Ronnie Tucker

After posting my ‘KDE4 is dying’ sob story on the Kubuntu mailing list, I was advised to rename my hidden .kde4 directory then try logging in with KDE4. But just after reading the above solution I saw that KDE 4.0.1 would be released soon.

Sure enough, KDE 4.0.1 was released yesterday (Wed, 6th Feb) and I installed the updates, renamed my .kde4 folder and gave it a whirl…

Whoopee!

Ok, so I’ve only been using it for a few hours but already it seems much faster and polished. There’s now a separate resize icon and the border for the plasma widgets is now pale rather than dark, although I personally preferred the darker faded box but, what the hell, I can live with it. I’m not sure if it’s just me having not seen it for about a week but the K button appears smaller (to me anyway). The little ‘add a widget icon thingy’ at the top right of the screen is more faded now and the menu items swing in diagonally. I’m sure it may be handy later on but said icon thingy seems pretty useless at the moment I can add widgets by right clicking on the desktop.

One thing I noticed right away that they’ve fixed is the widget border thing, apart from now being pale, it doesn’t linger after you’ve moved off the icon, like it used to.

And Dolphin seems a bit faster too but, again, that might be just me…

Anyway, welcome back old friend… I did kinda miss you…

*sob*

I’m have no luck at all this week end.

First was my KDE4 debacle and now an argument with Google Calendar!

I read a nice tutorial which was about getting Google Calendar working in Thunderbird.

‘That’d be handy’, says I.

Downloads the Lightning add-on for Thunderbird, which gives it a built in calendar, then downloaded the Provider add-on which allows Lightning to read and write to a Google calendar.

Installed Lightning first then Provider. Fine. Now to configure Provider. Gives it the Private XML URL and a calendar name and so on, click ‘Next’…

Nothing.

That’s odd.

*scratches head*

After a bit of detective work it seems that there’s a conflict between Lightning and Thunderbird due to Thunderbird having installed from the Gutsy repo’s and Lightning having come from the Mozilla site. Ah crap!

Time for Plan B: get Lightning from the Gutsy repo too!

Ah HA! See? I’m a smart cookie me…

Not so. The Lightning in the repo’s is v0.5. The Provider add-on needs v0.7 (the one on the Mozilla site).

Crap, crap and thrice CRAP.

I give up. No more Linux h4×0r1ng this weekend, screw it… 

There’s a definite lack of pizazz in my desktop this morning. Why? Because it’s KDE3.5.8

I decided to run Adept to see if there were any new updates to KDE4 (since there’s no funky little reminder thing in the taskbar) and there were a couple of bits so I did my bit and updated everything.

KDE4 reported a crash (I see my old wallpaper but no icons or taskbar) so I did a quick Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to log out and log in again. Next thing I know there’s about six crash report windows on the screen.

Uh oh. Not good.

Close all them and… I see the old KDE3.5 wallpaper (the blue one with what looks like a faded Atari logo on it at a 45 degree angle) and nothing else.

I wait.

Nothing.

Try again. Still nothing.

So, until there’s another KDE4 update released, I’m in KDE3.5 again.

Boooooo!! 

I’m not proud of what I’ve done. Not proud at all…

I bought an iPod *sob*

Forgive me! I was tempted by value for money! No seriously it was! 80Gb Black iPod Classic for £160 from OverclockersUK.

The only snag is that it’s 6th Generation and 6G is where Apple altered the iPod’s to only work with iTunes. But fear not! The latest update to libgpod (0.6.0) allows the iPod and Amarok to share some mp3 looooove.

Only problem is: you have to *gulp* compile libgpod!

And with the release of Hardy, there’s no need to compile libgpod! Yaaayyy!

Using a few threads from Ubuntu Forums I was able to get my iPod working fantastic with Amarok. Here’s how I did it:

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, i’ve been using KDE4 now for two whole days and i’ve been noticing some ‘quirks’ which i’m not too keen on.

• Why is it so difficult to create a new folder? I right click in Dolphin/Konqueror and choose Create New from the menu and… no, there’s no New Folder option. Ok, what about the File menu? Nope, not there either. Only way I could find to create a new folder was to right click in the left (tree view) panel in Konqueror and create a new folder there. How annoying! Especially ironic since both Konqueror and Dolphin are ‘file managers’. An update has been released which fixes the ‘New Folder’ problem. Hurrah!

• I still can’t find a way to make the items in the task bar smaller. They’re huge and I really preferred it when they were linked to the desktop they are running on. So for example I could have Thunderbird running on desktop four and it wouldn’t show up on desktop 1, 2 or three.

But on the bright side:

• I do like how you can download new widgets and make an uber-pretty desktop. That I do like!

• Dolphin has the option to have a mini console window at the bottom of it which is quite funky. Clicking on a folder automatically enters the command into the console so the console is always up to date with where Dolphin is. Nice!

But even with the gripes I still like KDE4, I’m sticking with it but just need to find where I should file bug reports as I’ve noticed a few things that I’d like to point out although I’m sure most of my small moans have been reported by now…

KDE4 released - Check

KDE4 installed fast as humanly possible - CHECK!

Just got back from work and my KDE4 install is up and running

Click for larger image

First impressions are that it is really nice. I am, of course, taking in to consideration that this is 4.0 and will have some rough edges. It has a few ‘quirks’ though: apps such as GIMP and Firefox, while having a nice fancy border, look like old Windows 95 applications for some reason. One other thing is the Desktop Effects, turning them on really slows things down, which is odd considering I’ve ran Compiz Fusion on this machine before with no slow down, but see my last comment about knowing that KDE4 would be a bit rough.

The new K menu thing is taking a bit of getting used to. The confusing thing with it is that it seems to also include some of my KDE3.x apps. So going in to K > System gives me File Manager and File Manager KDE 4. File Manager is my old 3.x version of Dolphin while the other is the new Dolphin. Very confusing!

The task bar now seems to effectively be a new fangled ‘widget’ and as yet I’ve no idea how I make windows unique to a desktop, ie: if a window is on desktop 1, I don’t want it to show on the task bar in desktops 2 to 4. But I’m sure the option is hidden in there somewhere.

But all in all, I like it. I’m writing this post in Firefox running in KDE4.

Let the good times roll!

While browsing Ubuntu Forums today I stumbled across a post asking what cool stuff a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone can do with Linux and discovered KBlueLock.

Of course, you need a Bluetooth dongle on your PC, I have a USB one.

In KDE I get a ‘K’ version of the Bluetooth logo in my task bar. If I right click it, I can choose KBlueLock.

The KDE Bluetooth menu (above)

Read the rest of this entry »

After much tinkering, I’ve finally managed to get VNC working on the EEE!

Meaning? That I can now control my home PC through the internet using the EEE! WHEEEE! (no pun intended, honest!)

My home PC desktop:

Same desktop being controlled in the ASUS EEE:

I did a quick write up on how I managed it.

Smashin’!

I’d been looking forward to the release of KDE4 for months then the developers announced that it’d be a late Christmas present and the release date was now early January. Bummer.

Today I decided to download the Kubuntu with KDE4 Live CD to give it a whirl on my laptop, a Compaq NX9005.

I downloaded the ISO and burned it to CD, popped it in to my laptop and booted it up.

My first impression was that the task bar looked unfinished. It has a black background with a grey border which has a black border round it! To me it looked like that outer black border wasn’t supposed to be there but, hell, maybe it’s a ‘feature’ (hope to God it’s not!).

I was eager to try out some of the much talked about widgets so added the analogue clock first, easy. Looks nice too. I’m on a laptop so I’ll add the battery meter. It seems, according to the battery meter, that I don’t have a battery in my laptop, which is nothing short of a miracle since the laptop is not plugged in to the mains! So what about the nice post-it notes I’ve seen in screenshots. Nope. It’s just the bog standard flat looking post-it notes in the RC2 Live CD. Boooo!

Also:

• You’ll notice there are no screen shots in this brief review. This is due to the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any sign of KSnapshot on the Live CD.
• I was going to write this post in Konqueror in KDE4 but after clicking Konqueror I get the bouncing gear icon below the pointer, a shaded box in the launch bar then nothing. Couldn’t even load Konqueror!
• After poking about in the Settings I found the Window Effects settings and enabled them to give me drop shadows et all. Nope, all I got was a light grey screen with the shadow of the window that should be there, but wasn’t. Couldn’t see anything, couldn’t click anything.

After that I turned the laptop off and had to take in the fact that KDE4 RC2 isn’t ready for the masses. I hope, I PRAY, that the developers can get all these little quirks ironed out in time for the January release date.

I can tell you this much: I will NOT be installing it on release day! I’ll wait for some other guinea pigs to step forward first!

After much tinkering with my Eee I’ve finally settled on an OS I like.
The Eee comes with a highly modified Xandros Linux which, on boot, makes your Eee look like a kindergarten toy. Not cool. But you can enable the IceWM menu (IceWM is the default window manager) but you can take it further by installing KDE on there too so you get a full KDE desktop with no big kiddie style icons on the screen. Cooler. Better still is the fact that you can install X/K/Ubuntu on there too! But the down side is that the wireless and wired networking don’t work and in some cases the battery meter is screwed. Not cool.

In comes eeeXubuntu (below). This is Xubuntu with patches applied to get your networking (wired and wireless) working! Hurrah! Not only that but all your other bits and bobs such as sound work fine! Cool!

Not only does eeeXubuntu work great on the Eee but you can pimp it to the max with Compiz Fusion! (below) Uber-cool!

So, the lesson is: Eee kicks ASS!

And to prove the point, here’s a quick Google Video of my EEE booting eeeXubuntu then running Compiz Fusion.