Some ideas for MX Linux 25 KDE

[Arnox]

Did some quick preliminary studies on Ark, ArQiver, and Peazip.

Archiver Time to open 6.4GB archive Time to extract a 75M file from test archive
Ark: 2m10s Instant extraction
ArQiver: 15s Instant extraction
Peazip: 7.5s 2.5s extraction

Notes:
- Peazip has the most features by far. Startup is a tad slow at 2.5s without any archive opened.
- ArQiver has the least features of them but is overall the quickest and most convenient.
- Ark is somewhere in the middle for features and is the slowest by far for opening files.
- Peazip seems just a little rough around the edges. Also has no drag-and-drop at all and doesn't follow KDE themes. (I'm assuming this is the GTK version though.)

I say if the lack of drag-and-drop plus no KDE theme adherence can be fixed simply by using the Qt version, then I would definitely do Peazip. The only thing that would then make me hesitate just a bit about it is that a noob might find the program perhaps a tad overwhelming due to all the features? It's also not in the Debian stable repo nor is it even in Trixie.

[Adrian]

I'm trying to avoid programs that there are not in Debian repos. ArQiver looks interesting.

[siamhie]

I think the preference for MX-KDE, though not set in stone, is for the programs to be Qt.

ArQiver is Qt.

That would make sense.

[Stevo]

It's possible to build Peazip Qt packages, but I would have to research that. The version in our repos is GTK 3.

I mostly use Ark to extract archives in Dolphin or look inside archives, and the kde-extract-and-compress service menu to create them.

Aqiver 0.12.0 is as far as we can go with Qt 6.4.2; we'd need the newer Qt 6 in Trixie for the current 1.0.0 release. Debian Trixie's arqiver is even older at 0.9.0--seems not to have a maintainer.

[Arnox]

It's possible to build Peazip Qt packages, but I would have to research that. The version in our repos is GTK 3.

I mostly use Ark to extract archives in Dolphin or look inside archives, and the kde-extract-and-compress service menu to create them.

Aqiver 0.12.0 is as far as we can go with Qt 6.4.2; we'd need the newer Qt 6 in Trixie for the current 1.0.0 release. Debian Trixie's arqiver is even older at 0.9.0--seems not to have a maintainer.

Well, who knows. Maybe Ark will actually load files at a non-glacial pace when Trixie actually arrives.

[Dearth]

If it was possible to keep up with the latest PeaZip (Qt6) releases it would be great to have it as the default archiver.

Another thing, GNOME has announced a change of its default font to Adwaita Sans:
https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments ... ult_gnome/

It is a soft fork of the Inter font. Perhaps Inter could be used as the default font in the KDE release instead of Noto Sans? IMHO it look much better.
https://github.com/rsms/inter/

[Dearth]

Did some quick preliminary studies on Ark, ArQiver, and Peazip.

Archiver Time to open 6.4GB archive Time to extract a 75M file from test archive
Ark: 2m10s Instant extraction
ArQiver: 15s Instant extraction
Peazip: 7.5s 2.5s extraction

Notes:
- Peazip has the most features by far. Startup is a tad slow at 2.5s without any archive opened.
- ArQiver has the least features of them but is overall the quickest and most convenient.
- Ark is somewhere in the middle for features and is the slowest by far for opening files.
- Peazip seems just a little rough around the edges. Also has no drag-and-drop at all and doesn't follow KDE themes. (I'm assuming this is the GTK version though.)

I say if the lack of drag-and-drop plus no KDE theme adherence can be fixed simply by using the Qt version, then I would definitely do Peazip. The only thing that would then make me hesitate just a bit about it is that a noob might find the program perhaps a tad overwhelming due to all the features? It's also not in the Debian stable repo nor is it even in Trixie.

While testing, have you used the latest .deb packages or Flatpaks? I have noticed that Flatpaks are noticeably slower in case or Ark and PeaZip.

[Arnox]

Did some quick preliminary studies on Ark, ArQiver, and Peazip.

Archiver Time to open 6.4GB archive Time to extract a 75M file from test archive
Ark: 2m10s Instant extraction
ArQiver: 15s Instant extraction
Peazip: 7.5s 2.5s extraction

Notes:
- Peazip has the most features by far. Startup is a tad slow at 2.5s without any archive opened.
- ArQiver has the least features of them but is overall the quickest and most convenient.
- Ark is somewhere in the middle for features and is the slowest by far for opening files.
- Peazip seems just a little rough around the edges. Also has no drag-and-drop at all and doesn't follow KDE themes. (I'm assuming this is the GTK version though.)

I say if the lack of drag-and-drop plus no KDE theme adherence can be fixed simply by using the Qt version, then I would definitely do Peazip. The only thing that would then make me hesitate just a bit about it is that a noob might find the program perhaps a tad overwhelming due to all the features? It's also not in the Debian stable repo nor is it even in Trixie.

While testing, have you used the latest .deb packages or Flatpaks? I have noticed that Flatpaks are noticeably slower in case or Ark and PeaZip.

Ark and ArQiver both are the .deb version straight from the MX stable repo. Peazip was installed from the MX test repo.

[Dearth]

One more idea regarding default fonts.

If that's not a problem a one of the Nerd Fonts could be installed by default:
https://www.nerdfonts.com/

My favourites: Iosevka Extended, FiraCode, Hack, JetBrainsMono.

It could be also set as the default monospace/terminal font.

This could make it easier to set up Starship prompt:
https://starship.rs/

[Dearth]

The only drawback of the Nerd Fonts is that they can take significant additional space, some of them even over 100 MB.