Kubununtu 8.04 Beta

Yesterday I thought I would try the latest Kubuntu beta.
I installed the Beta on an older HP R3000. I downloaded the 64 bit version in hopes that 64 bit support had gotten better for things like Skype. Initially I was not that impressed.

I had troubles getting the Broadcom wireless card working and had a couple of other issues as well. The Broadcom thing has always been a problem in Ubuntu, usually requiring blacklisting drivers and installing ndiswrapper. I am sure I could have gotten this working with some more effort, but that isn't the point. PCLinuxOS 2007 walks you through loading ndiswrapper litterally making this process a breeze.

What A difference a day makes in open source.
Today I reinstalled, and did a full update. This time everything worked flawlessly. I think the problem previously might have been that I clicked through the hardware settings manager too fast. After clicking on an item you have to wait for the driver to download and install, but the checkbox you are clicking just says enable leading you to think it is just disabled. Clicking multiple items opens up multiple versions of adept and causes bad things to happen. A simple GUI fix could have prevented my user error. Anyway, everything installed perfectly and worked without any configuration. I am no longer using ndiswrapper for my broadcom wireless adapter. Nvidia-glx drivers installed for me, as did compiz. Compiz is now somewhat integrated into the desktop which is wonderful. No compiz icon or configuring a custom session needed.

This is wonderfull!