KDE

Kubuntu 5.10, the KDE-based variant of Ubuntu, normally comes with KDE 3.4.3.  With KDE 3.5.0 just recently released, however, I wanted to update Kubuntu to use the latest version of KDE.  Here’s what I had to do to make it work.

First, from this page, I downloaded and added the appropriate GPG key.  Once that was done, I used “apt-get update” to download the latest package information and “apt-get upgrade” to upgrade packages.  That upgraded most of KDE, but there were a few packages that still refused to upgrade (they were reported by apt-get as “held back”).

After poking around with apt-get for a while, I discovered that there was one missing file—libgnokii2—that couldn’t be found in the apt-get sources.  I manually reviewed the apt-get sources and finally found this package in the universe section of the main Ubuntu apt-get source.  I edited /etc/apt/sources.list to enable the other sections, then manually installed the missing file with these commands:

apt-get clean
apt-get update
apt-get install libgnokii2

I then edited /etc/apt/sources.list again to disable the other sources and upgraded the remainder of the KDE packages:

apt-get clean
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

This last round of apt-get removed a few obsolete packages and then updated the remainder of the KDE packages.

I don’t know if this is the “correct” way of doing things, but it seemed to be the only way to make it work as anticipated.  If anyone has a better way, please let me know.

After wrestling with installing, configuring, and supporting Fedora Core 3 on an older Compaq Armada E500 laptop, I decided to break with my Red Hat/Fedora legacy and try Kubuntu, the KDE-based Ubuntu variation.  Ubuntu itself is a relative newcomer to the Linux distribution arena, based on (as I understand it) Debian.

In previous stints using Linux as my desktop OS, I’d always been partial to KDE instead of GNOME.  Some would say that it’s because KDE has traditionally been more “Windows-like” than the other Linux graphical environments; perhaps that’s the case.  I’ve typically found KDE easier to work with, and since this laptop would eventually be used by the kids I felt like ease of use was important.

The install went very quickly and very smoothly.  When the install was done, I then proceeded to update KDE to version 3.5.0 (which had just been released a few days before).  Along the way, I learned a handy piece of information about HTTP proxies and command-line utilities (I’ll soon post information on that as well).  Eventually, I managed to get apt-get to download and install the updated KDE 3.5 packages.  I rebooted the system and found that I was now running the updated version of KDE.  (Side note:  There are still some KDE packages that won’t upgrade for some reason; I’m currently working on resolving that issue.)

It’s still too early to tell for certain, but I may just have found a new desktop Linux version.