Nicely Nitpick Noble 24.04 LTS

[Snowhog]

Thread is now Closed.

Forum for Kubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat LTS has been opened. Please post new content there.

[NoWorries]

It's now the eve for the Release of Noble Numbat 24.04 LTS

The months of Noble development have been a very torrid time for me The problems that I faced were with the calamares installer as against the ubiquity installer which never gave me any problems. This change to the calamares installer made me feel that I had gone out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The main problem that I faced was that my EFI partition had to be 300 MiB in size and mine was 275 MiB. I ended up shifting the Windows partition so that I ended up with a 306MiB EFI partition. I have now lost my ability to boot into Windows and I have not tried to recover from this change.

As well as this problem, the calamares installer still failed to install Noble with the reason being that the main.py file had to be edited for the installation to work. A clear solution to this problem by claydoh can be found at post #48. I know that this change is now incorperated into the installer.

The other problem that I faced was with an installation where I defined my partitions – this is my normal approach as I want to preserve about 240GiB of my btrfs Home partition. I unfortunately missed oshunluvr post #2. So I had to deal with my home directory being shifted to @home/user. Because I do not have much more than 100GiB of free memory, I had to cut, piece by piece, all the files in @home/user to my user home directory.

Other users have also recently experienced problems brought on by the calamares installer. So I will be very interested to see press reviews of Noble after its official release.

I just hope that all the installation issues related to the calamares installer have been fixed for the release of Noble 24.04 LTS. At lease my system is now a pleasure to use after dealing with the calamares installer. I must add that Wayland is not listed in the login option – only X11. If you are interested in trying our Wayland you can get it by :

~$ sudo apt install plasma-workspace-wayland

I was tempted to try this as I noticed Wayland updates being downloaded? As usual, Wayland is over 2 times faster than X11.

Now for the list of Info Version updates in the last month with the Application Version updates.

	1 Month To Go	Release Status
KDE Plasma Version	5.27.10	5.27.11
KDE Frameworks Version	5.115.0	5.115.0
QT Version	5.15.12	5.15.13
Application Version	4:23.08.5	4:23.08.5
Kernel Version	6.8.0-11-generic	6.8.0-28-generic

My experience has been that the last month has consolidated many applications. What stands out in the above table is the version updates to KDE Plasma Version, QT Version and Kernel Version. No doubt many are waiting for KDE Plasma Version 6 which hopefully will come later this year.

I continue to frequently use Noble and now appreciate its stability. I assume that other users of Noble are now experiencing similar stability. Since Noble is a LTS, I assume the developers are concentrating on providing a stable and reliable system. I hope that those who update their systems to Noble have more success than I did with the calamares installer.

[claydoh]

https://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/...nes/450/builds

[Schwarzer Kater]

No, I didn't report it yet (shame on me…).

Sorry for missing links - I was researching this for several hours last night and unfortunately I have to urgently do other things (probably until tomorrow) now - you will find something in the RHEL and SLE documentations for example, and there should be something in the Arch Wiki, too, IIRC.

And there are the blacklisted SSDs for the kernel - which will (or will even not for the ones not in this list - and there were some missing a while ago…) be taken into account when you use "discard" in /etc/fstab instead of fstrim as far as I can tell…

PS:
Perhaps it is not as serious as I think it can be regarding older SSDs - but better to be safe than sorry…
… and one should definitely not use both periodic and continuos trim at the same time!

[claydoh]

there still is the "discard" option in /etc/fstab for an ext4 "/" instead of "defaults"- despite the systemd fstrim.service being loaded and the systemd timer for fstrim is running

have you reported this on the QA tracker? Or filed a bug? This would just be a calamares config file edit to fix, once they are aware of it.

Any links about the topic?

[Schwarzer Kater]

Kubuntu 24.04 LTS Daily Build 2024-04-24 04:13

On the surface I could not spot any differences compared to yesterday's Daily Build.

• there still is the "discard" option in /etc/fstab for ext4 instead of "defaults"- despite the systemd fstrim.service being loaded and the systemd timer for fstrim is running…

If you have installed Kubuntu 24.04 LTS Daily Build on an ext4 file system,
please correct this installer bug for ext4 file systems in /etc/fstab first (= replace the "discard" option, because a systemd timer for fstrim is already running)!
To not do both is recommended by e.g. Red Hat and the ArchWiki (and Fedora, Debian or Ubuntu's main distribution also do not do it)!
Furthermore Red Hat and SUSE (openSUSE) also recommend in general to use a timer/fstrim instead of the "discard" option (and Fedora, Debian or Ubuntu's main distribution also use fstrim.timer instead) - except for special cases.
If you are unlucky, using the "discard" option in /etc/fstab may decrease the SSD's lifetime and can lead to performance degradation and if you are really unlucky, using it with certain older SSDs could in very rare cases even lead to data corruption and loss.

If you don't know whether you chose the ext4 file system during installation the chance you did is quite high as it is the default for Kubuntu 24.04 LTS.
And if you didn't choose ext4 the following two commands won't do anything (except making a backup of your /etc/fstab).
Please copy and paste the following two commands one by one into Konsole with "[Ctrl] [c]" and "[Ctrl] [Shift] [v]" before entering them to avoid typing errors.
-> sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig
-> sudo sed -i '/ext4/ s/discard/defaults/g' /etc/fstab

I would even suggest to also additionally use the noatime option, if you don't need the information about when you have accessed (= opened or read) a file or folder, because this makes using old HDDs a tiny little bit faster and reduces write actions (and therefore wear) on SSDs.
So instead of the last command then you can
-> sudo sed -i '/ext4/ s/discard/defaults,noatime/g' /etc/fstab

[Schwarzer Kater]

Kubuntu 24.04 Daily Build 2024-04-23 00:07
All Quiet on the Western Front: nothing has changed, neither the installer nor major system components.

But: /etc/os-release now says "Ubuntu 24.04 LTS" - without "development branch". So this could already be the release version.

What about Btrfs ?

[Schwarzer Kater]

Kubuntu Daily Build 2024-04-22 08:01:

• Kernel updated from 6.8.0-28 to 6.8.0-31.
  The Ubuntu Kernel Team seems to have been quite busy: this is the second kernel update within two days.
  .
• Nothing has changed regarding the installation as far as I can tell,
  IMHO the most positive being that
  - the "Minimal Installation" option still does not install any Snaps or snapd at all (beware of the "backdoors" by e.g. "fake" Firefox, Chromium and Thunderbird packages, though, that will install both snapd and the Snap if you don't block snapd by APT pinning first! Or simply also use the get rid of Snap script for that - which I have tested dozens of times with 24.04 by now. )
  And the most negative being that
  - there still is the "discard" option in /etc/fstab for ext4 file systems instead of "defaults" (why?!?).

Oh yes, and in Kubuntu 24.04 LTS Wayland is not fully installed by default (to be precise: only kwin-wayland^** is, plasma-workspace-wayland is not) and therefore the default session type is X11, of course.
I personally think that is a good thing as I consider Wayland to be still in Beta stage and certainly not suitable for an LTS release…

And don't forget to vote before the end of the month : Poll - (when) will you install Kubuntu 24.04 LTS?


^**= "This package provides the wayland version, which is still a work in progress project, and is available as a PREVIEW release. Don't expect the same stability as with the x11 version."

[jlittle]

Installing to an existing btrfs, I still get the crash if the @swap/swapfile exists. If I remove it before running calamares the problem is avoided.

After installing before logging in I get

Configuration file "/var/lib/sddm/.config/sddm-greetrc" not writable.
Please contact your system administrator.

I think I've seen that error reported somewhere before, but google doesn't think so. The problem is caused by the ownership of the directory, which is saned, and I presume it should be sddm; saned is a daemon for reading from scanners. If the directory is changed so that sddm can write to it fixes it.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Nothing new (and neither positive nor negative changes) to report from today's Daily Build (2024-04-21 07:59).

[Schwarzer Kater]

Daily Build 2024-04-20 07:58 / today's status so far:

• Kernel updated from 6.8.0-22 to 6.8.0-28.
  .
• In the Calamares installer the Additional Options to "install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware and additional media formats" is still gone.
  (It was also gone in yesterday's Lubuntu Daily Build installer.)
  I wonder why that is…
  .
• In the Calamares installer Thunderbird is completely removed from Install additional third-party packages now and cannot be selected/deselected in the "Normal Installation" option anymore.
  Both in the "Full Installation" and in the "Normal Installation" options the Thunderbird Snap is installed by default now.
  (In yesterday's Lubuntu Daily Build installer the Thunderbird Snap was not installed when deselected in the "Normal Installation" option - I have not checked today, though.
  I wonder why this doesn't seem to be possible for Kubuntu and the option for Thunderbird was completely removed instead…)
  .
• The option for ext4 file systems after installation is still discard in /etc/fstab - despite the systemd fstrim.service being loaded and the systemd timer for fstrim is running…
  And I still think this is a bad idea and should be defaults instead - until somebody explains to me otherwise!

[Schwarzer Kater]

Nothing has changed in today's Daily Build regarding all the points I mentioned in the three posts above.
There have been dozens of updated libraries et al. during the last days, though.

[Schwarzer Kater]

This late afternoon there was a second Daily Build (the good things but also the issues listed above are still there):

• The Plymouth splash screen when booting (the slowly "blinking" Kubuntu logo) uses the new font and colours and seems to "blink" a little faster now.
  .
• There is another new default wallpaper now.
  .
• The option to install third-party software/drivers has gone in this Daily Build !

[Schwarzer Kater]

One more week until the official release date:

• The slideshow during the installation now shows Kubuntu images instead of the Lubuntu ones.
  .
• Kubuntu and Lubuntu are the only (!) official Ubuntu flavours I know of that allow you to install them without snapd and Snaps, namely by using the "Minimal Installation" option.
  -> Installing the "fake" Firefox .deb in the "Minimal Installation" installs snapd and the Snap, though (!) - the "fake" Thunderbird .deb doesn't do this and installs just a script that tells you to install the Thunderbird Snap.
  So if you don't want to use Snaps it would also be wise to block snapd (and therefore Snaps) entirely and install the "traditional" Firefox and Thunderbird instead (e.g. with the available scripts for that).
  The "Minimal Installation" is really quite minimal, though… Personally I would use the "Normal Installation", run the get rid of Snap script afterwards and then install the "traditional" Firefox and Thunderbird…
  .
• The "Normal Installation" option still additionally installs the Thunderbird Snap despite being not selected…
  .
• The option for a ext4 file systems is still discard in /etc/fstab - despite a systemd timer for fstrim is running by default !
  -> To correct this, please copy and paste the following two commands one by one into Konsole with "[Ctrl] [c]" and "[Ctrl] [Shift] [v]" before entering them to avoid typing errors:

-> sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig
-> sudo sed -i '/ext4/ s/discard/defaults/g' /etc/fstab
I would even suggest to also additionally use the noatime option, if you don't need the time information when you have accessed (e.g. just opened) a file or folder, because this makes using old HDDs a tiny little bit faster and reduces write actions (and therefore wear) on SSDs, so instead of the second command then you can
-> sudo sed -i '/ext4/ s/discard/defaults,noatime/g' /etc/fstab

Of course you can instead simply use the Kate text editor to open /etc/fstab (I advise to make a backup of the file first, though) and replace the discard option with the defaults (or defaults,noatime) option this way!


PS: another positive thing about Kubuntu 24.04 LTS (dev & Beta)

• systemd-oomd is not installed by default.

[Schwarzer Kater]

News regarding the Kubuntu 24.04 LTS development branch/Beta :

• Mesa has been updated from 24.0.3 to the current 24.0.5 (!)
• the default settings include a new wallpaper now

So here is today's overview (similar to the ones NoWorries has already provided us with all the time - thanks for keeping track of the details for every new Kubuntu release by the way!):

KDE Plasma	5.27.11
KDE Frameworks	5.115.0
KDE Gear**	23.08.5
Qt	5.15.13
Mesa	24.0.5
Kernel	6.8.0-22

^** = Over 180 individual programs plus dozens of programmer libraries and feature plugins are released simultaneously as part of KDE Gear.
Applications like the Dolphin file manager, the Kate text editor or the screenshot utility Spectacle belong to them.
KDE Gear is not the same as the KDE Applications but a subset and part of them.