It’s here! Days like today come only twice a year for Ubuntu lovers. I’m talking about the operating system hitting yet another huge milestone, Ubuntu 7.10, which brings features like read/write support for NTFS drives, desktop search, Compiz Fusion, and more! Since we’ve already reviewed Ubuntu 7.10 back when it was in the Beta stage I thought I would take this time to detail Kubuntu 7.10!
–New Features–
I snapped over a dozen screenshots of the new operating system so that you can see it from every aspect, and let’s start with a look at what’s new:
- KDE 3.5.8 - Kubuntu comes with the most up-to-date version of KDE which was just released earlier this week.
- Dolphin File Management - The new default file manager in Kubuntu makes navigating your file system extremely quick, but not meant to replace Konqueror. Some of the main features of Dolphin are: a navigation bar for quick navigation through the file system, view properties are saved for each folder, split views, undo and redo functionality, renaming of multiple selected items in one easy step. The screenshot on the left shows the main Dolphin interface, and the one on the right is connected to a remote Vista machine:
- Restricted Driver Management - Kubuntu 7.10 now includes the same Restricted Drivers Manager as Ubuntu. The Restricted Drivers Manager is a control module that allows you to simply install drivers for your hardware that are of the non-free variety. Such drivers include the NVIDIA 3D graphics driver, the ATI 3D graphics driver, Broadcom wireless drivers and more.
- OpenOffice.org 2.3 - The latest version of the open source office suite is included with Kubuntu.
- Enterprise Personal Information Management - The Enterprise version of Kontact is included for more advanced functionality.
- Strigi Desktop Search - It’s kind of like using Google Desktop Search, only the results aren’t shown as you type them. You must hit the “Search” button to see results, and they are displayed in your browser.
–Other Features–
Now that was a lot of stuff, I know, but to make this review more complete I thought I would snap some screenshots of other things in Kubuntu. So here they are:
- Desktop feed reading - Kubuntu includes two options for reading RSS feeds from sites: Akregator and Kontact. Whatever feeds you have in Akregator will automatically be displayed in Kontact:
- Getting your groove on - Amarok is one of my favorite media players.
- Chat with your friends - Kopete makes it easy to chat it up with all your friends, no matter what network they are on!
- Watch your back - Make sure your computer is performing the way it should by using System Guard. I mean who doesn’t love seeing pretty graphs of their computer’s performance?
- Wireless made easy - As soon as I started up Kubuntu I was able to connect to my wireless network…or one from my neighbors.
I can’t believe what great strides have been made to ensure wireless access is a painless process in Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
–The Verdict–
Now I’m a KDE lover at heart, but Ubuntu’s GNOME interface has really been warming up to me lately. Kubuntu is definitely a nice distribution, but it doesn’t come with Compiz Fusion out-of-the-box like Ubuntu 7.10 does. That might not matter to some of you, but I’m a sucker for good eye candy. I’m going to give my KDE award this year to Mandriva 2008.
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Tags: Freeware, Newly Released, Software, Desktop Search, Features, Linux, Reviews, Screenshots, Ubuntu
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Nice review. Great work. I’ll have either Ubuntu or Kubuntu on tests this weekend.
They really didn’t include a lot of new features for us kubuntu users. I’m looking forward to KDE4, though.
True , iam a bit disappointed that kde4 did not make it into this release. And comparing the changelog of ubuntu to that of kubuntu, i would say that ubuntu has had much more of a leap. Yea ryan, compiz is one heck of a new addition. Just like you i prefer kde over gnome or xfce but i think with this release i would mover to ubuntu from my present kubuntu 7.04 installation.
BTW is there a chance you could have a look at xubuntu, now that you have covered both ubuntu and kubuntu. I have a slightly older system and i tried the xubuntu tribe5 distribution and i was really impressed by the speed.
I have done a hardware and two vm installs of Gutsy, and one hardware upgrade.
It is better, but didnt fix any of my personal major install issues:
1. The LiveCD will blackscreen after the menu on a GeForce 8800 video card, even with ’safe graphics’ - you need to edit the boot to remove ‘quiet’ and ’splash’, then after installation you have to edit the grub menu as well. I cannot believe they havent fixed this - this was a known Feisty issue.
2. I got an unrelated and dreaded ‘GRUB ERROR 22′ - evidentially Ubuntu chose my external USB device as the grub install target, without asking - this took an hour of trial and error. I would actually love to see Ubuntu expose its Grub guesswork on install and ask user (like Suse) to verify because this part of the install is *super-critical*, and Ubuntu gets it wrong often. This type of error is completely unfixable in the GUI and very advanced command line stuff.
It is really annoying that Ubuntu reccommends people with grub errors use supergrub (which is NOT user friendly) to fix them - the LiveCD should have built-in grub repair tools like Suse.
3. Although the live CD detected both of my monitors, the installation did not (?!). I could only achieve proper dual monitor config with nvidia-settings, which although much better then Ubuntus tool still takes a lot of trial and error.
4. On both of the hardware installs the incorrect refresh rate was selected and the screen was slightly blurred. Although I was able to identify and fix the problem a normal user might not know what was wrong.
5. 3 years later, still no support for the most popular aftermarket audio card on the market - the Creative X-Fi, wont even beep. (Creative launched a 64-bit beta driver, which no on I know of has been able to get to work - now they are saying Q1 of ‘08 )
I’m not saying its Ubuntus fault, but its a massive Linux issue nonetheless.
KDE 4 does look pretty nice, but it’s a shame it couldn’t get out before the release of 7.10 because that would have made this release all that more memorable.
I’ve never actually used that believe it or not. That’s a great idea though…I’ll give it a shot probably next week.
1) Unfortunately there is still problems with Nvidia and ATI graphics cards. I’ve had similar experiences.
2) Haven’t had that issue before, but definitely sounds like something tha tneeds to be fixed.
3) My Live CD and my installation detected both of my monitors okay. It was still a pain trying to get them both to the correct resolution though.
4) My refresh rate is normally a little off as well, and it takes some configuration. This, along with the unrecognized widescreen resolution, are two things that they need to have a high priority for. It’s the first thing people notice when installing the operating system, and can be a big turn off.
5) I only have built-in sound cards so I’ve never really had any issues with them.
NTFS read/write support has been in Kubuntu since Feisty (7.04)
It hasn’t been in Ubuntu until now, which is what I was saying in the opening paragraph.
I’m really mad at Gutsy. Why? Kubuntu 7.10 is basically a catchup to the Gnome Ubuntu 7.04. There was already a Restricted Driver Manager in Gnome Feisty and GDebi was around since… how long?
Seriously, I’m considering switching to MEPIS. It’s basically the same, but more up to date. I’d do SuSE, but I hate RPMs.
I agree with you there. I haven’t tried out MEPIS, but openSUSE is really nice. If you do decide to switch to MEPIS I’d be interested in hearing what you think about it.
:)I think Kubuntu & Ubuntu are great OSs especially since they are open source. But some people, I have noticed dont really care for them.
Becouse they had problems with the sound card etc.
But you should remember that these are OPEN source & dont have all the great stuff like WinVista or Apple.