User:Skierpage/Kubuntu

Notes on Kubuntu installation

Boot from CD

• Should be a warning that test disk will require a reboot

Install from CD

• The Kubuntu logo screen should say what it's doing.

  "Now loading enough of the Kubuntu operating system and programs to provide you a graphic installer. (Nothing is yet being installed on your disks"

• Install progress bar got about 70% of the way then got some screen flickers and then over 30 seconds with a blank gray screen.

In the installer

• The installer should remind me what the hell it is (AMD64 & Intel EM64T). That would help me in Ubuntu installation guide https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/ to choose the right "architecture of your computer"

Release Notes and web

Running Konqueror to read the release notes is amazing!

• Clicking Release Notes takes me to http://www.kubuntu.org/news. But this has nothing about 9.04 release notes!! It has a news item on 9.04, but that's it.

• The news item ends with

  What's New?

 Kubuntu 9.04 includes an upgraded desktop containing many bug fixes, new configuration options, as well as many new and updated applications. Below are some highlights.
 some white space
 Kubuntu Jaunty KDE 3 Remix Release Candidate

There's no indication that the item is truncated or that there's more info if I click the heading.

• In https://wiki.kubuntu.org/ , the [Titles] and [Text] buttons at the top right for search look funny, with rounded buttons over rectangles with lines. And if the tip of the cursor is on the button text, the button doesn't highlight and is inactive; the button only highlights if the cursor tip is in the top 1/3 of the button,

Back to installer

• The full-screen "Where are you" is impressive. But when I click in the San Francisco Bay Area, it keeps selecting the timezone to the right of it! It seems to be picking the nearest city it knows about (Boise), rather than selecting that timezone. Quite confusing. If you're going to keep this approach, it should highlight the nearest cities as you hover, or always select the nearest city in the same timezone. I can only select my timezone if I click far away near Vancouver or Los Angeles!!

• I chose my Keyboard Layout and clicked [Forward]. A small dialog about filesystems briefly flashed and [Back] and [Forward] disabled. Then nothing. My cursor is not spinning, and the page 3 is active, I can type into the test typing box. What happened??! After more than 50 seconds of this no feedback, it advanced to Step 4.

• In Step 4 I chose partition manually. A small Scanning partitions window appeared for several seconds (didn't it already display this earlier?) That box had a (?) symbol on it with a "Help" tooltip, but it is completely useless, in this dialog and the next "Edit Partition" there's no

Partitioning

I want to keep my first partition for Windows. I had already set aside a 27GB D: partition for Ubuntu. Automatic partitioning wanted to use the entire disk for Ubuntu!

• there needs to be an intermediate "guided partitioning"

So I chose manual partitioning, but that dumps me into choosing file systems and stuff. I read up about home and swap and dual-booting before going into the installer, but I really need help here. Like the _Release Notes_ link at the start of install, there should be a link to a some help here.

I clicked my second partition and the 'Edit Partition' dialog popped up (with another useless (?) help cursor button). I chose "Use as ext4", Format the partition check, Mount point /

• "Use as" is the wrong label, it doesn't match the table column "Type" on the main page; the label should be something like "File system type"
• Having a separate checkmark for format doesn't make sense if I choose a different file system type. If it's NTFS and I set it to ext4, surely the partition needs to be formatted sooner or later.
• I would expect a form item "Use as" to let me choose what is going on the partition, e.g. "Use as main Linux area ('/' or root)", "use as home area (/home directories), etc." That's a lot friendlier than the label "Mount point"

• When I clicked [OK] there was a pause and a cursor and then scanning drives appeared, and then the main window showed "Type" ext4. Had the program formatted the partition yet? It could be clearer.

• I couldn't figure out how to create logical partitions inside my D: partition. Adjusting the size gave me a scary warning about making immediate changes; are these destructive or not?!

• I read https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/amd64/partitioning.html but it didn't make sense in the context of the installer. E.g. https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/amd64/partition-programs.html mentions several partitioning programs, but I'm in a graphical installer, what the heck is it running?

Thankfully user "Firefishe" helped me out, I wound up with

/dev/sda divided into...
  /dev/sda1  ntfs  83.8 GB hopefully untouched
  /dev/sda2 ext3 / Format? checked Size 20003 MB Used 495MB
  /dev/sda3 ext4 /home Format? checked Size 7994 MB Used Unknown
  /dev/sda5 swap mount and Format blank, Size 2006 MB Used Unknown

Step 6 confirmation

 WARNING: This will destroy all data on any partitions you have removed as

well as on the partitions that are going to be formatted.

 The partition tables of the following devices are changed:
 SCSI4 (0,0,0) (sda)

 The following partitions are going to be formatted:
 partition #3 of SCSI4 (0,0,0) (sda) as ext4
 partition #5 of SCSI4 (0,0,0) (sda) as swap

Alas, "Migration Assistant:" is blank, it never detected my C: drive full of Windows stuff.

Scared about the missing sda4, so went back.

Clicking [Back] from step 5 briefly displayed a checking disks window, and then nothing for many seconds.

Step 4 had forgotten my additional partitioning after the root, I had to repeat it.

redo

The /dev/sda5 was because I let it be logical, not physical.

Now,

 /dev/sda1  ntfs  Size 90025 MB (83.8 GB) hopefully untouched
 /dev/sda2 ext3 Mount / Format? checked  Size 20003 MB Used 495 MB
 /dev/sda3 ext4 Mount /home Format? checked  Size 8003 MB Used unknown
 /dev/sda4 swap Mount [blank] Format? [blank] Size 1998 MB Used unknown

Step 6 says

Language: English
Keyboard layout: USA
Name: S Page
Login name: skierpage
Location: America/Los_Angeles
Migration Assistant:



If you continue, the changes listed below will be written to the disks.
Otherwise, you will be able to make further changes manually.

WARNING: This will destroy all data on any partitions you have removed as
well as on the partitions that are going to be formatted.

The partition tables of the following devices are changed:
SCSI4 (0,0,0) (sda)

The following partitions are going to be formatted:
partition #2 of SCSI4 (0,0,0) (sda) as ext3
partition #3 of SCSI4 (0,0,0) (sda) as ext4
partition #4 of SCSI4 (0,0,0) (sda) as swap

Then went off!

User Firefishe is awesome!!

Who needs decent doc for this step with him or her around!

firefishe @ inbox.com