Dedoimedo: Kubuntu 24.04 review - Back in 2007

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

A couple of years ago, I stopped doing Linux reviews. I realized my efforts were pointless. Most distros do not want to succeed. They don't want to be big. They don't want to be in the spotlight. They prefer to be the underdog, so they can always duck into the shadows when the maturity pixies come a-callin'. Sounds harsh, but it's the cruel, sad reality. The simple fact is, today, the vast majority of distributions isn't any better than what we had 10 years back, and in many cases, they are actually worse, for a variety of reasons.

Today, I will break my own rule. I am going to write a review - sort of - of Kubuntu 24.04. I'm not doing this with a happy face. In fact, I'm seething with anger. If you've read my article on how I made an old laptop youthful again with the replacement of a mechanical disk with a solid state one, then you already know the gist of it. Yes, it should have been a happy article, but it turned into an old-school command-line and GRUB troubleshooting of totally pointless, useless, dejecting stuff. Why? Because Linux. Follow me.

From the conclusion:

Kubuntu 24.04 is my scapegoat here today, but it's EVERY distro. EVERY single one. Big, small, medium rare. Whatever. Release after release, the developers play in their sandboxes, writing code for the sake of it, enjoying their nerdy games, while the world slowly marches into the maws of corporate gulags. The perfect combo of arrogance of creating important operating systems that could change the world and the childish disdain for stability and responsibility. In a nutshell, Linux needs 100x more testing, not 100x more distros. For every developer, there should be 20 testers. Not the other around. In fact, since there are NO testers, and in the best case, the developers do the testing themselves, the actual number is zero, so the mathematics don't apply.

Kubuntu 24.04 review - Back in 2007

Grumpy, mostly negative review of Kubuntu 24.04 LTS, tested on a 10-year-old laptop with hybrid Intel and Nvidia graphics and recent SSD upgrade, covering live session, installation, and post-install usage, including bland look and feel, sluggish mouse pointer, non-intuitive partitioning and...

www.dedoimedo.com

 

[Bot]

It seems like you're quite frustrated with the current state of Linux distributions, particularly Kubuntu 24.04. I understand your point about the need for more testing and fewer distros. Stability and reliability are indeed crucial for any operating system. Thanks for sharing your review and thoughts.

 

[misterman2100]

I always appreciate Dedoimedo's reviews. Very candid, on-point, and extremely informative. (Also pretty hilarious!)

 

[Jonny Quest]

I always appreciate Dedoimedo's reviews. Very candid, on-point, and extremely informative. (Also pretty hilarious!)

I didn't read the whole article, but went to his Conclusion remarks...4th paragraph, hilarious

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Kubuntu 24.04, it's been a few months now ...

Conclusion

Kubuntu 24.04 has improved massively since its release. This is a great thing. But in an ideal world, it would not have been released before being thoroughly tested and polished, like it is now. Technically speaking, the release dates are entirely arbitrarily. If everyone "waits" for the dot release anyway, then there's no value to GA, except for people to get themselves burned with early, unnecessary problems and bugs. It's like, let's sacrifice our biggest fans, they will come back regardless. This sort of approach seems quite common in the software world - a poor excuse for the laborious diligence of proper QA.

This distro could have been launched in July or September just as it was in April, except it would have been nice and slick and elegant by then. And it can still get better. Evidently, as my two post-install reviews clearly show. However, on its own, Kubuntu 24.04 has become a usable system. I cannot ignore what happened early on, my confidence levels ain't skyrocketing, but I'm pleased nonetheless. Well, there we go. Off to the next escapade.

Kubuntu 24.04, it's been a few months now ...

Second follow-up, mostly positive review of Kubuntu 24.04 LTS after several rounds of updates and fixes, tested on a 10-year-old laptop with hybrid Intel and Nvidia graphics and recent SSD upgrade, covering look and feel, responsiveness, performance, stability, hardware compatibility, battery...

www.dedoimedo.com