Harddrive Space Disappearance and Freespace

Overview
This is just a quick list of places to look to free up space on your harddrive when using KDE. (In this article, I am dealing with version 4, but some of it does work for version 3 too.) This can be helpful if you ever suffer an anomaly of used space you just can't seem to locate and free up under the great KDE desktop.

Background Information
Sometimes rarely in Linux (running KDE) I receive the message that I'm running low on diskspace on my root (/) partition. (I only give it about 15 GBs total.) After emptying my Trash, most of the space on root (/) was still in use. So I began to dig around to find out the cause of this.

Akonadi
Size: 140.9 MB (on my system)
Location: ~/.kde/share/apps/akonadi
Though I own a Droid X smartphone, I do not use any of KDE's utilities to synchronize my devices. So I was quite surprised to see it taking up that much space. Please note, this is not the location of the installed program, just some data it had accrued about me personally and stored in my home directory.

Nepomuk
Size: 378.2 MB (on my system)
Location: ~/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk
Since no services in KDE actually use Nepomuk (and no programs I know of connect to it), currently is a 100% completely useless service. Don't let it run on your system, since it will only take up space and resources that you cannot use.

Thumbnails
Size: 4.6 GB (on my system)
Location: ~/.thumbnails
Now this one makes sense. I collect literally tens-of-thousands of images and regularly browse them, so I'm not surprised this is so large. Still, it would be nice to specify a limit to the size of this folder.

Clearing out this folder took a bit of skill. I had over 100,000 files in this directory total, and even doing `rm .thumbnails/normal/*` threw a rarely seen error: "Argument list too long"

The simple solution is just to delete the sub folder 'normal' and 'large' inside of '.thumbnails'. I could tell you some nifty console commands to hack around this, but this works just fine.


Apt cache (a.k.a. the System Package Cache)
Size: 1.3 GB (on my system)
Location: /var/cache/apt/archives/
If you are not a seasoned and knowledgeable Linux user, chances are you don't know about this one. Whenever you install any new updates or packages through any number of GUI / Graphical front-ends (such as Synaptic or Software Management) or through command-line program like dpkg or apt, all downloaded files (called packages) have to be placed somewhere while downloading. This location varies a little between Linux distributions, like Ubuntu versus Red Hat. Under Ubuntu and Debian (and any Debian forks) are placed in /var/cache/apt/archives. This can become very full with lots of temporary download files. There are a couple of ways to clear this folder out. My favorite is simply from command line:

sudo apt-get clean

Yum/DNF cache (a.k.a. the System Package Cache)
Size: 1.3 GB (on my system)
Location: /var/cache/yum/
If you are not a seasoned and knowledgeable Linux user, chances are you don't know about this one. Whenever you install any new updates or packages through any number of GUI / Graphical front-ends (such as Synaptic or Software Management) or through command-line program like dpkg or apt, all downloaded files (called packages) have to be placed somewhere while downloading. This location varies a little between Linux distributions, like Ubuntu versus Red Hat. Under Ubuntu and Debian (and any Debian forks) are placed in /var/cache/yum. This can become very full with lots of temporary download files

You should manually clear any folders of files you don't need.

Wine
Size: 5.0 GB (on my system)
Location: ~/.wine
The Wine folder. I was pretty surprised by this one also. All my Windows applications are installed in non-home-directory locations and I haven't done much with Wine lately, so this folder should have been relatively small. After doing some quick checking, I found the folder (.wine/drive_c/users/MY_USER_NAME/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files) to be the culprit. I suspect this came from updating a videogame of mine recently, since it had a multiple Gigabytes to download and install.

Trash Files (Lost/Forgotten)
Size: 2.0 GB (on my system)
Location: ~/.local/share/Trash/files/
Even after emptying the Trash through the regular interface, some large files persisted. I found them here and manually deleted them. (Side Note: I have to say, though I generally love KDE, their trash system is fairly broken with two major problems. The first is if you open the Trash to look inside, it copies all the files to the /tmp/kde-username/ folder, consuming harddrive space. In my case, I let my trash become huge, so this immediately fills up all freespace on the root / partition. This is a terrible bug they absolutely should have fixed years ago. The other problem is, like this situation, occasionally letting files slip through the cracks and not be correctly deleted.)

KTorrent Magnet Links
Size: 8.3 GB (on my system)
Location: ~/.kde/share/apps/kio_magnet
There is a bug with the KDE IO Slave for using Magnet Links in Ktorrent. Instead of downloading files using the temporary storage directory as specified within KTorrent, it dumps them to this location. That's a serious problem. The easy fix to remove this directory, and create a symbolic link (with the same name) to some temporary folder wherever you want.


Hope that helps you clear up some space on your home-directories and root partitions.

Update 1: Added the Wine section.
Update 2: Added the forgotten Trash files section.
Update 3: Added KIO_Magnet /KDE Magnet Links section.

KDE 4.5 Review: Bugs return!

So I've been using KDE 4.5 since the evening it came out. I don't know what it is about every time the KDE claims "this is a stabilizing release" but it seems to be the opposite of my experience. This is easily the buggiest point release of KDE since their last "stabilizing release" of KDE 4.3.

Now admittedly, the list of bugs is small... but they are hitting my hard and frequently. Very frequently. Usually about 12 to 20 times a day. I am hoping (and I'm pretty certain) these bugs are just for my installation.

Konqueror: I use Konqueror as my file manager, and since the upgrade about twice an hour it has a total lockup/total freeze for a duration of anywhere from 10 to 60 seconds. It's pretty horrendous sometimes. It also won't let me close tabs on occasion. There have been some more minor but less frequent bugs but I lost track.

User management: I cannot add a new user to my system, at least not through the GUIs nicely provided by KDE. I wanted to add a new one so I could check his default Konqueror configuration settings against my own. BUT creating a user is proving problematic, since after I create one and set it's password, I switch sessions to log in with it. However, at the login screen it asks me to change the password (root required) it says. HOWEVER YOU CANNOT TYPE ANYTHING INTO THE BOX. At first I thought it was an error with my wireless USB keyboard, so grumbling I plugged in a wired keyboard, but it actually made it worse (the mouse cursor stopped working when I did that). So I cannot log in with the new user I created. That's.... pretty hilariously bad.

Plasma: Presenting all Windows is slow. I don't know why because everything else seems better. This is a pretty minor bug because it does not really impair functionality, mostly. Sometimes it is so slow the cursor doesn't reach the correct window in time when enter is pressed or the window is clicked

Klipper: It stays open after you select some previous entry. It stays this way unless you click it closed. Perhaps this is a feature?

Command to Logout / Shutdown / Restart KDE4

There may be another easier way to do this, but this command will bring up a dialog box with the options to Logout / Restart or Shutdown KDE4.

qdbus org.kde.ksmserver /KSMServer org.kde.KSMServerInterface.logout 1 -1 -1

This is useful for when Plasma crashes and will not restart. (I actually have no idea how to manually restart plasma.)

KDE Compositing Won't Enable

Today, I started KDE and for some reason Compositing was disabled, and my System Settings icon was missing from its normal place in the KDE Menu. I could not re-enable Compositing. I suspect the problem is because of some recent software upgrades I loaded for KDE 4.4.2. Here is how I fixed my problem. Hopefully it will help others.

General Troubleshooting
To make sure there was no problem with my computer, I did a simple but easy test. I created a new user through KDE's system, and logged into that account. Everything worked fine. So, I knew it was a configuration file problem.

I could now compare the new account's config files (which reside in the an individual's home directory and typically start with a '.' or are stored in a directory starting with a '.'). Comparing the new account's config files against my own. I was able to eliminate quickly all of the non-KDE config files fairly quickly.

I made a backup of the .kde/ directory in my home directory, using a tar file. Then that directory, I used a simple divide-and-conquer technique for finding the troubled files. Instead of checking the over 100 config files from my directory, I simply copied the first half of the new account's config files over my own, and logged-out-logged-in to KDE to check if that fixed the problem. If not, I tried the other half, and repeating the eliminating half until I found the files the troublesome files.

Solution
The files in question was all prefixed with kwin. Had I guessed intelligently I would have tried these first. But simply overwriting all the kwin related files in ~/.kde/share/config/ with the newly created account files (which were probably created from defaults) fixed my problem. Compositing was restored and all I had to do was reset a few minor customizations I had before.

Modify / Disable Logitech Mouse Search Button

Overview
On some computer mice with extra buttons, some buttons will trigger a search commend. In Ubuntu, clicking this button will just open your browser to your default search engine. Here are details on how to make sure you have control of your mouse button, so it does not bug the hell out of you.

Background Details
Until recently, I was never plagued by this truly abysmal feature. I had remapped this little button my Logitech MX to be "go up a directory" which I frequently used in my file manager and image viewer. It was very handy.

But on a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic, suddenly my wonderful mouse was cursed with this abysmal feature. The source is your Desktop environment.

Disabling The Feature
In KDE 4.4.2, go to System Settings -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Global Keyboard Settings -> khotkeys.

Find the option for Search and disable whatever key is set.

I hope that helps all of you.

Finding the Button Key Code (Optional)
Sometimes it useful to determine what your mouse-button's keycode is. For this, we use the program 'xev.' ('xev' is part of the X-Windows system under Linux, so chances are you probably already have it on your Linux machine and do not need to install it).

Open a console, and enter the xev command. It will dump a lot of information to your terminal. Simply click the button you are curious about, and then carefully close the small graphical window that popped up. (Do this by only moving your mouse over the window-manager boards of the window, not the content area of the window, if you can. If you do move your mouse over the content area, you will see a lot more info output to your terminal, which will be slightly more work to comb through.)

Here is some sample output (from my system):

.....
FocusIn event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyAncestor

KeymapNotify event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
keys: 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0

KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
root 0x13c, subw 0x0, time 25847246, (258,7), root:(264,28),
state 0x0, keycode 64 (keysym 0xffe9, Alt_L), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
root 0x13c, subw 0x0, time 25847246, (258,7), root:(264,28),
state 0x8, keycode 111 (keysym 0xff52, Up), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False

MappingNotify event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
request MappingKeyboard, first_keycode 8, count 248

MappingNotify event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
request MappingKeyboard, first_keycode 8, count 247

KeyRelease event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
root 0x13c, subw 0x0, time 25847332, (258,7), root:(264,28),
state 0x0, keycode 225 (keysym 0x1008ff1b, XF86Search), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False

PropertyNotify event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
atom 0x187 (_NET_WM_ICON_GEOMETRY), time 25847344, state PropertyNewValue

PropertyNotify event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
atom 0x187 (_NET_WM_ICON_GEOMETRY), time 25847693, state PropertyNewValue

ClientMessage event, serial 38, synthetic YES, window 0x1800001,
message_type 0xfe (WM_PROTOCOLS), format 32, message 0xff (WM_DELETE_WINDOW)
... # This was the end of the output.

In this case, my system was seeing that pressing this small button triggered approximately three key sequences. The two I had program (Alt+Up in this case), and also something called XF86Search. This is the dreaded name for this abysmal feature.

KDE 4.3 and Konqueror's Neglect

KDE 4.3 Ain't So Stable (Yet)
KDE 4.3 was released yesterday. My advice to anyone considering trying it out right now: DON'T UPGRADE! If you are going to use it, do a fresh install, unless you know how to juggle config files. Edit: I did an upgrade of KDE 4.3 on my brother's laptop, and it went smooth as silk. KDE 4.3 works flawlessly for his computer, yet mine still had/has some issues. So your mileage may vary.

While any of you that know me are aware I am an avid Linux fan (though this is really about KDE, not Linux per se), the following post has some bad new to report.

KDE 4.3 is supposed to be a stabilizing release, focusing mostly on bug fixes (over 10,000 completed) and some feature updates. That may be, but I'm afraid my experience so far has been anything but stable.

1st: I installed KDE 4.3 from the apt-repositories. Then I restarted KDE/X-Windows. KDE proceeded to start, but never showed me my desktop, just a blank workspace. Obviously KDE 4.3 did not smoothly upgrade from KDE 4.2.4.

2nd: After 30 minutes of doing a fairly straightforward but advanced detection and fix, I was able to isolate a group of the problem files and repopulate my KDE configuration files. Things progressed smoothly until I encountered the next major bug: Exiting KDE.

KDE 4.3 will NOT, under any circumstances, Shut down the computer, Restart the computer, or Log out. It simply will not do it, no matter how many times you try. Luckily I know the manual shutdown command, but that's a pretty heinous error.

3rd: Konsole. The transparency in KDE Konsole is... wait for it.... even more broken than before. I have trouble believing my eyes on this one. I'm pretty shocked it did not get fixed. Even the WORKAROUND for the bug, that has been there for over a year, no longer works now. I guess this just gives me more impetus to get back to writing my own alternative virtual terminal, because God-Damn-it, we need one fucking badly.

4th: EDIT. I fixed the problem. It was a setting configuration, though it was really damned hard to find.

5th: Be forewarned this has some rather ranting moments, so I apologize.

Konqueror is without a doubt the best file manager I know of currently. But it has been pretty broken since KDE 4.0.

Even by KDE 4.3, it still have issues, plus some new bugs. For me, the most apparent bug in KDE4 Konqueror is the utterly awful way Images are handled within it (opening, previewing, mouse previewing). Since one of my primary hobbies is collecting images, this has been a constant colossal pain in my side. I keep waiting for that be fixed but it has been 18 months now. That's pretty f**king unacceptable. (Can you tell I'm mad?)

On a less rage filled thought, Konqueror is in serious need of being updated from QT3 to QT4. Namely it needs the standard QT4 navigation bar, and god-damn-it would be nice to have meta/information panels like Dolphin does. Actually, even though I don't use Dolphin because of its imposed limitations, I like several things in it.

But there is good news. At least, partially. The KDE team has been planning to add these exact updates for a while now. It would just be nice if they actually did it.

Cursory Review of KDE 4.3
Konqueror:

• Konqueror Gestures are back. I did miss these, but ironically now I don't so much need them if I have my new mouse with 5+ buttons.
• Better Ark integration (with more menu support too).

Ark:

• Support for more formats and a few small bug fixes.
  

Gwenview (changed from version 2.2.4 to 2.3.0):

• Bug Fixes: God Almighty I hope the bugs are really fixed. They were simply AWFUL at points (way too frequently) and they should been fixed a long time ago. Really, they should have been. No excuse. Should have been done months ago.
• Plugins: In case you did not know (like most KDE 4 users), you have to install the kiki-plugins package to enable the plugins for Gwenview. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed since the prior version.
  It is still missing the most important plugin for me: Find Duplicates Images.
  
• Sidebar: Better hiding and restoration interface.
• Thumbnail Bar: Now it can be vertical, which I prefer. Nice.
• On a personal note, though Gwenview is still missing a few features I consider crucial, I really do like all the new features that have been added.
  

Conclusion
I sometimes ask myself, "Should you try using KDE 3.5 again?" The answer is mostly no. The biggest problems (that I know of) for KDE 4 has been Gwenview and Konqueror, which are two programs I use constantly, and they are usable, just not fully-functioning. If I look beyond that, KDE 4 is a great system. I can live with the small little lack of eyecandy in Konsole. Even in KDE 4.2.4, when Plasma would crash, it would do so very gracefully and almost immediately restore itself with no noticeable ill-effects.

KDE4 very good but still has some glitches

I really like KDE4 and I look forward to when it is "complete." By that I mean, when all of the features I previously enjoyed in KDE3 are available. I am seriously considering seeing if I can help with a few features I want right now, such as all my Desktop Wallpaper options... and a few extra features I have thought up along the way.

In an attempt to eschew being a Linux Fanboy and merely be a bigtime fan, I will list the glitches I have encountered so far. To be fair, not all of these may be relating to KDE but instead with the current Linux kernel version I am using.

I will list my problems and any solutions or workarounds that I have seen.

Konsole transparency

• Description: There is an odd white glow to any konsole color profile transparency settings initially when the konsole is loaded. This glow remains regardless of what appears to be half of all possible colors and is present at zero percent opacity. Even when using my work around, the problem returns if the konsole is resized at all.
  
• Number of times encountered so far: This is a reproducible bug.
  
• Successful Solution: The glow disappears and proper opacity returns when you cause a full desktop redraw. (I believe actually a full Plasma Desktop redraw, but I'm not sure.) This can be done by going to System Settings -> Desktop -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects and changing or literally toggling an option. As long as you can and do hit the "Apply" button to force a redraw, the konsole will display the proper opacity.
• Note: There may be other color errors, and I suspect there are, but I have not had time to properly check for them.
  

Keyboard failure

• Description: My keyboard stopped working completely, and this was not related to my wireless bluetooth keyboard. I always have an axillary PS2 keyboard plugged in and this too would not function.
• Number of times encountered so far: 2
  
• Attempted (but failed) solutions: X-Windows restart.
• Successful Solution: Rebooted.
  

Mouse failure

• Description: My mouse stopped working completely. I did not attempt to use a USB mouse to check if that still worked.
• Number of times encountered so far: 1
• Successful Solution: Rebooted.

Application Menu Shortcut Keys

• Description: Tried to set Meta+O to start OpenOffice writer, but this did not seem to work. No error message or related conflicts were encountered and everything looked like it should work, except that it never did.
  
• Number of times encountered so far: 1
  
• Attempted (but failed) solutions: X-Windows restart.
• Successful Solution: Rebooted.
  

Gwenview

• Description: Randomly seems to crash and no noticeable pattern of problems. Unfortunately Kubuntu is not compiled with backtrace abilities or I would provide bug reports.
  
• Number of times encountered so far: 3 (which is pretty good since I have used this program probably over 200 times)
  

Ark

• Description: When selecting "Compress to..." and choosing a specific archive type, Ark seems to crash when you use more than a single '.' (period) character in the file name, especially with .tar.gz.
  
• Number of times encountered so far: This is a reproducible bug.
  
• Successful Solution: Don't use an extra dot.

Konqueror crashes

• Description: Konqueror has crashed several times on me randomly and I am not sure what to say about that, since sometimes it just crashes when I'm not even actively using it.
  
• Note: Konqueror is usably stable and I expect it to only improve. At the moment, Konqueror is seriously a work in progress, based on the updating of features, protocols, refactoring of features and its unholy union with the file manager Dolphin.
  
• Number of times encountered so far: Around 6 times so far.
  

Monitor Timed Power-off

• Description: My monitor will not shut itself off after extended use, despite configuring it to do so. Not sure if it is a configuration bug on my part or not.
  
• Number of times encountered so far: 1.

Lock Screen fails to engage

• Description: Could not engage a session lock.
  
• Number of times encountered so far: 1.
• Successful Solution: X-Windows restart.

GTK / QT4 Button Mis-arrangement

• Description: The Yes/No, Replace/Cancel, Overwrite/Replace, etc. buttons in some applications are in the incorrect order, as dictated by the HID standard (which I believe GTK at least adheres to, and probably QT as well). I have confirmed this in Kate and Firefox at least.
  

More updates to come as I see them.

KDE 4.2.2 Things are getting good

So I tried KDE 4.2.2 through VMWare today. I'm really pleased with the impressive improvements I see. I feel like I might be jumping the gun by saying this but KDE 4 may very well be ready for me to use. Here is a quick run down of what I checked/noticed since my last review.

System Settings

• Overall / General: For one thing, the System-Settings area has been filled out a significant amount. Many things are there now that were missing only a few months ago, and what's there seems to work well.
  
• Notifications: I need to confirm whether this is easy to disable all sound. By going to Player Settings and choosing No Audio Output, things might be what I want.
  
  You cannot turn off all the audio notifications in an easy way. I really hate the concept of going through every single program and turning them off. I like my computer to run silently so this is a personal annoyance, but to be honest the previous system under KDE3 was not great, just more usable.
• Startup: Sweet new interface for adding startup programs/scripts. Very nice. Not tested yet myself but this is a cool feature.

Shortcut Keys Binding
Previously I mentioned that KDE4 seemed to only allow binding a single shortcut key sequence in programs, instead of their KDE3's well-established two sequence binding options. I notice that KDE4 may have added, or at least begun adding, options for binding two keys again. This is great.

Gwenview
Gwenview 2.xx is pretty much ready for use... for me anyway.

When I tested Gwenview, as of today, 90% of the "shitty" zooming issues (enlaring smaller images) previously noted have been resolved. I don't exactly know what source these fixes came from, but they are there. I am not even sure if there are any zoom related problems left.

I tested enlarging small GIF/PNG/JPG files and all of them look very good. It is difficult to say whether the zoom quality is "at the highest possible" while using VMWare but it sure looks quite acceptable for the time being.

The only unusual thing I noticed was on the enlarging of small PNG files. Gwenview may not have been performing perfect binary interpolation on all the sample test images I tested. Regardless, the enlarging zoom was still of a very acceptable level of quality.

Konqueror Preferences/Settings
Konqueror seems to have fixed some of its bugs since I last reviewed it, especially the great many of the issues I care about.

• View Configuration: Many of the preferences are now saved, in particular Menu: Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> File Management -> Views.
  
  These were some of the most important for me. Though there seems to be a bug with not displaying the check in the checkbox for enabling "Show Delete in Right Click menu" but the feature is still enabled.
• Tabbing: Tabbing still seems very solid, but I cannot remember if this successful preference saving was present in my last review. Regardless I take this a good sign of progress.
• View Mode Icon Size: The bugs with inconsistent view modes icon size have been fixed. This time around, I only had one instance where the zooming was off slightly, but a quick setting of the zoom and the problem never repeat itself.
• Toolbars: I already mentioned the Toolbars in Konqueror were improved and I am still impressed with them. Nice and usable and still quite configurable. That annoying bug with some element misplacement that occurred with KDE3.5 because of Gwenview integrated image viewing is gone.

Konsole/Console/Terminal profiles
The feature for smoother switching profiles within Konsole has been integrated. Very nice.

Power Management
Yet another sweet looking application I cannot wait to try. This is looking seriously awesome. I have not been able to try this on a mobile device but I will report on it as soon as I do.

Desktop Themes
This is pretty impressive. I guess is just goes to show that KDE can be even more customizable if you want. I don't even know where to begin with all the options. To be bluntly honest, even just testing this a tiny bit with impresses me. I see major potential for smooth and easy eye-candy customization.

Misc.
There are several things which I don't use but their existence is worth noting.

• Digital Camera integration: I don't use a digital camera so my word is that of a novice but it looks like KDE is providing (or will provide) a pretty good user interface for accessing it. This is a nice thing to have since it promotes inclusion of more users in the future.
• PDA/PIM utilities: KDE 4 looks to have some nice (and assumably working) PDA/PIM integration and software. I don't use a PDA (yet) but doubtless I will when the 2nd generation of the Google Phones come out. I am glad that KDE has good these utilities.
  

Themes
When I installed KDE 4.2.x from within Gnome, I ended up with a lot of more color themes... and they were good! When I reinstalled KDE4.2.x from Kubuntu, I was sadly surprised to find it does not ship with some of these themes. I hope that gets fixed because those themes were nice.

Font size
There are still some real font issues, but these may be less of a deal breaker than I first experience. Today in KDE 4.2.2 I set the entire system font size to 7 and then Konqueror and System Settings looked okay. Actually, everything I tested seemed to look just fine after this change. The exception was the Classic-Applications Menu, whose font became quite small but still readable.

Network Manager
I experienced Network Manager problems when using it through VMWare, but I'm not sure how it will perform on an actual system installation. The Knetwork-manager seems to cause a lot of problems for some people, though I have luckily avoided most of these problems through serendipity.

If you are going to use KDE4.x, I would seriously recommend having a diffferent network manager installed and functional. I suggest Gnome's network manager.

Mouse Gestures in Konqueror
Currently I cannot find anyway to enable mouse gestures in Konquorer. I conclude that this feature is not available yet in KDE 4.2. This is unfortunate because I use this feature every day. This is not technically a bug, just a missing feature.

Media:/ protocol
The 'media:/' protocol is not present in KDE4 yet. This is known to the KDE team and it is on their list of things to do.

Conclusion
I am pretty set to use KDE 4.2.2 right now, but I will hold off. I don't have any pressing need to switch yet, and the few missing features are not deal killers but important for me.

Previously, the failure of Konqueror saving settings properly and icon size mismatching was the deal killer for me. But now there only are a few missing features left on my list. Good times.

KDE3.5 an official option for Kubuntu Jaunty

So the Kubuntu team, in their wisdom, is offering an official "remix" version of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty pre-setup to use KDE 3.5 instead of KDE4. This is pretty cool in my opinion. I know a lot of users, myself and many of my friends included, are still using KDE 3.5.

The official news posts about it is here: https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Kde3/Jaunty

I like I have said before in my previous posts, I won't give KDE4 a serious try until their release of KDE4.3 scheduled for June sometime. Prior to this news, I was planning on installing Ubuntu and then throwing KDE3.5 on top. In the meanwhile, this Jaunty with KDE3.5 release saves me a bunch of work.

KDE 4.2 Review Continued

Abstract
My final thoughts and observations on KDE 4.2 before I switched back to KDE 3.5.

I have gone back to KDE 3.5. Thank God (or specifically Partimage) for ghost imaging because this would have taken me a lot longer to get back to "perfect working order" otherwise.

So I have used KDE 4.2 for about 12 hours no. Not a single crash yet, which I must say I am still very impressed with. Here are my final thoughts for the moment:

Better Bluetooth: I take it back what I said before. Their integration certainly is better but their program itself is still buggy. It keeps failing to recognize my keyboard after a reboot.

New Run Dialog: Very nice. A real improvement over what came before. Many individual programs are updated by their respective developers with new features (and taking advantage of many new things in KDE 4). The eye-candy, when I use it, seems nice but that's no surprise. Some new features are half-there, which look promising, particularly for Konquorer.

"Toggle Present Windows": This feature (keystroke CTRL+F9 by default) is really cool. This is a feature taken from Mac OS's dashboard and it is great. I am glad we have this in KDE by default now.

Desktop Backgrounds / Plasma: Despite their lack of tiling+scaling, I praise the KDE team for finally writing a good resampling algorithm for the desktop background display. Finally my pictures look good when scaled.

I have observed at least one image resizing bug with Plasma's desktop area. The image displayed without scaling (and it should have been scaled). I could not repeat it, and it was really a minor bug.

Show Desktop: I don't know if there is an option to "show desktop" in KDE 4 anymore. There is an option to show the Plasma desktop but since I'm not seeing my desktop background, it is missing one of my most important features.

The only thing I have found is adding a widget for this.

Widgets:

• Show Desktop: There is a bug with this as it does not toggle all the time. It seems to work for 2 or 3 key-presses right in a row, then it stops working and leaves you on the desktop feebly pressing the shortcut key.

I may have mentioned that the Icons seem to be spotty (ugly or not working properly) in some situations but this is planned to be addressed in KDE 4.3.


Ark (zips, rar, 7zips, gzips, tars): The new Ark program for KDE is looking mighty fine. KDE has finally fixed their annoying bug with extracting multiple archives as once (it would often not extract all archives fully, only grabbing some of the files). Ark was in great need of an update even though I really appreciated the presence of Ark period. I remember what it was like in KDE before Ark appeared.

However I did manage to cause a "Fatal" error in Ark though it was the most graceful error I have ever seen in KDE 4. This happened when I told it "Extract to subfolder, name autodetected."

Konquorer:

• Folder Tree Refresh: There is a bug with the Folder Tree view in Konqueror. It does not refresh and you can't manually refresh it without closing and reopening the application.
  
• Renaming: So like I mentioned before, the rename file function in Konquorer has changed from an integrated view to a separate window. Now, at first I thought this was annoying because it was an unnecessary change and for a variety of reasons I thought it was an deprovement, not an improvement to Konquorer. But I lived with it. However, if you have malfunctioning Window Management Preferences (like I do now with Konquorer) then the tiny Rename window can fill your whole screen, becoming maximized. This just goes to show that separating the rename function into a different window was a thorough mistake.
  

Gwenview:

Before I begin talking about Gwenview's problem, I want to note that I am aware the Gwenview Developer(s) have stated that 1.4.2 is their stable version, not the version 2.2.0 that ships with KDE 4.x.

Gwenview Zooming:
This thing gets it own section.

• Zooming: Zoom out on a large picture is not really a problem but enlarging a small picture looks bad. It appears that the older enlarging method applied a (Gaussian) blur of some kind after performing bilinear (or trilinear?) interpolation. I think this was nice and I miss it. The new images look very pixelated as they are enlarged.
• The more I use Gwenview with this shitty zoom algorithm, the more I realize I can't stand it. It is horrible for reading comics with.
• The subtle irony here is that while Gwenview had good zoom quality for years, KDE's desktop backgrounds did not. It seems this has reversed as now Gwenview has shitty shit zooming while KDE's desktop background looks nice.
  

Other problems with Gwenview:

• Hotkeys / Shortcuts: A couple of options for assigning shortcut keys to are missing in the latest versions of Gwenview.
• I forgot to mention that many (if not all) the plugins for Gwenview are not present in the Kubuntu early testing of KDE 4.2. I would venture a guess they are not available in other distros with KDE 4.2 either.
  

Good things with Gwenview:

• Full Screen Interface: I like the new features that Gwenview has added, like a better full screen interface. Very nice for viewing multiple images in a row.

The Panel:

• Task Switching with Mouse click: I noticed a bug with clicking from a grouped task to a non-grouped task. I hope that fix this bug.

Konsole:

• Transparency again: By moving my konsole to a separate desktop where it is the only window, the Alpha-transparency basically acts like Good Transparency. This is a useable work around for getting good transparency back to my konsole but I don't deceive myself that I will probably have to seek a different konsole here soon enough. After using it for a few hours, this is really not bad but I wish I didn't have to do it.
  
• Scheme switching: There is no quick and easy way to switch schemes in Konsole without going through a couple of menu items and clicking 3 buttons. I hope they fix this (by making it smooth like the old style).
  

So, after using KDE 4.2 for a while I can see that things are going to be great when they are finished. Even if they never added more features and just fixed the bugs, it would be a pretty stellar desktop-environment when all things are considered. However we all know KDE 4 will go for the gold, if you will, and achieve even greater greatness.

I look forward to KDE 4.3 that is scheduled (currently) for release in June.

Conclusion

If you are considering moving to KDE 4 and you use Konquorer, hold off until KDE 4.3 in June. Even if you don't, I would say hold off until more of the customization options are plugged into KDE 4 and several of those small but annoying bugs are fixed.

KDE 4.2 Review

Summary
KDE 4 right now is like using a nice Beta operating system. Well, not exactly. Your filesystem and kernel are not likely to crash. It should be noted that KDE 4.2 never crashed on me once, which is quite impressive. However there are still lots of features/customization options missing from KDE 4.2. The problems with Konquorer was the deal breaker for me, but at least everything else seemed usable for the time being.

The detailed breakdown....

I am spending a lot of time learning how to do the same old tricks in a new way. I'm really trying to hold back judgment because a lot of the ability to customize, which a core feature of KDE, is still missing. I won't be satisfied until it is there.

Now, I think KDE 4 is adding a lot of features that were needed. Better Bluetooth integration for one thing. EDIT: It is a little bug at the moment but when it works it will be nice.

The Problems and the Bugs....

QTCurve: There is a bug with using QTCurve for the Windows Style, which makes lots of black lines in Konquorer, which is too bad. I like that style.

Konsole:

• Shortcut keys: The default shortcut keys in konsole interfere with real work. But you can change these through the Settings -> Configure Shortcuts menu. My case is CTRL+S, which locks my console. I have seen this behavior before but never from Konsole.
  
• Transparency: Good transparency is gone from Konsole. I knew this had happened already and I need to find a good konsole now, but this needs to be stated: True-Alpha-Transparency is a tragedy because we are losing the "good transparency" in our programs. I have no use for this True-Alpha transparency and loath it with every fiber of my fibrously fibrous being. I want to see my desktop background in my semi-transparent console window, and I don't want to see the 20 windows below it.
• Default Transparency: Ironically you have to open Konsole with a specific switch to enable transparency. Seriously? Lame.
  

KWin: There are bugs with not saving various preferences correctly. In particularly, I ran into problems with preferences for Konquorer. It was pretty annoying and attempting to delete the settings after they had been stored seemed to be impossible.

Konquorer :

(All the problems with Konquorer in KDE 4.2 is precisely why I hate Dolphin)

• File Renaming: Changed to a separate window interface, not integrated into the current window interface. Doubtless this is because of Dolphin. Curse it.
• Folder Tree: Many of options are missing from the right-click menu in the Folder Tree. For example, cannot rename folders by right-clicking; it can only be done in the right hand pane.
• Configurations: A bug with Konquorer not saving configuration options, like showing tooltips or expandable folders. I hope they fix this soon.
• Severe conflict between the detail view mode and the icon view mode. This is due to Konqurer stubbornly refusing to save my view settings correctly, if at all. I cannot enable previews in the icon mode and disable them in the detail mode.
• Sizes of the icons are synchronized in all views. This is simply unusable. I need my icons to be large in Icon View mode and small in Detail view mode. Switching between Icon view and Detail view results in major pain because you will constantly be resizing your icons.
• Gwenview integration is broken. I can no longer browse images quickly using the Space and Backspace keys in Konquorer. I am sure this will be fixed eventually, but I miss it.
• 'media:/' protocol: Not there yet and I miss it, but it is planned for KDE 4.3.
  
• Mouse gestures: These don't seem to work and the System Settings dialog for configuring them is just.... weird. The problem might be PEBKAC though.
  

Note on Konquorer:
Despite all the problems, I see some really nice stuff coming our way for Konquorer. The new buttons added to the toolbar menu are nice.

They finally fixed that really annoying bug with sporadic location bar position changes when using integrated Gwenview. I'm happy for that.

Konquorer's bugs were the last straw that made me switch back to KDE 3.5 but when those are fixed I think I can finally use KDE 4.xx.

Dolphin:

• Tabs: Tabs now available in Dolphin. Makes me wonder how it is so different from Konquorer... on the surface anyway. I know underneath it is not a web-browser anymore.
• Double Clicking: The Folder Tree view requires double clicking to use, not single clicking like it has been for generations. I hope that when this Folder Tree is ported to Konqueror (as the developers plan) they realize the need to improve this. I suspect they will.
  

Desktop Background: I am actually shocked and appalled that the Slideshow option is without features for scaling/tiling/positions. I was always saddened that KDE used an ugly resampling algorithm for their image scaling (shame on you guys), but this is ridiculous! I can only scale or title but not both! (All the other options are meaningless!).


The Panel:

• The panel is fairly devoid of all the customizability that really matters.
  
• No task grouping options. I have always hated Windows for offering to group my tasks together. I'm not a moron. I know what programs I have and I don't need you to group them. EDIT: I have discovered their is an option to not group specific programs, so they are obviously moving in the fully customized direction.
  
• No task sorting options
  
• No transparency configuration options. I do not know how to tell it to organize my tasks (or not organize them). Also, I don't know how to tell it to be "Elegant for Transparency" like back in 3.5. I miss that feature. Lets hope it comes back.

Application Menu:

The KDE team really should have put some thought into why Microshaft made their Vista startmenu and why they needed it.

The reason: Microshaft's program menu has no order, so people need help finding their applications.

The new style of KDE app menu takes more typing and more mouseclicks to access programs. It slows down the user for no good reason!! A hybrid system of the search-and-program-list would be nice. However a pure Vista knockoff is awful. Whoever thought this was a good idea for KDE should be ashamed at not thinking things through and blatantly following in the stupidity of Microshaft.

• Most Recently Used Programs: This is a must have feature, and its not here. EDIT: This is already implemented in KDE 4.3, which does not surprise me and makes me happy.
  
• Editing entries: You cannot edit application-menu entries by right-clicking on them and selecting "Edit this item." That activates the item. Instead, the only way to edit a menu entry is to right-click on the App Menu itself and select Menu Editor. Certainly not a deal killer, but a feature I miss when I'm setting up a new installation.

System Settings:

• Empty Space: Several areas have lots of empty space, while their more advanced options are on other tabs. This just results in unnecessary clicking for me to reach my options again.
• Colors: Creating custom color schemes is more laborious because what used to take 1-2 click now takes about 4-5. Very very annoying.
• Some listings in configuration areas are not sorted by name... or by any logic I can see. One is the video section of the File Associations area.
• Hard drives & File Systems: this configurae interface is missing. This is a critical thing for some people and I cannot BELIEVE that Kubuntu 8.10 shipped without it. It is not even there when I updated to KDE 4.2. Now, I know how to manually configure my own hard drives with Vim in a console, but I thought we were beyond those days guys? Come on! This is an F- grade.
• Window Behavior: This is already semi-buggy as I mentioned in my tests with Konquorer, but they are planning to redesign and improve this interface by KDE 4.3. So for now we are just waiting.
  

Hot Keys:

• Only One HotKey: Since when did KDE decide I can't have 2 hotkeys for the same feature/function/application? This is a mistake, but I suspect this bug will be fixed eventually.

Default Themes: Though I like the default themes of Wonton Soup and Obsidian Coast, both of these have problems. On webpages that need black-text on a white background, they too dark and fall under the perpetual problem we low-contrast users experience. Damn it. I had to recreate my own CDE theme from scratch. Slightly annoying. Not really KDE's fault unless you count lacking a greater variety of default available themes.


There is more to say but I don't feel like going on....

Conclusion
I'm giving up on KDE again this year. I have to find an alternative that works. I will probably switch to Ubuntu and toss KDE 3.5 back onto it.

KDE 4.xx has yet again wasted my time, sadly. I like some of the new things coming out in KDE but most of the functionality I need to use day to day is just not there right now.