Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

Redrazor39 · 2009-01-06 03:05:11

I am running Xfce right now but I'm on a moderately powerful laptop: 2gigs RAM, 2GHZ dual core processor, 335MB videoRAM, and ~30GB partitioned off to Linux. Xfce, LXDE, *box, etc. seem to be advertising their greatness on slow or old machines, but I don't think I fit in that category. My laptop, Sony VAIO VGN-SZ430N, has all the hardware bells and whistles and I feel like I'm losing a lot of functionality without GNOME or KDE. The latter two are noticeably slower than the light DEs/WMs, but is it worth it for the functionality that is gained (if any)? I am considering switching to KDEmod once 4.2 comes out; I hate 4, 4.1, and don't really like 3.5. I'm sick of GNOME from Ubuntu, so is this a good choice? Am I really gaining anything with the loss of speed and disk space?

I'd really like some guidance or extra information about this if anyone can help. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Redrazor39

Wintervenom · 2009-01-06 03:10:55

Only thing you gain from GNOME and KDE is application/desktop integration, as far as I know.

Last edited by Wintervenom (2009-01-06 03:11:14)

ewigkeit · 2009-01-06 09:22:17

Since the day I began to use Linux on a daily basis, I always preferred KDE because of its interface, the control center and the powerful programs (etc. Gwenview, Amarok, Krusader, which really rocks for me). Of cource, you can run these programs in other desktop environments too, but I don't like the idea of having more and more services and tools running, just to make everything possible work, if you know what I mean. KDE offers you a lot of options and setting dialogues, which some people prefer, others don't, thats a point, everyone must decide for himself. With KDE 4.x even the performance is noticably better than with the predecessors, but it's not as fast as my new set XFCE on my 1,6GHZ Centrino (I) Machine. But I think, KDE 4.x needs more time to become that functional and adjustable as KDE 3.5.x is.

Just my two cents ;-)

Leigh · 2009-01-06 09:28:40

I'm kind of a die hard kde3 user. My laptop and desktop is fairly modern, similar to yours. I use fluxbox as a secondary/fallback wm in case kde gets screwed from an update (which hasn't ever happened yet) I hate kde4. I think they went overboard with eye candy, and too many classic functions where changed. I never liked gnome much either. kde3 is just proven and solid, at least for me. I really don't think there's anything that fluxbox (openbox) can't do that kde can, given the time to find, setup, and configure kde equivalent apps. I'm not sure about some of the others. I think it all boils down to, how much time you're willing to spend, configuring and setting up your wm / de?

chair · 2009-01-06 12:15:26

XFCE isn't really that lightweight. Certainly lighter than Gnome or KDE, but not as light as a stand-alone window manager. My main desktop has KDE 4.1, but I also regularly use Awesome. I don't find KDE much slower on a modern computer. Awesome starts up instantly, KDE takes a few seconds, but other than that the programs run the same.

As for what you are gaining, KDE does have some extra stuff, but I can get along fine with Awesome so obviously I can live without it. There's less of difference between XFCE and KDE so you may not find KDE much more useful. KDE has a lot of "power user" configuration options and things, if you don't want that then they'll probably just get in the way. Personally I really like KDE's smart window placement, I really can't use any other floating window manager. Plasma is quite nice, it's really matured (it's even better in 4.2), and I use mostly KDE apps. So KDE usually suits me.

I think you'll have to try KDE out and see for yourself, I think it's only about a 300 MB download

Redrazor39 · 2009-01-06 23:13:00

Could someone please explain this desktop/app integration more thoroughly to me? I keep hearing a lot about it but in my use of KDE and GNOME I haven't noticed anything that "Wow"'d me (although I didn't really go that deep in my use to explore the features)

Also, chair mentioned "KDE does have some extra stuff". What "extra stuff" are you talking about, exactly? I'm not arguing KDE sucks and has nothing, I just don't know enough about this yet.

kozer · 2009-01-07 00:15:26

few examples
You are listening some mp3s to amatok.And you want to make a cd with them.Just open k3b,drag mp3s from amaroks playlist to k3b and you are done

A second one.
You wnt to upload a pic
Just move it in pastebin plasmoid(kde 4.2) and it will upload it for u and it will give you the link.

You wnt to send a file to your friend that someone send you with e-mail.just drag and drop this file from kmail to kopete contact and you are done

This is integration

Ranguvar · 2009-01-07 00:44:30

_That_ is the kind of integration that should be happening across Linux software, inside of divided, as a result of good package modularity, having software that provides cross-app interaction. Etc. I detest DEs, on the whole, though

Redrazor39 · 2009-01-07 00:48:44

Wow, I didn't even know Linux could do that! You just shattered any perceptions of mine that said Linux was behind in the user experience. Alright, I think I'm convinced. I'll go with KDEmod4. All I need to know is if I should just install 4.1.3 now and get settled, or if I should wait for KDEmod 4.2 and then install that. I don't want to install an extra DE and then let it sit until a new version comes out. I already want to reinstall Arch for this because of all the crap packages I have laying around from testing DEs and software.

So back to my question... Is 4.1.3 awesome enough to WOW someone or should I wait until 4.2?

Ranguvar · 2009-01-07 01:14:14

I'd check out KDEmod 4.2 testing I've heard it's actually more stable than 4.1.3. Which, completely objectively, is not hard to do OTOH.

j.roszk · 2009-01-07 01:14:57

Redrazor39 wrote:

So back to my question... Is 4.1.3 awesome enough to WOW someone or should I wait until 4.2?

IMO wait. KDE 3.5 still has features which are not ported to 4.x (for example the quick directory access in the panel from 3.5 is far superior to 4), it has more styles, themes, extensions and other community-made stuff that Just Works (tm). But I am trying out new releases once a few months and I think the progress is made, but I still miss some features which are important to my workflow. And you can always use compiz for the eyecandy (the only thing I miss is the ability to show windows from current workspace only in the panel - anybody know if it's possible? I use KDEmod 3.5.10).

Last edited by j.roszk (2009-01-07 01:24:08)

kozer · 2009-01-07 08:00:20

I think kde has features i ve not yet descovered and i see this every day.A really good one i ve read for kde 4.2 is this

"A KIPI plugin to export photos to Facebook from KDE photo applications
More refined integration of Wikipedia "place" information in Marble"

from kde.org

What else they will think?

chair · 2009-01-07 10:56:16

4.2 is due on the 25th IIRC, it's be a the repositories a few days before. So not too long to wait.

Redrazor39 wrote:

Could someone please explain this desktop/app integration more thoroughly to me?

I guess it's a lot of little things that make KDE feel more intergrated, it's hard to pin point every feature.

jroszk wrote:

And you can always use compiz for the eyecandy (the only thing I miss is the ability to show windows from current workspace only in the panel - anybody know if it's possible? I use KDEmod 3.5.10).

Well if you switched to KDE 4 you could I guess KDE 4 is missing some features compared to 3.5.x, but it's much improved in other places

arch_nemesis · 2009-01-14 15:36:10

Redrazor39: Thanks for starting this thread, you've prevented me from starting a similar one.

Good info all, I've just got a couple of questions to tack on to Redrazor's thread, as I don't think they warrant their own; hopefully some of the answers will be informative for him, too:

I currently use and am comfortable with Gnome. I understand that having multiple DE's installed is nothing exotic, but it's also something I haven't done before. With that (And waiting for 4.2) in mind --

Are there any issues with (at least temporarily) continuing to use GDM? Should I switch to something more DE-agnostic like SLIM if I'm going to run both?

Is there any potential for interfering with my functionality under GNOME through the act of installing and configuring KDEmod? Any particular warnings in that regard?

I assume I'll have a ridiculously crowded menu in both GNOME and KDE after adding KDEmod to my system -- is there any easy way to "filter" their respective menus so that I can have the illusion of a "pure" KDE/GNOME enivronment, depending on which one I'm currently using? Maybe this isn't even enough of an issue to worry about...

Let's say I spend a few weeks with both and decide to become a KDE4 devotee -- is there a safe and painless way to uninstall all the GNOME stuff without breaking anything, and preserving GTK as required for certain apps which require it? Would it be better to do a reinstall if I find myself at that point?

Thanks!

Last edited by arch_nemesis (2009-01-14 15:36:36)

Mikko777 · 2009-01-14 19:16:08

Are there any issues with (at least temporarily) continuing to use GDM? Should I switch to something more DE-agnostic like SLIM if I'm going to run both?

KDM and GDM are "pretty much" identical even the themes are the same, so unless gdm pulls alot of useless deps you can use that.
With slim youd need to use "complicated" .xinitrc and you'd prolly loose the ability to shutdown from menu.

Is there any potential for interfering with my functionality under GNOME through the act of installing and configuring KDEmod? Any particular warnings in that regard?

Prolly no. Atleast i dont remember having any when i still used gnome.

I assume I'll have a ridiculously crowded menu in both GNOME and KDE after adding KDEmod to my system -- is there any easy way to "filter" their respective menus so that I can have the illusion of a "pure" KDE/GNOME enivronment, depending on which one I'm currently using? Maybe this isn't even enough of an issue to worry about...

There was something called kde or gnome menu in kdelook.org or gnomelook.org

Let's say I spend a few weeks with both and decide to become a KDE4 devotee -- is there a safe and painless way to uninstall all the GNOME stuff without breaking anything, and preserving GTK as required for certain apps which require it? Would it be better to do a reinstall if I find myself at that point?

pacman -Rcsn gnome will prolly be enough. altho if that removes too much stuff you can always just reinstall the one or two packages you need. Also install shaman and go through the packages that you dont need.

grassmonk · 2009-01-16 01:42:43

j.roszk wrote:

And you can always use compiz for the eyecandy (the only thing I miss is the ability to show windows from current workspace only in the panel - anybody know if it's possible? I use KDEmod 3.5.10).

Yes, it's possible, but takes a small amount of work. You need taskbar-compiz from http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.ph … tent=89500, and once it's installed you need to edit ~/.kde/share/config/ktaskbarrc and make sure you have ShowAllWindows=false under the [General] heading.

Also, AFAIK Compiz must be started before kicker for this to work. I use a script in ~/.kde/env and a .desktop file in ~/.kde/Autostart to make this happen.

j.roszk · 2009-01-16 10:46:28

grassmonk wrote:

Yes, it's possible, but takes a small amount of work.

It's Arch

grassmonk wrote:

Also, AFAIK Compiz must be started before kicker for this to work. I use a script in ~/.kde/env and a .desktop file in ~/.kde/Autostart to make this happen.

I use export KDEWM="/usr/local/bin/compiz-fusion" in ~/.bash_profile pointing to my custom startup script and it works as well.

Thank you very much, it works like a charm.

I have updated the taskbar-compiz package in AUR. Feel free to report missing dependencies. I don't know how to check it.

kaola_linux · 2009-01-16 13:28:45

guyz, I don't really understand the modular thing of kdemod...I'm currently using XFCE4 on my netbook which an Acer Aspire One (SSD version)..I know this ain't powerful as yours but It can run kdemod 4.1 fine!!!:)

I reverted back though due to some bugs with pasting files, system tray icons....I'm going to test kdemod 4.2..

So I want to know if I'm going to enable the repos of kdemod, can I install apps for kdemod on my xfce without the extra dependencies of KDE itself? For example if I want to run amarok will it download also some kde dependencies?

Thanks...

Mikko777 · 2009-01-16 15:59:38

kaola_linux wrote:

So I want to know if I'm going to enable the repos of kdemod, can I install apps for kdemod on my xfce without the extra dependencies of KDE itself? For example if I want to run amarok will it download also some kde dependencies?

Kdemod tries to use as much packages from arch repos as possible.
(which seems to be pretty hard since sometimes, since kde sees way too less love)

But in amarok's case its a kde app so yes it needs kde deps, that kdemod does provide if its installed.

I use kdemod but build amarok2 from arch abs since mysql seems to need to be rebuilt in 64 bit arch.

Heres the pkgbuilds:

Mysgl:

# $Id: PKGBUILD 14174 2008-10-04 15:06:14Z andyrtr $
# Maintainer: Alexander Baldeck <alexander@archlinux.org>
# Contributor: judd <jvinet@zeroflux.org>
pkgname=mysql
pkgver=5.0.75
pkgrel=2
pkgdesc="A fast SQL database server"
arch=(i686 x86_64)
backup=(etc/my.cnf etc/conf.d/mysqld)
depends=("mysql-clients>=${pkgver}" 'tcp_wrappers')
makedepends=('libtool')
url=('http://www.mysql.com/')
options=('!libtool')
license=('GPL')
source=(ftp://ftp.pucpr.br/mysql/Downloads/MySQL-5.0/mysql-${pkgver}.tar.gz
    mysql-no-clients.patch
    mysqld
    my.cnf
    mysqld.conf.d)

build() {
  # PIC
  export CFLAGS="$CFLAGS -fPIC"
  export CXXFLAGS="$CXXFLAGS -fPIC"
  cd ${startdir}/src/${pkgname}-${pkgver}
  patch -Np1 -i ${startdir}/src/mysql-no-clients.patch || return 1
  ./configure --prefix=/usr --libexecdir=/usr/sbin \
    --without-debug --without-docs --without-bench --without-readline \
    --with-innodb --enable-local-infile --with-openssl \
    --with-charset=latin1 --with-collation=latin1_general_ci \
    --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client \
    --with-libwrap --with-berkeley-db --with-embedded-server

  # fixes
  sed -i -e 's/^.*HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R_GLIBC2_STYLE.*$/#define\ HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R_GLIBC2_STYLE/g' include/config.h || return 1
  sed -i -e 's/size_socket/socklen_t/g' sql/mysqld.cc || return 1

  pushd include || return
  make || return 1
  popd
  pushd libmysql
  make link_sources get_password.lo || return
  popd
  make || return 1
  make DESTDIR=${startdir}/pkg install
  rm -rf ${startdir}/pkg/usr/{mysql-test,sql-bench}
  install -D -m644 ../my.cnf ${startdir}/pkg/etc/my.cnf
  install -D -m755 ../mysqld ${startdir}/pkg/etc/rc.d/mysqld
  install -D -m644 ../mysqld.conf.d ${startdir}/pkg/etc/conf.d/mysqld
  rm -f ${startdir}/pkg/usr/bin/mysql_config
}
md5sums=('')

Amarok:

# $Id: PKGBUILD 17565 2008-10-31 03:06:04Z pierre $

pkgname=amarok
pkgver=2.0.1.1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="A powerful music player with an intuitive interface"
arch=('i686' 'x86_64')
url='http://amarok.kde.org'
license=('GPL' 'LGPL' 'FDL')
depends=('kdelibs' 'kdebase-runtime' 'libgpod' 'libmtp' 'loudmouth' 'libmp4v2' 'taglib')
makedepends=('pkgconfig' 'cmake' 'automoc4' 'mysql')
provides=('amarok-base')
install='amarok.install'
source=("http://download.kde.org/stable/${pkgname}/${pkgver}/src/${pkgname}-${pkgver}.tar.bz2")

build() {
    cd $srcdir
    mkdir build
    cd build
    cmake ../${pkgname}-${pkgver} \
        -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
        -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
    make
    make DESTDIR=$pkgdir install
}

Edit: to recap:

1. Theres kde apps that need kdelibs, provided either by arch kde or kdemod
2. Theres QT apps that only need qt but no kdelibs
3. Theres gnome apps that need gnomelibs
4. Theres GTK apps that only need GTK but no gnomelibs

Last edited by Mikko777 (2009-01-16 16:01:46)

grassmonk · 2009-01-18 05:00:24

j.roszk wrote:

grassmonk wrote:
Also, AFAIK Compiz must be started before kicker for this to work. I use a script in ~/.kde/env and a .desktop file in ~/.kde/Autostart to make this happen.
I use export KDEWM="/usr/local/bin/compiz-fusion" in ~/.bash_profile pointing to my custom startup script and it works as well.
Thank you very much, it works like a charm.

You're welcome. The reason I have both a script and a .desktop file to start mine is because I use fusion-icon to manage Compiz, and if I start it too early, it doesn't inherit my GTK theme. So I have an export KDEWM=.... line in my ~/.kde/env which points to a custom script containing

#!/bin/bash
fusion-icon --no-interface &

which starts Compiz for me without loading the tray icon, and then a .desktop file in ~/.kde/Autostart containing

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=fusion-icon --no-start
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Type=Application
X-KDE-autostart-after=kdesktop

which loads the tray icon without starting Compiz a second time.

j.roszk wrote:

I have updated the taskbar-compiz package in AUR. Feel free to report missing dependencies. I don't know how to check it.

Thanks for that. I don't think anything is required other than kdelibs3, but I'm not sure.

hal2k1 · 2009-04-03 03:48:33

j.roszk wrote:

IMO wait. KDE 3.5 still has features which are not ported to 4.x (for example the quick directory access in the panel from 3.5 is far superior to 4)

It shouldn't be so. Kubuntu 9.04 has an excellent plasmoid for quick directory access from the panel. If Arch doesn't have this ... that isn't a failing of KDE 4.x, and one can't say it hasn't been ported just because Arch leaves it out.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/pla … uickaccess

attila · 2009-04-03 05:54:11

hal2k1 wrote:

It shouldn't be so. Kubuntu 9.04 has an excellent plasmoid for quick directory access from the panel. If Arch doesn't have this ... that isn't a failing of KDE 4.x, and one can't say it hasn't been ported just because Arch leaves it out.

This plasmoid is in kdemod extragear too but in comparison to the old one you can't open a terminal and the look of browsing in a certain rectangle is not so fine as before but this won't change with this new panel (http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.ph … tent=84128).

One thing about plasmoids: I test kde (kdemod and arch kde) in vm's and even with every little update (4.2.0->4.2.1 and 4.2.1->4.2.2) one of them has to recompiled. I hope the kde devs get this more stable in the future but i'm a little bit nervous about it.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-06 03:05:11

Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#2 2009-01-06 03:10:55

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#3 2009-01-06 09:22:17

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#4 2009-01-06 09:28:40

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#5 2009-01-06 12:15:26

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#6 2009-01-06 23:13:00

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#7 2009-01-07 00:15:26

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#8 2009-01-07 00:44:30

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#9 2009-01-07 00:48:44

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#10 2009-01-07 01:14:14

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#11 2009-01-07 01:14:57

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#12 2009-01-07 08:00:20

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#13 2009-01-07 10:56:16

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#14 2009-01-14 15:36:10

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#15 2009-01-14 19:16:08

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#16 2009-01-16 01:42:43

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#17 2009-01-16 10:46:28

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#18 2009-01-16 13:28:45

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#19 2009-01-16 15:59:38

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#20 2009-01-18 05:00:24

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#21 2009-04-03 03:48:33

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

#22 2009-04-03 05:54:11

Re: Kde(mod)- is the bloat worth the functionality?

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