New to KDE

huntaz556 · 2011-11-23 21:53:52

Hi everyone ive been a long time linux user and i love arch linux but gnome 3 is really ticking me off.

So i switched to KDE is there any tips you guys could give me to make the transition any easier?

SS4 · 2011-11-23 22:10:50

I never really used gnome 2/3 so can't really advise.

KDE is quite hefty in terms of resource use and there are native equivalents for gnome packages. I recommend using clementine (link in my sig) rather than amarok since the former is more like Amarok 1.4 (and HYPNOTOAD) and while 2.X isn't bad it's too busy for a music player.

The taskbar you can have either icons or the classic taskbar, for the latter you can have the dual row settings from KDE 3.X. Arora and Rekonq are good QT/KDE browser choice respectively.

What do you want from your desktop? That's the important thing

Last edited by SS4 (2011-11-23 22:11:19)

ewaller · 2011-11-23 22:42:23

Spend some quality time configuring keyboard shortcuts.
Turn off Nepomuk file indexing. If not that, at least build a filter to keep it out of pdf files -- Often times it gets hung up and uses 100% of one of my processors until I kill it.

huntaz556 · 2011-11-23 22:57:51

Okay i have disabled nepomuk and im glad because it annoyed me, what i want out of a desktop is somthing easy to use that also looks really good i love to have graphical effects like the compiz desktop cube and things like that im learning to program so just ease of use to get around but also looks really good. ive added oxygen-gtk for my theme and am using oxygen for regular kde/qt things

chimo · 2011-11-23 23:06:32

Personally, Alt+F2 (krunner) is my best friend.
See here for things it can do (math, commands, etc.)
Other DEs have this too, of course, but just wanted to let you know what the keyboard shortcut is for it.

Activities are also nice when you get used to them.

huntaz556 · 2011-11-23 23:13:19

Yeah the only thing i ever used alt + F2 was for restarting gnome shell 3 after applying somthing , And i really dont understand what activities are for O.o

ozar · 2011-11-24 01:08:49

Hello

There is a nice article full of info and tips regarding KDE in the Arch wiki if you haven't found it already:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kde

Definitely worth spending some time there.

skunkos · 2011-11-24 08:45:28

I recommend you to switch off some desktop effects and use keyboard s-cuts as much as you can, cause it can save you tons of time.

skunkos · 2011-11-24 08:46:05

And install yakuake and you will find out that its incredibly useful.

masteryod · 2011-11-24 13:39:40

1) If you want to keep desktop effects (nowadays on decent hardware they works very good) change their default speed at least to 'very fast' (default speed is way to slow) - system settings -> desktop effects
1a) Disable effects you don't need (in my case it's half of default set or maybe more)

2) if you stick with oxygen run alt+f2 type "oxygen-settings" and tweak it to your needs (you might consider disabling animations)
2a) install oxygen-gtk (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … plications)
2b) firefox best oxygen theme: http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Ox … ent=117962

3) if you don't use kmail and other stuff from kdepim un-click "show events" in clock settings (right click on clock) it should stop akonadi from starting, if not you can disable akonadi (http://userbase.kde.org/Akonadi#Disabli … _subsystem)

4) if you don't use desktop search disable it in system settings

5) install what you need (god bless you splitted packages) otherwise you'll end up with a lot of hardly useful stuff like kfloppy

6) KDE have a lot of options and room to tweak it to your needs, it might be overwhelming for gnome user but you'll see it's quite easy to customize (you don't need to "regedit" gconf to manage windows buttons), if you don't like to tweak just leave things as they are and everything will be working too

PS oh yeah.... amarok2 is very KDE'ish application but it's insane in terms of ram needs, you might want to keep away from it

Last edited by masteryod (2011-11-24 13:42:20)

huntaz556 · 2011-11-24 22:14:11

Haha i was just getting used to editing gconf

but im an extreme tweaker ( and you know exactly what i mean by that )

i love tweaking it to exactly how i like it .

im following your advice right now, i also really like KDevelop for my python editing but it keeps crashing when i try to execute my script, its not that hard to do

python script.py though so i dont think thats a problem

asipper · 2011-11-25 01:22:21

A good comparison is http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/a … -Round.htm.
A weird thing in it is that it claims gnome 3 uses more ram then KDE. And almost uses twice as much ram then gnome 2. And if you're switching to KDE just because of gnome 3 you might want to choose mate which is a fork of gnome 2. If this matters KDE runs fast on my laptop which is a Pentium M core 1.73 GH and a gig of RAM.

ANOKNUSA · 2011-11-25 16:52:08

Screw around until you get things the way you want them. That's what I did, and I don't think any other advice can be anything but subjective. There's plenty of info out there on KRunner, activities, the Plasma, Nepomuk/Strigi/Akonadi etc. so just take a look for it.

achilleas.k · 2011-11-29 13:14:29

Hello huntaz556,

as a fellow "migrator", allow me to chip in with my own experience. I just switched from Gnome 3 to KDE as well two days ago.
I used KDE 3 back in the day (couple of years ago) and it's been taking me a while to get used to the way it does things again.

One of the things I love is how all the native KDE applications share the same interface for configuration and setting shortcuts. I find that Gnome 3 has less customizability in terms of keyboard control compared to Gnome 2, so it's good to be back to a DE that respects heavy keyboard users.

My advice on the matter is to drop Gnome applications where possible. I used Gedit, Rhythmbox and GVIM constantly, but it's a real shame to use "foreign" programs when KDE's native counterparts are integrated into the DE so well. Also, Kate is pretty great in its own right.

As for Desktop Effects, I noticed that some effects are enabled by default that are responsible for the same thing (e.g., a couple of the alt-tab effects that have different behaviour). Check the descriptions and just keep one. I also noticed that the Translucency effect slowed down the desktop quite a bit (it made animations choppy on an i7 laptop with 4GB RAM and an ATI 5700), so play around with the options see which one works best for you (as it has already been mentioned).

skunkos: I also discovered yakuake yesterday and I must say I'm impressed. The idea alone made so much sense to me as soon as I found it.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-11-23 21:53:52

New to KDE

#2 2011-11-23 22:10:50

Re: New to KDE

#3 2011-11-23 22:42:23

Re: New to KDE

#4 2011-11-23 22:57:51

Re: New to KDE

#5 2011-11-23 23:06:32

Re: New to KDE

#6 2011-11-23 23:13:19

Re: New to KDE

#7 2011-11-24 01:08:49

Re: New to KDE

#8 2011-11-24 08:45:28

Re: New to KDE

#9 2011-11-24 08:46:05

Re: New to KDE

#10 2011-11-24 13:39:40

Re: New to KDE

#11 2011-11-24 22:14:11

Re: New to KDE

#12 2011-11-25 01:22:21

Re: New to KDE

#13 2011-11-25 16:52:08

Re: New to KDE

#14 2011-11-29 13:14:29

Re: New to KDE

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