Today sees the release of Kubuntu 8.10 featuring the KDE 4 desktop. The Kubuntu developers have been hard at work, bringing you the latest and greatest software the open source community has to offer. KDE 4 reworks your system with a major new revision of the desktop.
This Intrepid release lives up to its name by including many changes, but there are some features that are not yet available in KDE 4. If you would rather stay with what you know then remember that Kubuntu 8.04 is still fully supported, see KDE3-KDE4Migration and Is KDE 4.1 for you? for more information on deciding. You can try it first with the Kubuntu Intrepid Live CD to see for yourself whether or not it really is “for you”.
Get Kubuntu 8.10
Upgrading from 8.04
To upgrade from Kubuntu 8.04, press Alt+F2 and type in kdesudo “adept_manager –dist-upgrade” (including quotes) into the command box. Adept should open up and offer a Version Upgrade button. Click Version Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.
See the full upgrade instructions.
Download the CD
If you want to do a new install of Kubuntu the easiest way is to download a CD. You can also request a free CD if you are unable to download.
New Features since Kubuntu 8.04
KDE 4!
At last, fully supported, the reworked desktop, KDE 4. Kubuntu ships with KDE 4.1.2.
Featuring Plasma, the desktop with slick widgets
By default, our Plasma desktop has a customized offering of widgets, bringing the best configurations that our KDE3 desktop had back to KDE4, along with some new additions such as the QuickAccess plasmoid in the panel which provides quick access to the files in your home directory.
Taskmanager tooltips have also been backported from KDE trunk.
Desktop Effects
In KDE4 KWin has been given the bling-bling with shiny new Desktop effects ranging from the standard shadows and translucency to Wobbly Windows to a Coverswitch alt-tab window switcher shown above. These effects will be on by default if your video card supports them.
Dedicated File Manager
Dolphin gets a breath of fresh air in KDE 4, with numerous new features, a load of bugfixes, and those tiny polishing details that make Dolphin a very capable file manager. As in past releases, Konqueror is still available for file browsing if you prefer it.
Adept 3.0
A new desktop needs a new package manager, Adept 3 fulfills that need.
Adept 3.0 brings a fresh KDE 4 interface that is much more stable, nimble and easy on system resources.
Apport and Update Notifier
The all new update-notifier-kde tells you when you need to update and acts as crash notification for Apport so you can easily tell us when you have a problem. The current release also supports notification when upgrades require a reboot, as well as upgrade hooks.
Support for Keyboard Multimedia Keys
In Intrepid Ibex, KMix now supports the multimedia-button functionality that various keyboards offer.
Kubuntu Integration
All the essential Kubuntu tools have been given greater integration with KDE 4 with ports to to PyKDE4:
- GDebiKDE, for .deb package installation.
- Jockey-KDE, the proprietary driver manager
- Language Selector, the Kubuntu language selection and setup tool
- Software Properties, the apt sources.list editor for Adept
- Printer Applet, shows what is currently printing
- System Config Printer KDE, the printer setup tool
- Guidance Power Manager, for battery monitoring
Known Issues
There are several known bugs that users may run into with Kubuntu 8.10. We have documented them here for your convenience along with any known workarounds, if available.
- Can not login after upgrade from Kubuntu 8.04 KDE 4 Remix. After an upgrade from Kubuntu 8.04 KDE 4 Remix, logging in will return directory to the login screen again. The x-session-manager alternative link is not correctly updated. Select “KDE” from the Session Menu before logging in and fix it with update-alternatives –set x-session-manager /usr/bin/startkde. (Bug 287488).
- Upgrades from KDE3 where the user manually set the icon theme once upon a time can have really… funky icons. Workaround is to set the Oxygen theme explicitly from System Settings. (Bug 289174)
- KNetworkManager does not recognise static IP connections at this time. This issue only occurs for some, and not all. (Bug 280762)
- External monitors on a laptop blink on and off. This issue only occurs for some, and not all. This blog post describes a workaround. (Bug 278471)
- Bluetooth is currently broken for Kubuntu Intrepid due to a last minute upgrade of the bluez stack. (Bug 280997)
See more important issues in the Ubuntu Release Notes.
Feedback
Let us know what you think on the feedback page.
Participate in Kubuntu
If you would like to help shape Kubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu.