There are two type of issues:
1. usability issues
2. upgrade issues

I experienced both types!

1. Let’s start from the documentation and after getting rid of the initial windows I got this… but possible you can’t see it? The window is too small to read the whole text, WATTA F**K!

2. Then I continued and finally I got the update to start, I wanted to follow the update, but… scrollbar does not follow the bottom, WATTA F**K!

3. Ok I kept scrolling to see what is happening… after a while I got a cups update error that started eating also 1 out of 2 of my cpu… WATTA F**K!

4. All right I kept going on with one cpu out, update luckily continued despite the error.
Eventually it finished and I got the window that asked me to remove software, again I can’t read, the window is too small!!! WATTA F**K!

5. Let’s enlarge it! If you see it still says “Fetching installing the upgrade can take several hours” but upgrade is already finished, installer should only remove few packages, WATTA F**K!

6. Ok I removed those packages and proceed to the reboot.
After reboot nvidia drivers are no more installed and nv drivers are instead used, WATTA F**K!

7. So I tried to fix the issue installing via jockey latest nvidia drivers that supports my nVidia Quadro NVS 140M and after installation completed perfectly, X does not start anymore, it fails with the error:

Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!

WATTA F**K!

After many hours of research I found the issue and is easy to fix:

uninstall all linux-restricted-modules-common packages
delete the file /etc/modprobe.d/lrm-video

Seems this stupid file was left-over from Hardy installation even if I uninstalled all linux-restricted-modules-common packages and was provoking the nvidia load failure.
I filed a bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/459829

Sorry but after FOUR usability issues and THREE upgrade issues, I can’t say that the upgrade is user friendly!

I will speak in the next days about the new Kubuntu 9.10, still a lot of usability issues here and there! Stay tuned!

After Krusader 2.0.0-beta2 for Kubuntu 8.10 i386 here is 2.0.0 final version aka “Mars Pathfinder”.
Download it here and enjoy it! And this is the changelog.

Download Krusader 2.0.0 DEB Package for Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid i386

Download Krusader 2.0.0-DEBUG DEB Package for Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid i386

Oh yea finally Kubuntu 9.04 is OUT replaced the embarrassing™ Kubuntu 8.10, KDE 4.2.x replaces the embarrassing™ KDE 4.1.x and finally user can get some better experience.

Let’s check how it looks like and what are the new features.

KDE 4.2.2

Kubuntu 9.04 Desktop

KDE 4.2 is not yet perfect, but at least looks better than 4.0 and 4.1 and is a bit less buggier. Desktop is sexier and finally systray’s icons are not having garbage in the background.
Solved finally also the X corruption when opening new windows/popup.

GTK Applications look

If you used the embarrassing™ Kubuntu 8.10 you remember how ugly was Firefox for example, finally they took care of this aspect, look how nicer is now:

Firefox on embarrassing™ Kubuntu 8.10

Firefox on Kubuntu 9.04

KPackageKit

Finally embarrassing™ Adept 3.0 beta4 is replaced by KPackageKit. Definitely better if you consider that embarrassing™ Adept 3.0 beta4 had an embarrassing™ search engine that was something so silly that you think nobody ever tried it: too many irrelevant results and not even alphabetically ordered, can you imagine the mess?

Adept 3.0 beta4 default under embarrassing™ Kubuntu 8.10

KPackageKit default under Kubuntu 9.04

UPDATE 2nd of May 2009:
Trying to install amule I discovered that KPackageKit cannot uninstall software if this conflicts with a software you wan to uninstall, check:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/packagekit/+bug/342671

Trying to install sun-java6-jre another old bug that was fixed in older Kubuntu versions, check:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kpackagekit/+bug/350972/

Trying to install kubuntu-restricted-extra fails too, unbelievable:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kpackagekit/+bug/366703/

These are really bad regressions since even embarrassing™ Adept 3.0 beta4 worked better on these cases, what a pity, another version of Kubuntu screwed!

Solution:
Install Synaptic and use that one for installing new software and forget about this bad (again) step from Kubuntu.

Network Plasmoid

In the embarrassing™ Kubuntu 8.10 you cannot be without an embarrassing™ network management program, that was called KNetworkManager. It was so buggy that you cannot even think to release an OS with such crap preinstalled by default.
Now they switched to this plasmoid, but I’m still not super happy, seems that Ubuntu’s one is still better, at least when you need to configure a wireless network with static IP and not with DHCP it just works™ on Ubuntu, thing that honestly under Windows works since ages.

Anyway I appreciated the removal of another embarrassment™ present in the embarrassing™ Kubuntu 8.10 and now enjoy the new Network plasmoid under Kubuntu 9.04

Network plasmoid

So what are you waiting for? If you are a bit brave go, download it and install it or if you have already a previous Kubuntu, upgrade!
Instructions are here!

Do not forget if you have an old version to clean all old updates that are consuming your hard drive space doing via terminal:

sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb

or using Synaptic that has a nice option under Preferences.

Last but not least:
3 upgrades out of 3 went smoothly, two from embarrassing™ Kubuntu 8.10 and one from the good stable™ Kubuntu 8.04, finally you do not ends up in a mess installation!

UPDATE 2nd of May 2009:
Unluckily 4th one failed, we are still investigating causes but we still do not know.

Non-brave people

For all people that do not want to upgrade or even worse stay on another OS then you can wait till “Karmic Koala” aka Kubuntu 9.10 will be out end of October 2009.