The countdown is over; the future begins tomorrow

While some hardcore KDE users are probably holding parties tomorrow to celebrate the release of KDE 4.0, I view it as a much more evolutionary step. Not many people will be using it, and it will stay that way for quite some time.

The official release, however, does mean that KDE 4 is finally ready for use on a widespread basis and early adopters — or the merely curious — can take it for a spin without fearing their systems will grind to a complete halt.

Flash in Kubuntu 7.10: how to fix it

UPDATE (04/15/2008):  Please read the edit at the bottom of this post.

ORIGINAL POST:

If you’re searching for an answer to why Flash can no longer be installed in your Kubuntu or Ubuntu installation, look no further. The short answer: Adobe updated to a new version of Flash, which broke the Ubuntu package. Discussion has been fast and furious on the bug report for this issue.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that it isn’t very difficult to fix. The other bad news is that Flash will remain broken in Konqueror for other reasons, so it’s Firefox or nothing for now.

Racing a Corolla against a Ferrari

Seems that somebody else has had about the same experience with Vista that I have.  I definitely felt as though I was in the Corolla.

Ubuntu updates: we are experiencing technical difficulties; please stand by.

If you’ve gotten an indicator to update your (K)(X)Ubuntu installation with these updates:

• smbclient
• samba-common
• libsmbclient

then you have probably noticed that the update fails. The problem is not with your system, but rather with the updates themselves. The reason, according to Jamie Strandboge:

There was a regression in the Dapper and Edgy packages, and this update has been disabled. We are currently working on an updated package.

… Turns out there were more problems with the patch and all releases have been disabled. Updated packages for Dapper, Edgy, Feisty and Gutsy will be provided soon.

As of a few minutes ago, I was able to successfully download and install the updates, so it appears all problems have been fixed. If you still can’t apply the updates, try updating your package list first (in Kubuntu, click the “Fetch list of updates” button) before applying the updates. If that fails, just be patient and your system should automatically figure out the updated updates eventually .

Update instructions for

• Ubuntu
• Kubuntu

Oh frabjous day! Kallooh, Kallay! (with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

With great fanfare from the entire Ubuntu Kommunity, Kubuntu 7.10 has been released. If you prefer stinky feet to fire-breathing dragons, you can use Ubuntu instead. Don’t forget about the other variants, either! Congratulations to the development team, all the users who performed testing and submitted bug reports, and just plain users who are willing to give any choice of Ubuntu a try on their systems.

Reasons to use (K)(X)(Ed)Ubuntu:

• You won’t be asked if you really want to perform that operation every time you try to do something.
• There’s no DRM: use what you want, how you want, when you want.
• You are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law (see previous point).
• You don’t need a key code, a license sheet, or a phone call to install and use it: that’s a genuine advantage.
• You can try it out without installing it just by using the Desktop CD; install it from the same CD when you are ready.
• It just works.