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Other KDE Distros in VBox


raymac46

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I tried a couple of other KDE based distros in VirtualBox. Kubuntu looks rather clunky and has that floating panel on the desktop I don't like, so I didn't bother with an install.

On the other hand Siduction17 is quite a nice Plasma 5 distro once you remember to reinstall virtualbox-guest-dkms and virtualbox-guest-x11. I think I'd recommend Mageia 6 for RPM and Siduction for a Debian based KDE desktop. Your mileage may vary of course.

 

SiductionKDE_zpsevat2lkq.png

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I ended up going with siduction for my daily driver, but thought I'd mention I tried out Sparky Linux and vanilla Debian Stretch with Plasma 5 in VBox and both seemed to work quite well.

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A friend of mine is using the KDE version of Manjaro and keeps showing off how shiny and well polished Plasma 5 has become. I used KDE on Arch and Siduction for quite a while, and know a little bit about the various bells and whistles it comes with, so I decided to switch over to it on my main work machine and installed it this morning over tea and toast in the university canteen.

 

Very shiny indeed...

Edited by Dr. J
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Not to get back into the KDE vs GNOME controversy of 2007, but I cut my Linux teeth on GNOME 2 with Ubuntu. When I joined this forum most of the gurus here were running KDE 3.5X on either Slack or Mandriva.

I tried out KDE on Mandriva but I could never get into it - it seemed like "Death by Menu" and besides I was solidly in the GTK eco-sphere when it came to music players and CD burners. The KDE ones were OK but I still like apps like Rhythmbox.

Later on both the KDE Fanbois and The GNOMEies were turned off by KDE 4 and GNOME Shell and we both ended up with other desktops.Right now I am pretty much a Linux Mint Cinnamon guy.

However if I compare where GNOME and KDE have ended up today I have to admit that KDE is winning the battle. Plasma 5 is a real winner and all those KDE 4 refugees should come back and take a second look.

Edited by raymac46
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One more Plasma VM. This one took some geeking it up. I installed Debian stretch Plasma from a Netinstall CD and then built the guest additions and added in the contrib and non-free repos from the Konsole using nano. You don't have Synaptic and I haven't figured out yet how to run Kate as a root user.

 

Screenshot%20from%202017-03-21%2016-33-11_zpstwoq4ngr.png

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from a terminal, wouldn't

gksu kate

give you kate as a root user?

It will, but throws up some weird errors at the same time, as gksu is for Gnome and Xfce.

kdesu is the command you want in Plasma 5 but in siduction it is in a location left over as a legacy from KDE4 which is not in default path.

To make it fully function, simply symlink it to a location in user's path:

# ln -s /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kdesu /usr/bin/kdesu

Now it works like a charm!

kdesu kate

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Thanks sunrat. After the symlink I just alt-F2 and run kdesu kate.

Mageia and Manjaro have kdesu set up to execute properly without the symlink.

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I was solidly in the GTK eco-sphere when it came to music players

 

I've essentially turned my system into a hybrid now that I've installed KDE... I've Installed Dolphin file manager, but other then that I still have the GTK apps set as default... Atril document viewer, Xfce4 terminal, pamac for a GUI package manager and Guayadeque music player.

 

The way I see it a good music player is like a good barber... no need to change as long as it's still there. :teehee:

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Atril document viewer, Xfce4 terminal, pamac for a GUI package manager and Guayadeque music player.

Okular is great for documents, Konsole eats Xfce terminal for breakfast, no package managers here (only apt), and I always use DeadBeef music player even though it's not in the repos and is a GTK app.

Aimez ce que vous aimez ;)

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Hedon James

I'm not a fan of all the KDE dependencies pulled into a Gnome desktop for a hybrid system....although I think it is VERY COOL that the option exists and we can if we want to!

 

With that said, I do think that Okular is the best pdf viewer, and K3B is the best disk burner in all of linux land. I also hear a vocal contingent swear that Clementine is the best music player, with Amarok fans also being quite vocal about their favorite. I have no experience with either, as I'm quite happy with Banshee, but if I was considering a switch, I'd have to look at these 2 based on their contingency of advocates!

 

I tried KDE and I wanted to like it, but when your desktop has options to configure your options, that's just overkill for me. But I've often thought that KDE desktops look more "polished" and "professional" than Gnome systems. JMO... I'm thinking that LXQT might be the sweet spot for me, once it matures a little more and stabilizes. The lightweight of LXDE, but the KDE-style polish without all those frivolous options.

 

LXQT looks great in Siduction and Manjaro...wondering what the holdup is for the final update/adoption with LXDE merge?

Edited by Hedon James
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I used LXQT in Manjaro back when they still had 32 bit distros and it looked great. The only problem was that the LXQT maintainer had his own custom repo in Norway that used to go offline and screw up updates.

As far as configuring your configuring with Plasma that is KDE for you. I tend to leave the default theme in place and maybe switch out the wallpaper. The new Plasma 5 has a great look compared to some of the cartoonish desktops I saw with KDE4. I'm only running it in VBox though because I am happy with Linux Mint on the rails.

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Atril document viewer, Xfce4 terminal, pamac for a GUI package manager and Guayadeque music player.

Okular is great for documents, Konsole eats Xfce terminal for breakfast, no package managers here (only apt), and I always use DeadBeef music player even though it's not in the repos and is a GTK app.

Aimez ce que vous aimez ;)

 

I did a bit more configuring on my KDE desktop today, and ended up installing Konsole to get the "open in terminal" option to show up in dolphin's context menu. I'll probably switch to okular too, I remember a time when I used it with Xfce.

 

Here's what my setup's looking like...

 

mTX7ltMO.png

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Hedon James

Nice Dr. J!

 

I'm not usually a fan of "flat" themes, but I do like some of Manjaros, so they're starting to grow on me a little. I like Andromeda a LOT! OTOH, I do like the monochromatic icons in taskbars/system trays....for consistency's sake, LOL! I'm digging your overall theme...kudos to you for the yellow/orange elements, which you don't see very often. KDE Blue, Mint, OpenSUSE, and Manjaro Green, and Human/Adwaita tan are soooo common. You get major points for being different, cuz I like different!

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The icon theme is "Numix Shine", and the desktop theme is called "Interceptor", in case you're curious. I came across it in KDE's Get New Stuff feature.

 

ADDITION / EDIT:

A lot of theme creators do seem to be doing roughly the same thing - even I can see that, as unobservant as I am sometimes. I've noticed a real trend towards greys and dull-seeming colours. The default "Manjaro Green" seems to blend in very closely to the light greys in it's default theme anyway. I prefer my desktop to have a splash of colour and a vivid punch of contrast though, which seems to be 'out' at the moment... then again I never was one to keep up with the times.

Edited by Dr. J
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