5 years of support..!!??

[Mark Greenwood]

I subscribe to several RSS feeds and one of them just sent me the following:

"The Kubuntu Community is pleased to announce plans for the 12.04 LTS release of Kubuntu. As approved by the Ubuntu Technical Board on January 9th, 12.04 will be a 5-year long-term support cycle for Kubuntu"

So, 12.04 will be supported for 5 years. This is good news, really good news. So if I install 12.04 I will get updates up to 17.04? Is this correct? I don't understand this commitment although it sounds really good.

Or does this mean that 12.04 is the final properly supported release and (for example) 13.04 will be up in the clouds withe fairies for support?

Only asking, out of inquisitiveness.

Mark
--
kubuntu-users mailing list
kubunt...@lists.ubuntu.com
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-users

[buzz...@gmail.com]

means in 5 years it will still be 12.04 (prob 12.04.04 or something) but will be updated as far as major bugs and security fixes go for those 5 years. You will not get the next release unless you do a distribution release upgrade.

[Jonathan Riddell]

On 1 March 2012 22:52, Mark Greenwood <fatg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I subscribe to several RSS feeds and one of them just sent me the following:
>
> "The Kubuntu Community is pleased to announce plans for the 12.04 LTS release of Kubuntu. As approved by the Ubuntu Technical Board on January 9th, 12.04 will be a 5-year long-term support cycle for Kubuntu"
>
> So, 12.04 will be supported for 5 years. This is good news, really good news.

Thanks for your appreciation. The Kubuntu contributor community will
do security updates and major bug fixes for 5 years after the 12.04
LTS release. As that announcement also says Kubuntu will carry on
making releases just the same as we have since we started, with our
thriving contributor community.

Jonathan

[Mark Greenwood]

On 1 Mar 2012, at 23:13, Jonathan Riddell wrote:

> On 1 March 2012 22:52, Mark Greenwood <fatg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I subscribe to several RSS feeds and one of them just sent me the following:
>>
>> "The Kubuntu Community is pleased to announce plans for the 12.04 LTS release of Kubuntu. As approved by the Ubuntu Technical Board on January 9th, 12.04 will be a 5-year long-term support cycle for Kubuntu"
>>
>> So, 12.04 will be supported for 5 years. This is good news, really good news.
>
> Thanks for your appreciation. The Kubuntu contributor community will
> do security updates and major bug fixes for 5 years after the 12.04
> LTS release. As that announcement also says Kubuntu will carry on
> making releases just the same as we have since we started, with our
> thriving contributor community.
>

Thank you Jonathan for the quick response. From this I assume that Kubuntu 12.04 will provide bug fixes for KDE 4.8 for 5 years. I do appreciate the effort involved in this, but it still gives me some questions with reference to Canonical's recent announcement about "pulling the plug" on Kubuntu.

As far as I'm concerned, KDE 4.8 is not finished, There are still serious problems with regards to KDE PIM, and power management on laptops (that didn't exist with KDE 3 - so KDE 4 is a backwards step on a lot of my hardware). So if we install Kubuntu 12.04 do we get updates to KDE 4.9 (and 4.10, 4.11 etc) over those 5 years, or do we need to upgrade to newer releases to get improved functionality?

5 years of support is a very nice carrot, but making my hardware work like it used to in 2008 is a bigger stick. I have the feeling that my systems won't work as well as they did with KDE3 until about 2014… do we have the same commitment from Canonical about that release?

Believe me I don't want to sound like a sceptic, but I have paying clients who are asking me these questions and I cannot give them honest answers.

Mark.

[Jonathan Riddell]

On 1 March 2012 23:27, Mark Greenwood <fatg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you Jonathan for the quick response. From this I assume that Kubuntu 12.04 will provide bug fixes for KDE 4.8 for 5 years. I do appreciate the effort involved in this,  but it still gives me some questions with reference to Canonical's recent announcement about "pulling the plug" on Kubuntu.

Canonical has not announced any such thing. I expect you are thinking
of one of the misleading media articles.

> As far as I'm concerned, KDE 4.8 is not finished

Software is never finished. We package the software KDE gives us, and
as community members of KDE we fix that too. Bugfixes are available
in -updates, new versions in -backports as announced on kubuntu.org.
If you have bugs or feature requests you should report those to KDE.

[Mark Greenwood]

On 2 Mar 2012, at 00:16, Jonathan Riddell wrote:

> On 1 March 2012 23:27, Mark Greenwood <fatg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Thank you Jonathan for the quick response. From this I assume that Kubuntu 12.04 will provide bug fixes for KDE 4.8 for 5 years. I do appreciate the effort involved in this, but it still gives me some questions with reference to Canonical's recent announcement about "pulling the plug" on Kubuntu.
>
> Canonical has not announced any such thing. I expect you are thinking
> of one of the misleading media articles.

OK :) Perhaps so.

>
>> As far as I'm concerned, KDE 4.8 is not finished
>
> Software is never finished. We package the software KDE gives us, and
> as community members of KDE we fix that too. Bugfixes are available
> in -updates, new versions in -backports as announced on kubuntu.org.
> If you have bugs or feature requests you should report those to KDE.
>

Understood, but you haven't really answered my question… I understand, software is never finished, trouble is there's a difference between "not finished" and "working OK". KDE 4.8 is not "working OK" for anyone I've installed it for. So if I install Kubuntu 12.04 for them and tell them they get 5 years support, does this include upgrades to KDE 4.9, 4.10 etc, or are they stuck with KDE 4.8 and a few bug fixes?…. suffice to say NONE of my clients (or me) have any faith that KDE will fix any of the serious bugs in 4.8 without a major release upgrade to about 4.12.

Mark.

[Bill Vance]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2012 at 11:27:36PM +0000, Mark Greenwood wrote:
>Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 23:27:36 +0000
>From: Mark Greenwood <fatg...@gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: 5 years of support..!!??

>
>
>On 1 Mar 2012, at 23:13, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
>
>> On 1 March 2012 22:52, Mark Greenwood <fatg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I subscribe to several RSS feeds and one of them just sent me the following:
>>>
>>> "The Kubuntu Community is pleased to announce plans for
>>> the 12.04 LTS release of Kubuntu. As approved by the
>>> Ubuntu Technical Board on January 9th, 12.04 will be a
>>> 5-year long-term support cycle for Kubuntu"
>>>
>>> So, 12.04 will be supported for 5 years. This is good
>>> news, really good news.

So what does this mean for 10.04 LTS? Just how many long
term projects can be supported before quality drops even
further into the cesspits?

Bill

[Leslie Anne Chatterton]

Bill,

It seems to me that it is no more work to support two overlapping LTS than one. Security updates are going to be the same and bug fixes are supplied by the developers. Canonical just packages them and sends then out.

I haven't seen, nor do I expect to see, any less quality in Kubuntu. It has certainly improved in my 4 years of using it, in both small and large ways. If you don't like it there is always Windows ;-)

Since the next LTS will have 5 years support it wouldn't surprise me if the date for its successor is pushed ahead to 2017. That could save Canonical a lot of work.

Sent from my Motorola Xoom Android tablet

[Alex Gabriel]

On 2 March 2012 03:43, Bill Vance <kb...@xpresso.seaslug.org> wrote:
> So what does this mean for 10.04 LTS?  Just how many long
> term projects can be supported before quality drops even
> further into the cesspits?
>
> Bill

Bill,

As noted on the Kubuntu download page
[http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/download#download-block], Kubuntu
10.04 is supported until 2013. This means that updates are available
until that time.

I don't see supporting multiple projects as an issue. Developers tend
to work on one project at a time. While it's possible that the
Kubuntu developers will focus on both, I would think it's more likely
that development teams are created for the different supported
versions. One team would, in theory, work on Kubuntu 10.04, while the
other would work on 12.04.

Given that Kubuntu 10.04 and 12.04 will simply use slightly different
versions of KDE [both being 4.x], I would imagine that integrating
changes to both KDE versions is not that difficult. I'm sure the
majority of the work on the different LTS versions of KDE would focus
mainly on security and bugs fixes inherent within Kubuntu.

The above two paragraphs are written without any knowledge whatsoever
of the workings of development on Kubuntu, so I could be horribly
wrong on all points.

The majority of the problems of which I'm aware on Kubuntu aren't
isolated to Kubuntu, actually. More often than not, the problems
relate to the desktop environment. I've seen, as an example of a
recently posted question, power issues with Debian, openSUSE, and
PCLinuxOS, to name the few I run into most often. Another example of
an issue I've experienced is that KDE will crash when an OpenGL
screensaver is running and the user attempts to access the desktop.
Rather than displaying the unlock screen, KDE crashes entirely and
restarts, reverting back to KDM, waiting patiently for login
credentials. I've seen that specific behaviour on my Kubuntu netbook,
notebook, and desktop, as well as on my wife's PCLinuxOS notebook.

Indicating that quality has decreased is a subjective statement. I
use Kubuntu extensively both at home and work, and haven't noticed any
glaring issues. Certainly, some changes have been rather sudden [Muon
software centre replacing KPackageKit is an example], but they can be
obviated [using CLI tools instead of the graphical interface] or
minimized [installing all the software you require in one session].

My only complaint stems from the inability to select a default
workspace during the installation [I often use a netbook connected to
an external monitor]. Otherwise, I've not comes across any major
issues specifically related to Kubuntu that couldn't be fixed by
either doing some research into the problem or by using an alternate
tool to accomplish the same task.

If you've encountered problems with the version of Kubuntu you're
using, by all means, please share them with the readers of the list,
since someone here may be able to assist you in resolving the problem.

Alex Gabriel
Dimensia Design Studio
alexg...@dimensiadesign.com

[Mark Greenwood]

On 2 Mar 2012, at 09:26, Alex Gabriel wrote:

Indicating that quality has decreased is a subjective statement. 

Well yes and no. Let's compare where I am with Kubuntu today to where I was when I had Kubuntu with KDE 3.5 on it, which must be 3 years ago now.

Back then, the laptop power management options worked. Today the 'shut down after x minutes of inactivity' is broken, the 'sleep when I close the lid' is broken, and even if it does sleep I have no networking when it wakes.

Back then I had an email client that worked. Today I have one that, with a great amount of annoying fiddling, will retrieve my email but not without using 75% of my CPU for about two hours. (Honestly, I'm not making that up, that is really what happens when I start KMail, every time. And I know I'm not alone.)

I could go on but it would turn into a rant and that's not the point. The point is that Kubutnu - or rather KDE - today is less functional than it was 3 years ago. That's not a subjective statement - it's a fact.

The developers will no doubt say that "Oh you only need to do x and y and z and spin round 3 times while chanting 'i hate windows'". That is not the point. Back then, I didn't have to do those things. This is not progress however pretty and shiny you make it look.

Which brings me back to my original point. While I am glad that we have a long term support commitment from Canonical, it would be a real shame if the 5 year supported release of Kubuntu was stuck with KDE 4.8 for 5 years - you'd hope that KDE would eventually start working properly again at some point before 2017 and what I want to know is will the LTS be upgraded to new versions of KDE as they come out or will it remain stuck with the unfinished, malfunctional KDE 4.8?

Mark

[Alex Gabriel]

Mark,

The problems you've noted have come up across multiple distros that
I've seen, so I don't doubt that you're experiencing them, nor do I
think they are occurring in isolation. A simple query via your search
engine of choice will reveal many people experiencing these issues.

I've seen the issues with KMail myself, and thus I know it's not
exaggeration when you say that it uses 75% of your processor. It's
come up in my use of the distros I noted in the past, and subsequent
updates to KDE appear to have resolved them for the installations I
have.

I've not done anything more than install the updates that are
available for my system. My system doesn't include anything exotic or
software that came from a source other than the default repositores.
I'd say try running 11.10 [the version I run] in a VM, update it, and
see if the behaviour occurs with the test environment.

As for the plans Canonical has with updates to KDE, the only way to
get an answer to that is to contact them directly. I would think that
as the interface is updated, so too will the distro. I've not run
10.04 in quite some time, though, so I've no idea whether minor
version changes are applied to KDE, or whether only bug fixes are
included with updates.

Alex Gabriel
Dimensia Design Studio
alexg...@dimensiadesign.com

--

[gene heskett]

On Friday, March 02, 2012 06:44:55 AM Bill Vance did opine:

> On Thu, Mar 01, 2012 at 11:27:36PM +0000, Mark Greenwood wrote:
> >Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 23:27:36 +0000
> >From: Mark Greenwood <fatg...@gmail.com>
> >Subject: Re: 5 years of support..!!??
> >
> >On 1 Mar 2012, at 23:13, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> >> On 1 March 2012 22:52, Mark Greenwood <fatg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> I subscribe to several RSS feeds and one of them just sent me the
> >>> following:
> >>>
> >>> "The Kubuntu Community is pleased to announce plans for
> >>> the 12.04 LTS release of Kubuntu. As approved by the
> >>> Ubuntu Technical Board on January 9th, 12.04 will be a
> >>> 5-year long-term support cycle for Kubuntu"
> >>>
> >>> So, 12.04 will be supported for 5 years. This is good
> >>> news, really good news.
>
> So what does this mean for 10.04 LTS? Just how many long
> term projects can be supported before quality drops even
> further into the cesspits?
>
> Bill

I think that is an excellent question. I have a situation using 10.04 LTS
in my shop in that I cannot ssh into my cnc controller from my laptop, both
running 10.04 without opening a huge security hole into my own local
network when I power up the router/ap out in that outbuilding, and its
entirely related to the version of wpa_supplicant that 10.04 LTS has
'frozen into' 10.04, its incapable to doing anything more secure than WEP.
The rest of the world has had WPA2/AES etc abilities for nearly 2 years
now, but we can't get it on 10.04 LTS?

IMO that doesn't seem to fit the scenario I have in mind for open source.
So I am disappointed, and cannot wait for LinuxCNC to migrate their RTAI
kernel to 12.04. Since that freezes the kernel, its doubtful that will
take place until 12.04 has had time for its kernel to mature, probably 2-3
months after the official release.

One would think that fixing a security hole that big would make it
worthwhile to update wpa_supplicant and the crypto libs it needs would be
of sufficiently high priority to force the update, but its never happened.

Cheers, Gene
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene>
"It ain't over until it's over."
-- Casey Stengel

[Nils Kassube]

gene heskett wrote:
> I think that is an excellent question. I have a situation using
> 10.04 LTS in my shop in that I cannot ssh into my cnc controller
> from my laptop, both running 10.04 without opening a huge security
> hole into my own local network when I power up the router/ap out in
> that outbuilding, and its entirely related to the version of
> wpa_supplicant that 10.04 LTS has 'frozen into' 10.04, its incapable
> to doing anything more secure than WEP. The rest of the world has
> had WPA2/AES etc abilities for nearly 2 years now, but we can't get
> it on 10.04 LTS?

Maybe I don't really understand your problem, but I'm using only WPA2 on
my WLAN, running 10.04 on the client machines. Can you point to the bug
report that describes the problem?

Nils

[Billie Walsh]

On 03/02/2012 03:42 AM, Mark Greenwood wrote:
> Well yes and no. Let's compare where I am with Kubuntu today to where I
> was when I had Kubuntu with KDE 3.5 on it, which must be 3 years ago now.
>
> Back then, the laptop power management options worked. Today the 'shut
> down after x minutes of inactivity' is broken, the 'sleep when I close
> the lid' is broken, and even if it does sleep I have no networking when
> it wakes.
>
> Back then I had an email client that worked. Today I have one that, with
> a great amount of annoying fiddling, will retrieve my email but not
> without using 75% of my CPU for about two hours. (Honestly, I'm not
> making that up, that is really what happens when I start KMail, every
> time. And I know I'm not alone.)
>
> I could go on but it would turn into a rant and that's not the point.
> The point is that Kubutnu - or rather KDE - today is less functional
> than it was 3 years ago. That's not a subjective statement - it's a fact.

I think your issues, as well as others, are somewhat subjective. It
depends on the machine and software to some extent. I have Kubuntu
11.10, fully up to date, installed on a desktop, a laptop and a netbook
and I experience none of the issues you talk about. Sleep works
flawlessly on my laptop, haven't tried it on my netbook. Power
management, low battery, works flawlessly. With all the issues I see
everyone having with Kmail, and because I've used Thunderbird since it's
very first release, I have never used kmail, and most likely never will.
Networking is flawless, both wired and wireless [ I just wish they would
make the GUI for it standard from one update to the next - it's a pain
trying to find the right "button" after an "update" ]

I sit here day after day and read all about how this person has issues
with this and that person has an issue with that. I wonder to myself,
"what have these people done to their machine." Mine works great. No issues.

OK, I'll admit that none of my machines are bleeding edge. Just basic,
off the shelf, consumer grade hardware. I don't go in for whiz-bang
stuff like spinning desktops and such.

--
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain
the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the
government lest it come to dominate our lives and interests”.

- Patrick Henry -

_ _... ..._ _
_._ ._ ..... ._.. ... .._

[Mark Greenwood]

On 2 Mar 2012, at 12:58, Billie Walsh wrote:

> On 03/02/2012 03:42 AM, Mark Greenwood wrote:
>> Well yes and no. Let's compare where I am with Kubuntu today to where I
>> was when I had Kubuntu with KDE 3.5 on it, which must be 3 years ago now.
>>
>> Back then, the laptop power management options worked. Today the 'shut
>> down after x minutes of inactivity' is broken, the 'sleep when I close
>> the lid' is broken, and even if it does sleep I have no networking when
>> it wakes.
>>
>> Back then I had an email client that worked. Today I have one that, with
>> a great amount of annoying fiddling, will retrieve my email but not
>> without using 75% of my CPU for about two hours. (Honestly, I'm not
>> making that up, that is really what happens when I start KMail, every
>> time. And I know I'm not alone.)
>>
>> I could go on but it would turn into a rant and that's not the point.
>> The point is that Kubutnu - or rather KDE - today is less functional
>> than it was 3 years ago. That's not a subjective statement - it's a fact.
>
> I think your issues, as well as others, are somewhat subjective. It depends on the machine and software to some extent. I have Kubuntu 11.10, fully up to date, installed on a desktop, a laptop and a netbook and I experience none of the issues you talk about. Sleep works flawlessly on my laptop, haven't tried it on my netbook. Power management, low battery, works flawlessly. With all the issues I see everyone having with Kmail, and because I've used Thunderbird since it's very first release, I have never used kmail, and most likely never will. Networking is flawless, both wired and wireless [ I just wish they would make the GUI for it standard from one update to the next - it's a pain trying to find the right "button" after an "update" ]

I understand you, but bugs aren't subjective. They're bugs. What works on one machine doesn't work on another and that's a bug not an opinion. If it's incorrect behaviour that I can reproduce every time by doing the same thing, then it's not subjective.

>
> I sit here day after day and read all about how this person has issues with this and that person has an issue with that. I wonder to myself, "what have these people done to their machine." Mine works great. No issues.

That's great. For you. Doesn't help me though. I'm running 11.10 on a laptop that ran whatever-release-last-had-KDE3 flawlessly, and I have all the issues I mention. Most of it works in Ubuntu (where there is an equivalent) so the issues are with KDE. I haven't done anything to the machine except a clean install of 11.10. And the attitude of "works for me so you must be doing it wrong" is what I mostly get when I log bugs at KDE so I've given up logging bugs. There doesn't seem to be any commitment to making KDE4 stable and reliable, they just keep inserting new stuff that hasn't been tested properly (or at all) and expecting us to lump it. We've had two years (at least) of this since we last had a really stable KDE desktop and there doesn't look to be any imminent chance of getting back to something stable any time soon, so when people say quality is diminishing, that's why. It's gone on too long.

I sit here all day and read all about how this person uses Thunderbird to get around the KMail issues and that person got something to work by hand-crafting shell scripts and I wonder to myself "Why do we put up with this?". (My answer is, I don't put up with it any more, I use a Mac for all my day-to-day stuff that I need to just work. KDE4 made me an Apple customer.)

Mark

[gene heskett]

On Friday, March 02, 2012 08:10:01 AM Nils Kassube did opine:

> gene heskett wrote:
> > I think that is an excellent question. I have a situation using
> > 10.04 LTS in my shop in that I cannot ssh into my cnc controller
> > from my laptop, both running 10.04 without opening a huge security
> > hole into my own local network when I power up the router/ap out in
> > that outbuilding, and its entirely related to the version of
> > wpa_supplicant that 10.04 LTS has 'frozen into' 10.04, its incapable
> > to doing anything more secure than WEP. The rest of the world has
> > had WPA2/AES etc abilities for nearly 2 years now, but we can't get
> > it on 10.04 LTS?
>
> Maybe I don't really understand your problem, but I'm using only WPA2 on
> my WLAN, running 10.04 on the client machines. Can you point to the bug
> report that describes the problem?
>
>
> Nils

If you have WPA2/AES or TKIP working on 10.04, perhaps you can point me to
a tutorial? I haven't filed a recent bug report, since I figure it already
has been. The one time I fussed, about a year ago, it was canceled with a
"won't fix". Unforch, I didn't bookmark it.

The newest wpa_supplicant is 6.9-3, and I have been repeatedly told that
full WPA2 support requires 7.3.

I haven't had the laptop connected since last fall but will probably set it
up and update it in the next couple of weeks once I get done with the
lathes cnc conversion. Unforch, the computer I was going to run my lathe
with, is out of stock.

Cheers, Gene
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene>

"If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets
and
fire them all off, wouldn't you?"
-- Garrison Keillor

[Nils Kassube]

gene heskett wrote:
> On Friday, March 02, 2012 08:10:01 AM Nils Kassube did opine:
> > gene heskett wrote:
> > > I think that is an excellent question. I have a situation using
> > > 10.04 LTS in my shop in that I cannot ssh into my cnc controller
> > > from my laptop, both running 10.04 without opening a huge
> > > security hole into my own local network when I power up the
> > > router/ap out in that outbuilding, and its entirely related to
> > > the version of wpa_supplicant that 10.04 LTS has 'frozen into'
> > > 10.04, its incapable to doing anything more secure than WEP. The
> > > rest of the world has had WPA2/AES etc abilities for nearly 2
> > > years now, but we can't get it on 10.04 LTS?
> >
> > Maybe I don't really understand your problem, but I'm using only
> > WPA2 on my WLAN, running 10.04 on the client machines. Can you
> > point to the bug report that describes the problem?
>

> If you have WPA2/AES or TKIP working on 10.04, perhaps you can point
> me to a tutorial?

Actually I didn't use a tutorial but the standard tools, i.e. it works
with network-manager but I prefer wicd. Just make sure you don't have
them both installed, otherwise they seem to fight for controlling the
wireless interface ond none of them wins. So maybe it is a problem of
your wireless hardware in the client machine? Here it is working with
drivers ipw2200, ath5k, ath9k and ath9k_htc.

And there is a third option which I use also. You can set up the
wireless interface in "/etc/network/interfaces" for a fixed IP address
if you use a section like this:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
# Configuration for WPA2 / CCMP
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid MYSSID
wpa-ap-scan 2
wpa-proto WPA2
wpa-pairwise CCMP
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk 59e0d07fa4c7741797a4e394f38a5c321e3bed51d54ad5fcbd3f84bc7415d73d
# psk from the command "wpa_passphrase MYSSID passphrase"
address 192.168.2.59
network 192.168.2.0
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.2.255
gateway 192.168.2.1

Of course you would replace interface name, SSID, psk and addresses
according to your network. BTW: In 12.04 all three methods work as well.

> The newest wpa_supplicant is 6.9-3, and I have been repeatedly told
> that full WPA2 support requires 7.3.

Interesting - then the question is what is missing in 6.9-3 which makes
it work here but not for you. 12.04 comes with version 0.7.3 btw.

Nils

[gene heskett]

On Friday, March 02, 2012 12:46:04 PM Nils Kassube did opine:

printed, thanks!

> auto wlan0
> iface wlan0 inet static
> # Configuration for WPA2 / CCMP
> wpa-driver wext
> wpa-ssid MYSSID
> wpa-ap-scan 2
> wpa-proto WPA2
> wpa-pairwise CCMP
> wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK

> wpa-psk long hash phrase

> # psk from the command "wpa_passphrase MYSSID passphrase"
> address 192.168.2.59
> network 192.168.2.0
> netmask 255.255.255.0
> broadcast 192.168.2.255
> gateway 192.168.2.1

Interesting.

Where are the manpages that explain all these wpa-**** settings?

Obviously I need to learn more, lots more about this. None of my man this
or man that seems to have popped up any such references.

None of which is any great help with the builtin interface in that lappy,
which I have disabled & am using a netgear usb dongle, which does work.
Builtin in a BCM-4318, the most broken broadcom chipset ever IMO. 6 feet
from the AP and it drops the connection it took 20 minutes of screwing
around to establish, in about another 20 minutes. BS is what that is.

> Of course you would replace interface name, SSID, psk and addresses
> according to your network. BTW: In 12.04 all three methods work as well.
>
> > The newest wpa_supplicant is 6.9-3, and I have been repeatedly told
> > that full WPA2 support requires 7.3.
>
> Interesting - then the question is what is missing in 6.9-3 which makes
> it work here but not for you. 12.04 comes with version 0.7.3 btw.
>
>
> Nils

Precisely my point Nils. I have tried to build 7.3 on that machine, but
there seem to be more dependencies than I could track at the time.

However, my interfaces file is much simpler than that, and I never heard of
that command you used to generate the key hash. Here, I have it setup
using a phrase that could be the opening paragraph of a novel I'll likely
never write, but which is easy enough for me to remember. A neighbors
frontier net connection went south just this past Monday & she brought her
winders lappy over, I entered that 160+ character passphrase and it worked
flawlessly.

Your recipe above, with mods because I too use fixed addresses on my home
network, may be just what the doctor ordered, thank you very much for
sharing. I did wipe out that hash though, no use propagating that all over
the cosmos leading to an exploit of your system.

Thank you very much Nils, this is a very educational msg on a subject that
seems to depend on obscurity for the majority of its so-called security.

Cheers, Gene
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene>

Your boss climbed the corporate ladder, wrong by wrong.

[Nils Kassube]

gene heskett wrote:
> On Friday, March 02, 2012 12:46:04 PM Nils Kassube did opine:

> > auto wlan0
> > iface wlan0 inet static
> > # Configuration for WPA2 / CCMP
> >
> > wpa-driver wext
> > wpa-ssid MYSSID
> > wpa-ap-scan 2
> > wpa-proto WPA2
> > wpa-pairwise CCMP
> > wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
> > wpa-psk long hash phrase
> > # psk from the command "wpa_passphrase MYSSID passphrase"
> > address 192.168.2.59
> > network 192.168.2.0
> > netmask 255.255.255.0
> > broadcast 192.168.2.255
> > gateway 192.168.2.1
>
> Interesting.
>
> Where are the manpages that explain all these wpa-**** settings?

Good question! I had to search a bit to find the file with the relevant
info which I probably used: /usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/README.modes.gz

What I didn't mention, though: If you use that static setup you should
write your nameserver to "/etc/resolv.conf".

> However, my interfaces file is much simpler than that, and I never
> heard of that command you used to generate the key hash.

It comes with the wpasupplicant package.

> Here, I
> have it setup using a phrase that could be the opening paragraph of
> a novel I'll likely never write, but which is easy enough for me to
> remember. A neighbors frontier net connection went south just this
> past Monday & she brought her winders lappy over, I entered that
> 160+ character passphrase and it worked flawlessly.

160+ characters? For a WPA/WPA2 passphrase there is a limit of 63
characters. I suppose I used something like "pwgen -cns 63" to generate
the passphrase - it is stored in a text file and copy & paste prevents
typos.

> Your recipe above, with mods because I too use fixed addresses on my
> home network, may be just what the doctor ordered, thank you very
> much for sharing. I did wipe out that hash though, no use
> propagating that all over the cosmos leading to an exploit of your
> system.

LOL! Of course it wasn't my hash, but thanks for your concern. Actually
I literally used the command mentioned to get the hash.

Nils

[gene heskett]

On Friday, March 02, 2012 05:32:12 PM Nils Kassube did opine:

Well, at this point it is all moot. I haven't powered up this lappy in
about 6 months. 6 months ago ndiswrapper, using bcmwlhigh5 worked
absolutely bullet proof, in the shop, against Linda's frontier supplied
router up in NY, and in a motel in Orlando. So I plugged it in and edited
the interfaces file even before I'd plugged in a cat5 in case I needed
something. But no led can be seen on the dongle, and when I check the
logs, loadndisdriver is failing to load bcmwlhigh5, giving no reason. So I
try to install the driver again but it claims its already installed.

To top that off, I apparently lost the pw to the router I was using as an
AP out there in the shop(its been 6 months since I used it), so I did the
powerup, holding the reset button down for 30 seconds thing, and now its
disappeared. Brand new router, 7 months ago, only been powered up 3 or 4
days in that time. I am beginning to develop an extreme distaste for
netgear crap. Which means I am about to order another buffalo running dd-
wrt. I can at least get good support from dd-wrt when it turned out that
buffalo's branded version of dd-wrt was broken.

That may be fixable, but dammit, where can I buy a 802-11g/n dongle that
linux supports right out of the GD box?

This lappy has a bcm4318 pcmcia card in it, and despite the progress with
the b43 driver, it has yet to keep a connection alive more than 5 minutes,
9 feet from the AP. Biggest POS Broadcom ever sold IMO. Had I a clue as
to how big a headache that bcm4318 was going to be, I would have warrantied
it till they put something better in it. Hind sight, 20-05 of course...

I want something that Just Works(TM) when I plug it into either the cat5
socket, or a usb socket, so what do I go shopping for?

Sorry for the shortness but wifi on this lappy has been a problem child,
usually pitching a tantrum without a single meaningful error msg since I
bought it 6 or 7 years ago.

Thanks for reading this far.

Cheers, Gene
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene>

... I want FORTY-TWO TRYNEL FLOATATION SYSTEMS installed within
SIX AND A HALF HOURS!!!

[Nils Kassube]

gene heskett wrote:
> Well, at this point it is all moot. I haven't powered up this lappy
> in about 6 months. 6 months ago ndiswrapper, using bcmwlhigh5
> worked absolutely bullet proof, in the shop, against Linda's
> frontier supplied router up in NY, and in a motel in Orlando. So I
> plugged it in and edited the interfaces file even before I'd plugged
> in a cat5 in case I needed something. But no led can be seen on the
> dongle, and when I check the logs, loadndisdriver is failing to load
> bcmwlhigh5, giving no reason. So I try to install the driver again
> but it claims its already installed.
>
> To top that off, I apparently lost the pw to the router I was using
> as an AP out there in the shop(its been 6 months since I used it),
> so I did the powerup, holding the reset button down for 30 seconds
> thing, and now its disappeared. Brand new router, 7 months ago,
> only been powered up 3 or 4 days in that time. I am beginning to
> develop an extreme distaste for netgear crap. Which means I am
> about to order another buffalo running dd- wrt. I can at least get
> good support from dd-wrt when it turned out that buffalo's branded
> version of dd-wrt was broken.

I don't know about that buffalo thing you're talking about, but if it
isn't capable of 802.11n, I can recommend the TP-Link TL-WN1043ND. I'm
using it with openwrt, but maybe there is also a dd-wrt port for it, if
you prefer that software.

> That may be fixable, but dammit, where can I buy a 802-11g/n dongle
> that linux supports right out of the GD box?

I'm using the TP-Link TL-WN821N USB dongle here. It is supported out of
the box from Natty onwards. For 10.04 you need the
linux-backports-modules-wireless-2.6.38-lucid-generic package (or
*-generic-pae depending on your kernel version) or at least the 2.6.38
kernel (there are backported kernels from Natty and Oneiric in the
repos). And you need a newer linux-firmware package, e.g.
<http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux-firmware/linux-firmware_1.60_all.deb>.

BTW: Router and dongle are both using Atheros chips, so no Broadcom
involved.

Nils

[gene heskett]

On Saturday, March 03, 2012 02:58:18 AM Nils Kassube did opine:

Hi Nils;

It turns out the fix was available via synaptic. The 2.6.32-38 kernel it
was running had no real contents in the /lib/modules/`uanem -r` tree, as in
plumb empty except a ~build link. Muttering to myself, I fired up synaptic
to see if there were any newer kernels available, and it turned out that
synaptic didn't even know it had installed 2.6.32.38!

But, there was a nice selection of newer kernels available, so I had it
install 3.0.13-generic-pae. That box doesn't need the pae, only a gig of
ram in it. So that will be about 2-3% slower.

Installed, rebooted and everything Just Works(TM). In fact, wpa-psk was
asking me for my pass phrase before kde was fully initialized! Not only
that, but it then connected to this Buffalo router, 90 feet and a layer of
alu siding separating them. But while it did work, the signal was only
about a 1.2, so I pulled the cable, then plugged it back in and when it had
found the SSID of the shops router setup as an AP, that connected with a 5
9's signal. So that particular problem seems to have been solved.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get started on that taper lock hub. ;-) Right now its
getting sleepy out.

Cheers, Gene
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene>

If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same?

[Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa]

I have this USB wireless adapter: TP-LINK TL-WN822N, and it worked out
of the box (Kubuntu 11.10).

>
> This lappy has a bcm4318 pcmcia card in it, and despite the progress with
> the b43 driver, it has yet to keep a connection alive more than 5 minutes,
> 9 feet from the AP.  Biggest POS Broadcom ever sold IMO.  Had I a clue as
> to how big a headache that bcm4318 was going to be, I would have warrantied
> it till they put something better in it.  Hind sight, 20-05 of course...

mmm.... I have a laptop with bcm4318 (old Compaq Presario), and is
working just fine with kernel 3.0.0 on Kubuntu, driver b43. Also, it
used to work just fine with Debian Squeeze (6.0). No connection
issues.

Well, at least not with my AP... when I used a crappy linksys, I used
to lose connection from time to time (almost daily)... but it was not
just me, everybody lost connection, so, it was the AP. I replaced it
with a self-assembled one, using a ALIX card, and Atheros-based
mini-pci card, running Voyage Linux (debian-based distro)... of
course, you have to configure everything through ssh (no nice web
interface), but it is rock solid now :) .

>
> I want something that Just Works(TM) when I plug it into either the cat5
> socket, or a usb socket, so what do I go shopping for?
>
> Sorry for the shortness but wifi on this lappy has been a problem child,
> usually pitching a tantrum without a single meaningful error msg since I
> bought it 6 or 7 years ago.
>
> Thanks for reading this far.
>
> Cheers, Gene

--

[Bruce Bales]

On 03/02/2012 03:42 AM, Mark Greenwood wrote:

I can really sympathize with you, Mark.  I've been very happy with Linux for over ten years
trying red hat, debian, caldera, Mandrake and several others before settling on Kubuntu in about
2005.  We have four Kubuntu machines.  My wife still uses 6.06 and I have 8.04, 9.04 and
10.04 on the others. 

From the beginning I saw that a bit more skill was required to use Linux and I thought I
could handle it.  And I could until support on 8.04 was running out.  I downloaded a 10.4
disk and tried to install it.  It wouldn't install, reporting thousands of times that
"Serial 8250. too much work for irq17."  I did get it to sort of install once, but the machine
locked up repeatedly.  The help I got from the list was that someone had heard that happens
to Dell Computers.

So I acquired another computer and successfully installed Kubuntu 10.4.  Unfortunately 10.4
is a mess. 
How did it happen that kmail, a perfectly great email client, was deliberately made totally unusable? 
What was wrong with having two panels across the bottom of the screen to show the active
programs? 
Why can't I pick my own icon to represent gedit in the panel on the left?
Why doesn't Thunderbird have a wordwrap?
How could an LTS release of Kubuntu not work on some Dell computers?

I have a feeling that 95% of the people on this list could solve most of my problems easily,
but I'm just a computer user not a developer.  I thought I could get by with an ocasional
sudo apt-get update   sudo apt-get upgrade.   I guess I thought wrong.

bruce
bruce

[Leslie Anne Chatterton]

Hi Bruce,

Well I guess Kubuntu isn't for everyone and we need to hear
experiences like yours to bring us back to reality. I think there are
probably lots of Windows and Mac users who have had similarly
frustrating experiences but don't want to speak up and appear like
dummies. Linux will become mainstream only when it offers a
"foolproof" edition that is unbreakable, as well as the tinkerer's
versions that most of us now enjoy.

Probably for most people on this list the fun of Linux is in solving
problems, which are the exact reason why "ordinary" users such as
yourself want to scream with frustration! Use what works for you.

Best wishes,

Leslie Anne

[rte...@pacific.net.au]

In praise of Kubuntu.

For my 2c worth I like Kubuntu best of all the distros and I've tried many. I
sometimes just put on a new one to compare, eg, Linux Mint recently, which
quickly drove me crazy - didn't fit my needs.

I use Kubuntu it in my office, running it on 7 networked machines including my
laptop - ranging from version 9 on the laptop through to 12 beta + straight
ubuntu server on one file server and and esmith on another.

The later versions are streets ahead of the earlier ones, though I'd agree
3.5 was most stable though really lacked much of the automation that the newer
versions have with networking/printing/wireless, back then I used ARCH linux,
now just straight Kubuntu.

I guess it depends what you want to do with it.

I find it reliable for word processing, image processing, admittedly my kmail
is on my laptop version 9, and I've left it that way because of all the flak on
the last about kmail. As I program - I've written most of the software I use
in the office in gambas3.

I run virtual box with WinXP where I need windows, which is for not-much. I've
got legal copies of various flavours of windows - form XP to multiple Windows
7's but never use those partitions.

No problem with virus's either.

Postgresql fabulous.

Could go on and on.

Those coming from windows possibly need to look at the philosophy of
linux/open source, where staggering numbers of people work tirelessly for a
cause without thanks or payment.

To the kubuntu team - keep up the good work.

Regards

Richard

[Mark Greenwood]

This is a very valid point. The majority of developers working on KDE work without payment. But this means they work to their own schedule, doing things their way when they have the time. I therefore do not understand how any distro can have a regular planned release cycle - it is guaranteed that you will be releasing code that isn't finished. If Kubuntu took the Debian approach to releasing - which works WITH this development model instead of in spite of it - then it would be a killer OS. But with the obsession with 6 monthly releases I don't see how you can ever get a truly stable OS unless by complete luck. This is the major problem, IMO.

I think if Kubuntu waited until there was a proper, working, stable KDE 4 (say, probably KDE 4.12) before they made their next release, and then had 5 years of support on that, then they'd have something to be truly proud of. Instead we have these regular 6 monthly snapshots of something that is in continual flux - some parts work and some parts don't. Why don't we just wait until all the parts work and then release that?

I like open source, I like the concept and I like the ethos. The trouble is that commercialising it and applying corporate ideals to it is anathema to everything that makes it good.

Why don't I use Debian? Because Debian's default install still takes more effort to get to work that a Kubuntu default install. Too much hassling around with non-free drivers etc. I just wish Kubuntu took Debian's attitude to releasing. Kubuntu's attitude to non-free software is perfect, IMO.

Mark

[James Cain]

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Leslie Anne Chatterton <lahc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Bruce,

Well I guess Kubuntu isn't for everyone and we need to hear
experiences like yours to bring us back to reality. I think there are
probably lots of Windows and Mac users who have had similarly
frustrating experiences but don't want to speak up and appear like
dummies. Linux will become mainstream only when it offers a
"foolproof" edition that is unbreakable, as well as the tinkerer's
versions that most of us now enjoy.

Good point in pointing out that we need brought back to reality now and again :)
However, 3 key points here that we free software users occasionally need reminded of:

• Kubuntu is developed (99%) by volunteers. For those who rant and rave about how nothing works, if you can't donate to the KDE e.V., help the community, or at least report bugs (if not triage them), what gives you the right to complain at all?
  
• Every version of Linux is expected to work on all hardware. As I read though this thread I sit here in amazement that Kubuntu does work on as much hardware as it does. Keep in mind we hear the negative on the Internet 90 percent of the time. Most users are happy, I tend to believe, due to the fact that we don't hear from them. In this thread alone we have people running Kubuntu from the version 6.04 days all the way to 11.10. Wow! That's a long time. If you want to know if your hardware will work on a given distro, use some tools out there such as Ubuntu Friendly. There are others as well. 
• Kubuntu, and Linux in general, are expected to work on all hardware (EVEN MACS!!). Microsoft has an OEM program whereby all hardware is tested and approved by MS. The drivers are written according to MS specs. Open Source drivers are afterthoughts for most companies, if they exist at all. Similarly, and even more stringent, Apple uses it's own hardware only. So of course it works out of the box. They designed it! If you really want a fair comparison OOTB, maybe support one of the many vendors out there who design and build Linux computers, such as System 76. There are many others as well.
  

What would happen if one were to try and install Win 7 or 8 on a laptop that originally came with Win 2000 or XP? Would it work? Doubtful. Would it give a good over-all computing experience? Most definitely not.
So again I iterate that it's amazing it works as well as it does. But we all need to be somewhat realistic. And we all need pitch in and give back in some way (conversing on this list counts! :) ). And knowledge of command lines or programming isn't necessary. 
 

Probably for most people on this list the fun of Linux is in solving
problems, which are the exact reason why "ordinary" users such as
yourself want to scream with frustration! Use what works for you.

I agree 100 pct. No OS is right for everyone. Having said that, I've installed Kubuntu 11.10 on about 25 PC's and 11 laptops. Outside of the occasional Wireless light not working, I've had no issues. To be fair, I've found some really cheap (read: around $10) USB wireless nics that I know work OOTB, so I tend to just buy those to be safe.

 

Leslie Anne

PS - as for the one legit rant on here, KMail, it's coming along nicely in newer versions I'm told. The KDE PIM Team is admittedly under-staffed and could use help, but the newest versions are quite usable, I'm told. But again, the whole KMail argument is lame. Millions of Windows users prefer Thunderbird over MS's free Outlook Express. Does that mean they should not use an entire OS (Windows) because they do not like the built in EMail app that comes with it? That's absurd. But here we have people willing to go pay for an alternate OS because they do not like KMail. A quick Google search found 5 alternatives in the 1st search, all of which are in the wonderful Ubuntu Repositories...

[Leslie Anne Chatterton]

Hi James,

Good and helpful debate. I don't use any email client, (all webmail), except on my Android phone and tablet, so I missed the Kmail issue. Sorry!

Leslie Anne

Sent from my Motorola Xoom Android tablet

[Mark Greenwood]

On Mar 5, 2012 2:33 AM, "James Cain" <james....@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Leslie Anne Chatterton <lahc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Bruce,

Well I guess Kubuntu isn't for everyone and we need to hear
experiences like yours to bring us back to reality. I think there are
probably lots of Windows and Mac users who have had similarly
frustrating experiences but don't want to speak up and appear like
dummies. Linux will become mainstream only when it offers a
"foolproof" edition that is unbreakable, as well as the tinkerer's
versions that most of us now enjoy.

Good point in pointing out that we need brought back to reality now and again :)
However, 3 key points here that we free software users occasionally need reminded of:

• Kubuntu is developed (99%) by volunteers. For those who rant and rave about how nothing works, if you can't donate to the KDE e.V., help the community, or at least report bugs (if not triage them), what gives you the right to complain at all?
  

The volunteers point is noted and understood. However I put it this way, using the KMail thing purely as an example because it's a recent one we can all relate to. Although it's all volunteers writing the code, I presume there is someone in charge (also a volunteer no doubt) who is responsible for pulling all the KDE point releases together, some kind of leader who decides when a release is ready. If not, then there's the problem right there - nobody is in charge. Assuming somebody is in charge then that person ought to take it upon themselves to at least do some cursory checks that the thing he's about to release into the world does at least basically work. If it doesn't, he shouldn't release it.

Now yes, you can say that I should volunteer and get involved and try to solve that problem but actually I don't think it necessarily comes from the volunteers. Personally I think, as I believe I've said before, that someone somewhere (Canonical) is obsessed with doing regular planned releases and so this is why things are pulled from developer's hands before the code is ready for release. You simply can't employ a commercial releasing model with a volunteer-generated codebase. You can't enforce release dates on people you're not paying.I think a lot of people understand that on some level and that's why we're having this debate on the Canonical list and not the KDE list, and is also why we feel we have the right to complain. 

KDE PIM is a vast and complex project and it requires more testing. Kubuntu did do something about this - in 11.04 (I thnk) they made a testing repository with a version of Akonadi enabled KDE PIM for testers to try. It didn't work very well but that was OK - it was in a testing repository guarded by a whole bunch of caveats. If they'd followed this model for 11.10 we wouldn't be having this debate now. It was a great idea and I think it's something they should do more of.

PS - as for the one legit rant on here, KMail, it's coming along nicely in newer versions I'm told. The KDE PIM Team is admittedly under-staffed and could use help, but the newest versions are quite usable, I'm told. But again, the whole KMail argument is lame. Millions of Windows users prefer Thunderbird over MS's free Outlook Express. Does that mean they should not use an entire OS (Windows) because they do not like the built in EMail app that comes with it? That's absurd. But here we have people willing to go pay for an alternate OS because they do not like KMail. A quick Google search found 5 alternatives in the 1st search, all of which are in the wonderful Ubuntu Repositories...

See, I think you've misunderstood the whole reason why people are annoyed. It's not about preferring one thing over another. Outlook Express is and has always been a load of rubbish, even my non-techie friends understand that. However up until very recently KMail worked extremely well and was many people's (mine included) preferred email client on ANY OS. Then suddenly someone decided to rewrite it, for no readily apparent reason, and BROKE the whole thing - forcing people to switch away from something they loved to something worse just to get something that worked. And it's not about people "not liking change" its about people not liking upgrading to something worse than what they had before. I do like KDE4, a lot. I'm just getting fed up of tools I rely on getting broken in the name of "progress". A bit more quality control is what is needed, that's all. I didn't pay for an alternate OS because I didn't like KMail as you put it. I paid for an alternate OS because I needed something I could rely on day to day in every aspect. KDE4 was just becoming too frustrating, too many small but annoying bugs that wouldn't go away no matter how many updates I did. KMail is just the big example that has brought things to the point where we're now debating it.

Canonical are trying very hard to get people to switch away from Windows and Macs and use (K)Ubuntu. If they want to achieve this goal they have to understand that the traditional enthusiast user base of Linux will become a minority and more and more users will be installing it expecting it to work without too much effort. Canonical have done a lot of work in this area and it's why I use Kubuntu over any other distro, but the KMail debacle shows that they still haven't got their eye on the ball. New users won't take it seriously until stuff like this stops happening.

Mark

[Bruce Bales]

On 03/05/2012 05:07 AM, Mark Greenwood wrote:

On Mar 5, 2012 2:33 AM, "James Cain" <james....@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Leslie Anne Chatterton <lahc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Bruce,

Well I guess Kubuntu isn't for everyone and we need to hear
experiences like yours to bring us back to reality. I think there are
probably lots of Windows and Mac users who have had similarly
frustrating experiences but don't want to speak up and appear like
dummies. Linux will become mainstream only when it offers a
"foolproof" edition that is unbreakable, as well as the tinkerer's
versions that most of us now enjoy.

Good point in pointing out that we need brought back to reality now and again :)
However, 3 key points here that we free software users occasionally need reminded of:

• Kubuntu is developed (99%) by volunteers. For those who rant and rave about how nothing works, if you can't donate to the KDE e.V., help the community, or at least report bugs (if not triage them), what gives you the right to complain at all?

A few years ago there was lots of talk about "Linux on the desktop," where the intention
was that everyone could use the open source Linux and be free from Microsoft.  I write a
newsletter that goes to 165 former High School classmates.  All use Windows or Macs
and I am certain that none could install and configure and be satisfied using Kubuntu 10-4.
If it is unusable, should we complain?
bruce
 

[Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa]

Certainly we should: in a productive and useful way.

Now, I believe we are closer to have a Desktop-ready OS with Linux (we
already have a great server/firewall OS, maybe even, a switch OS). I
believe Gnome 2 was closer to it that Gnome 3, and right now, KDE 4.8
is a lot closer than Gnome 3 or Unity (in my opinion)... Xfce is also
not bad.

Now, when I compare any of this to Windows, I can only say: it is a
matter of what users are used to, I mean: Windows is not *that* great,
for example, in my Kubuntu laptop, I just plug a printer, and 90% of
the time it "just works", I can hardly say that about Windows (where
you will likely need the "driver CD", and most of the time: download
latest driver). Same go for most hardware (think on: USB 3G modems,
network interfaces, video capture devices, web cams, and even video
cards), most of the time, I just plug it, and it works, on Windows:
you have to install the driver, and it will work, most of the time...

Now, we you have on Windows that you lack here is:

1. That it comes pre-installed on most branded-PCs (this is: large
companies support).

2. That it have "enterprise-grade" options: centralized settings
management (I believe KDE used to have something around this the
other day). For example: locking Desktop background to a given image,
and centrally manage this for several clients. Also, application
control access (centrally give/revoke permissions to some apps),
centrally manage proxy configurations, and so on..... if we had this,
say, integrated to LDAP + kerberos, we would have a great environment
for Linux.

3. "Community momentum": most people knows it, and is familiar with it.

Ildefonso.

[rte...@pacific.net.au]

On Tuesday 06 March 2012 02:36:31 Bruce Bales wrote:
> On 03/05/2012 05:07 AM, Mark Greenwood wrote:
> >> On Mar 5, 2012 2:33 AM, "James Cain" <james....@gmail.com

> >> <mailto:james....@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Leslie Anne Chatterton
> >> <lahc...@gmail.com <mailto:lahc...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Bruce,
> >>
> >> Well I guess Kubuntu isn't for everyone and we need to hear
> >> experiences like yours to bring us back to reality. I think
> >> there are
> >> probably lots of Windows and Mac users who have had similarly
> >> frustrating experiences but don't want to speak up and appear
> >> like
> >> dummies. Linux will become mainstream only when it offers a
> >> "foolproof" edition that is unbreakable, as well as the
> >> tinkerer's
> >> versions that most of us now enjoy.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Good point in pointing out that we need brought back to reality
> >> now and again :)
> >> However, 3 key points here that we free software users
> >> occasionally need reminded of:
> >>

> >> * Kubuntu is developed (99%) by volunteers. For those who

> >> rant and rave about how nothing works, if you can't donate
> >> to the KDE e.V., help the community, or at least report
> >> bugs (if not triage them), what gives you the right to
> >> complain at all?
>
> A few years ago there was lots of talk about "Linux on the desktop,"
> where the intention
> was that everyone could use the open source Linux and be free from
> Microsoft. I write a
> newsletter that goes to 165 former High School classmates. All use
> Windows or Macs
> and I am certain that none could install and configure and be satisfied
> using Kubuntu 10-4.
> If it is unusable, should we complain?
> bruce

That's almost enough to start a flame war!

Kubuntu 10-4 is very very stable.

I've had a number of my windows friends install this on their machines and
were blown away by how easy it was to install, how quick the install was
compared to Windows.

Yes, like any new operating system one has to learn a slightly different way of
getting around, but the same applies to Macs for windows users.

None of your 165 high school mates would need linux to read a newsletter you
wrote on a linux machine!

A number of my windows based friends - tired of the perpetual problem with
malware and virus's are now running Kubuntu side by side on a separate box on
their desktop doing the comparison.

I suspect there are a huge number of 'silent' linux users out there like
myself, who have never registered with the wider community that they run linux
- as mentioned in a previous post I have (let me do an accurate mental count)
10 machines here at work including 2 servers and 1 laptop and 1 server at home
running linux - all uncounted in the grand stats).

I'd be keen for you to list all the unsuable features of a linux desktop.

Regards

Richard

[Bruce Bales]

Sorry, Richard. I guess I wasn't clear about my own computing. I use Linux
and have for over ten years and my only use of Windows was once at my
son's house I used the browser for a bit. My 165 classmates have no
problems
with my emails. You don't have to sell me on Linux.

My problem is that Kubuntu 10.04 is very difficult to use compared to
Kubuntu
8.04. And was harder to install. In fact I had to procure another computer
because neither 9.04 nor 9.10 nor 10.04 would install on my Dell Dimension
2400. And the live CD would not run.
I don't like it that my email client (kmail) is unusable and Thunderbird
only
a little better. Is it possible that Thunderbird really doesn't have a
word-wrap
function? With kmail you could set it for the width you wanted.

I don't like it that the names of the programs in the tray at the bottom of
my screen don't show the name of the program, but show file name, which
changes when I look at another file; (I want to see "Firefox" and not
"Snopes.com". I don't like the program names in the tray to be transparent
making them harder to read. When the mouse passes over one of these
names in the tray a small worthless panel jumps up, covering all underneath.
When I have been writing an email and click on the Thunderbird icon at
the bottom,
a double panel pops up showing the inbox and the drafts box. When I
select one of these the double panel is no longer needed, but it stays
up, blocking
whatever is behind it.

I made a panel on the left side to keep the icons representing my most used
programs. The panel is fixed width, the icons can't be changed (with
8.04 I
could make my own icon -- something I could recognize).The icons can't be
rearranged.
With 8.04, the tray was a double-decker, so there was room for more programs
there. Am I the only one who has eight programs open at once?

I haven't had much time to try gimp -- just enough to find that It
doesn't work
like it did. More relearning to do.

bruce

[Dale Trombley]

Just need to add my 2 cents. I'm currently running 11.10 on 10 machines (also undocumented).  My wife's, her three kids (ages 17, 13, 7) my moms (about 65) my dad in-law (74 I think) my kid (14)  my bro (44) my niece (23 and using it in college) etc. I'm running 12.04 dev on mine as my primary (I know I know lol) and they are all running great and they're all very happy with it. I love the icons only task manager in 12.04. And everyone else I have smooth-tasks installed. My dad in-law (in his 70's) installed and admins his own Kubuntu system.  These aren't the 10.04 that you are complaining about but it shows I think that each release improves tenfold over the other at least since kde4.x was started. Perhaps an upgrade is a good call for you. 12.04 will be released soon and I highly recommend it to everyone.

On Mar 5, 2012 11:00 PM, "Bruce Bales" <bba...@cox.net> wrote:

On 03/05/2012 03:02 PM, rte...@pacific.net.au wrote:

On Tuesday 06 March 2012 02:36:31 Bruce Bales wrote:

On 03/05/2012 05:07 AM, Mark Greenwood wrote:

On Mar 5, 2012 2:33 AM, "James Cain"<james....@gmail.com

<mailto:james.cain.25@gmail.com>>  wrote:

    On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Leslie Anne Chatterton

    <lahc...@gmail.com<mailto:lahc2...@gmail.com>>  wrote:

[Basil Chupin]

On 06/03/12 21:52, Dale Trombley wrote:
>
> Just need to add my 2 cents. I'm currently running 11.10 on 10
> machines (also undocumented). My wife's, her three kids (ages 17, 13,
> 7) my moms (about 65) my dad in-law (74 I think) my kid (14) my bro
> (44) my niece (23 and using it in college) etc. I'm running 12.04 dev
> on mine as my primary (I know I know lol) and they are all running
> great and they're all very happy with it.
>

I think that you left out the parrot, the dog and the cat as well as all
the neighbours in your suburb..... Try to remember this the next time, OK?

BC

--
The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.
Niccolo Machiavelli

[Girard Henri]

Me too... kde-4.8 works fine on 12.04

Le 06/03/2012 11:52, Dale Trombley a écrit :

Just need to add my 2 cents. I'm currently running 11.10 on 10 machines (also undocumented).  My wife's, her three kids (ages 17, 13, 7) my moms (about 65) my dad in-law (74 I think) my kid (14)  my bro (44) my niece (23 and using it in college) etc. I'm running 12.04 dev on mine as my primary (I know I know lol) and they are all running great and they're all very happy with it. I love the icons only task manager in 12.04. And everyone else I have smooth-tasks installed. My dad in-law (in his 70's) installed and admins his own Kubuntu system.  These aren't the 10.04 that you are complaining about but it shows I think that each release improves tenfold over the other at least since kde4.x was started. Perhaps an upgrade is a good call for you. 12.04 will be released soon and I highly recommend it to everyone.

On Mar 5, 2012 11:00 PM, "Bruce Bales" <bba...@cox.net> wrote:

On 03/05/2012 03:02 PM, rte...@pacific.net.au wrote:

On Tuesday 06 March 2012 02:36:31 Bruce Bales wrote:

On 03/05/2012 05:07 AM, Mark Greenwood wrote:

On Mar 5, 2012 2:33 AM, "James Cain"<james....@gmail.com

<mailto:james.cain.25@gmail. com>>  wrote:

    On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Leslie Anne Chatterton

    <lahc...@gmail.com<mailto:lah c2...@gmail.com>>  wrote:

[Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa]

+1 here. I was bouncing between Xfce and KDE, until I installed 4.8
(on 11.10, using ppa repository).... it is great, and, at last, KMail
is usable again, not perfect, but usable, so, I ditched thunderbird,
that was getting me tired with its slowness. btw, I noted that kwin
performance now seems to be better than compiz (at least on my
hardware)... I only miss the "fish tank" inside the translucent
desktop cube....

Only issue I have found with 4.8, and I'm still unsure if it is KDE or
hardware, are random segfaults here and there... due that always
happen on programs using qt (even mythtv when using qt drawer), I bet
it is a qt bug, but I'm still unable to hunt it, so: it is just a
guess.

Ildefonso.

[Dale Trombley]

Just for the record I was demonstrating a full spectrum of users. And I don't live in a suburb ja. All of which are now ex-windows users thanks to kubuntu

[Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 10:16 AM, Dale Trombley <buzz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just for the record I was demonstrating a full spectrum of users. And I
> don't live in a suburb ja. All of which are now ex-windows users thanks to
> kubuntu

Except the 7 years old, who was never a Windows user, I guess.

[Dale Trombley]

Yup lol.

[Bruce Bales]

On 03/06/2012 04:52 AM, Dale Trombley wrote:
>
> Just need to add my 2 cents. I'm currently running 11.10 on 10
> machines (also undocumented). My wife's, her three kids (ages 17, 13,
> 7) my moms (about 65) my dad in-law (74 I think) my kid (14) my bro
> (44) my niece (23 and using it in college) etc. I'm running 12.04 dev
> on mine as my primary (I know I know lol) and they are all running
> great and they're all very happy with it. I love the icons only task
> manager in 12.04. And everyone else I have smooth-tasks installed. My
> dad in-law (in his 70's) installed and admins his own Kubuntu system.
> These aren't the 10.04 that you are complaining about but it shows I
> think that each release improves tenfold over the other at least since
> kde4.x was started. Perhaps an upgrade is a good call for you. 12.04
> will be released soon and I highly recommend it to everyone.
>

With all this approval and praise of 12.04, it looks like I will have to
try it when they release it. Especially after Jose's
saying that kmail is usable again. By the way, I am 79 going on 80,
so I almost got in your spectrum.

[gene heskett]

On Tuesday, March 06, 2012 08:49:30 PM Bruce Bales did opine:

> On 03/06/2012 04:52 AM, Dale Trombley wrote:
> > Just need to add my 2 cents. I'm currently running 11.10 on 10
> > machines (also undocumented). My wife's, her three kids (ages 17, 13,
> > 7) my moms (about 65) my dad in-law (74 I think) my kid (14) my bro
> > (44) my niece (23 and using it in college) etc. I'm running 12.04 dev
> > on mine as my primary (I know I know lol) and they are all running
> > great and they're all very happy with it. I love the icons only task
> > manager in 12.04. And everyone else I have smooth-tasks installed. My
> > dad in-law (in his 70's) installed and admins his own Kubuntu system.
> > These aren't the 10.04 that you are complaining about but it shows I
> > think that each release improves tenfold over the other at least since
> > kde4.x was started. Perhaps an upgrade is a good call for you. 12.04
> > will be released soon and I highly recommend it to everyone.
>
> With all this approval and praise of 12.04, it looks like I will have to
> try it when they release it. Especially after Jose's
> saying that kmail is usable again. By the way, I am 79 going on 80,
> so I almost got in your spectrum.
> bruce

Humm, looks like I seem to have lost the title of eldest on this list.
Congratulations Bruce, you give me some hope that despite my high sugar, I
may be around to pester these fine folks a little longer.

Cheers, Gene
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene>

There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

[Basil Chupin]

On 07/03/12 01:46, Dale Trombley wrote:
>
> Just for the record I was demonstrating a full spectrum of users. And
> I don't live in a suburb ja. All of which are now ex-windows users
> thanks to kubuntu
>
> On Mar 6, 2012 7:04 AM, "Basil Chupin" <blch...@iinet.net.au

> <mailto:blch...@iinet.net.au>> wrote:
>
> On 06/03/12 21:52, Dale Trombley wrote:
>
>
> Just need to add my 2 cents. I'm currently running 11.10 on 10
> machines (also undocumented). My wife's, her three kids (ages
> 17, 13, 7) my moms (about 65) my dad in-law (74 I think) my
> kid (14) my bro (44) my niece (23 and using it in college)
> etc. I'm running 12.04 dev on mine as my primary (I know I
> know lol) and they are all running great and they're all very
> happy with it.
>
>
> I think that you left out the parrot, the dog and the cat as well
> as all the neighbours in your suburb..... Try to remember this the
> next time, OK?
>
> BC
>

BTW, sorry about that but there was supposed to be a smiley at the end
of the "OK?" like this [there, it's happened again! :-( ] :-) .

(Thunderbird can be a nuisance sometimes: the emoticons occasionally
don't register - as happened above - and my earlier post.)

[Steve]

> and I am certain that none could install and configure and be satisfied
using Kubuntu 10-4.
> If it is unusable, should we complain?

But they could install iPad O/s or Windows 7? What about Symbian or
Android? Of course not, the difference is that devices come with this stuff
already installed because commission is involved. Every Windows PC with
Windows 7 OEM involves a cut of the licence fee for MS, the manufacturer and
the distributer. Everyone benefits: except us.

Why don't you go out and install a version of Kubuntu on a friend's Windows
machine with dual boot. It's very easy. My Wife and my best friend both
have dual boot MS & Kubuntu and they are beginning to discover the wonders
of being able to get pretty much anything they want from kpackagekit - FREE!
In both senses, free cost and free in the sense that you can do what you
like. You are even free to get into the Kmail source code and fix that CPU
problem you have.

Regards

Steve

[Steve Cookson]

Does it also run on Kubuntu?

-----Original Message-----
From: ankhs...@gmail.com [mailto:ankhs...@gmail.com]
Sent: 10 March 2012 23:19
To: i...@sca-uk.com
Subject: RE: RE: 5 years of support..!!??

I'm driving right now and a voice just read me your message out loud.
I'm using an app called Text'nDrive to avoid touching my phone while driving
and thought you should install it too...
It's Free, with this link: www.textndrive.com/free

[Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa]

I bet this is a message automatically sent by the app after reading the message.

[Steve Cookson]

Hi Ankhsdream,

You are accused of being a spammer. How do you plead?

Other list users, do you use spamcop? If you are getting these unwanted
messages, just log them. ISPs subscribing to the Spamcop service will then
not deliver emails from that IP address.

Ankhsdream, I will be logging your email address/IP address with spamcop
this evening unless you reply.

Regards

Steve

[Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa]

Steve,

I don't think it makes any sense to file spamcop here, it was clearly
a dumb app that sent an autoreply (this is the third time I see that
kind of auto-answers in my life), and you are going to report who's
IP? (gmail's?, his mobile phone IP that will likely change?). Now,
there is another issue: ankhs...@gmail.com actually answered to
i...@sca-uk.com, not the list, so... the fact that we, the list, got the
message is i...@sca-uk.com's fault (because he sent the reply to the
list).

So, I would just say: people, refuse to use apps that use your email
address to send spam!

Ildefonso.