Kubuntu on the Pinebook Pro

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wove
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Kubuntu on the Pinebook Pro

Post by wove »

Armbian decided to support the Pinebook Pro, posting two fully supported images. Both images are Ubuntu based, one has Cinnamon DE and the other uses XFCE. I gave the Cinnamon a try it works well, but I just do not like Cinnamon. I was able to install it so it boots from the emmc while /root is on the nvme. That works well, producing a pretty snappy system.

Then using tasksel, I installed the "Kubuntu" DE. It went well. This installs the Kubuntu bits and bobs from 20.04. I added the Kubuntu backports, but it appears the backports lack software for the ARM architecture. Leaving me with a default Kubuntu 20.04. This appears to be a nice Plasma desktop, but in this case looks are really only skin deep. Muon is installed for package management as is Discover. Discover does a better job of installing more fleshed out software. However much of what is installed from either Muon or Discover does not work very well.

For reasons I do not know akonadi gets installed, but does not work, which leaves Kontact non functional. Akonadi uses mysql for a backend, which brings in mariadb, Mariadb is the backend for Akregator and I have long thought that mariadb just does not work on ARM. In the end I seem to be left with a nice DE, but much of the software I enjoy using on that DE is either not working or is not well fleshed out or crippled.
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crosscourt
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Re: Kubuntu on the Pinebook Pro

Post by crosscourt »

My experience is completely different. Muon works very well but Discover is hopeless. I immediately install Synaptic and all is good. Kubuntu for me is not a good experience thus I dont use it. Neon is by far a better choice in my use. I like Cinnamon and run it with Mint Debian and Ubuntu based versions. I prefer KDE but I love the Zorin GUI overall. Most of the best KDE distros are Debian based now.
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wove
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Re: Kubuntu on the Pinebook Pro

Post by wove »

Both Muon and Discover work alright. The part that I missed with Muon is that you need to specify every thing you need to make a working application. For instance Kontact by itself is simply a window that aggregates content from Kmail, Korganizer etc to be useful you have to make sure and install all the parts needed. The same is true with Konqueror without the addons and khtml and webengine installed it really does not do anything. And Muon at least in this install is not configured to install those parts automatically. Discover on the other hand does much better at fleshing everything out automatically, so that installing Kontact or Konqueror does create a more useful finished product. This is more related to user exerience and expectations than it is to the functionality of the software itself.

The last time I used Kubuntu the backports ppa did a reasonable job of keeping you close to up to date, but I do not think the backports has packages for the ARM64 architecture, which means the system remains at whatever version was installed in 20.04. It is very nice to see the Pinebook Pro hardware all working and being used as it was designed to do. But for me personally I do wish I could get a DE that I was content with up and running.
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crosscourt
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Re: Kubuntu on the Pinebook Pro

Post by crosscourt »

I havent had any of those issues installing apps with Muon but then again I dont use the K apps. Muon consistently has been an excellent package installer but Id still rate Synaptic as better. Discover is hit and miss as it can go for awhile and be fine then it has issues and screws up.
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