In the 22.04 LTS manual, the "Launchers" section (3.1.1):

1 - Discusses Kickoff, but Kickoff seems to describe itself as "Application Launcher - Plasma", which conflicts with the name "Kickoff". It would be far less confusing for new users if the names used in the manual matched the names used in the UI.

2 - The next page (still in 3.1.1) discusses "Application Dashboard", then "Application Menu", then "Krunner", without ever making it clear that these are not part of Kickoff, but (I think) alternatives to it. (I'm sure this is obvious to the authors. It was not obvious to me.)

Similar to the issue re the Panel section, in 3.2.5 of the "Activities" section of https://github.com/kubuntu-team/kubuntu-manual/releases/tag/v22.04.1 talks a lot about Activities, but never stops to explain what they are.

Somewhere in this section there should be a sentence that goes something like "Activities are [description goes here]". There isn't.

What I know about Activities from reading the section as it currently is:

• They are exclusive to KDE
• They're often misunderstood
• The manual promises to explore what they are, how to set them up, how to use them
• They provide a slick way to setup and configure environments

That's all nice to know. But what are they? This is not mentioned. I still don't know what they are.

Re the 22.04.1 LTS manual:

Per https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma#Widgets, it seems "widgets" is the currently preferred term, with "plasmoids" apparently deprecated.

I think that was wise - if an existing well-known term will do, it's better to use it than to invent a new one.

Regardless of the wisdom of the change, the manual should track current usage. So

• 3.2.3 should be titled "Widgets"
• First line of that should read "Widgets (previously called Plasmoids)...." (this follows wording in the above-referenced page)

3.2.4 of the 22.04.1 LTS manual is about the Panel and Panels.

Nowhere in that section is there any description of what, preceively, a "Panel" actually is. There's an image that contains (what I think is) a Panel, but the reader is left to guess that maybe it has something to do with the horizontal bar at the bottom of the image.

Or maybe at the top of the image. It's not clear.

When introducing the idea of "Panels", the manual should start by describing what a Panel is (same goes for other UI elements). Experienced Linux users probably already know, but this manual isn't for them.

Then under the image 3.2.4 says:

You can left-click the button
on the far right side of the panel to alter the properties of the panel, like changing its height or width or adding Widgets,
for example.

Two problems here. (1) It's unclear to the reader what a Panel is, so she doesn't know where to look for the button. (2) there is no single obvious button on the right side of anything, do (at least this reader) doesn't know what button is being referred to.

On https://github.com/kubuntu-team/kubuntu-manual/releases/tag/v22.04.0 release. The EPUB release seems to lag behind by the PDF release. At the end of the introductory page, the manual indicates it's for 20.04 rather than the latest 22.04 LTS release.

I don't mind switching to PDF, but since the team releases 2 different formats at a time. I thought it would be good to point out for those who prefer EPUB versions over .PUB versions for reading.

Hello,

I can not download kubuntu in https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/22.04.1/release/kubuntu-22.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso

Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.

Apache/2.4.29 (Ubuntu) Server at cdimage.ubuntu.com Port 443

When I google "kubuntu manual" the first hit takes me to https://help.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/desktopguide/C/index.html (for 6.06 LTS).

That ancient document should be moved elsewhere ("history") and replaced with a link to the current manuals.

Well I bought an SSD nvme and I tried to install Kubuntu on it a while ago, but the ssd nvme doesn't appear in the installation. I've tried using commands in GRUB startup and nothing.

Please help me!

I mean https://github.com/kubuntu-team/kubuntu-manual/releases/tag/v22.04.1

In the 22.04 LTS manual, section 4.6:

Right Click anywhere on the empty desktop
and choose “Activities” from the menu

In the distro, it's called "Show Activity Switcher".

Update manual to match distro. (I know it's similar, but it doesn't take much to confuse a new user.)

Suggested text to describe Activities:

"An Activity is a separate desktop, complete with it's own set of icons (and their placement), wallpaper, theme, and other customization".

(This assumes that I correctly understand what it is ...I may not.)

While I'm at it, I note that the order of Activities changes in a seemingly-unpredictably way each time you switch Activities. This should be disableable, so the user can find the same Activity in the same place in the list where they saw it previously. (or, sort alphabetically...anything that's stable).

post removed based on unappropriated section by creator. hes right not the place for the section that was originally posted on. maybe we can go off at a company that don't know how to summarize proper posting section meant for developer awareness...

In section 3.2.1 ("Global themes") of https://github.com/kubuntu-team/kubuntu-manual/releases/tag/v22.04.1, the reader is advised to:

To change your global theme follow these steps:

1. Open System Settings
2. Left-click ‘Appearance’
3. Now choose from the list of installed themes
4. Pick from the default choices that are installed, or left-click the ‘Get New Global Themes. . . ’ button for more
   choices

If the reader follows those instructions, she will trigger a bug that turns the wallpaper black, removes text from underneath each desktop icon, causes windows to paint incorrectly, mouse droppings, and more.

Per arraybolt3 on IRC today, this is a known bug (and fixed in the latest version). But this is specifically the manual for 22.04.1 LTS, which has the bug. Therefore the manual probably should not direct the reader (by definition a new user) to do this.

Re the 22.04.1 LTS manual:

The Drivers section doesn't have a section number of it's own, it just follows from an extended discussion of Activities.

It should be 3.3 or 3.2.8.

The first paragraph is confusingly drafted and has typos and misspellings.

Current text:

On every Operating System (Windows, macOS, and Linux) there are programs called Drivers which you install on
your computer. These Drivers let your computer use new hardware or existing hardware, like Wi-Fi. There Drivers
also cover your graphics card e.g NVIDIA, AMD, sometimes the nonfree or restricted drivers let the cards perform
better than the free ones. The ‘Additional Drivers’ section of Disocver handles installing and uninstalling these for you.
These improvements may cover gaming, video editing and processing to image editing.

Suggested replacement:

On every operating system (Windows, macOS, and Linux) there are programs called Drivers which let your computer work with specific hardware components, such as Wi-Fi interfaces, graphics cards (nVidia, AMD...), etc. Sometimes nonfree or restricted Drivers let the hardware perform better than the free Drivers that come with Kubuntu. These improvements may cover gaming, video editing and processing to image editing.

The ‘Additional Drivers’ section of the Discover program handles installing and uninstalling these nonfree or restricted Drivers for you.

Sorry to open so many issues. I'm willing to do some editing on the manual (w/change marks) if I can get source editable in MS Word or LibreOffice.

Also I apologize for being so nitpicky, but this is the FIRST document about Kubuntu new users are supposed to read. It needs to be clear and accurate. Learning a new OS is complicated and challenging enough without rough documentation.

The below are all against https://github.com/kubuntu-team/kubuntu-manual/releases/tag/v22.04.1 as of the date of this issue.

4.2 (Repositories):

Typo in last paragraph "check the click on".

4.2.1 (PPAs):

References "Launchpad' but never explains what "Launchpad" is. It appears to be a website at https://launchpad.net/. This should be explained.

The end of this paragraph says:

For more information about PPAs, click on the Repositories section of this manual.

That section s 4.2, this is section 4.2.1, so technically this text is already in the "Repositories" section. As well, it's not a link, so the reader can't "click on" it.

Also, that section (4.2) IMMEDIATELY PRECEDES this section.

Also, that section does not in fact contain additional info about PPAs.

4.2.2 (says "Kubuntu Backports" but actually multiple subjects)

The "Managing Personal Package Archives", "Add a PPA", and "Remove a PPA" sections don't have their own section numbers, they're all under 4.2.2 ("Backports"), yet don't seem to be about backports. They should have their own section numbers.

"Managing Personal Package Archives"

This section appears to be mostly a duplicate of the paragraph above in 4.2.1 about "PPAs".

"Add a PPA"

Instructions are given re how to add a PPA to Discover. This is confusing because the instructions actually have nothing to do with Discover but are all about apt.

This section says:

Open the Launchpad PPA overview page in your browser

But does not give a URL for this page (nor a link). After googling, I think it's referring to https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+archive/ubuntu/backports (but I'm not sure).

Assuming that's the correct link, the page contradicts the manual. That page doesn't given any instructions about Discover at all - only using apt. The page says:

Adding this PPA to your system
You can update your system with unsupported packages from this untrusted PPA by adding ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports to your system's Software Sources. (Read about installing)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
sudo apt update

Next, still in the Add a PPA section, the manual directions say:

You can use the Discover to add a PPA:

1. Open the Launchpad PPA overview page in your browser for example look at the Kubuntu Backports PPA
2. Look for the ‘Adding this PPA to your system’ section
3. Open Konsole then copy (Ctrl+C once the command is highlighted)
4. Now paste (Ctrl+Shift+V in terminals like Konsole) and press the Enter key

Despite the first line, these instructions are completely about using Konsole and apt, and don't have anything to do with Discover (other than the result of doing this indirectly makes the new PPA appear in Discover).

"You can use Discover" to do this is incorrect (unless there's some way to add a PPA other than the one described here).

Step 3 quoted above refers to "the command" yet in the example page given there are 2 commands (not 1) to be copied and pasted - should be reworded to "command(s)".

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
sudo apt update

The entire PPA discussion in the manual confuses apt and Discover - it says Discover when it means apt.

Page 37 - figure doesn't match distro

============

Personal comments:

The whole subject of discovery and installation of software is complex and very confusing to new Linux users. There's Discover and apt, repositories, packages, and .DEB files. And snaps and flatpaks.

And all these differ from distro to distro and between DEs. And are very different from Windows.

If we want to see people using Linux desktops, all this needs to be explained clearly, carefully, and accurately. I'm sure the Linux community loses lots of potential users because of this.

I think it needs to be kept in mind that new users are not going to read this manual in isolation - they're going to google unfamiliar things and read about other distros and DEs and about obsolete things that are still on the Web. So in order to make sense of all that, we need to explain some general background about Linux and how it works.

In particular, I think new users need to be made familiar with the NAMES of the pieces of the Linux system and WHAT THOSE NAMES MEAN, since they're going to see them a lot online. This is lacking now (not just in this manual - in general the Linux community throws around lots of terminology without much explanation of what it all means. This is understandable, but it needs to be explained for new users).

I'm a newbie myself, but here are some of my own notes - maybe they can be a basis for some clearer discussion for new users (of course these may not be entirely accurate, as I'm a newbie myself):

TERMINOLOGY RE SOFTWARE INSTALLERS

KDE - an org (non-profit)
Canonical - an org (for-profit)

KDE Neon - a Linux distrubiton using KDE Plasma, from KDE
Kubuntu - a Linux distrubiton using KDE Plasma, from Canonical

Plasma - KDE's Desktop Enviornment (vs. Gnome, etc.)
QT - a graphical toolkit used for building apps and DEs (used in Plasma and LXQt)
GTK - a graphical toolkit used for building apps and DEs (used in Gnome, Unity, and others)

dpkg - Very low level. Can mess with kernel stuff. Try to avoid unless seriously messed up.
apt - wrapper around dpkg. Debian's command-line installer, a front-end to dpkg
Discover - GUI wrapper around apt. "an app store" for KDE (part of Plasma). Handles snaps and flatpaks.

Not used or needed in Kubuntu, but for other distros:
Synaptic - GUI package manger, a GTK-based frontent to apt - equiv. of Muon
Muon - GUI package manager, Plasma-based front-end to apt. Shows every tiny package for multiplet binaries, gui apps, system libraries, dependencies. No snaps or flatpaks. It does not handle things like snaps Flatpaks or theming bits. apt can do everything this can do. No need to use it in Kubuntu

KPackage - was KDE's package manager frontend (sez Wikipedia) - Obsolete.

Conclusion -to find software look in the following places, in this order: (1) Discover - native program (2) Discover - snap (3) Discover - flatpak (4) .DEB file from developer (not sure how to install that...) (5) Wine (if a Windows program) (6) a Windows VM (if a windows program won't work in Wine).

Also probably worth mentioning in a Troubleshooting section:

IF YOUR SYSTEM GETS BORKED

Alt+Ctrl+F3 - gets you to a command-line terminal. Login there.

Then:
sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop

MORE TERMINOLOGY

Linux distributions come from organizations - Kubuntu (and other Ubuntu flavors) comes from Canonical.

Every GUI Linux distribution has a Desktop Environment (DE). There are many DEs - popular ones include Gnome and Plasma. Each DE has many derivative versions - for example the Cinnamon and MATE DEs are derived from Gnome.

Kubuntu's DE is called "Plasma". It's from an organization called "KDE" (and "KDE" is often used as an alternative name for it). KDE is independent of Canonical. The Plasma DE is also used in other Linux distributions (for example KDE Neon).

DEs and GUI applications are built on top of GUI toolkits. Again, there are many GUI toolkits. The most popular GUI toolkits are QT and GTK. LXQt (a DE) and Plasma are built on QT. Gnome, its derivatives, and many other DEs are built on GTK.

Apps built with any reasonably popular GUI toolkit can run on all GUI Linux distros. Apps built with the same GUI toolkit as the distro will look prettier, but even if built with a different GUI toolkit, they'll still work. This is why you may hear about many similar Linux applications for the same purpose. For example the HexChat IRC client is based on GTK while Konversation (supplied in Kubuntu) is based on QT. They have similar functionality, and either can be used on any GUI Linux. The difference is mostly how pretty they look on which distributions. A Linux distribution usually supplies a set of applications that look good on that distro, because they're built with the same GUI toolkit. But you can install others if you prefer.