First day with Kubuntu 9.10

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For the past several years I've used the Gnome desktop environment on Linux. Unlike Windows, Linux has several desktop environments that can be switched between quite easily using any login manager. In the distant past I have used WindowMaker, Enlightenment, IceWM, and KDE. Of all these desktop environments I was perhaps most actively involved with WindowMaker and IceWM. I developed a number of themes for WindowMaker and a single theme for IceWM that was used as the theme for Working Centre Linux Project, a pretty much defunct Linux distribution that targeted 486s and Pentium I computers.

Recently, mostly because of my disappointment over changed in Gnome and Ubuntu I decided to give Kubuntu a try. While I've run into a few bumps, I am actually finding it quite intuitive. When I first installed Kubuntu it took a bunch of updates before I managed to activate the fwcutter wireless driver download. It took me a few tries to connect to my wireless network, but that problem may have been due to the DLink wireless router we have which has known issues dropping wireless signals. At some point in the near future I'll switch to one of the Linksys routers capable of running Linux, I keep hearing good things about their wireless stability.

I am already familiar with a few KDE applications: k3b, Kontact, basket, Amarok,and Kopete, but it's nice to learn more about other applications I might not normally see in Ubuntu.

This isn't the first time I've used KDE. Several years ago I got the boxed edition of SuSE Professional 9.2 complete with user and system administrator manuals. The manuals were excellent, I learned a quite a bit from those books. The default desktop environment for SuSE 9.2 was KDE. When SuSE version 9.3 came out the software suddenly bloated like a weather balloon. It was then that I switched to a Gnome-based environment.

I did give KDE 4 a shot a couple of times, but stability and other issues prevented me from using it regularly. Those stability issues appear to be mostly be resolved, at least so far today, not one application crash.

I'm not convinced KDE is for everyone, I likely wouldn't switch my wife after getting her used to Gnome, but I am enjoying it much more than I have Gnome lately.