Ubuntu Tutorials

After posting my previous tutorial on Manually Installing Firefox I noticed that the Katapult Launcher in Kubuntu was not aware of my newly installed application. Apparently you need to refresh Katapult before it’ll see the changes. For those of you that use Katapult this little trick might be handy.. and for those of you that don’t use Katapult you’re really missing out. This is one of the apps that I really like in KDE that gnome doesn’t really have.

Refreshing the Katapult Launcher

Refreshing Katapult to be aware of newly installed applications can be done in just a few quick steps:

1. Hit “Alt-Space” to bring up the Katapult Launcher
2. Hit “Ctrl-C” and select “Configure Katapult
3. Click “Save” without making any changes

Your newly installed applications will now be launchable from within Katapult. Katapult ftw!

Well I am a bit pleasantly surprised to say that I’m very much enjoying my time in KDE right now. There are some bugs, as is to be expected, but for the most part I’m continuing to be very productive and I’m learning a lot. I think some of you were right to mention that perhaps I should until the final release. There have been about a dozen bugs that I’ve submitted for Kubuntu 7.10 beta, but on the bright side hopefully many of those will be squished by final.

I have installed Kubuntu 7.04 inside VirtualBox (expect VirtualBox tutorials very soon!). Kubuntu 7.04 seems a little more polished but, again, I’m blaming the beta status of 7.10 for the “issues”.

The few things that I still miss are:

• Tomboy. I’ve tried KNotes and Basket but the one is too light and the other too heavy. Tomboy seemed just right.
• System Monitor Applet. I tried the applet in KDE but I didn’t think it was as well organized or easy-to-read.

Thanks again to all the continued comments in relation to a shift to KDE. I appreciate all the feedback and its making my experience a better one. Hopefully all of your contributions will make for some good KDE specific tutorials soon.

Well we’re into day two on using Kubuntu full-time and I’m getting most of my personal show stoppers worked out.  I want to thank everyone that left comments here giving me some suggestions.  Here are my continued thoughts on using it, and what I’ve worked out.

Things I like / solutions: 

• Konqueror as a web browser is not for me.  I’ve installed Firefox and written a post (look for it tuesday) on installing Firefox in Kubuntu cleanly (read: no gnome dependencies!)
• The rumours are true.  Amarok is sweet, sweet musical magic.
• Klipper + actions is nice.
• Loving katapult.
• Ktorrent looks a lot better than the gnome-default, allowing a bit more customization.

Things that still bug me:

• I’m not so sure about Dolphin.  The few things I’ve done with it were counter-intuitive and confusing.
• Needing to restart KDE to add a simple menu bar seems.. dumb?

So far I am getting used to things pretty quickly for the day-to-day work that I do.  Continued tips from the rest of the KDE community would be appreciated.  Remember, I’m not completely forsaking gnome.  This is a learning experience for myself and for the contents of the blog.

As I mentioned a few days ago I have considered trying to use KDE again. Well yesterday I did a fresh install of Kubuntu 7.10 beta. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

Bugs Reported:

• netboot installer garbles video output on macbook
• initial resolution wrong (1024×768) (#147323)
• brightness hardware keys don’t function in kde (functional in gnome) (#148776)
• netboot installer fails on selecting “ssh server” (#148577)
• $HOME/.kde/share/config/kcmshellrc not writable (#148847)
• hardware mute button does not completely mute audio (#149070)

Impressions:

My initial impressions are that KDE is very clean looking. The display is very crisp on my machine and its easy to navigate. It appears to have most of the applications I need out of the box. As usual the configuration options for KDE are extensive and I’ve customized a look and feel that I’m comfortable with very quickly.

I do have some initial concerns / questions on getting some of the functionality that I’m used to. In making this switch I wanted to give KDE and its default apps priority over the GTK based apps I was used to. I swear I gave Konqueror a good honest try but I just can’t use it for these reasons (if some of you are able to resolve these I’ll give it another go):

• Unable to use SOCKS tunneling using ssh -D port:host tunneling. In Firefox I can select “proxy -> socks -> localhost:port” and I’m done. I tried a dozen different combinations in Konqueror and I was not able to do ssh tunneling unless I used ssh -L port:host:port options.
• After getting the tunnel to work once and shutting down no I can get *no* sites through Konqueror. Resolving the same site in FF or even links works but Konqueror is complaining about not being able to reach any domain.
• Is it just me or is Konqueror slower in loading pages?
• Poorer compatibility with my wordpress install (yes, I’ll admit this may be a web-standards thing and not directly related to Konqueror).
• Scrolling seems to be broken in Google Reader with Konqueror. Scrolling with the mouse wheel scrolls the entire window, not just the reader contents.

There are also a few things that I’ve grown very used to in gnome that I’m wondering if KDE has capability for. Even if its not out-of-the-box is fine, I would just like support for the following:

• The auto-mounting system should be able to recognize luks encrypted removable drives and prompt for the passphrase to mount. Gnome does this and I’ve become used to the convenience.
• A utility that will initially prompt for and then cache my ssh passphrase. I have been using ssh-askpass-gnome in the past. Is there anything equivalent for KDE? I am aware I could manually use ssh-add but is there another KDE-ish utility for this?

Conclusion:

I will be sticking with KDE for a while to try and help squash some of these bugs. Bug reporting and resolution is very important for all of us and I want to do my part to improve the overall experience. Expect some KDE related tutorials coming soon. I hope it will help expand the breadth of the blog content. I hope this post doesn’t come across as negative. I will be staying with KDE for some time. I want to learn more about it and learn the tools available with it. I also want to be able to expand this blog to reach the KDE crowd. I know KDE vs gnome can very easily pop up in a conversation like this. I’ll say now that any non productive comments will be deleted from the blog. Unless you’re helping to educate, offer suggestions on applications, or otherwise helping to improve the situation we don’t need to hear it.

So I keep hearing all these great improvements coming down the pipe for KDE and v4.0.  I know much of it is available in the repositories and while considered beta at this stage when have I been afraid of a little bleeding edge?  I’ve been running Ubuntu 7.10 since the second alpha release.  I’m a sucker for punishment and like to help squash the bugs before they get to the rest of the world.

Some of you might remember my Week with KDE a while back.  I gave it a try and the community response was really overwhelming.  Submitting tips and programs to look into.  How to deal with changes one environment to the next.  I did appreciate all that help.

For the term of Ubuntu 7.10 I am considering running KDE.  I am thinking about this for a few reasons:

1. Few (if any) of my tutorials directly address the KDE crowd.  I feel like I may be leaving out part of the user-base while just focusing on one.
2. This will really force me to use KDE instead of just looking for the light at the end of the tunnel in a week-long stint.
3. Perhaps I can help improve KDE with continued bug submissions.

I haven’t completely decided to make this move.. I guess right now I’m just thinking aloud.  If anyone has any suggestions, words of wisdom, links to “learning KDE”, etc I would appreciate it.  Also if anyone has pointers to installing the KDE 4.0 stuff I would be interested in looking into that. With the final release of Ubuntu 7.10 coming in just a few short weeks I don’t have a lot of time to sit on this decision.

What are your thoughts on me (and this blog) switching to using and documenting KDE until Ubuntu 8.04?

(Token Disclaimer: I don’t mean to start a flame war. Let’s not argue gnome vs KDE. This is simply an observation of mine. I hope someone might have a solution for it.)

Recently I’ve been on a GPG kick and have been interested in collecting, signing and using the GPG system more and more. I really should write a tutorial on the basics of this system, but that will have to be another time.

The best app that I’ve found for managing GPG within gnome is GPA, the GNU Privacy Assistant. This in combination with Seahorse make using and managing your GPG keys pretty easy.

Well, KDE has an app that I’ve found to have a few more features (I’m not surprise, honestly) so I installed KGPG. I toggle between the two as I learn to use more of the features, but I am able to get everything I need done between the two so far.

One limitation that I was surprised to find in KGPG is that of the “Export Public Key : To Email” option. Once I have collected and signed a key I like to email the key back to the owner for import. KGPG has the option of exporting to email, which makes it a bit quicker.. however it complains about not being able to find KMail and dies.

I figured that was probably normal so I went to look for the option to change the default mail client. Again, I assume with the hundred thousand ways KDE can be customized I should be able to do something as simple as that. Well, to my surprise I was wrong.

As far as I can tell you can not change the default mail client for KGPG to use, therefore the export to mail feature is useless to me.

For those that are using KGPG natively in KDE, does this use your default client or KMail? Can this be changed? Does it just read the default client in the environment and is unable to do so in a non-KDE setup?

If someone does have a fix for this I would appreciate it. Otherwise, thanks for reading my rant about how KDE isn’t quite as customizable as I thought.

I have yet again wrapped up another day using KDE as my main desktop environment.  Everyone has had some appealing arguments (and a few were heated enough to the point of deletion).  I have to say that both camps really do have quite a lot to offer.  I have come to appreciate some of the KDE apps very much–klipper is very convenient so far.  Yakuake is something I would have never found without your suggestions.  Konquerer has far more than I ever expected! I do think, on the application level, that many of the KDE packages have more features and seem to be more mature than the gnome applications.  The system integration seems a little better worked through as well.

Currently my mood is that of going back to gnome however.  I will stay with it until my week is through, as promised.  I feel like, despite the many features of these applications, there is not anything that I’m missing within gnome.  I suppose we could argue that I have not used KDE long enough to learn some of the tools to the point of missing them, but those tools that I have used seem equal to what I find that I prefer in gnome. Perhaps I do need to stick with KDE a while longer to make it a fair comparison.

I’m not going to do anything drastic yet.  I’m still going to keep using it through sunday at least.  Perhaps we’ll find something more yet.  I will say that the KDE crowd seems more vocal and proud than the gnome crowd (based on comments).  I wonder why that is…

Well I have survived yet another day of KDE and I’m still going strong.  It’s not so bad once you get used to it   I will say that I would not be having such a positive experience if it weren’t for all of your reader comments.  I really do appreciate it.  I feel a bit like I’m on the other side of the tutorial this week!  No worries though, for those of you jonesin’ for a tutorial I’ll have some good ones coming up soon.  I’ve got some in the works that I’m pretty excited about.  Just let me catch up on this weeks workload and I’ll be ready to roll again.

A few more thoughts on todays usage.

1. I did not get a chance to check out Amarok last night (just too busy!)  I hope to be able to sit down to some tunes after this post is done and relax.
2. I do like the suggested app yakuake but I can never remember the dumb apps name!  lol — its frustrating to try and remember the app name to launch it.  I’ll make sure to write it down this time
3. Still not able to get wireless working in Feisty, even using the updated broadcom driver, but I’ll keep working on it.  Other than that Feisty has been more than stable, very reliable and I say will shape up to be a very nice release.  I’ve actually seen that it has resolved a few issues from Edgy that I have been dealing with.

No issues tonite to gripe about.  Status is still the same as yesterday.  No real preference for either WM at this point other than a slight lean toward gnome based on familiarity only.  The KDE apps rock my socks off though…

We may just need a tie breaker in the next few days.  With that I invite any of you to sell me on gnome or KDE in one sentence.  Commenting is now open, hit me with your one-liner sales pitches to make or break this current tie-breaker. (no flaming allowed!)

Well I am happy to report that my third day with KDE has shaped up better than the second.  I’ll admit that by the end of yesterday I was just counting the days until I could switch back.  Today is a different story.

Now that I’ve resolved some of my main concerns things are shaping up well.  Klipper “actions” is quite cool although all I’m using it for so far is to get links out of konsole.  What are some of the other cool features I should know about?

I still really like katapult.  Sweet idea.  Can this be run in gnome without the bulk of the KDE library installed?

So here is what I am using regularly.

1. Firefox for browsing.  I depend on a few plugins, but I do want to give Konquerer another chance.
2. Konsole.  I do all of my instant messaging over ssh, into screen & on irssi + bitlbee.  Works great now that I can use Klipper actions.
3. Akregator within Kmail.  Clean. Nice. Organized.  Good app.  Is there a way to specify opening links within the browser (Firefox) vs the integrated browsing?
4. Kate for editing.  I haven’t used it much but it does seem clean & easy enough.  Any thoughts on Kate vs gedit?

I do think I prefer Synaptic over Adept.  I do most of my package management on the command line but for those hard to find packages Synaptic does seem a little more comprehensive.  Thoughts?

Tonite I will finally give Amarok a try (first time ever).  I hear a lot of good things about it–sounds like the media king.  Any suggestions on what I should look for, why its the best, or limitations?

I really can’t think of any complaints at the end of day 3.  I think I can say that at this point the desktop that I end up on is up in the air.  You might convert me yet.  Of course I’m not finding any limitations in gnome, just sweet apps in KDE that I never knew existed.

(You’re right nixternal, some parts of KDE do rock my socks off!)

Well I’m coming to the close of a second day now with KDE. I have to say that this second day wasn’t quite as pleasant as the first. I don’t know if it is simlpy a big work load that is causing me stress but I am getting frustrated in not being able to get as much done as I want. That is not to say it is a fault of KDE, just a lack of my familiarity with it. With that I have a few questions for the group on solving a few of my current issues.

1. Is there a way to make links clickable within konsole? In gnome-terminal I could ctrl-click a link and it would open. So far the best I have found is copy / paste.
2. Kmail auto-check email. Now this might be a stupid thing here but it took me a while to find the ‘enable interval mail checking’ to check for me. Could that be a bit more straight forward or even on by default?
3. Reply to email placement in Kmail. When I click reply to an email it places my reply at the bottom. I know this is suggested policy for mailing lists but for day-to-day personal mail I prefer it at the top. Can this me changed?
4. I have installed Kompose. Any tips on using this for efficiency or is it just fun?
5. System Settings (observation). Anyone else notice this looks very much like OSX? Thought that was interesting.

Also, to add fuel to my fire here I got greedy and upgraded to Feisty. It is stable and I have no trouble so far BUT my wireless (normally using bcm43xx-fwcutter) does not work. It works fine in Edgy & Dapper. Anyone know anything about a change here? A fix perhaps?