Review: Kubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish review - Okay, not LTS-y enough

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Spring. Flowers. Hay fever. Linux distros aplenty. This is how one can summarize the doings in the northern hemisphere this year, and every year. A fresh crop of Tuxies has hatched, and with modest reservation, stoicism, skepticism, and a lack of delusion, I shall set about sampling the harvest. Carefully, sparingly, because things ain't as rosy as they once used to be. Today, I will try Kubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyish, the new LTS.

My test rig will be the brand-newish IdeaPad 3, equipped with AMD processor plus graphics and adorned with three operating systems, one of which the aforementioned 22.04 will displace today. Hopefully, it will be a rather fun process, because I was super-happy with Plasma 5.24, and I'd like to believe, against all odds, that the lucky stream will continue for a while longer. I would also like this distro to become my next production system. To wit, let's commence to start.

Conclusion

I will receive feedback on this review, I am sure. And some people will probably say: you know you should wait a couple of months until the first dot release for all those early bugs to be fixed. And to that I say, yes, true, but then, why release the distro now then? Why not test two months more and then unleash it when it's ready? This is true of most "modern" systems, like the half-beta Windows 11 and whatnot. Low bar for quality is not how it should be, and Kubuntu 22.04 is no exception. There are half a dozen issues in this release, obvious ones, which never should have made it past the QA team. But then, testing software seems to be an afterthought since around 2014 or so.

Anyway, Kubuntu 22.04 is a decent system, but I also feel angry and frustrated. With my recent mission of migrating away from Windows for good (look for it in my Linux and Windows categories) in the coming years, any setback or regression in Linux, especially LTS versions of big distros, creates a great disturbance in the force, and makes me feel extra dejected. As always, always, whenever things start getting slightly better, slightly more stable, distros seem to implode, seemingly terrified of what stability might bring. It's a self-perpetuating, self-destructive cycle. It's getting quite boring in 2022. It was all fun and games and nerdy tinkering in 2005, but now, it feels like Groundhog Day, except it's Penguin Day. But then, who cares anymore right.

This distro is decent-ish. It's fast, there were no major problems, and you can tweak Plasma any which way you like, almost. Then, you have things like the unresizable main menu, screenshot borders, dubious defaults, and whatnot. Functionality wise, solid, but you have to work hard to get the best out of the system. Worst of all, there is no sense of majesty that an LTS is supposed to deliver. Just another day in the neverending grinder of code and frivolous hobbyism that is the Linux desktop. I guess 6-7/10 for now. Yes, I am sure I will eventually upgrade to this release, blah blah, and I'll be enthused and deluded and such. But the first impression is a bit meh. We are done here, folks.

Kubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish review - Okay, not LTS-y enough

Detailed, somewhat mildly negative review of Kubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish, tested in a mixed triple-boot Windows-and-Linux configuration on a laptop with UEFI, AMD Ryzen processor, Vega graphics, and NVMe storage, covering live session, installation, and post-install usage, including first...

www.dedoimedo.com

 

[Brahman]

KDE versions from any distros were always like that, even if you decide not to tinker, there will be a day on which you will forget your inner urge not to tinker and the result..... A satisfied tinkerer. That's what Linux is all about. You get an inner satisfaction, a feeling of zen, a surge of dopamine in your brain. Ask any Arch user, who had built everything from ground up, he would say " the feeling is better than getting a high on 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine". Gnome users like me are missing the fun, I know, but we all have our own personal likes and dislikes about the desktop environment. But I never hated kde, somehow I like Gnome better.