KDE neon

[fox]

I've never been much of a KDE fan, but I thought I'd like to try a different desktop on my Ubuntu 16.04/.10 distros. After reading that the Solus Budgie Desktop can mess up a Unity installation, I decided to give KDE Neon a try. I installed it from a ppa and it worked without incident. I played with it a bit to see if I could customize it to my liking, and also to see if it worked well with virtualbox and my statistical applications. I was able to make everything work that I tried. I thought next that I would like to try making it look similar to my Unity Desktop. I could get the Numix Circle icons installed and showing, and I could also move the menubar to the left, and eventually I found instructions for making top and left menubars having the same characteristics as the launcher and panel in Unity. KDE also seems to run at about the same speed as Unity, so this looks like a viable option for me. What I would like to do now is to get ideas any members who are regular KDE users to see what else interesting I can do with KDE Neon. Might even be nice to have a PLUG presentation on the subject to promote some discussion.

Neon is unlikely to get me off of Unity, but I like having options just to change the scenery once in awhile. Incidentally, I also did try Budgie on one of my computers, and sure enough, it removed my ability to sign into different desktops. I played with it awhile anyway before removing it. It's OK, but other than the slide-in settings window on the right, it doesn't have any features that I found especially interesting. Surprisingly, it doesn't even allow you to put a panel on the left side of the display. Apparently it was a past feature that was removed, and there is some talk of bringing it back.

[buster]

Open your files the usual way (I click 'harry' on my desktop). Go to 'view' at the top (You might have to make the menu appear at the top of an open file window.) Scroll down and see if it has something like 'extra pane' and click it.

I love this feature which started I think in KDE. You get a window open that can be in two places at the same time, rather than opening and resizing two window. I often use one side for downloads and the other side for shares on another computer, and then just drag and drop. On my Win7 laptop I have a linux machine in VMWare where I do all my downloading, sometimes on iffy sites. Then I drag and drop to shares on my Windows machines.

Sometimes I don't manage to get my Guest additions working. This is even better, and covers all my machines.

[fox]

Thanks, Harry. I did see the double pane feature and I wish Nautilus had it too. The one file manager feature I wish one of them had is the ability to drill through folders like you can in the Apple Finder. What KDE distro are you using? Is it KDE Neon or an earlier version?

[Jason]

I've never tried it but Marlin might fit as a Finder replacement. See this post:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/339125/is-there-a-linux-file-manager-with-a-proper-drop-down-tree-view-like-finder-in

Scroll down about 2/3 to the end.

[fox]

Marlin looks good, and it is as close to the "drill through folders" implementation I had in a Mac utility as anything I've ever seen. At one point, Marlin was available to Ubuntu as a ppa, but this hasn't been updated, and a post I read suggested that the project hasn't been active for at least a year. Too bad!!

Dolphin is the next best thing I've seen. It does drill through folders like Marlin, only it does so vertically, and you have to keep pressing the triangle by the folder to get it to drill. Still, Dolphin should work, even in Unity, and I may start to use it whether I stick with KDE or not.

Incidentally, I'm still playing with KDE and I now really like the look and features. Unfortunately, I've run into two bugs. The first is disconnection from my wireless network after a period of sleep. I had to reboot to get it back. The second is in kmail, which I don't have to use. But it is much improved over previous versions I've tried, and has a much nicer, more professional appearance. Unfortunately, it has forgotten my mail folders on two occasions (i.e. the mail folders window has nothing in them). Quitting and restarting the app brought them back. But I can of course continue to work in Thunderbird in KDE.

[buster]

"Incidentally, I'm still playing with KDE and I now really like the look and features. Unfortunately, I've run into two bugs."

The bugs may not be related to KDE but to that particular implementation of it. I experienced the sleep/disconnect bug a few months ago, but I can't remember what I was using at the time.

[fox]

Did you try, kmail, Harry? I have run into more problems with it. Now it is quitting on me before it loads anything.

[buster]

Konquerer and Kmail  My goodness that brings back memories. I would guess I haven't used either for a decade or longer. I never use the browsers or email programs that come with Gnome or Windows either. I use Firefox and Thunderbird not because they are the best necessarily, but because they work in any OS and I know them already. But years ago, I guess with Mandrake, I used Kmail. Surprised it's still around. It used to be quite good.

[fox]

On the Neon install on Ubuntu 16.04 (via ppa), Korgac constantly fails and gives an error message at startup. Kmail no longer works at all; I even tried reinstalling it. But this seems to be an ongoing issue, as I've seen a few postings about it. Interesting enough, if I boot back into Unity, kmail works fine. Go figure. It seems that there are still bugs in KDE 5.8 Neon, at least when installed into vanilla Ubuntu 16.04.

[William Park]

Have you tried it on Kubuntu?

[fox]

Nope, in Ubuntu. Of course when you run KDE in Ubuntu, it's called Kubuntu on the startup screen. But at this point, I have no intention of totally leaving Unity for KDE, even if KDE Neon was bug-free. In the past I have run KDE on top of Unity with no problems; the two DE's really shouldn't interfere with each other. At work I have a lab computer running Ubuntu 16.10 and I installed KDE Neon on top of it. I'll be curious to see, when I go in tomorrow, if Neon runs more bug-free in 16.10 than in 16.04.

[buster]

When I used KDE on top of a regular Ubuntu install, it never seemed as good as Kubuntu. A little more flaky. Ran Kubuntu quite a while a few years ago in virtual. Most of us used it in the very late 90's and early 21st century because Mandrake used KDE. I tend to like it, but most of us tend to install our favourite software no matter what the OS. So it often doesn't matter a lot. I do like the Win7 look of KDE. And I know where to find things without thinking much. Always good.

[fox]

I of course don't like the Win anything look and the first thing I did with the Neon desktop was to move the panel to the top. I actually prefer it on the left like Unity and Gnome, but when I moved it to the left it also moved the indicator stuff. I have to make a new panel for the left, do the launchers on it and get rid of the launchers at the top.

[fox]

Well I now have kmail working again; some problem relating to Akonadi. But it stops working after a reboot unless you start and stop Akonadi and kmail each time. Also, I'm still getting a Korgac error every time I reboot. Not a big deal; just dismiss the error message because nothing seems to be affected. I get enough of those kind of error messages in vanilla Ubuntu anyway. The only other problem I've noticed is that the wireless doesn't seem to work after leaving the computer for a few hours and waking it up. This has been noted as a bug, and there are kluggy solutions. I don't know if this affects Ubuntu 16.10.

Addendum: On Ubuntu 16.10 I don't seem to have the same problem with kmail that I do in 16.04. It works reliably, so far. The only other problems I have detected so far on 16.10 are the same Korgac error I get on 16.04, and I got some slowdowns and even freezing when I did extensive desktop customization. However, those problems were gone with a reboot.

[fox]

I've never tried it but Marlin might fit as a Finder replacement. See this post:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/339125/is-there-a-linux-file-manager-with-a-proper-drop-down-tree-view-like-finder-in

Scroll down about 2/3 to the end.

Well Marlin may no longer be maintained, but I just found out about another file manager replacement for KDE and other desktops called Krusader. You can get it here. This one appears to have both drop-down and twin pane features, as well as other goodies. It's in the Ubuntu repos, but installing it in Unity (or Gnome I'm sure) pulls in a bunch of other KDE packages, so I haven't tried it yet. I will on one of my Ubuntu installs that already has the Neon desktop.

Well, it doesn't look so great once I got it installed. I couldn't find any way to drill down to folders on it. Dolphin is better in this regard.