for Valve.

All in all this is pretty big news. Big for Valve, and we must acknowledge that this is also very big for Canonical. And by extension, big for Kubuntu users. And having Steam on Linux will certainly push Linux more into the PC gaming limelight.

Keeping Track Of Kickstarter And Crowd-Sourced Games For Linux

Since gaming on Linux is something that is seen to be on the rise as companies and independent developers alike show more attention to our cherished OS, is there any one definitive list keeping track of all the games coming down the development pike for your Kubuntu and Linux enjoyment?

It would seem to be a good thing to have a list where people could review upcoming games at a glance and decide if that particular project is worth supporting and worth following the development cycle.

To date, it seems that the main way people are learning about all of these crowd-sourced games is via blogs or forum posts. It would seem that a central, community-driven and community-maintained wiki would make sense in order to track which games are in what stages for Linux development. For example, the following milestones could be tracked with data culled from the web, Desura's Alpha Funding, individual developer blogs, and sources such as Kickstarter.com itself:

Games that have announced definite Linux support
Games that have announced definite Linux support at a certain funding goal
Games that have non-definite Linux support (i.e. A Linux port is planned in the future...) <-- As an aside, does this ever happen?
A follow-up to verify the developers follow-through and commitment to Linux
A follow-up announcing all of the available outlets to purchase the game (Ubuntu Software Center, Desura, Steam, publisher-direct, other)

Right now, there are two efforts out there attempting tracking crowd-sourced Linux game announcements and development. The first is the Linux Games Database who have started tracking Linux games as announced on Kickstarter.com. Secondly, a thread has opened up over at the Ubuntu Forums discussing the same. Both posts have been updated within the last few days, so it looks like there is an aim to keep the content current.

Still, a wiki or website (I wonder if LinuxGameWatch.com or TuxGamingWatch.com are available...) would seem to make sense here. And make for a good way to get involved in helping to promote Kubuntu and Linux. That's always a good thing, for the time is now for keeping the momentum going regarding gaming on Linux. Frag on, dear Tuxers.