Enjoying 18.04

[exploder]

I have not used KDE for years but I kept hearing how much it had improved so I just had to see for myself. I had been running Ubuntu 18.04 with Gnome on my HP DC7800 SFF desktop since the 4.15 kernel came in development. It ran alright on the hardware but was a little resource hungry. I had been looking at Kubuntu 18.04 for several reasons but I have to admit that its modern look was a huge selling point! After checking out a few YouTube videos, I decided to give it a try.

First thing I looked at was memory use, it was outstanding! I started looking into features and found KDE Partition Manager and was impressed! I thought I would need Gnome Disks to keep an eye on my SSD drives health but the KDE application totally had it covered. Next I wanted to look at KMail, in the past I had issues with it. I set up KMail and started looking around and it is pretty feature rich and it has a professional look and feel to it. Next up was K3B, it recognized my system had a Blue Ray device, awesome! The default apps have most everything covered. The only thing I dded was Synaptic and a widget, "icons only task manager".

Last but not least, the default look and feel of Kubuntu is nice! I do like how easy it is to switch to a dark theme too, a few mouse clicks and everything looks great! I think Kubuntu 18.04 is a keeper!

[chimak111]

Muon, there by default, is functionally very much like Synaptic

[exploder]

Can I clean up old kernels with Muon? I keep Synaptic mainly for cleaning up old kernels and residual config files.

[chimak111]

No idea of that usage with Muon or with Synaptic

I've not yet had issues with old kernels; apt's autoremove takes care of things leaving me with only a couple or so of previous versions.

For residual config files, I have:

dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}' | sudo xargs dpkg --purge

but I don't usually have many of them.

In any case, I haven't used even Synaptic much, just the terminal.

[acheron]

Glad you are enjoying 18.04.

Can I clean up old kernels with Muon? I keep Synaptic mainly for cleaning up old kernels and residual config files.

In Muon you can view by section (e.g. Kernels & module) and choose with a right click to 'purge' unneeded ones.

[kc1di]

I also use ubuntu-cleaner for old kernel removal has always worked for me. You can get it here : https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/12/...er-janitor-app

[exploder]

I am going to have to try some of these suggestions and they are appreciated. Something I did like about installing Synaptic was how it was themed. The last time I used KDE I had to fix that myself. Consistency in themes is much better in KDE than in other desktop environments.

[exploder]

I had the day off from work today and had the time to look at Muon. It sure looks like Muon has the same functionality as synaptic. If Muon works the same I will go ahead and remove synaptic. I will test it out the next time we get a kernel update.

[sithlord48]

"Blu-Ray" not "Blue-Ray"
to clean old kernels i use

 apt autoremove

this will provide you with your newest kernel and the one before it

[GreyGeek]

I had the day off from work today and had the time to look at Muon. It sure looks like Muon has the same functionality as synaptic. If Muon works the same I will go ahead and remove synaptic. I will test it out the next time we get a kernel update.

It does. And, in the long run you'll find it is easier and faster than Discover, IMO, and YOU are in control if the option to load a dozen mono libraries is presented. In Muon you can click NO. In Discover you'd never know.

[jlittle]

It sure looks like Muon has the same functionality as synaptic.

Muon does not request elevated privilege nor take the APT lock until it's necessary. I much prefer this over the way synaptic works. A lot of the time I use muon I'm not making changes. I usually prefer using apt on a command line to make changes, because it's easier to cut and paste into my own activity and customization logs.

[GreyGeek]

Muon has one annoying habit: re-indexing about every time you change the contents of the search entry text box. Unnecessary and wastes your time. The possibility that the repository is going to change while you have Muon open is negligible. It should re-index only when you first open it, and after you make a change to the repository. And, they shouldn't be using the Bubble Sort, because that's how slow it seems. There are only 90,000 entries in the repository. A Shell Sort or Quick Sort would line those up in under a second, not a minute.

Despite that, Muon is the best front end to Apt that there is, IMO.

[chimak111]

Muon has one annoying habit: re-indexing about every time you change the contents of the search entry text box.

Does this happen on 18.04 as well for you? I'm not seeing that. There's was a rebuilding of the index with the first term I entered. But entering subsequent terms immediately after that didn't trigger a rebuild.

Muon Package Manager: Version 5.8.0