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
Kubuntu glitches
Konqueror
- "The [Icon] History in your SideBar "
- I can't tell what the icon is in the black background, and the menu calls it Go > Show History in Sidebar (not 'SideBar).
Kubuntu Help
- "Open Add/Remove Programs by going to Application Launcher → System → Package Manager (Add/Remove)."
- I have to navigate to the Applications tab first before I see "System"
- No such application, it's "Software management (KPackageKit)"
- bug 367224 In Kubuntu System Documentation Index, click "How do I view my Windows partition?", get
- There is no documentation available for /kubuntu/index/kubuntu/hardware/hardware.html.
- bug 367219 Tried to search, nothing but a black box (checkmark?) for Unix manual pages, the installer should have built search index.
- Clicking Build Search Index... didn't work, brought up a dialog with another checkmark "Application Manuals Status Missing"
- Status missing mis-aligned.
- bug 367215 Clicking build anyway, got error
(7729)/ main: cmdFile: "/tmp/kde-skierpage/khelpcenterqp4796.tmp" (7729)/ main: indexDir: "/home/skierpage/.kde/share/apps/khelpcenter/index/" (7729)/ main: can access (7729)/ KHC::IndexBuilder::IndexBuilder: IndexBuilder() (7729)/ KHC::IndexBuilder::buildIndices: Opened file ' "/tmp/kde-skierpage/khelpcenterqp4796.tmp" ' (7729)/ KHC::IndexBuilder::buildIndices: LINE: "/usr/lib/kde4/libexec/khc_docbookdig.pl --indexdir=/home/skierpage/.kde/share/apps/khelpcenter/index/ --docpath=khelpcenter:kde_application_manuals --identifier=kde_application_manuals" (7729)/ KHC::IndexBuilder::processCmdQueue: IndexBuilder::processCmdQueue() (7729)/ KHC::IndexBuilder::processCmdQueue: PROCESS: "/usr/lib/kde4/libexec/khc_docbookdig.pl --indexdir=/home/skierpage/.kde/share/apps/khelpcenter/index/ --docpath=khelpcenter:kde_application_manuals --identifier=kde_application_manuals"
INDEXDIR: /home/skierpage/.kde/share/apps/khelpcenter/index/
FINDCMD: find /usr/share/doc/kde/HTML/en/ -name index.docbook Creating index for 'kde_application_manuals'
htdig failed
(7729)/: running ("/usr/lib/kde4/libexec/khc_docbookdig.pl", "--indexdir=/home/skierpage/.kde/share/apps/khelpcenter/index/", "--docpath=khelpcenter:kde_application_manuals", "--identifier=kde_application_manuals") failed with exitCode 255 (7729)/: stdout output: "" (7729)/: stderr output: "" (7729)/ KHC::IndexBuilder::sendProgressSignal: IndexBuilder::sendProgressSignal()
(7729)/ KHC::IndexBuilder::processCmdQueue: IndexBuilder::processCmdQueue() (7729)/ KHC::IndexBuilder::quit: IndexBuilder::quit()
I think because /usr/bin/htdig does not exist.
KPackageKit
- Didn't know about Firefox, unlike what the Kubuntu help said
- Clicking its bottom-left [Help] button popped up Help Center which alerted
- Kioslaves > mbox "The file or folder help:/ does not exist"
KHelp Center
- Clicking KInfoCenter >IEEE 1394 Devices gives
- There is no documentation available for /kinfocenter/view1394/index.html.
and an alert "The file or folder help:/kinfocenter/view1394/index.html does not exist"
- Clicking "Browse Info Pages" takes you to DIR:top with nonsensical instructions like "Typing "q" exits, "?" lists all Info commands, "d" returns here,"
- help:/khelpcenter/userguide/kicker-configuring.html seems out-of-date:
- Says "kicker displays some icons next to the K menu. ", but I just have a starred folder icon.
- Says "To remove an icon, right mouse button-click on the icon, and select Remove application name Button " but the starred folder icon's right-click menu has "Remove this Quick Access"
- Says "To add a new icon, right mouse button-click on an empty space on the panel, and follow the menu entry Add Application to Panel ." but ther's no empty space, I couldn't do it. Even when there is empty space, there's no such menu item.
- help:/khelpcenter/userguide/kicker-related-information.html says "there is a lot more information on Kicker ... simply entering help:/kicker" But this doesn't work, no such document.
Mystery crash
I closed a bunch of tabs, suddenly got window Jockey - The KDE Crash Handler.
In this:
Application: Jockey (), signal SIGSEGV 0x00007fead3a12d21 in nanosleep () from /lib/libc.so.6 Thread 1 (Thread 0x7fead49a66f0 (LWP 7675)): [KCrash Handler] #5 0x00007fead0e18784 in QWidget::metric () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #6 0x00007fead0f91bca in QFont::QFont () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #7 0x00007fead0dda474 in QWidgetPrivate::updateFont () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #8 0x00007fead0dda3ac in QWidgetPrivate::resolveFont () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #9 0x00007fead0de5238 in QWidget::setParent () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #10 0x00007fead0de5642 in QWidget::setParent () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #11 0x00007fead0deadf6 in QWidgetAction::releaseWidget () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #12 0x00007fead11bb20f in QMenu::~QMenu () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #13 0x00007feacbd9b11b in KMenu::~KMenu () from /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.5 #14 0x00007feacbd47fc3 in KSystemTrayIcon::~KSystemTrayIcon () from /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.5 #15 0x00007feacc49698e in sipKSystemTrayIcon::~sipKSystemTrayIcon () from /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyKDE4/kdeui.so #16 0x00007fead32c3191 in QObjectPrivate::deleteChildren () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4 #17 0x00007fead0ddcc72 in QWidget::~QWidget () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 #18 0x00007fead1d1254e in ?? () from /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyQt4/QtGui.so #19 0x00007fead1cb8d18 in ?? () from /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyQt4/QtGui.so #20 0x00007fead212a376 in ?? () from /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/sip.so #21 0x0000000000469bd5 in ?? () #22 0x000000000044d0f3 in ?? () #23 0x0000000000469c6b in ?? () #24 0x000000000044b967 in ?? () #25 0x000000000044df0d in PyDict_SetItem () #26 0x000000000044fc31 in _PyModule_Clear () #27 0x00000000004b77d6 in PyImport_Cleanup () #28 0x00000000004c44ad in Py_Finalize () #29 0x00000000004c3f1a in ?? () #30 0x00000000004c411d in PyErr_PrintEx () #31 0x00000000004c4ec7 in PyRun_SimpleFileExFlags () #32 0x00000000004189ce in Py_Main () #33 0x00007fead39895a6 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/libc.so.6 #34 0x0000000000417ae9 in _start ()
ubuntu.com
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Video says
- You can back it up:
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old
doesn't work unless you prepend sudo
Font trouble
Click System Settings > Font Installer right-click "AR PL UMing TW MBE", choose Open in Font Viewer", get alert
Could not read font.
also for other fonts like "AR PL UMing HK[1]
Tried Running KPackageKit
No Firefox in it, despite what KHelpCenter says.
Tried vim. Very confused by + and minus signs. The moment I clicked OK the window vanished, no feedback.
