Monday, October 27. 2008Mom-compatible Kubuntu Intrepid with KDE4
Since Mark lives here, people in the house are in awe about the man sitting in front of his desk all day long, "programming computers". Of course, we have been asked a few times to give a hand in choosing hard- or software, until now only to manage one dual install and a helping hand to install proprietary software...
A few weeks ago, our neighbor, a fifty-something housewife, asked us to have a look at her rather new computer making strange noises and refusing to boot. Of course, this was the ideal moment to try what we first thought to end up with a dual boot: It was not only impossible to boot the installed Windows XP, but all attempts to repair the existing installation were vain. Wild guess, total infection as she used the Internet without almost any protection, a very likely scenario. So, what to do? Either reinstall first Windows, then Linux and make the traditional dual boot for newbies, adding tons of firewalls and anti-virus tools. Else, convince the lady that she could continue to use the computer as before with mostly Free Software and get rid of the Windows part, a far easier choice for us who don't use Windows at all since quite some years, but what about her? She put all her trust in our affirmation that Linux was a far better choice for her. I should add that she is by no means an expert user but also a beginner in the Windows field, so there would be quite some knowledge building.  image copyright by Ian Spare, CC ny-nc-sa Bold move, we didn't hesitate long and decided to install Kubuntu in the Intrepid Ibex flavor, with a all shiny new KDE 4.1.2 desktop. Yes, I know, it is still beta and one shouldn't do that, but we live in the same house and Mark would in the worst case have been the daily emergency repair man and instructor. Here are the needs: mailing, some text processing, some basic image manipulation and, most important, Skype with video to keep contact with her family abroad. Languages would be German as system language, quite unfamiliar to us as we both use an English installation and Polish to keep the computer usable for the husband who is not as fluent in German as she is. Long story short, we installed everything and configured a basic installation with Kubuntu Intrepid Ibex beta and KDE 4.1.2. We did no particular hardware configuration except for the wide screen which turned out to be actually a flat TV and this went in a dash after we set up the 1440x900 specification. The HP color printer was recognized auto-magically, same for almost all the hardware, except for the Canon 4400 F scanner that turned out to be totally unsupported by SANE. The most tricky was actually to install Skype with video support and gave us an evening of headaches, the Logitech camera with built in microphone accepting either only the sound input or the video one. Some two hours of tunning the sound settings (K Mix REALLY needs more usability!) later we managed to make it work with an external headset and suggested to buy a headset, anyway nice to have for late night phone sessions. Now, two weeks later I did an update of the language packages, we still have an awful mix of German, Polish and mostly English as the Canonical folks are sadly behind schedule with language packs, the lady managed to nuke the panel and unfortunately it's not possible to add it at the bottom as it stubbornly decides to turn up at the top of the screen. Moving .kde/ to .kde-old/ and restarting did the trick. I still have to figure out how to activate desktop effects with the Radeon-HD driver, some residual fglrx (installed by default, such a shame) probably preventing the run (it did for the older Radeon driver on my laptop). But, on the bright side, she was able to use Skype almost all the time with both sound and video, used text processing and the next step will be to install Krita for image handling which she is very keen of and bringing her my old HP Scanner I don't use anymore. Overall a nice demonstration of how Mom-compatible both Kubuntu and KDE4 already are, enabling a computer newbie to use her computer without those "horrible beeps" and restarts she experienced before. She doesn't miss Windows at all and say that it's far more beautiful and not more difficult now than before  Trackbacks
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Yes, I did the panel-removing too on my first KDE4 install, but at least I don't feel quite so bad about not being able to add in back now. There's an usability thingie for all of whoever: make it easy to add that panel back.
Nice story, btw, but you should've been adventorous and installed something like Arch! (that's what I did for my dad, and nowadays he gets excited everytime there's a lot to download on an update! )
I nuked my panel as well, but I found a simple way to add it back.
If you add a panel to a desktop with no panels it will be at the top. But if you add an additional panel to a desktop with a panel at the top, it wil be added at the bottom. Then you can remove the panel at the top...
Yes. The language packs were a real problem. Updates hit the repositories last night (Sunday) so updating ought to improve the situation.
You should have installed OpenSUSE. I had a little confusion on some of the installation questions, but after actually getting it installed KDE 4 Opensuse is MUCH better than Kubuntu. Im pretty disappointed in Ubuntu in general after using Opensuse, they do an amazing job at spreading the linux brand but do a horrible job at actually advancing any linux technologies.
Although I used SuSE years ago (must have been 6.2 or so), it never was one of my favorite distributions, I'm more the Debian style geek, I love their packaging system. Put the Kubuntu facilities and release cycles on top and I'm happy
What's better about Debians packaging than openSUSE's zypper + Build Service?
I tried opensuse 10.1. It was beautiful. Only thing was it was released with totally broken update technology. The SuSE response seemed to me at the time to amount to "Well, what do you expect, it's only opensuse".
Since then one of my requirements for a distro is that the product I'm using not be a precursor product for the sponsoring organization.
In that case, I'd recommend to revisit openSUSE 11.0. The 10.x series were awful with package management, and they finally got it right.
`zypper install foo` works just as sweet as `apt-get install foo`.
I'm afraid you rather missed my point. The technical shortcomings in 10.1 were significant, but I could have forgiven that. It was the attitude that opensuse wasn't important and only SLED/S matter that drove me away.
It may be that it's all changed and my experience is no longer relevant, but for me, it'd take something extremely compelling to consider opensuse again. That may not be fair, but that's how I feel about it.
I'd have to say that the above doesn't really sound very "mom-compatible" at all! Her scanner doesn't work, the webcam doesn't work correctly, she has to buy an additional headset, the translations are incomplete, and she was able to render the machine unusable by removing the panel.
Now, I'm running KDE 4.1.2 on all of my machines and on the whole I think it's great, but I think maybe we will have to disagree on the definition of "mom-compatible"! It's exactly these kinds of issues that have prevented me converting my parents over to Kubuntu. They don't have a live-in Linux expert and so wouldn't have a clue how to deal with this. I would love to have them run Linux so I don't get the occasional call about spyware, but given the choice between "you might get an advertising popup now and again" or "you can't use your scanner or any those cheap craft-and-design programs you keep buying from QVC" I know which one they'll go for. (I appreciate that your neighbour's situation was a little more severe, btw).
I might not have expressed myself correctly: it was difficult to setup, but the webcam works and so does the built-in microphone, only the tweaking was difficult.
And if the scanner manufacturer doesn't provide free drivers you can hardly blame Kubuntu. The driver issue is btw. not distribution specific, it simply will not work with whatever distro or desktop manager you use. Put the blame on those who do not collaborate with the Free Software world, not on those who work hard to mak these things possible!
OK, that wasn't clear from your post -- it appeared that you weren't able to get sound and video working together and so needed the headset in order to achieve this.
I wasn't inferring any sort of blame over who is responsible for the issues such as hardware compatibility, simply pointing out that a non-technical user almost certainly doesn't care why their hardware doesn't work. I can see the conversation now: "I'm sorry you can't use your scanner, mum, but the vendor is evil and doesn't support Linux". "Can I have Windows back? My scanner worked in Windows.". Again, not in any way trying to knock the work of anybody in the Linux world, just pointing out that in order to be truly friendly to "moms" these issues need to be sorted out *somehow*. As it stands, the article title should have a disclaimer: "Friendly Linux geek needed for initial setup" 
Missed this one: removing the panel did not make the machine unusable, where did you read that? I had shown her how to add widgets and she simply added the Kickoff widget and there you go
Sorry, that was my assumption and I underestimated the abilities of your neighbour
If you want good mom compatibility. You need stability first off. If i were in your shoes i would have installed the hardy heron long term support release. And that way, she ends up with a system that does work. And in the mean time you could just test out the latest version of ubuntu in a couple of days on another machine. If intrepid really does work good. Then just upgrade her hardy to the latest version. If intrepid is a sucky release, well then she's got the more stable and better working non beta that's going to be supported for 5 years, or until another good version comes out (if jaunty will be good).
I did the same thing for a relative with zero computer knowledge. I chose Gutsy and KDE 3.5. He is very happy now, his old computer is snappier and virus free. His XP was having to be reinstalled at six monthly intervals. For some people Linux is just easier, particularly those who only need email and a web browser.
Why give him gutsy? Then again if his computer didn't like hardy i can understand. Gutsy will only be supported for like another year. Why i'm recommending hardy because of it's long support. Hardy has replaced dapper drake as the next lts release.
Ummm, yes it does have long term support. Go straight to http://www.ubuntu.com and you'll see that 8.04 is an lts release and that you are wrong. This stands for xubuntu 8.04, and kubuntu 8.04 as well and whatever other derivitives have the 8.04 base that are put out by ubuntu.
You're dumb.
Maybe try to get the actual facts before insulting people? Kubuntu Hardy is explicitly exempt from LTS because Canonical felt KDE 3 was too old and KDE 4 too new to support either for LTS.
Well, I'm the one to give the support, so why bother? It's not like she will buy support from Canonical, and that's what LTS is all about. We are not talking business here, but a private computer used mainly for surfing, mail, text processing and "skyping". We will learn to use Krita next time I'll meet her, and of course add some music so she can use Amarok
Basically the lts is meant to be super stable and will be continually updated for 5 years. Lts is not just about buying support, i am not talking business here. Lts's focus is on providing a stable server and desktop. Lts stands for long term support, as in 8.04 gets continued support for much into the future with updates, and if you like then ubuntu tech support along with that. But, no, i'm just talking about the fact that lts will still be receiving updates for the next 5 years is all.
I mean, unless you want to be there every time her computer screws up. Or you can install a kubuntu 8.04 lts and work on it a lot less and still use the software that you and her want to use. Stable os's don't require so much maintenance when compared to intrepid beta. I'm just hoping that when intrepid is out of beta that it does get more stable for your mom. Sorry for posting twice, the preview feature sort of didn't work.
Actually it was Hardy, I have already converted to Intrepid and just forgot the name of the last one.
Must be getting old. 
For your desktop effects question: is that an actual Radeon HD (internally known as r6xx series) or an X-something (r5xx)? The r5xx series now have 3D support (I assume Kubuntu is shipping it in Intrepid - we already have it in Fedora 9!), so you can use the regular OpenGL desktop effects, but if it's a HD, you can only use XRender at the moment.
That's hardly mom-compatible. Let's take away the fact that desktop effects not working (which she doesn't know about/have before ) and the monitor resolution being wrong initially (which you fixed).
Her scanner doesn't work, the machine is a poor mix of languages and most glaring "Skype with video support..." "...gave us an evening of headaches...". Mom gives up after 2-5 minutes. Game over.
Compare http://www.flickr.com/photos/19616885@N00/2991047111/ to http://www.flickr.com/photos/19616885@N00/2991042741/
In short: Kubuntu sucks balls! |
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