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Introduction

Kubuntu - the Linux distribution for everyone.

(koo-BOON-too) - /kùbúntú/ - towards humanity.

Kubuntu is a free, user-friendly operating system based on the K Desktop Environment and on the award wining Ubuntu operating system. With a biannual release cycle and at least 18 months of free security updates for each release, it is the secure, stable computing environment you've been waiting for. Its community driven development and pervasive availability are grounded in the concept of "humanity to others."

For this release, Kubuntu 6.10, standards were recreated around industry-leading ideas concerning bleeding edge technology. Kubuntu 6.10 is designed to be the foundation for future releases of the operating system. Bundled with amazing software, as well as other various packages available via the Internet, Kubuntu should be your number one choice for a free desktop.

The Kubuntu 6.10 Release Notes are constructed to show you the new features, hardware recommendations, downloading, installation and upgrading instructions, as well as how to contribute back to the Kubuntu community. Please take the time to read these notes before, during, and after the installation and configuration, prior to reporting any bugs.

The entire Kubuntu community would like to extend a warm welcome, and express our gratitude to you for selecting Kubuntu 6.10, the Edgy Eft.

What's New

Kubuntu is released regularly and predictably in order to provide you with the best Linux experience possible. The focus of Kubuntu 6.10 is to provide a foundation for future releases, with a primary goal of stability while using bleeding edge applications and technologies.

Since our June 2006 release (version 6.06 LTS) a lot of changes have been made:

The Kubuntu Installer

Ubiquity

Like previous releases, the Kubuntu 6.10 Desktop CD gives the ability to install a brand new Kubuntu system directly instead of having to download a separate installer CD, saving both time and bandwidth.

Alternate Installation Scenarios

The Alternate Install CD uses the text based installation system familiar to users of Kubuntu 5.10 and earlier; it can be used in situations requiring more control of the installation process. From the menu, one can either install a server version of Kubuntu or the normal desktop version, or repair a corrupted system. You should use this CD if you want to install to disks using LVM or RAID.

Changes to the Desktop

KDE 3.5

Kubuntu 6.10 comes with the latest version of KDE (the K Desktop Environment) 3.5.4. Since a lot of changes have been made to KDE, the best place to get a complete list is the KDE 3.5.4 changelog (differences between KDE 3.5.3 and 3.5.4).

KDE 3.5.4 is a maintenance release featuring translations in 65 languages, enhanced removable device support, and improvements in the HTML rendering engine (KHTML). Over 10 new features were added and more than 100 bugs were fixed. Other significant enhancements in 3.5.4 include:

  • Improved removable device support

  • Speed optimisations in Konsole and Kate

  • Multiple holidays can now start on the same date in KOrganizer

  • Lots of fixes in Konqueror's HTML engine, KHTML

  • Dialog for sending client-side SSL certificates is more stable

  • KNetworkConf now handles WEP keys better

Kubuntu Default Settings

For Kubuntu 6.10, the Kubuntu Art Team put together a brand new layout from top to bottom. The first thing everyone will notice is the new glass look to the splash screens, the KDM login screen, and the new purple theme with wallpaper. This will be the first Kubuntu release with a totally redesigned theme installed by default.

New Features in the Desktop

System Settings Layout

The System Settings layout has been modified, making it cleaner and easier to use in Kubuntu 6.10. The layout now consists of two portions:

  • General - This section contains the Personal, Look & Feel, Computer Administration, and Network & Connectivity settings

  • Advanced - This section contains the System Administration (Disk & Filesystems, System Services, Login Manager), and Advanced User Settings (Audio Encoding, KDE Resources, Services Manager, Session Manager).

Zeroconf

Zero configuration networking with Avahi allows you to browse the local network to connect computers, printers, and other networkable equipment together, in order to share resources. Kubuntu 6.10 now has the ability to enable Zeroconf just by checking the tickbox in System Settings -> Zeroconf.

Printer Sharing

For high default security printer sharing with the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) is turned off by default. Kubuntu 6.10 you have the option to turn on and configure printer sharing in System Settings.

Laptop Buttons Support

Laptop keyboards and some desktop keyboards have extra feature buttons. These extra buttons handle volume, display controls, multimedia, internet, and other features. New plugins have been built in order to enable hotkey support for a lot of the keyboards available.

Guidance Power Management

Designed to assist in the power management of your laptop, the Guidance Power Management daemon and application has achieved that and then some. Now with a fully functional system tray applet that allows you to monitor your battery and make changes to how the battery is used in different situations, Kubuntu is now more than ready to handle your laptop. The following are just some of the specific functions you can perform:

  • Battery and CPU status reporting

  • Configure Guidance to switch to a lower power state by dimming the display

  • Perform various actions when the power cable is plugged or unplugged, or when the lid is closed and when the battery is nearly empty

Hibernate on logout

New in Kubuntu 6.10 is the choice of hibernating your computer from the logout screen. Hibernation also works together with the Guidance Power Manager daemon as well, ensuring minimal power consumption, leading to overall power efficiency.

Gamma Control Layout

Changing the Gamma configuration with previous releases of Kubuntu hasn't always been simple. That has changed with Kubuntu 6.10. Instead of having to try and get four separate boxes to match, there is now only one, in turn making the configuration and color/gamma settings much easier to handle.

Hardware Database

The Hardware Database has been around for a couple releases for Ubuntu, but not for Kubuntu. New to Kubuntu 6.10 is a Qt4 client for Ubuntu's Hardware Database, which lets you anonymously submit system specifications to a centralized location. You are provided an ID number upon completing the process, which you can attach to bug reports or support requests, eliminating the extra step of listing all of your hardware and whether it works or not.

Application Updates

OpenOffice.org 2.0.3

This new version of OpenOffice.org is mainly a bug- and security-fix release. There are 3 security vulnerabilities that were fixed with this update. Briefly, they are:

  • The sandbox in which Java applets are executed allowed applets to break out of the secure environment to create, overwrite, or destroy files using the user's privileges.

  • Macros could be embedded in affected documents, which once opened, executed without launching a query.

  • Malicious code could be executed by exploiting a buffer overflow in the processing of malformed XML documents.

According to developers, none of these vulnerabilities have been actively exploited and were instead found during an internal code review.

More information concerning bug fixes and changes can be viewed at http://development.openoffice.org/releases/2.0.3.html.

Amarok 1.4.3

Amarok is the music player for Linux and Unix with an intuitive interface. Amarok makes playing the music you love easier than ever before - and looks good doing it.

Amarok 1.4.3 release is primarily a bug-fix release. However, there have been a couple of features added as well. Some of the bug fixes, changes, and features include:

  • DAAP Client and Server feature (Similar to iTunes network sharing)

  • Performance with big playlists has been improved greatly, also making the shutdown of Amarok faster.

  • User-added streams are now editable after saving

More information on Amarok 1.4.3 can be found at http://amarok.kde.org

Firefox 2 Bon Echo

Bon Echo, the latest release of the Firefox Web Browser, claims the focus will be on user interface innovations. These innovations will help users in their day-to-day browsing tasks while interacting with search, bookmarks and history. Improvements to tabbed browsing, RSS handling, managing extensions, security and performance are also featured in this release.

More information on Firefox 2 Bon Echo, can be found at http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox:2.0_Product_Planning:Draft_Plan

KTorrent 2.0.2

KTorrent is a BitTorrent program for KDE. KTorrent 2 is a major upgrade compared to the version in Kubuntu 6.06 LTS. Several new features have been added, including:

  • Bandwidth Scheduling

  • Trackers can now be added to torrents

  • Upload and download speed capping is fixed

More information on KTorrent 2.0.2 can be viewed at http://ktorrent.org

Konversation 1.0

Konversation is a graphical Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client for KDE. Konversation 1.0 is a significant milestone in the lifetime of the Konversation project. This release includes major new functionality as well as a large number of improvements. With an emphasis on polishing the user interface and the overall reliability, Konversation has become a premier graphical IRC client. Some of the new features include:

  • Tree view: this gives you the option of placing the tabs on the left side of the application window

  • Custom fonts for the user interface are now optional

  • Search bar has been redesigned to provide a better user experience

More information on Konversation 1.0 can be viewed at http://konversation.kde.org

K3b 0.12.17

K3b, the CD/DVD creator for Linux, optimized for KDE, was created to be a feature-rich and easy to handle CD burning application. Like other CD/DVD creators, the options are vast. It is able to create data, audio, video, mix-mode, and eMovix CDs, as well as copy and rip CDs and DVDs, and much more.

More information on K3b 0.12.17 can be viewed at http://www.k3b.org

Changes to the Server

Information

With the release of Kubuntu 6.10, there have not been many significant changes to the server installation. The most significant changes are within the kernel system itself.

Specific Kernels

The server kernels are now tuned differently than the desktop kernels (providing better performance for server applications).

Under the Hood

Upstart

Upstart is the new event-based replacement for the /sbin/init daemon which handles starting of tasks and services during boot, stopping them during shutdown, and managing them during system operations.

Upstart is currently being developed for the Ubuntu distributions as a replacement for the venerable sysvinit package. Some of the feature highlights include:

  • Tasks and Services are started and stopped by events

  • Events may be received from any other process on the system

  • Services may be respawned if they die unexpectedly

What does this mean for the user? Upstart, being an event-based system will be able to better guarantee a robust boot process and deal with the events from the modern kernel and removable hardware. Hot-swapping your devices will work the way they should, and will integrate better with the more modern Linux kernels.

Fore more information regarding Upstart, please visit http://upstart.ubuntu.com

Other Changes

  • Linux Kernel 2.6.17

  • GCC 4.1.2

  • glibc 2.3.6-2

  • Python 2.4.4c0

Hardware Recommendations

For the Desktop

The recommended specifications for running Kubuntu 6.10 include 128 megabytes of RAM and at least 2 gigabytes of hard disk space.

For the Server

To run Kubuntu 6.10 as a server, the recommended hardware specifications include at least 64 megabytes of RAM and 500 megabytes of hard disk space.

Downloading and Installing

Kubuntu 6.10 supports three major architectures: Intel x86, AMD64, and PowerPC.

Where do I download Kubuntu 6.10

Kubuntu can be downloaded from http://releases.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/6.10/ and then burned onto a writable CD. Two CD image types are available for download: the Desktop CD and the Alternate install CD. The Desktop CD replaces the "live" CD, but includes the ability (with Ubiquity) to install directly to your PC.

Upgrading Kubuntu

Pre-Upgrade

Adept will help you with upgrading; don't worry it's quite painless. Start Adept and then select the Adept menu followed by "Manage Repositories." Adept will change to a new window which will allow you to change the distribution from dapper to edgy. That's it. The next step is to apply the changes and select close. Select fetch updates to reload the sources and make sure to preview the changes to see what will happen, before committing changes.

To commit changes to finalize the upgrade, select "Full Upgrade" and go get a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage to drink while Adept upgrades your system. The time it will take will vary based on the speed of your internet connection and the speed of your computer.

Post-Upgrade

After the upgrade is finished, reboot your system for the lastest Linux, the lastest version of KDE and everything else that was upgraded.

Support Information

Kubuntu offers various channels in order for you to receive support. The following channels are just a few ways for you to receive support for your Kubuntu system.

More support information can be viewed at the Kubuntu Support page, or the Ubuntu Support page.

Launchpad Integration

As of Kubuntu 6.10, Launchpad Integration has been added via the Help Menu in the application. This integration will allow you quick and easy access to the center of Ubuntu support, the Launchpad. There are currently two choices within the Launchpad Integration:

  • The "Get Help Online" will link you to https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/edgy/+sources/<package>/+gethelp

  • The "Translate this Application" will link you to https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/edgy/+sources/<package>/+translate

Reporting Problems

If you find a problem with Kubuntu 6.10, please check the known problems wiki page before reporting bugs. If you do not find the problem there, look over Reporting Bugs wiki page. From here, you should have the information needed in order to report a bug properly, so go ahead and report a new bug in Malone, the bug tracking database.

Contributing and Giving Back

One of the great things about Kubuntu and Free software is the ability to give back to the community and to help make Kubuntu the best distro possible. For more information visit the "Helping Kubuntu" page or the "Contribute to Ubuntu" page.

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