Some ideas for MX Linux 25 KDE

[Dearth]

Hi guys,

have you already given some thoughts about the MX Linux 25 KDE release?

I have some proposals regarding apps and tweaks that could be present in the next release. Those are of course my personal choices based on my experience and I would like to know, what do you think about them.

Default GUI apps:
• Browser: Firefox (already present)
• Mail: Thunderbird (already present)
• Office suite: LibreOffice (already present)
• Ebook reader: Foliate (already present)
• Music player: Sayonara Player (https://sayonara-player.com/), a sleeker, better looking and performative alternative to Strawberry that is currently the default music player
• Video player: SMPlayer, uses mpv as its backend, works much better than VLC, does not have any visual artifacts during playback
• Tag editor: Puddletag (https://github.com/puddletag/puddletag), available in the test repo currently
• Picture viewer: qimgv (https://github.com/easymodo/qimgv) or nomacs (https://github.com/nomacs/nomacs) which is developed again and currently available in the test repo
• Clipboard manager: CopyQ (https://github.com/hluk/CopyQ/)
• Calculator: Qalculate-Qt (https://qalculate.github.io/), simply the best calculator app out there)
• Graphics: GIMP (already present)
• PDF: Okular (already present)
• PDF manipulation: pdfarranger (https://github.com/pdfarranger/pdfarranger)
• Text editor: Kate (already present)
• Photo management: DigiKam (already present)
• Remote connection: KDE Connect (already present)
• Screenshot: Flameshot (https://flameshot.org/) KDE's Spectacle, because Flameshot does not work well with Wayland
• Screen recording: vokoscreenNG (https://github.com/vkohaupt/vokoscreenNG)
• Torrent: qBittorrent
• Twin panel file manager: Double Commander-qt
• Comic Reader: YAC Reader (https://www.yacreader.com/)
• Video transcoder: Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr/)
• Video editor: Avidemux (https://avidemux.sourceforge.net)
• Disk cleaner: BleachBit
• File search: FSearch (https://github.com/cboxdoerfer/fsearch)
• System info: hardinfo2 (https://github.com/hardinfo2/hardinfo2)
• Password manager: KeePassXC
• Local file transfer: Local Send (https://github.com/localsend/localsend)
• Battery monitor: Battery Monitor (https://github.com/mamolinux/battery-monitor)
• Sound input/output selector: Sound Switcher Indicator (https://github.com/yktoo/indicator-sound-switcher)
• Firewall: OpenSnitch (https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch)
• System backup: Timeshift (already present)
• Data Backup: Kopia (upstream offers .deb packages and a custom repository: https://kopia.io/docs/installation/#lin ... ian-ubuntu, https://github.com/kopia/kopia/releases, so it would be easy to keep up with the latest release)

KDE tools worth having installed by default and are available in the Debian repos as a part of KDE suite:
• KAlarm
• KNotes
• KMouseTool
• KRename (already present)
• KolourPaint
• plasma-browser-integration (already present)
• plasma-systemmonitor (already present)
• kmenuedit
• kde-config-cron

There are some apps installed by default in MX 23, which I suppose are not necessary and could be removed by default :
• Games (KMahjong, KMines, etc.)
• KTorrent (as qBittorrent is a much better app)
• Yakuake (I do not know if it is necessary to keep it if there’s Konsole available already)
• Gwenview (qimgv or nomacs are better apps)
• KWrite (unnecessary if Kate is installed)
• KCalc (unnecessary if Qalculate is installed)
• Strawberry (unnecessary if Sayonara is installed)
• VLC (unnecessary if SMPlayer is installed)
• KDE Spectacle (unnecessary if Flameshot and VokoscrennNG are installed)
• Neofetch (unmaintained)

CLI apps worth having by default:
• Midnight Commander (already present)
• Tilde (https://os.ghalkes.nl/tilde/)
• Btop (https://github.com/aristocratos/btop)
• PowerTop (https://github.com/fenrus75/powertop)
• Preload (https://sourceforge.net/projects/preload/)
• Aria2 (https://github.com/aria2/aria2)
• fastfetch (https://github.com/fastfetch-cli/fastfetch) as a potential replacement of neofetch

Tweaks:
• Add font clarity implementation via stem-darkening in MX Tweak or turn on by default → viewtopic.php?p=792221
• Add an option to disable the bracketed paste functionality in MX Tweak of turn it off by default → viewtopic.php?p=788810
• Disable autostart of plasma-discover by default in MX Tweak
• Keep “Enable single-click” turned on by default in MX Tweak

Edit: Added additional links to applications' websites.

[Eadwine Rose]

That is not "some"

[asqwerth]

I can understand the debate over other apps that carry out the same task as current default apps, but I note that you seem to want to load the default iso with tons more apps that carry out more specialised tasks.

For example, your list contains lots of AV/media tools for, say, editing or recording, which I don't think belong in the default iso. They can be easily installed from MXPI and some are already in the Popular apps tab.

I do agree that neofetch is no longer maintained so an alternative will need to be found, but that's not a difficult task. Here are 2: screenfetch, and Manjaro forums have been recommending fastfetch.

Anyway, I will leave Adrian, the dev in charge of MX-KDE to respond to you.

[dolphin_oracle]

thank you for the suggestions, particularly the links

[siamhie]

I do agree that neofetch is no longer maintained so an alternative will need to be found, but that's not a difficult task. Here are 2: screenfetch, and Manjaro forums have been recommending fastfetch.

Yes please..

Code: Select all

fastfetch -l none -c /usr/share/fastfetch/presets/all.jsonc 

siamhie@flux23
--------------
OS: MX Libretto 23.4 x86_64
Host: MS-7C56 (2.0)
Bios (UEFI): A.F0 (5.17)
Bootmgr: UEFI OS - BOOTX64.EFI
Board: B550-A PRO (MS-7C56) (2.0)
Chassis: Desktop (2.0)
Kernel: Linux 6.9.12-amd64
Init System: systemd 1:252.6-1mx23+1
Uptime: 10 hours, 46 mins
Loadavg: 0.17, 0.28, 0.25
Processes: 505
Packages: 2210 (dpkg)
Shell: bash 5.2.15
Display (HP X27q): 2560x1440 @ 165 Hz in 27" [External]
Monitor (HP X27q): 2560x1440 px @ 164.834 Hz - 597x336 mm (26.97 inches, 108.90 ppi) [HDR Compatible]
LM: lightdm-autologin 1.32.0 (X11)
WM: Fluxbox (X11)
Theme: Yaru-Orange-dark [GTK2/3]
Icons: MB-Mango-Suru-GLOW [GTK2/3]
Font: Sans (11pt) [GTK2/3]
Cursor: oxy-hot_orange
Terminal: xfce4-terminal 1.1.3
Terminal Font: monofur (16pt)
Terminal Size: 104 columns x 50 rows (1144px x 1150px)
Terminal Theme: #FFFFFF (FG) - #000000 (BG) [Dark]
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (32) @ 5.08 GHz - 27.1°C
CPU Cache (L1): 16x32.00 KiB (D), 16x32.00 KiB (I)
CPU Cache (L2): 16x512.00 KiB (U)
CPU Cache (L3): 2x32.00 MiB (U)
CPU Usage: 0%
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (40) @ 2.73 GHz - 44.0°C (306.00 MiB / 11.95 GiB, 3%) [Discrete]
Memory: 2.15 GiB / 31.27 GiB (7%)
Swap: 0 B / 64.00 GiB (0%)
Disk (/): 10.44 GiB / 456.63 GiB (2%) - ext4
Disk (/media/Data): 1001.85 GiB / 7.22 TiB (14%) - ext4
Disk (/media/Stream): 136.05 GiB / 394.39 GiB (34%) - ext4
Public IP: X.X.X.X (Forest Grove, US)
Local IP (wlan0): 192.168.254.54/24 (54:07:7d:7f:77:1b) [MTU 1500] <UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,LOWE>
DNS: 192.168.254.254
Wifi: Ziply-CCA0_5G - 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) - 5 GHz - WPA2 (100%)
Date & Time: 2025-01-07 06:24:08
Locale: en_US.UTF-8
Vulkan: 1.3.230 - radv [Mesa 22.3.6]
OpenGL: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 22.3.6
Users: siamhie@:0 - login time 2025-01-06 19:37:52
Sound: Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller Analog Stereo (69%)
Weather: +33°F - Clear (Forest Grove, Oregon, United States)
Network IO (wlan0): 1.48 KiB/s (IN) - 1.03 KiB/s (OUT)
Disk IO (ATA ST8000DM004-2CX1): 0 B/s (R) - 0 B/s (W)
Disk IO (ATA Samsung SSD 870): 0 B/s (R) - 0 B/s (W)
Disk IO (WDS500G1X0E-00AFY0): 0 B/s (R) - 0 B/s (W)
Disk IO (WDS500G3XHC-00SJG0): 0 B/s (R) - 0 B/s (W)
Physical Disk (ATA ST8000DM004-2CX1): 7.28 TiB [HDD, Fixed]
Physical Disk (ATA Samsung SSD 870): 465.76 GiB [SSD, Fixed]
Physical Disk (WDS500G1X0E-00AFY0): 465.76 GiB [SSD, Fixed] - 35.9°C
Physical Disk (WDS500G3XHC-00SJG0): 465.76 GiB [SSD, Fixed] - 31.9°C
Version: fastfetch 2.33.0 (x86_64)

[Stevo]

We do have a build of fastfetch in MX 23 main, if anyone want to try it. Apparently it's already kind of outdated, as is even Sid's, so someone's a busy developer. I've been keeping YACReader current in our repos also, since it's not in Debian.

An alternative Qt media player could be QMPlay2, also not in Debian, though deb-multimedia has it, but I wish it would resume a file from when you closed it as easily as SMPlayer.

I don't know why a GTK battery-monitor when the native KDE power management can do the same things.

[Adrian]

fastfetch works fine for me and it is indeed a bit faster, I made the change to switch to it since neofetch is not maintained anymore, no reason to add software that's at the end of the road.

I guess we are going to discuss some potential software changes in the dev team, but I don't foresee adding more stuff, maybe replacing some defaults (qBittorrent for kbittorrent for example). Yakuake will not be removed just because we have konsole because konsole cannot do a drop down terminal (with F12 or F4) like yakuake, can it?

[siamhie]

We do have a build of fastfetch in MX 23 main, if anyone want to try it. Apparently it's already kind of outdated, as is even Sid's, so someone's a busy developer.

The one in our repo (2.21.3) came out in Aug 2024 and Sid's (2.30.1) came out in Nov 2024 and the one I grabbed from the git page (2.33.0) came out Dec 2024.
A lot of it is bug fixes, logos added and OS depend features added. It is definitely one busy project.

[Eadwine Rose]

@siamhie Be careful with that green, it is very hard to read, better to bold than colorize. :)

[asqwerth]

We do have a build of fastfetch in MX 23 main, if anyone want to try it. Apparently it's already kind of outdated.......

Cool. Just installed it and note that the version in our repo only recognises MX as Debian.

Does the latest version recognise MX as its own distro?

[oops, siamhie's post above shows it does recognise MX now. Does it have the MX logo?]