el rinconcito

All you *buntu freaks, it's almost here again, upgrade time. Distro upgrades are always fun. This Thursday, 29 October 2009, is the next release, 9.10 (Karmic Koala, WTF!) so fire up those torrent clients and look busy.


See my CD-less speedy combo method of upgrading. Download servers will overload on Thursday, so if you use bittorrent to fetch, you'll save a lot of time.



All of these are fun and run smooth as silk:

• Ubuntu - for you Gnome-ers. Safe with most medications.
  
  
• Kubuntu - KDE eye-candy fantasy. Goes well with spicy Chinese take-out, or Vietnamese.
  
  
• Xubuntu - for people who like the military-like precision of the Xfce desktop like I do.
  
  
• Edubuntu - Ubuntu enhanced with educational applications, tools, content, and themes.
  
  
• Ubuntu Netbook Remix - runs dreamy on my Sylvania Meso netbook.
  
  
• Microsoft Windows 7 - obligatory "I'm kidding" link. What a freakin' downer!
  

If you can't decide which one to get, just pick any of the first few listed above. One can be converted to another with little hassle.

Reminder, if you are upgrading from a previous *buntu system, get the *alternate* CD iso file, not the main one. If it's a virginal install, any of the iso files will do. In fact, if you're new to all this, get the recommended main file. You can boot it live and see how it looks before you install it.

Upgrades: get the *alternate* file! Virgins, get any file, especially the main one.

All install easy as pie, especially with beer. Don't forget to install Opera after you get 'er running.

Control + C. I'm done!

Gaaw-aawl-leee it was easy! I got off work early today, so why not do a version upgrade. I updated my Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) to 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope). It was easy. It was crazy easy! I have a bit of an odd method of doing it, but it worked like a charm and it saved me from those overloaded download servers, since this new version was just rolled out yesterday and everybody is going at it right now.

#1: I don't use the Internet upgrade since it puts you totally at the mercy of those overloaded servers. It will be fine to do it this way in a week probably, after the download frenzy calms down. I basically do a CD upgrade, but without burning the CD.

#2: I grabbed the .iso file using bittorrent, which fetched it in in no time, then I can share it back to others for ages. Imagine *sharing* an operating system, legally! It still gives me chills sometimes. No freakin' EULA's, no cryptic product codes, just enjoy it and have fun! For the upgrade, get the "alternate desktop CD" iso file.

#3: I didn't bother to burn the .iso file to a CD, instead I mounted the iso directly. The advantage to this is that the updater can read files off the hard drive a bazillion times faster than the CD drive, and sometimes my CD drive spins down and won't rev back up, which puts a halt to everything.

Here's what you want to do with the "alternate desktop CD" iso file you got by bittorrent:

Create a mount point. This is just making a directory somewhere where you will see the contents of the iso file. I just put it in my home directory, so if your home directory is /home/cutiepie, just make a directory and call it anything, like "kubuntu".

Open a virtual terminal in your home directory and:

mkdir kubuntu

Go find the .iso file you got (kubuntu-9.04-alternate-i386.iso) and mount it to the directory you just made:

sudo mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 kubuntu-9.04-alternate-i386.iso /home/cutiepie/kubuntu

Now, you can either change into the kubuntu directory or type the entire file path. I'll just jump into the directory with it. It's more cozy! :

cd /home/cutiepie/kubuntu

Now it's just like you were browsing the CD, had you burned one.

Start the upgrade!

As long as you have changed into the "kubuntu" directory you made earlier, you can just type this:

kdesudo "./cdromupgrade"

#4: Enjoy the upgrade. You might get asked a question or two, but go off and do things, like eat, walk the dog, or sit on the toilet. It will wait until you get back for the answers. It will ask if you want to allow it to get files that are even newer from the Internet, if available. It doesn't matter much if you say "yes" or "no". You can get them during the upgrade, or get them afterwards. If you've written custom configuration files deep within the system, you might get asked if you want to keep them or have them replaced. If in doubt, replace them. That's about all I got asked during the whole process.

Both the Ubuntu and Kubuntu webpages have instructions, but I just felt like posting what I did. Getting the iso file by bittorrent and doing the upgrade by reading the file directly really saved a lot of time while the download server loads were high.

Last thing, the KDE desktop is more beautiful than ever. It's so beautiful, it's almost erotic!

Wow! I've loved the KDE desktop for years, and the new KDE 4.1 is really breathtaking. I mean KDE is so pretty, it's almost erotic!

This weekend I upgraded my system to Kubuntu 8.10, the Intrepid Ibex, lol, and it couldn't have been easier. I think it asked me all of 3 questions during the upgrade, and the logical answers for me were the default ones.

There is just one little KDE problem. Can you help me? I've searched really hard. I have! I can't find nuttin' on it. How do I change the keyboard delay and repeat rate settings? It's not anywhere that I can tell under the GUI. Is there ia little text config file that I can edit? When I touch a key on the keyboard, the delay is too short before it starts repeating, then the repeat rate is waaaayyyyy to fast. It's not a big problem, just annoying.

Why would this not be an easy to reach setting? I realize that the KDE 4.1 is shipping somewhat incomplete on the functionality. Maybe that's it? Or is Kubuntu shipping a KDE so simplified that a lot of config options are not there?

Anyway, it was a fun weekend playing with this some. The new KDE is taking a little getting used to, but desktop functionality has been about the same forever and ever, so I'm looking forward to some changes.