Kubuntu

Kubuntu is Kool

I was a (fairly) recent recipient of a Dell Latitude C640 laptop. A good friend of mine had no more use for it and decided to donate it to the Recently Graduated and Still Poor as Sh!t Fund, otherwise known as NAMBLA.

I was excited to recieve this gracious gift and began an attempt to install kubuntu, a popular linux distrobution that utilizes my favorite window manager KDE, only to find the laptop password protected with Dell’s notorious “Master Password”. Long story short, after reading this thread (yes, all 48 pages) I was able to circumvent the password and finally install kubuntu.

After playing with kubuntu for just short of 24 hours, I have to say, I’m impressed. The installation was cake. No shell based commands to run, everything was done through the Live CD’s interface.

One feature I find surprisingly useful is the Adept Installer. It is a categorized listing of software applications that are compatible (or not, it’s your choice) with your window manager of choice. In this case KDE. These applications can be downloaded and installed from this interface at the touch of a button. There is no search Le Goog for a program to do a specific task, finding a compatible version for your linux distro and then running multiple shell commands to get it installed. Adept Installer’s interface allows you to find the program you want, check the box next to it to mark it for installation and then click apply. Adept not only downloads and installs it for you, it handles any package dependencies for you as well as categorizes the program in your start menu. Awesome.

I plan to blog more about kubuntu and all its glory soon. I’m still a relative n00b when it comes to linux so it will be fun to catalog my journey to software freedom.

dell, kubuntu, linux, kde, adept, ubuntu

One Response to “Kubuntu is Kool”

1. timcantreid says:

   September 2, 2006 at 7:31 am

   You really ARE my money-ball! I’m shickled titless you got that old Dell running, AND it’s running a much more robust and useful operating system than it was before. I’m looking forward to hearing more about this Kubunto distro. Good luck!

   Reply