Gwibber vs. Choqok

And why I’m going with Choqok, even in Unity.

I upgraded to the new Gwibber.  For the most part, it’s great.  BUT, there are some really niggling issues I have with it.  List time!

• I can’t access my lists.  Or, I don’t see an easy way to do this.
• Slow.  So so so slow.  Once it starts up, it’s not bad, but it sometimes will hang my entire laptop.  I thought the updates were supposed to remove these issues.  Although they’ve been fewer recently.
• Two clicks to reply to a notice.  Not a huge deal, but now I have to click on the twitter/statusnet icon and then click reply.

Now, only to be fair, onto what I like about it:

• The new look.  Wow, looks great!
• Ubuntu integration.  This couldn’t be better.
• Speed improvements (note that this is under the issues as well… It’s in both because it’s better than it was, but not where it really shoiuld be.).

Now,even with all of the KDE libs, Choqok seems to run faster and easier on both my netbook and my laptop.  It has decent integration with my Unity desktop, goog.l shortening, pictures inline, and the ability to have my lists open so I can see what’s going on.  Oh, and now KDE apps seem to integrate better with Gnome because of QT, so that’s nice.

I really miss the easy-to-see lists feature that the old Gwibber had.  I wish they’d bring back the interface they had becuase it was awesome, and almost perfect.  Not necessarily the prettiest, but it worked really well.

I’m not saying “bring back the old interface” because that’s pretty much impossible right now, but maybe the devs could bring back some of its functionality.  I’m not sure what they wanted to accomplish with making the lists feature more hidden, but it’s made me kind of frustrated.

Now, I’ll go back to Gwibber.  For sure.  I’ll see if there are updates, and definitely give it another go when iti does update.  I’d love to have it working again the way I need.

For now, I’ll be using Choqok.

Kubuntu 9.10

Yesterday while watching the hockey game, I decided to download Kubuntu 9.10 and give it a try.

After the CD booted up (it took forever; I don’t know what was going on with that), the interface was very snappy.  I liked what I saw, so I installed.  Installation was pretty quick (not as quick as Ubuntu) and overall the interface is great.

I got my desktop effects working after I installed the proprietary drivers for my nVidia graphics card.  Kwin works well; I don’t have to run compiz.

The widgets are something to get used to.  I like having weather and such on my desktop.  I know the same can be done in Gnome with gdesklets and the like, but I never had good luck with it.

I installed Wakoopa and Dropbox from the web, the System76 installer, Flock (which was already installed since I didn’t nuke my /home partition).

What I like:

• Slick interface.  KDE 4 has seriously improved from the 4.2 version I used last year.  It’s speedy, with many fewer crashes (I only had one; it was Plasma, and it came right back up).
• Kopete being integrated.  Kopete is a great IM program.  It does have a couple issues, but those will be addresed in the following section.
• Easy to install programs.  Yes, I think this is just an Ubuntu thing, as PPAs and .debs “just worked”.
• Amarok.  Other than being laid out differently than what I’m used to, It’s a very powerful way to organize your music and other media.
• KPackagekit.  This is a million times better than Adept.  I’m so happy they replaced Adept with this.  Takes a little bit of getting used to, as I’m a Synaptic gal, but it’s a very nice program.
• Speed.  Kubuntu seems very snappy (though it might be my computer, heh) on my Pangolian.  All of the effects work out of the box (after installation of my proprietary nVidia driver), and Kwin is pretty slick.
• The taskbar is awesome.  It reminds me of the new Windows 7 taskbar, but better.  :)
• Quassel. What an awesome IRC client.  If/when I got back to Gnome, I might use this instead of Xchat (though I love Xchat).

What I don’t like:

• Gnome apps look somewhat boxy.  Flock has blocky dropdowns on my blog editor.  Gwibber looks fine, but there are some blocky boxes.  This is due to the fact that I use those pieces of software and I can’t really live without them.  I know I could go to Choqok, but it doesn’t run facebook or friendfeed.  Gwibber has more features.
• Fonts seem kind of off or too large.  This is mostly in my Gnome apps.
• Knetworkmanager.  ARGH.  I can’t get it to connect to my wireless correctly.  The Gnome network manager detects and connects right away.
• The new menu.  I don’t like the “new” menu with the tabs and such.  I prefer the old version of the menu; actually, I prefer the Gnome menu.
• Single taskbar.  I’ve gotten so used to having the dual taskbars (really, a taskbar and a dock) in Gnome that it’s hard to go back to only having one bar.  I’ll get used to it.
• Kopete seems to like to disconnect from the internet all the time.

The whole KDE experience is great for someone coming from Windows.  There are many things that are similar to Windows 7 in the newest stable version of Kubuntu.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Kubuntu Jaunty on the Desktop

I’ve taken the plunge.

After running KDE 4.x on my laptop and not having any success (Mandriva, etc), I vowed I’d never use KDE again.

Well, here I am, using KDE on the desktop.

I’ve decided to try out Kubuntu (again) on the desktop.  It’s much nicer than I anticipated, with only a couple of hiccups (I’m using the Jaunty beta, so that’s understandable).

New things:

• Quassel IRC is default for the IRC client for Kubuntu.  It’s pretty nice, but seems a little stripped down for my taste, as I’m used to Xchat.
• choqoK is a new Twitter/identi.ca client for KDE.  It’s not default in Kubuntu, but it’s really nice.  If it’s expanded to include more services (jaiku, plurk, etc) it might give gwibber a run for it’s money.
• KPackageKit is the package manager.  This is so much better than Adept, it’s not even funny.  Adept seemed clunky (one of the reasons I never really used Kubuntu happily) and kind of “unrefined”.
• KDE4.  KDE4 is now actually usable.  Wow.  It’s moved to the 4.2-ish build… MUCH more stable.  I can use the Plasma widgets now without my whole computer crashing.
• Amarok is still the default music manager, but it’s newer and more shiny.  It’s actually pretty good.  There are a couple new things added to this program; mainly widgets.  You can add lyrics, details about the album your listening to and the like to the window.  This is a very cool addition.
• Kopete.  I’m using Kopete more and it’s quite good and up to the task.

Things that don’t work:

• Gwibber , but I have that choqoK program working pretty well.
• Pidgin doesn’t integrate with the Knotify notification system.  This is not a big deal, but I like the fit and finish of having all of your programs integrated.

I have a blue theme going on… simple and clean (I need that… easy on the eyes).  The below screenshot shows the Desktop Folder widget, the sticky notes widget, and the weather widget.  It also shows the choqoK program.

All-in-all, most of my software works with this release.  I”m waiting on the edge of my seat for the new stable version.

Blogged with the Flock Browser