Kubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04 review

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For those who do not know, Kubuntu Netbook Edition made it to the top of our list of “Best Netbook Linux Distro” and why not, it has an innovative approach of how an operating system should be customized for a netbook, to make lives easier for users like you and me.

Now, before I move ahead, let me clarify few things – this review is done keeping in mind how a casual netbook user would use Kubuntu. Sure, you can install Gnome environment instead of KDE and make it look exactly like a standard Ubuntu, but that is not we are going to cover here.

Installation

The installation is dead simple, just like Ubuntu. If you have installed any Linux OS lately, you should not have any problem installing Kubuntu Netbook Edition. I installed it using UnetBootin which allows one to make a bootable USB drive.

Out of the box, everything worked, from Ethernet to Wireless LAN – everything! This is great as most of the netbook users do not like wandering over Ubuntu/Kubuntu forums trying everything to work. Even the function keys worked.

Looks

The Kubuntu Netbook Edition uses KDE desktop instead of Gnome. After using the Gnome desktop for almost like 3 years, KDE is a breath of fresh air. The Netbook Edition makes things much better, thanks to wise utilization of screen real estate. Netbooks usually sport a resolution of 1024×600 pixels, thus an application should make full use of the pixels available. In other words, it is exactly what a geek ordered.

For the techies, the Kubuntu uses Plasma Netbook Shell and it looks a lot more futuristic than the Ubuntu, at least to me and my team. I absolutely love the animations and how the windows behave. Excellent – Very. But, here is a word of caution – as you would have already noticed from the screenshots, it looks quite a lot different from the existing netbook distros, chiefly because all of them use Ubuntu Netbook Edition as their base. So, it will take a day or two in getting used to the KDE+Plasma Environment.

All the applications run full screen, just like Ubuntu netbook edition. However, there is a way when you want the application not to run full screen.

The desktop is divided into 3 parts – top bar, favorites panel and application panel. The top bar contains the basic buttons for shutting down, locking the screen, clock and also contains the button for switching between running applications.

Second is the favorites panel. You can add application by hovering the mouse over an icon and then clicking on the little golden star on the top left of the icon.

While on the desktop, you either use the categories to get to your desired application or you start typing the name of application and Kubuntu will automatically start to short-list the applications as you type. It also finds your documents too – similar to spotlight search on Mac

Switching applications is done by clicking a button present on the top-right of the display, which shows you the numbers of applications that are currently running. Clicking it shows all the running applications with their current screenshots.

Alternatively, you can use alt+tab combo, which gives you an iTunes’ cover flow like interface to switch between apps. Very cool!

Boot Up time

Boot-up time is extremely important for mobile devices like netbooks since nobody wants to wait for 2-3 minutes for an OS to complete its boot. Everybody wants to go online as-fast-as possible. Kubuntu Netbook Edition (referred to as KNE from this point onwards) does exactly that.

Having the netbook set to auto-login, from grub to desktop took 50 seconds and shut down time was 6 seconds. So, the boot-up times are fairly impressive.

Applications

Office:

·OpenOffice Word Processor

·Openoffice Presentation

·OpenOffice Spreadsheet

·OpenOffice Drawing

·Okular

·KtimeTracker

·Korganizer

·Kontact

·KaddressBook

Education

·Kanagram: Letter order game

·Ktouch

·Parley: Vocabulary Trailer

Games

·Kmahjongg

·Krerversi

·Lsat

·Ksudoku

·Kmines

·Kdiamond

·Kpatience

Graphics

·Ksnapshot

·Gwenview: Image Viewer

·OpenOffice Drawing

·Okular: Document Viewer

Internet

·Mozilla Network Installar (more on that later)

·Network Connections

·Konqueror

·Ktorrent

·Kmail

·Kbluetooth

·KPPP

·Quassel IRC: IRC Client

·KRDC: Desktop Terminal

·Kopete: Instant Messenger

·Krfb: Internet Sharing

·Blogilo: Blogging Client

·Akregator: RSS reader

·KnetworkManager

·Browser Identification

·Windows Share

Multimedia

·Kmix: Sound Mixer

·Dragon Player: Video Player

·Amarok: Audio Player

It just kept saying that the requested packages are already installed and the installation of Firefox never actually happened. But, we had no problems with the Konqueror, which is the default web-browser for Kubuntu.

Suggestions?

Well, I do feel that the close button should always be accessible in an application. It should not be hidden in the top-bar which hides itself every time to give you more pixels to work with. Secondly. Plasma Environment could be a bit faster.

Firefox installation just fails. Go for the Chrome browser from Google or the Opera. It is magical on the Kubuntu (actually on any Linux distro out there).

Flash player, just like other Canonical distributions, does not come pre-installed. Same can be said about MP3 and other video codecs. There is an easy solution to this – just install VLC or Audacious. :)

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