Kubuntu a.k.a. Ubuntu with KDE

[Longbow]

I know that all the true geeks around here who build from source and prefer a console to a GUI this is no news, but to us Linux newbs/windows converts this is pretty cool.

Ubuntu is a pretty new disto that has enjoyed great success in a short time. Currently ranked 3rd at distrowatch this is a great little Debian based package. When I was test driving distros to find one I would feel comfortable with I really liked this one with a single exception... the gnome gui.

In my opinion it is packages like Mepis and Ubuntu that will help ease the conversion woes of those coming over from Windows. If I could get over my gaming addiction I would never have need of Windows again. :)

[Scoofy12]

i agree with you, although i've probably been at the linux thing long enough that i no longer qualify as a newbie, and my gaming addiction has been cured by grad school :)


but i also prefer KDE. I've been using Debian on a server for quite a while now (since shortly before potato became stable for those who care) and have been using on the desktop for a while as well.... i found that it's quite easy to deal with even on the desktop if you have a little experience.

I'm curious, what kind of newbie-friendly stuff does Ubuntu have that makes it easy? i assume it has a nice (X-ified but x86-only) installer, and i assume it uses apt... what kind of frontend to apt does it use?

anyway if you have some experience with ubuntu/mepis but find them lacking, you should check out debian, i expect you'd have little trouble with it.

[Longbow]

I really didn't use Ubuntu enough to answer much, just could not get a grip on gnome. The installer was actually text based but very easy to get through. It does use apt but I don't know what frontend, I would imagine synaptic.

Mepis on the other hand I could say much more about. It comes as a single cd .iso that is bootable and then you can start the graphical installer from within. Oh, and both Ubuntu and Mepis have really good hardware support. They recently released 3.3 to stable and it is using synaptic as the default apt front end, previously it used Kpackage as default which I am still currently using. I actually have found nothing lacking in Mepis and will not be doing any switching unless I decide to have a go at a source based distro.

I should have mentioned in my first post that the KDE Ubuntu was just recently released to test. I wouldn't even consider touching it until it gets moved over to unstable. I was just really excited to hear about another quality .deb/KDE alternative out there.