Ubuntu 9.04, codenamed Jaunty Jackalope, was released on April 23rd, also celebrating the 10th Ubuntu release. Since its first version back in October 2004, Ubuntu went through many and quickly became one of the most popular distributions out there, with a huge and continuously thriving community and a fast development method.

While I agree that there are applications for KDE 4.2 which still lack several important features (like for example the equalizer and ability to go to the previous/next song using the tag editor in Amarok), I must say that it also improved very much since the last time I have a looked at it.

The Kubuntu team announced on Saturday (February 21) the second maintenance release of Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), which is supported with security fixes and maintenance updates until October 2009.

I took these screenshots using a Kubuntu Intrepid Beta installation after performing a full dist-upgrade, at 1280x1024, with the nVIDIA 173 driver installed. I left all the settings in applications default, but I had to make fonts smaller and resize windows (in Konqueror for example), because they didn't look very well as default. The default theme used is Oxygen.

There are tools available to allow anyone to create and distribute a completely customized Ubuntu Based distribution using the Gnome Desktop. Many Kubuntu users would like to do the same thing but such tools are not fully compatible with KDE and the Kiosk tool does not change or remove all of the Kubuntu defaults so that a program like Remastersys can create a customized ISO with the defined changes.

Kubuntu Tutorials Day is back. Join the Kubuntu team on IRC, #kubuntu-devel, for some fascinating chats with Free Software’s finest developers.

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Kubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Kubuntu 8.04 LTS is derived from Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and uses the KDE desktop instead of the GNOME desktop.

Recently, we reviewed Ubuntu 8.04 beta. We received several complaints for cranky people in the comments, and so we decided to take a look at some newer code. Always in search of variety, however, we decided to spice things up a little bit by trying Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu. We downloaded the nightly build of the alternate installer, and took it for a spin.

First off, cheers to Jonathan for his great work with Kubuntu and KDE. Everyone should go read his reasons why Kubuntu is good for KDE. I’d also like to share some of my own comments about Kubuntu and KDE.

Kubuntu (and some other KDE-based distributions) features a special System Settings application which takes the place of the full KDE Control Centre application, which is used for setting all sorts of KDE preferences and changing different settings on the system.

There are two dominant software projects that provide Linux with a graphical user interface, but only one of them will get long-term support in Ubuntu's next version of the open-source operating system.

Today I've finished installations of two very different operating systems, Vista and Kubuntu. Both are essentially trying to accomplish the same thing, which is to provide desktop users a satisfying and relatively seemless desktop computing experience. Both succeed to a certain degree and both fail in some important areas. The question is why?

Jes Hall (canllaith), a KDE developer, has taken Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) through its paces and finds much to like. Amongst other changes in 7.10 she discusses, Jes admits that she enjoys the six month development cycle, saying:

Events of the past week, before and after Gutsy’s release, have led me to think deeply about Kubuntu. No, I haven’t been thinking about what new features to implement (not that I could anyway), what bugs to fix (I’ll try, of course) or what Ubuntu features we need to catch up with. No, I was thinking much deeper, less technical, more abstract, more long term. Not that those goals are unimportant. But they will only be important depending on who/what we are and what we have planned.

Kubuntu 7.10 RC was announced as available several days ago. I installed it immediately, and I have to say, I’m very impressed! Although it’s still just a release candidate, it has all of the necessary ingredients: stability, responsiveness, innovation and coherency.

So I’ve decided that Konqueror is just not the web browser that some people want it to be. Call me spoiled / ruined for having spent so much time on Firefox, but I just can’t use it to be as productive as I want to be so I’ve installed Firefox on my Kubuntu installation. For those of you that are in similar situations keep reading and find out how to manually install Firefox within KDE.

Well we’re into day two on using Kubuntu full-time and I’m getting most of my personal show stoppers worked out.  I want to thank everyone that left comments here giving me some suggestions.  Here are my continued thoughts on using it, and what I’ve worked out.

As I mentioned a few days ago I have considered trying to use KDE again. Well yesterday I did a fresh install of Kubuntu 7.10 beta. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

The Canary Islands have two derivatives of Kubuntu, one which is being installed in all their schools and one used by the largest university. The Jornadas de Software Libre conference at The University of La Laguna, took place in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, from the 18th-21st September 2007. It was organised by the university’s Software Libre Office (OSL).

So compiz-fusion is the neat new whiz-bang thing out on the block. While I was on my ATI graphics card I half-lamented and half-scoffed the very neat-looking but not quite practical screen shots and video captures from those playing around with Beryl and Compiz. Now that I’ve got my sweet little System76 with an Intel GPU, I can run Compiz in my Free Software environment, and I must confess that there is some real meat in there; it’s not all just eye-candy.