How is KDE Neon as a Desktop?

[Jason]

Jason wrote:"Strangely, doing this caused the desktop (it was on my other display) to go blank (as in black) and then it restarted. "

Try this, at least in Firefox, which is probably the source of the problem. (Should be similar in other browsers.)

#1. In Firefox go to Preferences.
#2. Scroll to Applications.
#3. Select 'magnet'.
#4. Use the arrow at the right to select 'other'.
#5. Scroll to 'user', and then 'bin' and then 'qbittorrent'

Voila!

P.S. I uninstalled Ktorrent. Life is too short.

Thanks. I knew the steps involved in doing this but never though it was ktorrent that was the issue. But apparently it is after I changed the handler to Transmission, it worked perfectly. Weird. Wonder what is going on there. But I prefer Transmission anyway, though it looks a bit weird in LM KDE whith crazily big buttons. See the screencap for what I mean. I just turned off the filter bar, which is what that was and it looks fine now.

Update: Found out I can fix the issue with the huge buttons by installing qTransmission which is the same as Transmission but build using the Qt toolkit (which has the widgets for KDE apps). See the second screenshot to see what i mean.

[Jason]

Haven't received requests for KDE Wallet in LM KDE but I did in OpenSUSE with the KDE desktop. But as Buster says, it can be disabled. Just go to KDE Wallet and that opens up a configuration dialog and then unset 'Enable the KDE wallet subsystem'.

Just noticed something else interesting. Though I don't recall being asked about KDE Wallet ever, it's enabled for me. And if I go to KDE Wallet Manager, it turns out there is a few saved passwords. Seems it's been doing silently in the background and since it didn't ask for a password in the beginning (what the KDE Wallet prompt is all about), it must just be using my user password. I disabled it since I already have an encrypted password manager with LastPass.

[fox]

I would imagine that the LM tools (and there are quite a few) are either specific to KDE or there has to be a version specific to KDE. Plus, all the (K)ubuntu updates have to be checked in Mint. They probably don't have enough developers to keep that up for the KDE version or alternatively, there aren't enough users of it to make it worthwhile.

[buster]

Picked this up : "This means Linux Mint 19 will be available only in Cinnamon, Xfce and MATE editions. According to Clement, KDE apps, ecosystem and QT toolkit have “very little in common” with their present project. Another reason for dropping KDE is that Mint team works hard on developing features for tools like Xed, Mintlocale, Blueberry, Slick Greeter but they only work with MATE, Xfce and Cinnamon and not KDE.

He also said that in as much as the project wants to diversify in order to attract a bigger market for Linux, they also want to focus on what they “do well and we love doing to get better and better at doing them. KDE is amazing but it’s not what we want to focus on.”

The announcement, however, was soft on KDE users as it states they will be able to install KDE on top of Linux Mint 19 (unofficially) and will also be able to port Mint software to Kubuntu. Suggestions were also made KDE users could also try Arch Linux “to follow upstream KDE more closely”."

[Jason]

Good points, both.

Buster: I hadn't even noticed that the tools Xed, Mintlocale, Blueberry and Slick Greeter were missing. I only know what the first one even is. :-)

And it does make sense that you can install KDE on top of Linux Mint 19. From what they're saying, it seems like that what Linux Mint 18.x is since it doesn't have the apps above and gets its KDE stuff from Kubuntu directly. Not sure if the updates to KDE apps are coming from there or not. I'll check the next time I see updates. But it makes sense what Fox has said, that they'd still have to look them over to rate them in their Update Manager.
Linux Mint is slick. I had forgotten when I tried other distros how much I like their Update Manager. It's good to know before you apply an update the potential impact. In my case, if I see anything like a 4 (usually kernel updates), I use Timeshift to do a system backup beforehand and apply them one at a time (this last part they recommend).

[buster]

Jason wrote: "And it does make sense that you can install KDE on top of Linux Mint 19."

People do this, but I have to think you'd have a better experience using a KDE-centic distro rather than dropping in a 'foreign' desktop on top of a substrata designed for something different. And the KDE for Mint is going to be an 'unofficial' Mint.

[Jason]

Jason wrote: "And it does make sense that you can install KDE on top of Linux Mint 19."

People do this, but I have to think you'd have a better experience using a KDE-centic distro rather than dropping in a 'foreign' desktop on top of a substrata designed for something different. And the KDE for Mint is going to be an 'unofficial' Mint.

Perhaps. But I don't think in this case the substrata makes that much difference because it will still be the same underneath the desktop layer. Let's face it, neither of really know until it happens because neither of us understand exactly what LM changes beyond Ubuntu other than the additional applications they've created and the Cinnamon desktop which they originally created. In any case, I'm good until 2021 before I will have to make that decision.

Btw, you can do quotes just by clicking on 'Quote' button on my post and then just delete anything that doesn't apply. It makes the quotes stand out better and is a lot easier to tell at a quick glance you're quoting somebody plus it posts the name for you so you don't have to add it. If you don't see a Quote button let me know. Perhaps something is amiss.

Or You could instead just copy and paste the portion you're quoting into your message box and while selecting it, just click on the quote button above. It looks like a comic chat balloon. But then you'd still have to type in my name. But that's handy when you're quoting from outside sources.

[fox]

You KDE fans and those of you trying it out, see this article on the latest version (in beta). What caught my attention is faster startup, but there are other new features of value.

[Jason]

I like the more attractive login screens, they're pretty ugly right now. And browser integrations so you get a notification when a download is complete would be useful to me, too.

[fox]

Here is a funny one on KDE, not specific to Neon. I have it installed in Ubuntu 18.04 on one of my computers. I plugged in a usb stick and later tried to eject. No could do because Dolphin doesn't offer that option; nor is there such an option on the menubar. The solution, open Nautilus because there is such an option in it.

[Jason]

Sure there is. Right-click the device on the left-hand side and then choose 'Safely Remove...'. If you don't see the option, it may not have been actually mounted.

You can also click on the icon in the tray and there is a graphic that looks like the physical eject button on an optical drive.

Note: I'm using LM 18.3 KDE but both options should be there.

[fox]

That's what I would have thought, but neither the eject arrow shows, nor is the option to eject there in Dolphin. But both are there in Nautilus. Could there be something wrong with my installation? It's at least comforting to know that the folks developing KDE wouldn't do something so stupid like removing an eject media option.

[Jason]

Very strange. I assume that is Ubuntu 18.04 that you added KDE to?

Perhaps because you had Gnome first, it has to do the mounting under the surface and Dolphin doesn't see it. It's possible for the device to show on the left hand side but for it not to be mounted (or in this case, perhaps just not recognized as mounted). And in that case, you won't get the option for removing it. I don't know.

[fox]

It's mounted all right. I can open the disk, and Dolphin sees it. I originally installed Kubuntu-desktop from Ubuntu 16.04 or 17.04 or 17.10. I then upgraded to 18.04. I don't recall having the issue prior to 18.04 but I also don't recall plugging in a usb drive running KDE.

[fox]

OK; partly fixed now. I installed a Dolphin-plugins file and after that, I reinstalled Dolphin. Now a right-click on the icon allows me to eject the device. I still don't see the eject arrow, but that's no big deal.