LXQt and KDE respins - personal projects

[asqwerth]

Does the KDE version of the update notifier work? I've never seen it pop up in my VM, even after waiting an hour, and I tend to just give up and update manually from terminal.

The repos are switched to the usual ones I use, ie Italy for MX repos, and HK for Debian repos.

[Adrian]

It worked well for me in my tests.

[arjaybe]

The update notifier doesn't seem to work automatically for me either, but it pops up immediately if I do an apt-get update.

[asqwerth]

The update notifier doesn't seem to work automatically for me either, but it pops up immediately if I do an apt-get update.

Yep, but that isn't very helpful.

[Adrian]

I'm not sure how KDE deals with that, I guess I will have to leave it on for a day-two to see if it picks updates. You could also set a "apt-get update" cron job to update as often as you want... DPKG probably has a setting that handles that too.

[asqwerth]

I'm not sure how KDE deals with that, I guess I will have to leave it on for a day-two to see if it picks updates. You could also set a "apt-get update" cron job to update as often as you want... DPKG probably has a setting that handles that too.

Did yours pick up updates?

I don't keep booted up to the same distro so my MX-KDE VM is closed in one distro and opened in another the next day. But still, all my other MX VMs will display updates within 30-60 mins at most after bootup. This one just sits there not showing updates in the notification icon until I do a

sudo apt update

in terminal, which defeats the purpose of the update notification.

Is cron or anacron a service that needs to be started? Is there a way to check if it's enabled or something?

[dreamer]

A few thoughts.

I installed KDE via MXPI and was greeted by a barely usable desktop. Is this what you get when installing 500+ packages?. Luckily it wasn't my main desktop. I felt like I had polluted a nice Xfce distro with useless KDE packages. Not a big deal. But anyone installing KDE via MXPI is in for a disappointment. I remember that MATE from MXPI was pretty barebones too, so I think there should be some sort of warning that those DEs require many additional packages to be "fully functional" - not only functional enough to load the desktop.

This KDE spin is totally different. You are greeted by a good looking and fully functional KDE desktop. KDE is always impressive, but sometimes it's a little crash prone. It didn't crash during my relative short test. What I like about KDE: Advanced window manager, advanced file manager, integrated mail client, integrated GUI for localization and regional settings.

What I dislike about KDE: It feels like an all or nothing affair.

I didn't miss update notifications, because it's the first thing I disable in distros. I didn't miss xapian indexing in Synaptic, because xapian is the first thing I uninstall - it's so slow.

My initial impression of this KDE spin is very good. I spent many many hours making the perfect personal snapshot of MX Linux. Now I have to do one based on this KDE spin as well... Anyway it's a nice "problem" to have.

When KDE is stable it's seriously good. So thanks for this spin Adrian. I'll explore it more maybe once a week and report if I find something interesting. QT5 feels really good, I prefer it to GTK3. The main weakness of KDE is often the Plasma desktop shell. We'll see if Plasma is stable. It's version 5.8 (LTS edition I believe) so my hopes are high.

[Adrian]

Thanks, as you use it please report problems or wishes for default programs.

[KBD]

Is the KDE spin still working well? Thinking about giving this a shot on one of my laptops.

[dreamer]

Thanks, as you use it please report problems or wishes for default programs.

I haven't used it a lot. I haven't encountered any problems so far. I have one wish and that would be to include the Kvantum theme engine and Theme Manager. I don't know if this is possible. I think Kvantum was included in Stevo's KDE4 spin based on MX-16. Kvantum has been updated for KDE5, but it seems the newest releases require QT/KDE > 5.11.

Is the KDE spin still working well? Thinking about giving this a shot on one of my laptops.

Still? It's version 18.09 from September. I think you should try it. It would be nice if we could get a little more momentum behind this. From my short experience it works well as is. I even noticed Quick Search in Synaptic so xapian indexing seems to be working. Maybe it required a reboot. Some things may require a little time to kick in after a snapshot. For example cursor theme in Xfce seems to be broken/default in QT applications after a snapshot. So after a snapshot you have to change your cursor theme and then back again and it will get picked up by QT applications. I think small things like that can happen after a snapshot and maybe it happened to Quick Search in Synaptic. Now it is working and I haven't done anything, not even updates.