While I'm a .Net guy, I've been known to tinker with Linux now and again. I've built/rebuilt many machines using Red Hat 7.3, 9, Fedora Core 2, Fedora Core 4, and most recently, Mythdora (a Fedora Core release with MythTV bundled with it).
But, I've heard a lot of good things about Ubuntu, and there has been a lot of hype ahead of the Ubuntu 10.4. So when it came out last Thursday, I downloaded a flavor of it, Mythbuntu.
The installation of Mythbuntu had a couple of hiccups along the way however. On the first attempt, I realized that the system did not detect my main hard drive. After changing the pins on the Hard Drive to 'Master', I re-attempted the install, with the machine on its side. Here I ran into my first problem, before the install started, I received the error "Unable to find a medium containing a live file system".
Many posts suggest testing the CD, but as I already had reached the installation wizard, I was fairly certain that the CD was fine. After numerous attempts, I eventually re-arranged my Hard Drives and stood the tower up instead of having it on its side. This time the installation proceeded without an error.
There were only two other minor hiccups. First, I had an external hard drive which contained my entire Music library, plus a couple recordings that I saved. On XCFE, the windowing system that Mythdora installs by default, I could not get the Hard Drive to connect.
Each time, I've tried to install Linux in the past, I've always installed KDE and Gnome side by side. And each time I try to use Gnome, or some other windowing system, I find myself running back to KDE. While KDE is not always the most stable of the options (see below), it has access to all of the System Tools that I need in a nice Graphical interface. While any of the Administrative tasks could be accomplished in the terminal with commands and configuration files, I prefer the more Dummy-proof Graphical interface because when it comes to Linux, I am a dummy.
KDE, in this case, was the solution I was looking for. After I installed KDE and loaded KDE up, I was able to get the Hard Drive to connect by simply plugging in the drive.
The last glitch I encountered in the process was a minor nuisance. While copying the music files over, the Window Manager for KDE, Dolphin, crashed. While I don't know exactly what caused the error, I suspect that the total size of the files was the cause, as I was able to copy a smaller subset of the files.
In the end however, I am quite impressed with the changes that I see in the latest versions of the Linux kernel, KDE, MythTV, and with Ubuntu in general. The issues I encountered were minor enough that I could work around them. I'm not certain if Ubuntu 10.4 will upset the balance of the Desktop operating systems, but it is a step in the right direction.
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