MX Linux Forum

Is there any update on the timing of an MX17 KDE spin?

I'm getting tired of the Manjaro silliness on my desktop at home and would love to put a KDE version of MX onto it.

MX feels like an optimal linux distribution for adults. Just a bit of a knock on other distros....

Thanks,
Chris

Hmmm...currently, if you add kde-standard to MX in the package installer, in KDE, you have to go into the GTK apps appearance settings in the KDE settings to change the overall themes. The native appearance settings don't do anything. This is because Qt5 and thus KDE are set up to follow the GTK themes. Is this how we want to leave it in a KDE respin? I think that would be rather confusing unless you switch back and forth from xfce to KDE frequently and just want the themes to match. The Obidian2 GTK theme looks pretty good in both, though. GTK theming seem to break KDE different font sizes, though.

I can decouple Qt 5 from GTK so we can use the native themes, however. How do we want a KDE spin to look? What is Manjaro doing to be silly? I don't want to be that unintentionally!

Hi Stevo,
the thing that I think is silly about Manjaro is all of the nonstop updates. I realized at some point that I have a computer to get work done, and keeping the OS at the bleeding edge is not work that I'm interested in doing. I got bigger fish to fry. All said and done, my Manjaro experience has been fantastic. I have had few problems with it. But I don't want to udpate everything every week. It's just exhausting and my life is complicated enough already. I'll leave that fun exercise to those who have more free time and energy. that's why i said MX is linux for adults. Not meant to disparage anyone. I just want the rock solid debian base with a great community. That's what attracted me to Mepis so many years ago. I was actually told to run MEPIS in a dream. I went to distrowatch and sure enough, there was a distro named "Mepis". That's how it started.
I will be happy with whatever KDE look someone more sophisticated than i can set up. Whenever I go into KDE and start tinkering I always screw things up pretty bad...

No pressure, just curious when the respin might happen. Whenever it does I'll grab it!
Best,
Chris

Stevo wrote:Hmmm...currently, if you add kde-standard to MX in the package installer, in KDE, you have to go into the GTK apps appearance settings in the KDE settings to change the overall themes. The native appearance settings don't do anything. This is because Qt5 and thus KDE are set up to follow the GTK themes. Is this how we want to leave it in a KDE respin? I think that would be rather confusing unless you switch back and forth from xfce to KDE frequently and just want the themes to match. The Obidian2 GTK theme looks pretty good in both, though. GTK theming seem to break KDE different font sizes, though.

I can decouple Qt 5 from GTK so we can use the native themes, however. How do we want a KDE spin to look? What is Manjaro doing to be silly? I don't want to be that unintentionally!

Can you just channel Warren and do whatever he would do?

So @cgriffin, it appears what you actually don't like

the thing that I think is silly about Manjaro is all of the nonstop updates

is the rolling nature of Manjaro, not so much the actual distro functionality. That's ok but a bit harsh to call it "silly" when they make no secret of what they are and the nature of a "rolling" distro.

In any case, I hope MX never has a KDE version as an official release. Don't get me wrong, I quite like KDE Plasma and I like & use Qt apps; but, Plasma5 is a monolith - no doubt about that- and I am very concerned that developer efforts that are split between multiple "official" versions of desktops is simply too much effort to ask of developers who currently produce (IMHO) the single best Xfce based distro available. All the requisite programs are in the repos for you to download and turn your MX install into a KDE vehicle if you so desire. I see no need for developer work to be applied.

I will say though that in my over 20 years of using Unix/Linux systems that mixing desktops on the one install can be a bigger time consumer than "rolling" releases ever was?! Consistent theming is one real headache, especially font rendering, but also dependency assumptions by apps in their operation; like database assumptions, security assumptions, etc etc.

There are any number of excellent KDE specific distros already that are not full rolling distros, PCLinuxOS and SolydK come to mind. Anyway, just an opinion.

greywolf.

While I agree with greywolf on his point about an official MX KDE, I did install KDE through the MX Package Installer. It runs very well with the only conflict that some MX XFCE configuration options will not work and that is understandable. It also looks quite nice and I have no issues with the way it looks form a theme(ing) standpoint.

In addition it has no effect on the XFCE side of things, except that you can run some of the KDE apps such as Dolphin, kwrite, kate, konsole and others.

greywolf wrote:So @cgriffin, it appears what you actually don't like

the thing that I think is silly about Manjaro is all of the nonstop updates

is the rolling nature of Manjaro, not so much the actual distro functionality. That's ok but a bit harsh to call it "silly" when they make no secret of what they are and the nature of a "rolling" distro.

In any case, I hope MX never has a KDE version as an official release. Don't get me wrong, I quite like KDE Plasma and I like & use Qt apps; but, Plasma5 is a monolith - no doubt about that- and I am very concerned that developer efforts that are split between multiple "official" versions of desktops is simply too much effort to ask of developers who currently produce (IMHO) the single best Xfce based distro available. All the requisite programs are in the repos for you to download and turn your MX install into a KDE vehicle if you so desire. I see no need for developer work to be applied.

I will say though that in my over 20 years of using Unix/Linux systems that mixing desktops on the one install can be a bigger time consumer than "rolling" releases ever was?! Consistent theming is one real headache, especially font rendering, but also dependency assumptions by apps in their operation; like database assumptions, security assumptions, etc etc.

There are any number of excellent KDE specific distros already that are not full rolling distros, PCLinuxOS and SolydK come to mind. Anyway, just an opinion.

greywolf.

+1
Well put.

I won't call this idea stupid, and you can seek a KDE-using MX if you like; I just don't know why. XFCE has served me very well ever since I started using it. (Which, if I recall, was sometime before the invention of MX. I was using XFCE with antiX for a while.)

greywolf wrote:So @cgriffin, it appears what you actually don't like

the thing that I think is silly about Manjaro is all of the nonstop updates

is the rolling nature of Manjaro, not so much the actual distro functionality. That's ok but a bit harsh to call it "silly" when they make no secret of what they are and the nature of a "rolling" distro.

In any case, I hope MX never has a KDE version as an official release. Don't get me wrong, I quite like KDE Plasma and I like & use Qt apps; but, Plasma5 is a monolith - no doubt about that- and I am very concerned that developer efforts that are split between multiple "official" versions of desktops is simply too much effort to ask of developers who currently produce (IMHO) the single best Xfce based distro available. All the requisite programs are in the repos for you to download and turn your MX install into a KDE vehicle if you so desire. I see no need for developer work to be applied.

I will say though that in my over 20 years of using Unix/Linux systems that mixing desktops on the one install can be a bigger time consumer than "rolling" releases ever was?! Consistent theming is one real headache, especially font rendering, but also dependency assumptions by apps in their operation; like database assumptions, security assumptions, etc etc.

There are any number of excellent KDE specific distros already that are not full rolling distros, PCLinuxOS and SolydK come to mind. Anyway, just an opinion.

greywolf.

Hi Greywolf,

totally respect your perspective here. I will amend what I said and just state that "it's silly for ME to be running manjaro when rolling is not important to me." I guess I could run SolydK, but I like the Mepis community. Not here to make waves, I appreciate all of the work that those who have been dedicated to this community and distro have done. I really do like KDE.

Best,
Chris

Have you looked at the result of using Package Installer to install KDE? I understand that is pretty nice, and would be interested in hearing what you think.

Jerry3904 wrote:Have you looked at the result of using Package Installer to install KDE? I understand that is pretty nice, and would be interested in hearing what you think.

I have not done that yet, but I will do so in a VM and see if the experience is good. Right now I'm under deadline and don't have time for that adventure, however trivial it might be.
Thanks,
Chris

cgriffin wrote: Hi Greywolf,

totally respect your perspective here. I will amend what I said and just state that "it's silly for ME to be running manjaro when rolling is not important to me." I guess I could run SolydK, but I like the Mepis community. Not here to make waves, I appreciate all of the work that those who have been dedicated to this community and distro have done. I really do like KDE.

Best,
Chris

Hi Chris,

I totally understand, back in the old Mepis days I was a total KDE fanatic! Still cannot stand Gnome but Xfce is a different Gtk story for me now.

Please please don't think I was wanting you to leave? I have 'heaps' of back pain at present and I appear like a grouch to everyone?! I was just making a couple of suggestions you may care to look at. I am sure you could achieve a satisfactory Plasma outcome from downloads here.

My real point (and concern) that I was trying to make was more about developer involvement in producing yet another version of the distro. It's not necessarily a simple task and these folks are superhuman I know but, I just don't like more and more pressure to produce user wants. Hope that makes sense. I used to do a bit of this work and I know it can quickly become a real burden. I currently support a couple of hundred Linux users who use different distros and desktops but I only support 'default' desktops for each distro.

Regarding the desktop, from memory, one of the main hassles with mixing them was the mess the menus ended up in! But hey, I haven't actually tinkered much with this sort of thing since I settled here, it may be a lot better than it used to be. I would suggest you create a new (temporary) user and fiddle around with your experiments in there until you are happy. If you don't like it, blow them away and have another go!

Good luck,
greywolf.

I did install KDE from the package manager and it looks and feels very reasonable. Is it my imageination, or are the KDE fonts not rendered as nicely as in XFCE?

Thanks for your pointers.
Chris

cgriffin wrote:I did install KDE from the package manager and it looks and feels very reasonable. Is it my imageination, or are the KDE fonts not rendered as nicely as in XFCE?

Thanks for your pointers.
Chris

I think you can improve them by going into the KDE system settings and fooling around with the font settings. Noto Sans is a good choice all around.

After messing around with KDE, I realized that you guys are all correct in your assessment that XFCE is just better. Once I turned on compositing I realized I'm perfectly happy with it.

Done

There are two things I like with KDE.

One is panel previews of running apps. I tried to get previews working in XFCE with DockbarX. I tried both with Kwin and Compiz. According to DockbarX (Github page) you need Kwin or Kwin (KDE) compatibility in Compiz. There's no KDE compatibility plugin in Compiz 0.8.

The other thing I like about KDE is Kwin. It feels a little bit more polished than Compiz.

That being said I think Xfce is by far the best DE. I don't like KDE except Kwin and panel previews. Xfce is very usable. I'm just trying to add a little bling. I guess I'm trying to recreate Windows on Linux which may not be the best idea.

I am getting app panel previews with compiz, but cannot find the setting that enables that.

Yes, I have them in Compiz, but it's not KDE or Windows quality. You find the settings in CompizConfig Settings Manager > Window Previews.

Maybe it's possible to get KDE quality previews in Xfce with DockbarX, but I don't know for sure. DockbarX didn't give me any previews at all, not even with Kwin.

On MX 16 I had kwin installed, in XFCE, not full KDE, just the window manager. It did a nice job of desktop effects.

To clarify what I mean with KDE or Windows quality I mean previews that can show both maximized and minimized apps (in Compiz no previews for minimized apps). In KDE there's a setting to show thumbnails/previews for minimized apps also.

There's also the Aero peak (?) functionality which lets you hover the preview and the window will maximize until you remove the cursor from the preview. I think KDE has this too.

richb wrote:On MX 16 I had kwin installed, in XFCE, not full KDE, just the window manager. It did a nice job of desktop effects.

Kwin is very nice. Compiz is also nice, but was never really "finished". Xfwm4 is good for everyday use, it's just missing the bling; the cube, the scale/present windows (show all windows functionality), the window previews. Nothing essential for getting work done, it's mostly for fun and bragging rights.

More than bling for me, although that is nice. The present windows and desktop features I find very useful. Also with the ability to modify emerald themes I can make window titlebar and buttons a reasonable size for my large display.

richb wrote:More than bling for me, although that is nice. The present windows and desktop features I find very useful. Also with the ability to modify emerald themes I can make window titlebar and buttons a reasonable size for my large display.

No it's not only bling. I just wanted to state that being without this functionality doesn't hamper my productivity. I want these features, but one has to respect every project for what it is. Xfce has a focus on stability before eye-candy and that's good.

Ideally I would want a desktop with:
Xfce
Kwin (or a Compiz version that can match Kwin)
Emerald (there is Smaragd for Kwin)
DockbarX or similar to give a modern touch to the Xfce panel

But now we are quite far from a basic "works out of the box" desktop.

Have you tried some of the other bars available in Package Installer, such as Docky or Plank?

I never have, but have often thought about it...

dreamer wrote:

richb wrote:More than bling for me, although that is nice. The present windows and desktop features I find very useful. Also with the ability to modify emerald themes I can make window titlebar and buttons a reasonable size for my large display.

No it's not only bling. I just wanted to state that being without this functionality doesn't hamper my productivity. I want these features, but one has to respect every project for what it is. Xfce has a focus on stability before eye-candy and that's good.

Ideally I would want a desktop with:
Xfce
Kwin (or a Compiz version that can match Kwin)
Emerald (there is Smaragd for Kwin)
DockbarX or similar to give a modern touch to the Xfce panel

But now we are quite far from a basic "works out of the box" desktop.

If you do get all that working, that sounds like an interesting respin or add-on possiblity for MX. I built Smaragd a while back for KDE 4; I'll have to see if that got updated for Plasma 5.

Edit: it looks like it did, but repos might have it under another name...this is a pretty cool site that finds packages in repos, and it shows ours is the only one that has it under that particular name: https://repology.org/metapackage/kwin-s ... d/versions

Just smaragd is pretty barren, too: https://repology.org/metapackage/smaragd/versions

My favorite dock was Avant Window Manager. It isn't in development anymore. Docky or Plank are more minimalist. They aren't full panel replacements. They don't support notification area for example. Then there is Cairo/GLX dock which is full featured, but I never liked that one because it had a weird floating notification area.

Let me just say this: I'm perfectly happy with MX-17 as is. I was playing with window-managers and Dockbarx just to see what could be done. I will stick with a vanilla version of MX-17, because it's the cleanest solution.

I don't want to be a pessimist, but with Wayland around the corner I think the possibilities will shrink. I'm glad that I got to try a lot of great Linux software during the last decade. I've played with everything from openbox and up. I'm not a command line guy so I avoided the most extreme minimalist environments. It's been a lot of fun. And to be honest I'm perfectly happy with a vanilla version of MX Linux. Sometimes it just feels good to experiment a little to see what can be done. I didn't expect Kwin to work well in Xfce, but it did.

I'd like to run a few select KDE apps in XFCE, such as Konsole and Dolphin, maybe others.

Would I be better just installing the ones I want, or installing the full KDE desktop. I don't want to screw up my system too bad. If I install the KDE desktop and don't end up wanting it all will i be able to remove it?

I just installed the ones that I wanted and were in the MX repos. k3b, a good disk burner for one, and the reader Okular. Certainly you will get extra dependencies in your system with KDE apps, but I cannot see any need to install the full KDE desktop.

I agree with Gordon, there's no need to install the full KDE desktop to get the goodies you really want. I started as a KDE user, but now I find XFCE and the apps installed in MX are more than adequate for my needs. K3B is indeed the best burning app, but I no longer have built in optical drives, so my need for it is next to non-existent. Okular is the pista resistance of document viewers and with plugins, it can be extended further, but I've grown to appreciate and prefer a simpler option with less bells and whistles. I used to prefer Dolphin and it is a very good file manager, though Thunar with customisation's does just as well. I sometimes miss the unbeaten double pane view Dolphin has, but window snapping and having 2-3 Thunar windows open simultaneously makes up for everything Dolphin offered and adds more capabilities besides.

If you do go ahead and install the full KDE desktop, your XFCE desktop will remain unaltered and you will be able to switch between them at the login screen. If you end up not liking it, you can always remove what you can of it, but your base system will not remain unscathed, there will always be the "hangover after the party". You'll find the default KDE configuration will be rather uninspiring and bland as it will be all KDE defaults and will have no polish added, also many apps will look like they have been smacked hard with the ugly stick. It's not impossible to correct a good number of them, but there will always be apps that will just not look right, even after lots of delicate polishing.

I spent 3-4 days building a custom ISO for my wife who is a KDE user before I installed it onto her machine and for the next 2 weeks, I was tweaking a thing here, a thing there to refine it just that little bit more. I eventually had to find a stop point because the more I refined, the more I found. She's happy enough with what she's got, but its not as stable as if she had used straight XFCE.

m_pav wrote:
If you do go ahead and install the full KDE desktop, your XFCE desktop will remain unaltered and you will be able to switch between them at the login screen. If you end up not liking it, you can always remove what you can of it, but your base system will not remain unscathed,

That's not always so. When I had MX-16.1 and ran KDE on it, certain things changed in Xfce which I found out later it was from the settings I changed in KDE also affected Xfce.

I'm OK with screwing things up in XFCE, I like KDE and I have a core-i7 with 16gb RAM so I want my full desktop environment.
If I really screw it up, no biggie I will just wipe and reinstall. I sometimes do that for fun anyways, just to keep things fresh. All files and documents are in dropbox and spideroak, media is on another partition that's not affected. The only pain is logging into browsers, turning on Sync, and getting all of the email accounts set up in Thunderbird again.

I got full KDE installed and it's running in a dark mode with the Compass Icon theme, I'm liking it so far.
My only problem is that there are some apps (such as Firefox) where the dialogs have both a dark background and dark text. Also Thunderbird looks like crap. I wish I could force Thunderbird to not use the dark background while everything else did.

Anyways, if anyone has some quick tips to help me fix these two niggling details I would really appreciate it, but I can live with it.

All the best and thanks to a great community. It's this community that brought me back to MX from the Arch world, it's cool to see the same names as I saw back in the Mepis days years ago

you can override firefox and thunderbird default theme like this
where GTK_THEME is a gtk theme.

Thanks, this works beautifully.

Mauser wrote: That's not always so. When I had MX-16.1 and ran KDE on it, certain things changed in Xfce which I found out later it was from the settings I changed in KDE also affected Xfce.

I can see how you'd come to have the impression that's what I meant, maybe I could have written it a little differently, however, my focus in making those statements was on the "Base System", not the current user profile settings. For example, on a system that has been "contaminated" by a different desktop UI which was subsequently removed, create a new user and the skeleton laid down for the new user account profile will be pure, as if never touched and XFCE will operate identically to a fresh install, however, the Base System will continue to be scarred by remnants left behind from the secondary UI.

There is also a reset method we have in the Wiki in the Great Xfce Collection:

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/xfce/xfce-comm ... ult%20Xfce

(Not sure it would work in this case...)

m_pav wrote: That's not always so. When I had MX-16.1 and ran KDE on it, certain things changed in Xfce which I found out later it was from the settings I changed in KDE also affected Xfce.

My experience has been somewhat different. I have seen no issues that bother me when using KDE System Settings spilling over to XFCE

mime type settings, not xfce settings

How long is 16.1 snapshot going to be supported?

https://wiki.debian.org/LTS

MX15 to 16.1 are Debian Jessie-based.

After that you won't get any more security updates.

Getting a FORBIDDEN message with that link. Actually with all Debian wiki links. Do you have to join their website to get access?

No - it's just you, Rich! Opens fine here.

I will have to run it down then. Perhaps some extension I have enabled. Very unusual as I have not seen that before on any public sites.


EDIT:
It was because I had my VPN activated. When I disable it I have access. More precisely the address my VPN is using is being blocked by Debian. They apparently use a spam blocker, and spam has come from that address. Not me.
We have experienced this occasionally with Forum registrations with people using VPN's

cgriffin wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:48 pm Hi Stevo,
the thing that I think is silly about Manjaro is all of the nonstop updates. I realized at some point that I have a computer to get work done, and keeping the OS at the bleeding edge is not work that I'm interested in doing. I got bigger fish to fry.

My primary laptop is Manjaro based, and honestly the stable branch gets on average one update a week. The testing gets 2 or 3 update4s a week and the unstable branch gets daily updates. I personally run the stable branch and haven't run into updates happening so often I am unable to get work done. If you are / were on the unstable branch you could just setup a crom job to update after hours nightly.

With all that said, I am looking forward to an official KDE version of MX, MX is the Debian based distro I use.

I know of no plans for an official KDE version.

There may be an unofficial KDE respin by one or more of the developers, that's about it for now.

Maybe. I know I'm in the forum; maybe in the Wiki.

My principal Manjaro complaint was killing the 32 bit release.
I like to run the same version on all hardware I install.
Kinda lost interest when I heard they would drop it.
Still lots of 32 bit boxes around here.

My torrent log shows MX 32 bit up loads at about 60% of the 64 bit, so there is still plenty of interest in 32.

And with so many major distros dropping support for 32 bit, I imagine it will continue.
In Venezuela, most of the computer stores have gone broke, no few new equipment.
WinXP is still strong with Win7 close behind and some Win8. (just MHO)
Many try to run Win10 on old hardware and it fails to please.
Remember, one can pick up a DVD of whatever you want in kiosks and markets.

Gordon Cooper wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 11:11 pm My torrent log shows MX 32 bit up loads at about 60% of the 64 bit, so there is still plenty of interest in 32.

That's right. I keep data for SourceForge and LinuxTracker, and there the overall percentages for MX-17x are roughly 2:1:

386 = 20,879 = 37%
x64 = 56,007 = 63%

Many of the 32 bit torrent uploads are going to South America, Brazil in particular.

I do enjoy the 64 bit with => 4 GiB RAM,
but the 32 bit, 1 GiB RAM netbooks are easier to carry around.
They are adequate on MX with a couple or 3 apps open: FF, LibO & Thunar;
although, admittedly slower than the 64 bit.
A 2 GiB RAM, 32 bit netbook is much better, so I hear.

Jerry3904 wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:36 pm I know of no plans for an official KDE version.

Stevo wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:46 pm There may be an unofficial KDE respin by one or more of the developers, that's about it for now.

Man, I thought I saw on Reddit that MX was working on a Plasma desktop version. A bummer as while I always hated KDE, Plasma 5 has really changed my mind on the DE.

I'm very close to release a test KDE respin of MX. Probably by the end of the week.

Will this have Xfce removed and replaced by KDE Plasma? I installed Plasma 5.12 on vanilla MX from Neptune repos a while back which worked fine but abandoned it due to much duplication of programs. Some MX Tools don't work with Plasma so ideally those should be removed also which sounds like a lot of work..
Ended up doing a netinstall of Stretch and added the same Plasma 5 with kde-plasma-desktop. This worked well but obviously doesn't have the nice MX Tools. Discussion about that is here - https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 36#p445636

I will be trying it out when it's released and appreciate your effort, Adrian!

sunrat wrote: Wed Aug 15, 2018 9:40 pm Will this have Xfce removed and replaced by KDE Plasma? I installed Plasma 5.12 on vanilla MX from Neptune repos a while back which worked fine but abandoned it due to much duplication of programs. Some MX Tools don't work with Plasma so ideally those should be removed also which sounds like a lot of work..
Ended up doing a netinstall of Stretch and added the same Plasma 5 with kde-plasma-desktop. This worked well but obviously doesn't have the nice MX Tools. Discussion about that is here - https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 36#p445636

I will be trying it out when it's released and appreciate your effort, Adrian!

KDE Plasma? I may need to be educated on what KDE is like recently, because I haven't used it in seven years. I thought ever since KDE 4, the main KDE was "plasma workspaces." What, did KDE quit that because too many people dropped KDE in disgust like I did?

Even if KDE's main product doesn't use plasma anymore, I can't imagine why MX would abandon XFCE. It works too well.

MX is not abandoning Xfce, and not producing an official KDE release.

Period.

The word is UNOFFICIAL, people.

KDE now consists of Frameworks, Plasma, and Applications.
Simply explained - https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread. ... ost2789437

anyone try going into synaptic and downloading the KDE Metapackage?

crazysquirrel wrote: Tue Mar 19, 2019 11:24 am anyone try going into synaptic and downloading the KDE Metapackage?

Can't see why when the MX Package installer has a more customized KDE-standard install...

crazysquirrel wrote: Tue Mar 19, 2019 11:24 am anyone try going into synaptic and downloading the KDE Metapackage?

Yes. Adrian's KDE Respin is much better.

is that in MX tools?

crazysquirrel wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 10:09 am is that in MX tools?

Look here.
http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/Community_Respins/

Check these topics for more info -

http://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=100&t=46126
http://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=100&t=48617