KDE in Debian News

Switch wrote us a while ago to inform us of unofficial KDE 3.0.4 packages for Debian PowerPC. Instructions here in Spanish -- English users just have to grab the sources.list line. In related news, Zack Rusin wrote in to inform us of the Debian Desktop project. "The Debian Desktop subproject is a group of volunteers who want to create the best possible operating system for home and corporate workstation use. Our motto is 'Software which Just Works'". Proper integration of KDE into Debian seems to be considered an important part of this project. In fact, one of the school labs here uses Debian with KDE 2.2.2 provided on the workstations. It's done fairly well with few unpleasant surprises. Even better, the major teaching labs here use FreeBSD thin clients with KDE 3.x installed as the desktop. Very cool.

Comments

by Rimmer (not verified)

Can anyone tell me how to remove the Cervisia button from my Konqueror toolbar? It sticks out like a sore thumb and seems to be there to stay...

Other then that...
Bluecurve + KDE = bliss

by ac (not verified)

Settings->Configure Toolbar

Other than that...
SuSE + KDE = total bliss!

by David Faure (not verified)

I doubt Configure Toolbars allows to remove the view-mode buttons, those are kind of highly dynamic, and part of an actionlist IIRC (so from "Configure Toolbars" you can remove them all, but not one in particular :}).

Unfortunately at the moment, the only way to get rid of a viewmode button is to edit the .desktop file for the part, and remove MimeType=inode/directory from it.

by Rimmer (not verified)

I finally got rid of the whoel viewmode button. Konqueror looks a bit cleaner and lighter (a little more Nautilus like even). Unfortunately, the KDE screensavers dont work (the screen just goes black). The screensavers look fine in the preview... any suggestions?

by TrollBuster (not verified)

Haha I would say you are a TROLL just because you use 'lighter', 'nautilus' and 'cleaner' in your two sentences you wrote.

by Rimmer (not verified)

Nautilus is beautiful. The Konqueror tool bar is just too busy (too many buttons ect). It looks a lot better after I removed some buttons (including the Cervisia thingy) though. I know that Nautilus used to be SLOW, but now it seems just as fast as Konqeror. Konqueror gets high marks for being very configurable (I love that you can edit the toolbars so easily). Too bad some of the items can't be removed/added nicely.

by TrollBuster (not verified)

.... now the magical question is... is nautilus as usable as konqueror... let me answer this for you...

NO

by Rimmer (not verified)

It seems very usable.

by J. Andersen (not verified)

Maybe you should try it (and maybe Gnome too). Its very usable, very light and clean (as the previous poster mentioned) and just as fast as Konqueror.
It lacks lots of functionallity found in Konqueror - like splitting into two or more views, kioslaves etc - but its a very slick and pleasant to use filemanager.

Cheers
BTW im a KDE and not a Gnome user

by TrollBuster (not verified)

I know GNOME very best. Belive me!

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Please stop trolling.

by TrollBuster (not verified)

Where's the Troll ?

by TrollBuster (not verified)

So you reflect that the funny choosen nick that I use is to be set equal with Trolling ? Look, as I said earlier I know GNOME very good. Was using it for some years now and I know that Nautilus simply suck as Filemanager. The dramatic speedincrease of Nautilus wasn't due heavy Nautilus codechange or something it happened because they changed all kind of Bonobo components. Nautilus from GNOME 1 to GNOME 2 was usually a simple port with some enchancements but it stays the same sucking program for GNOME 2 as it was for GNOME 1. Now if you go inside the GNOME CVS you see basically no significant changes for Nautilus. Even for GNOME 2.2 Nautilus is not gonna change seriously. I use KDE now and can tell you that I use it in a regular basis. For more Nautilus based readings please go here http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=718

by Alain (not verified)

> I removed some buttons (including the Cervisia thingy)

How did you remove this Cervisia button ? I don't understand that it is not easy to remove a button so completly unesuful for end-users... (even, why is it in the default configuration ?)

by Richard Moore (not verified)

It is only present if you install the kdesdk package - as this package is for developers, I don't really see a problem. I agree though that we need to make the view configuration stuff in konqueror a little more flexible.

Rich.

by Alain (not verified)

I have installed some development packages because it seems necessary to install (compil) some new app. Of course it is a very tiny problem, it's only a little irritating to see an icon that I never use and cannot remove (even by uninstalling Cervisia).
More troubling is the difficulty to keep a good size for the URL toolbar when it is beside an other (horizontal) tool bar. I posted a bug report about it, it seems a little better with KDE 3.0, but regularly, sometimes (with long URL), the URL bar does not keep its initial position. I must delete its content and launch again Konqui.

by Richard Moore (not verified)

There is a difference between the XXX-devel packages and kdesdk packages. The former are the header files etc. and, as you say, these are required if you want to comile stuff. kdesdk on the other hand is a package of development tools - Cervisia, kbabel, kbugbuster etc. and various scripts.

You say that removing Cervisia didn't remove the icon - this implies your packages are broken as it should remove both. I suggest you inform your distro (after checking to see if they've provided updated packages).

Cheers

Rich.

by Alain (not verified)

Thank you. I use Mandrake 9.0. I have removed the kdedsk package (and it implies only the removal of kdevelop). So, now, the Cervisia icon is replaced by a "?" icon. Perhaps it will desappear when I will install KDE 3.1...

So the better seems that, when uninstalling Cervisia, the distro removes the Cervisia icon and that when seing the Cervisia icon is not here, Konqueror stops to display a "?" icon.

by Anonymous (not verified)

The correct way to remove it is, go to Control Center/File Associations and delete Cervisia for the type inode/directory.

by Alain (not verified)

Yes, thank you ! Removing this option is not obvious, neither for the user, neither for the distro, neither for KDE, it seems...

I would willingly take advantage of your aknowledge... I have a strange icon behaviour with Kate. When I modify a document, I have 2 icons in the taskbar, the Kate icon, and a "?" icon. When I save the document, the second icon disappears...

by Sad Eagle (not verified)

>, the KDE screensavers dont work (the screen just goes black). The screensavers > look fine in the preview... any suggestions?

Using RedHat, right?

by Rimmer (not verified)

You wouldn't not help me because of that would ya? :)

by ac (not verified)

The quality of KDE in RedHat is somewhat questionable. They introduced a lot of bugs specific to their distribution.

by Rimmer (not verified)

How can I notify RedHat about this problem?

by Sad Eagle (not verified)

Well, then I can say "it's a packaging bug"; they apparently(*) know it, and fixed in RawHide.... Except that apparently(*) they also broke KMenu in those packages, so the only immediate solution I know of is either to build from sources, or to try to figure out the breakage yourself based on changes in the package; or you could simply try to wait for some sort of updated packages that don't break something bigger..

* = Based on KDE and RedHat bug system information

by Brent Cook (not verified)

To get the screensavers to work, I had to add /usr/X11/lib/xscreensaver to my path in Slackware. Everything appears to work fine (I use CVS though, YMMV).

by dpash (not verified)

Hopefully a version of KDE 3.1 will be in SID in the near future. Not sure how long, but hopefully it will be there before (or shortly after) 3.1 is released

by Janne (not verified)

In related to that, Gnome2 is already in Unstable, altrough it was released after KDE3. Bummer. Oh well, I'm voting with my feet and migrating to Gentoo.

by TrollBuster (not verified)

Gnome 2 is in general unstable so who cares where it is :)

by C. (not verified)

Don't be a morron. KDE 3 isn't in sid yet ... because debian is migrating to gcc 3.2 (as you know breaks c++ backwards compability and KDE is mostly c++). And yes. The Debian packages are ready at ... http://www.kde.org. And yes, made by Debian people.

So stop whining and apt-get install kde 3.0.4 (I'm using it now).

Regards,

C.

by Janne (not verified)

"Don't be a morron(sic)"

I'm not. I just like to have software available in timely manner. KDE3 is MONTHS late! Xfree4.2 was about about 8 MONTHS late!

"KDE 3 isn't in sid yet ... because debian is migrating to gcc 3.2"

And before that KDE3 was delayed because migration to Xfree4.2. I wonder what excuse they think of after they have migrated to GCC3.2.

"And yes. The Debian packages are ready at ... http://www.kde.org. And yes, made by Debian people."

Unofficial packages.

"So stop whining and apt-get install kde 3.0.4 (I'm using it now)."

No thanks. I rather install Gentoo and do "emerge kde". Some distros have packages available soon after the release of the software, not over half a year later!

by LapTop006 (not verified)

Have you ever thought about HOW MANY ARCHATECTURES Debian supports?
11 at last count. Getting XF 4.2 to work on all of them took months. There were test packages for most archatectures (i386, sparc, arm, powerpc) on branden's debian page (he's the X maintainer)

by fool (not verified)

> I just like to have software available in timely manner.
> KDE3 is MONTHS late!
No one is stopping this from being available, but yourself! -- that is how open source software works.

by please be more ... (not verified)

you don't pay for the people who work for you, so be more comprehensive or do it yourself!!

by AC (not verified)

Well, maybe when KDE 4.0 is out :)

by mullr (not verified)

As far as I know, KDE 3.x integration is waiting on gcc3.2 integration, which is a much bigger deal than just KDE. I have no idea when it's going to happen.

by Janne (not verified)

And before that, KDE3 was delayed because of Xfree 4.2 integration...

by Datschge (not verified)

And so on...

I'm thinking about making a KDE reference system on CD based on Knoppix, containing only KDE programs (thus optimized for them) and incorporating a new filesystem hierarchy (5 main folders: System [stuff necessary for booting], Libraries [everything shared], Programs [all programs], Settings [all settings by all programs and accounts], Documents [personal stuff by all users]) which allows easier backups. The main focus of this disk would be Usability and Accessibility surveys though.

We'll see when I'll have more time or someone else starts a similar project.

Datschge (happy Knoppix/KDE user with AMD K6-2 300mHz and 228MB RAM =o)