Ronnie Tucker

It wasn’t long ago that I installed pupEEE on my ASUS EEE but since updating my desktop Kubuntu 8.04 from KDE 4.0.3 to KDE 4.1 beta I thought I’d try Kubuntu Hardy with KDE 4.1 on the EEE to see how good, or bad, it would feel.

Above: my Kubuntu KDE4.1beta desktop on the EEE PC

I’m proud to say that the operation was a complete success!

‘Out of the box’ Kubuntu had working sound and closing the lid did indeed blank the screen to save battery life. Even the webcam worked! It wasn’t able to get the wifi working by default, but – after some Google magic – what I did was hook the EEE up to my wireless router via a network cable, get myself online, update my Adept sources list then install the ‘build-essential’ package. Then, in a Konsole typed:

wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz

… to download the updated madwifi drivers for Hardy.

tar zxvf madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
cd madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007

… to unarchive the drivers and enter the directory of the drivers. Then

make clean
make
sudo make install

…to compile and install the drivers.

After a reboot I right clicked on my network icon and connected to my router via wifi! Easy as that.

Above: after some Konsole fun, I get to go wireless!

Speaking of boot time: it’s not the fastest boot time, almost 80 seconds to boot. But I think that increased time may be due to the madwifi drivers? As it didn’t take that long to boot until I installed the madwifi drivers. But that’s just speculation on my part.

KDE 4.0 did include some snazzy desktop effects but even on my desktop machine they were pretty slow. The effects became far more usable in 4.1 beta so I enabled the window shadows, translucency and – of course – wobbly windows, new to 4.1 beta. Needless to say the EEE handled them with ease. Probably smoother than my desktop PC to be perfectly honest!

Above: wobbly windows, 4.1 style

Above: windows with drop shadows, translucency (when moving) and shading effects.

I haven’t – as yet – installed the extra plasma widgets but I did try the battery indicator widget and it seemed fine. Even the big analogue clocked looked good.

And the down sides? Well, the only downside I can see is that it takes up almost 2gb of my 4gb SSD. But, to be honest… I’d gladly give up that 2gb to have trusty Kubuntu on my EEE.

If you disliked the clunkyness of KDE 4.0 or haven’t tried KDE 4 as yet I would encourage you to try 4.1 beta. It may be a beta but it is still very stable and far more polished than 4.0

Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron with KDE 4.1 beta is here to stay!

(until the next time I get bored and want to try a new distro )