Posts Tagged kubuntu
KDE to GNOME – I’m going through change-eee-es
* post should be read with the Black Sabbath song ‘Changes’ playing in the background *
For nearly two years now I’ve been using Kubuntu (Ubuntu + KDE) quite happily. It was a happy marriage between us, but yesterday we filed for divorce.
Kubuntu Gutsy, and Hardy, had been fine. I’ve even been using KDE4 since 4.0, but recently KDE would just, for no reason and with no warning, corrupt the screen and return to the login screen. When this happened yesterday in the middle of some (as ever, unsaved) work, I snapped.
The courtship of Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) began, and the divorce papers were served to Kubuntu.
Another reason to abandon Kubuntu was that most of the applications I used were all GNOME based, so essentially I had a KDE/GNOME hybrid. It had the look of KDE for things like Amarok and K3B but the look of Windows95 for things like Firefox, Thunderbird et al.
After a quick test of the Ubuntu 8.10 in LiveCD mode I saw that most of my needed apps (GIMP and those mentioned above) would be installed by default. And I’d only need to manually install Scribus and Thunderbird.
One quick backup later and Ubuntu was installing.
my spanking new Ubuntu desktop
What was yesterday. I’ve been using Ubuntu now, exclusively, for a whole day and, I have to say… I like it! I can definitely see a speed increase in Thunderbird and Firefox, in KDE they were ok to use, but a bit clunky and ugly – hence why I, at one point, switched to using Opera as my browser. I can get a decent screen resolution too, which I could never get in KDE. Ok so I lose Amarok, but Rhythmbox seems quite adequate. Not tried it, but Brasero seems more than capable of burning a CD/DVD.
All in all, I feel like a new man.
Wait, that sounded a bit…
EEE 701, Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and Unetbootin
My desktop PC is still running Kubuntu Hardy, it’s running dandy, so I see no real reason to upgrade it to Intrepid. But my EEE 701 PC was still running an early Hardy with KDE 3.5.x so I decided to wipe it and do a fresh install of Intrepid on it. Just for the hell of it. Armed with my Intrepid ISO I fumbled about trying to remember how to use the iso2stick script, but accidentally discovered a GUI app called Unetbootin which will put almost any distro on a USB stick! You can grab a .deb of it from: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Unetbootin - awaiting orders...
You simply choose which distro you have (from the drop down menus at the top of the window), give it the ISO file, choose your USB drive and click OK.
Unetbootin - creating a bootable USB stick with Kubuntu Intrepid!
Installing Kubuntu Intrepid to the EEE was easy as ever. Just boot from the USB stick, click the install icon, fill in several details and wait a bit. First boot was pretty quick and everything looked (KDE 4.1) pretty. I immediately tried the wireless and… it didn’t work. Some posts in Ubuntu Forums suggest disabling the wireless drivers to make it work, but no go. So it was up to Google to (again!) provide the answer. And provide it did! One search result let me to Array.org which is a repository for an EEE PC *buntu kernel which fixes the wireless, webcam and such.
Kubuntu Intrepid with the Array.org kernel, note the (working!) wireless icon in the tray
Installing the Array.org kernel is easy. You basically add the Array.org repo to your sources.list (along with it’s key) and install the linux-eeepc package. Full details are at: http://www.array.org/ubuntu/setup-intrepid.html
I’m very impressed with KDE 4.1 on the EEE, it might be a low spec notebook but it can do semi-transparent wobbly windows, with drop shadows, and all without breaking sweat!
KDE 4.1.2 + Lancelot menu = Happiness
My KDE 4.1.2 desktop
It’s out! KDE 4.1.2 was released yesterday (my time) and I eagerly updated my KDE 4.1.1. No visual difference from 4.1.1 as 4.1.2 is merely a load of bug fixes.
I’m not entirely sure what they fixed, but many of the plasmoids still crash my plasma (KDE Twitter being one of the culprits).
In my opinon THIS (4.1.2) is what should have been released as KDE 4. As this release is FAR more stable, friendly and usable. I use KDE 4 every day at home and since 4.1 it has been a joy to use. 4.0 was nice, but not a joy. KDE 4 is still missing a LOT of things that make life that bit more easy, like right clicking on files and having them open in a suitable app. Speaking of apps, some are still a bit rought – Ark being the one I missed most. I had to install FileRoller as Ark was just impossible to use.
Lancelot (the menu) in action
The KDE 4 ’slab’ menu, or whatever it’s called now a days 
, is OK but a bit unweildy, Lancelot (above) on the other hand, while being similar, is much nicer to use. It’s only fault (which is apparently being fixed as I type) is that when there’s a long list of apps (eg: under the Internet menu) you have to use the scroll wheel on the mouse to move through the apps, there’s no visible scroll bar. So getting to an app at the end of a long list is a bit of a pain.
KDE 4.1.2 is recommended as a necessary update say the developers so go do it! 
Lancelot – The KDE Menu Of Greatness
While browsing through my RSS feed of Linux.com I noticed a post about ‘Lancelot’ a new KDE menu/plasmoid. I kinda prefer the old style KDE menu but have been forcing myself to use the new menu to see if it really is crap, and it kinda is.
But Lancelot (below) is the best of both worlds!
If you open your package manager and type in ‘lancelot’ you should see the plasmoid mentioned in the results. If not, then you need to add the LaunchPad repo:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu hardy main
Just install the Lancelot plasmoid then add it to your desktop or task bar.
Left is how the Lancelot menu looks. Down the left side is shortcuts to Documents, Contacts, Computer and Applications – clicking one of those changes what is displayed in the white area, at the moment it is showing Applications. In the left half of the white box is the list of Favourites, right side is the typical menu.
This is after clicking Graphics. The right side slides to the left and the right side displays what is under Graphics (GIMP, Xsane etc). To go back you click one of the blue tabs at the top of the white area.
Documents has handy links to Open Office applications and links to recently open documents.
Contacts has links to Kmail contacts (which I don’t have installed, I use Thunderbird) and also Kopete contacts.
And this is when you click the Computer icon on the left side of the menu. It lists the Fixed (drives), Places (home, root etc) and System (links to System Settings and a handy link to the KDE System Monitor.
All in all, I really like Lancelot, definitely keeping it installed as it’s a good compromise between the old menu and the new (pretty useless) menu. Oh, and it looks more pretty too.
Give it a try!
BulletProofX my eye!
There I was, sitting having my breakfast this morning (tea and some porridge before work) when suddenly my KDE4 crashed. I mean crashed, corrupt looking screen, and needed a reboot.
PC reboots and I’m given the evil flashing-prompt-of-death ™. No login screen.
After much tinkering and typing of commands I eventually gets a God awful, 640×480 login screen! Not only that, but my ENTIRE glorious desktop is 640×480! What the HELL…?!
After work I sat down to fix the resolution glitch. It seemed as though my Kubuntu 8.04 had lost sight of my nVidia drivers. After several attempts to rectify the problem I eventually uninstalled the nVidia drivers and installed envyng which seemed to do the job, but I still had to manually alter the xorg.conf file to add some monitor info.
My question is this: what happened to ‘Bullet Proof X’? My X certainly wasn’t bullet proof!
I bothered spending the two hours getting the problem fixed because I love Kubuntu. But, it’s episodes like this that move people away from Linux and over too the dark side.
Had I not had my EEE PC and wireless internet I would have been utterly lost… 
I LOVE KDE4.1
If you’ve checked my blog before, you’ll know I’m a KDE fanboy, I admit it. More so with KDE4. Granted, 4.0 was a tad rickety, but with the latest release – RC1 – it’s awesome. With a nice wallpaper and plasma theme I present to you: my latest desktop…
aint she purrrrdy?
CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE FOR A LARGER VERSION
Top right is KDE twitter, left of that is the new folderview plasmoid and stuck to the bottom of the twitter app is a nice little post-it note. Bottom right is a plasmoid to lock/reboot and at the bottom is the taskbar with the usual bits and bobs.
If you haven’t tried KDE4 lately, or you weren’t too keen on 4.0, I recommend giving it a whirl!
NOTE: KDE4 is available in the Ubuntu repositories by installing the kde4-core package.
KDE 4.1 – beta 1
KDE 4.1 beta 1 is now in the Ubuntu repositories for testing. Check Kubuntu.org for full instructions. All you need to do is add a repo, refresh, and you’ll be able to update your KDE 4.0.x to KDE 4.1 beta 1.
Here’s my (KDE 4.1 beta 1) desktop at the moment:
Some things I’ve noticed so far:
- The taskbar can now be semi-transparent (see screenshot above)
- The width, and alignment, of the taskbar can now be altered (by using the little button on the extreme right of the taskbar).
- Comes with desktop themes which skin the taskbar, widgets and widget frames etc.
- PostIt widget can have auto-resized text.
- Couple of new widgets (Folder View, Konq Applet, Kate applet, Lunar, etc)
- Menu Editor
- Widgets can now be locked in place.
- Folders/files now have a +/- icon over their icon to select multiple items without the Ctrl/Shift keys.
- Slight change in graphics here and there.
- Easily switch to classic menu style
- Some new Window effects like wobbly windows, ipod style cover flip, vista style flip.
… and sooooo much more.
Only been using it for a few hours but it seems pretty stable and it was extremely easy to upgrade from 4.0.3 to 4.1b1.
KDE4 rocks!
When iPod Art Goes Awry
Having installed Kubuntu Hardy I dreaded the thought of having to recompile the libgpod library to get my iPod Classic (Black) working again. After installing Amarok I thought I’d try my iPod anyway.
Lo and behold, it worked!
Hoorah!
Well, it did. Until I actually flipped through the cover art and played some tracks did I notice that my cover art had gone awry. Drat!
After some tinkering I noticed in my Adept (package manager) that installed was libgpod3-nogtk, when I looked at the description for the library I noticed:
This version does not include artwork support
So I uninstalled it and installed the libgpod3 library.
All good!
Cover art is back (be sure to click the ipod icon at the top of Amarok, and choose Update Artwork). All is good between Amarok and iPods.
Above: the two libraries (and descriptions) in Adept
Kubuntu Hardy + KDE4 + Compiz Fusion = New Look
I toyed with upgrading my Kubuntu Gutsy (7.10) to Hardy (8.04) but came to the conclusion that a fresh install would do me the world of good. My Gutsy had KDE4 bolted on to it with some KDE4 apps and various other junk installed so, yeah, time to start afresh.
This is my current desktop:
(click image for larger version)
It’s a marriage between KDE4 and Compiz Fusion overseen by the Rev. Hardy Heron.
I did try KDE4’s built in desktop effects but they were just too unreliable and slow, but Compiz Fusion is still (as ever) lightning fast. Add to that the Emerald window decorator and it’s looooooovely.
Better than nothing I suppose
Ok so I can’t write to it but at least I can now view my Google Calendar in Thunderbird.
I installed Thunderbird2 from the Gutsy repo and that’s fine. But you try installing the Lightning 0.7 add-on. Won’t go. Apparently it’s because they are compiled by different sources. So I’ve had to make do with Lightning 0.5 (also from the Gutsy repo) which means I can’t use the ‘Provider’ plug-in to write to Google Calendar (it needs 0.7) but, hey, I’m happy with what I’ve got.
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I use:
