Installing Kubuntu-8.10
Originally published at Vitae Ordinatraliter. You can comment here or there.
Okay, today marks the release of Kubuntu-8.10. The major change of course is the switch to KDE-4. So I’d better fire it up and see how well it works… it will only be a matter of time until I’m supporting it so I better get a headstart.
First question - VM or bare metal? i’ve got an old P4-3GHz HP desktop lying around just waiting to do something useful. So bare metal it is, and we’ll have a spare / guest desktop operational.
Second question - desktop or alternative iso? I’ve always been a fan of text based installers, but I figure
a. anyone who chooses a text based install is unlikely to need my help with ubuntu and
b. maybe I better get with the times. So I grab the desktop iso and off I go…
A step by step with screenshots is not my style - so lets just look at the problems and how I dealt with them.
Clickety clickety clickety… straightforward and easy. Until it gets to scanning the apt mirror, where it seems to hang. Bring down the network connection (sudo ifconfig XXX down from busybox terminal) and it times out and continues on (there was probably a wget process I could have killed, but too late, I used the sledgehammer rather than the scalpel). Was the problem my connection or the kubuntu installer or the fact the mirror is getting flogged by every sapient being on the planet trying to upgrade on the same day? Ngatina isn’t yelling so I’ll guess my net connection is just fine.
Reboot and up it comes… total time from inserting CD to gaining control over new desktop - 25mins (including solving mirror issue).
First impression - pretty! Now to tinker…