I replaced Fedora with Kubuntu on my laptop yesterday. After experiment with the KDE interface on Kubuntu, I think that Kubuntu is better than Fedora for the following reasons:
- Flash is easy to install
According to several online tutorials, x86-64 Fedora users need to first install 32-bit support packages, and then install Flash plugin. After that, the users also need to worry about other Flash player issues, including no sound in the Flash movies. When I was using Fedora, I simply downloaded the incomplete Flash plugin for Linux from Adobe website and copied it to .mozilla/plugins in my home folder. Every time I reinstalled Fedora, I used this method to install Flash plugin. And it worked successfully each time without any issue.
In Kubuntu, I no longer need to download Flash plugin through Adobe website. I simply install it from the KPackage user interface. It installed and also worked without any issue.
- Excellent NVIDIA driver
To install NVIDIA driver in Fedora, I need to add RPMFusion repo. However, after installing the RPMFusion version of the NVIDIA driver, it appeared that Second Life doesn’t support it. I then need to download the appropriate driver from NVIDIA website, exit the X Server, and installed the driver from the command line.
With Kubuntu, all I need to do is install the proprietary NVIDIA driver through Hardware Drivers detection window.
- Second Life is ready to run without installing additional packages.
I needed to install a list of 32-bit packages in Fedora in order to run Second Life that is only available under 32-bit. After the installation, it still missed a lot of features like voice communication through microphone.
After the installation of Kubuntu and NVIDIA driver, Second Life are running smoothly without any problem. Even the voice communication feature is working correctly.
- Dual-monitor support works out-of-box
Thanks to the help of Nouveau, Fedora supports dual-monitor without any issue. But the Nouveau driver does not support 3D grapics yet. Because of that, I disabled Nouveau driver in grub.conf file and installed proprietary NVIDIA driver. However, Fedora didn’t enable the dual-monitor support by default anymore. I need to manually enable the feature through nvidia-settings.
After the installation of Kubuntu, the Hardware Drivers dialog box automatically popped up to remind me that I need to install NVIDIA driver. I installed the driver and restarted the laptop. Kubuntu automatically detects my two monitors and expand the desktop across these monitors.
In the end, I like Kubuntu better than Fedora. However, I’m still getting use to the single click method in KDE. After all, maybe I will stop following Fedora news and completely switch to Kubuntu community.
