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1 • minimal desktop installation option (by Jim on 2018-03-05 00:49:00 GMT from United States)
I hope the minimal desktop installation option becomes a trend in Linux. I spend way to much time now days removing unwanted and unused software from a new installation. I think a document with recommend or suggested software from the official repository is all that is needed, It could be used by a newbie or easily deleted by a veteran Linux user that knows what software he wants, I would like to see all installation still fit on a CD, or at the least be less than 1 gig.
2 • Plasma Spin on Mint (by Will Senn on 2018-03-05 01:19:24 GMT from United States)
With KDE being dropped as a spin, or whatever you want to call a DE oriented DVD, from future releases of mint, I've already switched to XFCE - much lighter weight. Works fine, but bummer decision on Mint's part. Maybe they'll change their mind? Here's hoping, Plasma's pretty slick.
3 • KDE 5.12 caught up with Desqview of 1993. (by OS2_user on 2018-03-05 01:35:09 GMT from United States)
"This may be my favourite new feature in Plasma. ... Being able to tap the Meta key followed by a number is much faster..." -- Better implemented in Desqview, though, as non-full screen windows had number in border, plus with the tap a numbered list appeared at upper right.
"I'm not going to sugarcoat this: the [Global Menu] widget looks terrible. ... My only complaint is the folder display is very twitchy. ... took nine tries ... the drawbacks of both approaches, cluttering the screen and forcing us to enter into and exit out of modules" -- Sigh. Too many features, and inherently "twitchy" because too complex.
Think I've written here before that "using" Linux is like playing an adventure game, randomly trying actions to see what happens; well, with KDE they're definitely now adding video game aspects. I complained about the new green + marks on folders (for some "feature" I've now forgotten) which in practice means that you must dodge the upper left corner of icons. That's not improving my use; indeed, I just QUIT.
4 • minimal desktop (by albinard on 2018-03-05 03:38:38 GMT from United States)
@1: there is already a Xubuntu Core ISO (currently at version 17.10) at CD size that installs a pretty basic Xfce desktop with little in the way of applications. For simple provisioning, just install Synaptic and go wild - repositories at your fingertips.
And there is an Ubuntu Core also, though that one is much more software-rich.
Lubuntu has a Core as well. Looks like a trend!
5 • KDE Plasma (by Andy Figueroa on 2018-03-05 04:09:50 GMT from United States)
Not really interested in KDE. Bells and whistles get in the way of efficient use of a computer. That accounts for my null vote. I'm quite happy with Xorg and LXDE/XFCE.
6 • The Global Menu widget can be placed in a panel (by M. Bar on 2018-03-05 05:00:21 GMT from Canada)
Not sure why you'd put it on the desktop.
7 • MidnightBSD for lamba user desktop ? Not sure... (by TuxBSD fan on 2018-03-05 05:22:21 GMT from Canada)
Interesting interview with the developer of Midnightbsd. But there is one thing that is sure. MidnightBSD is not for beginners. I did a quick test in Virtual mode for installation, configuration Sorry my friends but there is not for beginner who will use MidnightBSD.
If you really want to make a BSD system for the lamba user, well you need to take other way. fist step is graphical mode and ready to use system. A beginner will not spend the day installing xorg, xfce4 or gnome 3 and then all packages to make it a complete system.
In the interview, the developer says he has been developing MidnightBSD since 2005, which is 13 years. GhostBSD is about 4 years old and is years ahead in terms of handling and ready to use. Surely someone who has not understood a few things.
This is also the problem of all other BSD projects. They are still hooked in the 90s.
I am always surprised to see people putting so much effort into projects to ultimately have so few real users.
Anyway, congratulations for your project and your perseverance
8 • minimal desktop installation@1 (by pengxuin on 2018-03-05 06:22:28 GMT from New Zealand)
Mageia could be for you:
Option #1.
Mageia offer a classical installer with multiple desktops.
One of the features of these .isos (~4Gb) is that the
installer offers a "Custom" option and the user can pick and choose what
software to install on a minimal base. how-ever, due to the limited size of the .isos, only so many packages are contained within these .isos.
adding on-line repositories during the install will of course allow more packages to be selected.
Option #2
Is a wired internet install (~60Mb) again install starts
with a bare minimal installation and you can add whatever applications /
packages you desire that are in the on-line repositories.
Option #3
Is a Mageia Live install. provided you have sufficient memory,
you can customise the live desktop to include or exclude any packages
above the minimal install. e.g. add on-line repositories, remove XFCE DE and install LXDE DE,
then install your live "LXDE" and reboot
9 • KDE Plasma 5.12 (by eco2geek on 2018-03-05 07:17:59 GMT from United States)
On KDE's announcement page, there's a video that demonstrates many of the things Jesse talks about, and some that he doesn't. It may help lessen confusion about Plasma 5.12's new features.
For example, it shows how the new "sidebar view" in System Settings automatically expands into two columns, rather than the one column view that Jesse criticizes, when the window is expanded.
Also, as @6 M. Bar notes above, the global menu was really meant to live in a panel, not as a standalone widget. Here's a screenshot of it in action (the main panel's been moved to the top of the screen): (click to embiggen)
https://imgur.com/a/EoTNW
10 • DT- KDE (by Someguy on 2018-03-05 07:31:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
Gave up on KDE over a decade ago on account of bloat. Don't need kitchen sink overlays to get work done. K.I.S.S. and switch to Xfce! Couldn't find a Poll entry -' Don't use KDE' which might've given a useful overall view of where it and its claims lies within the slew of options. Anyone for Openbox?!
11 • KDE 5.12 (by Brenton Horne on 2018-03-05 07:38:52 GMT from Australia)
Must admit I haven't noticed any real difference between KDE 5.12 and previous versions, although that could be because I do not use most of the features that have been added, the only exception being the Wayland session which I have tried quite a few times. They took a while to catch up with GNOME in terms of their Wayland support, though, but now their Wayland session is production ready.
12 • Ecosia web search (by Andy Prough on 2018-03-05 08:11:26 GMT from Asia/Pacific Region)
Jesse - Ecosia web search is disabled by default in the latest version of Firefox, according to Ecosia's FAQ page. To get it to work, you'll have to go into Firefox settings and enable it manually. Apparently, Firefox is changing the way search engines are enabled, in order to overcome the pesky problem of drive-by malware changing the search engine without your approval.
Ecosia does seem relatively quick and gave useful search results in my experiments, and claims to have some degree of privacy focus.
13 • KDE/dolphin green plus sign emblems (by tim on 2018-03-05 08:30:21 GMT from United States)
@3 wondering whether the plus sign emblems you mentioned are was mentioned here:
http://martys.typepad.com/blog/2011/11/the-great-features-of-kde-workspaces-and-applications-part-i-dolphin.html
If so, and they were displayed all the time, for all items... sure sounds like a bug. What's the "must dodge" detail though? Something happens if you just hover mouse cursor over one of the plus signs?
14 • KDE still have the same issues ? (by Fred R on 2018-03-05 09:50:43 GMT from France)
Some of the issues KDE had, and may still have, and prevent me from using it:
- I am using a Synology NAS, with SMB shares, and when I double click on a video on the NAS, it actually download the file on the PC, instead of launching it in Dragon Player
Bug 253547 since KDE 4.5 in 2010... Come on...
- When I press the Super Key (Win$ key) it doesn't launch the K menu. Annoying to be unable to set a shortcut to a Single Key ! I don't like Ctrl+Esc...
- When you want to click on the K menu, you need to click in the icon,but not in the corner of the screen... Means you can't simply drop the arrow in the corner and simpy click. Annoying.
It is sad as some K apps are very good, like Kdenlive, digikam, dolphin, Krita, gwenview...)
15 • Plasma (by Hey Duggee on 2018-03-05 10:20:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
I guess the global menu is the most interesting for me. I ditched KDE about 15 years ago but came back to it in the last 6 months. It was the ability to reduce underused menu bars to a title bar button that appealed to me. Plus I found it a good interface to get down to the minimum (although in the background it's a resource hog, admittedly - I use it on my laptops but servers use arch with no GUIs)
What I'd really like to see is an improvement to notifications. They're too big and there are few customisation options. I'd like to see them appear in a panel with the option to hover over to expand or click to dismiss.
But each to their own. I used to go for the more minimal window managers but the lack of options to deal with menubars made me move. I even used Unity for a while as it's such a big deal for me.
16 • Wayland Support (by KenP on 2018-03-05 10:53:30 GMT from Australia)
KDE's wayland support feels way better than other desktops. On my Dell Precision 5520, I have two external monitors, a full HD and a 4K. On startup, the desktop is scaled correctly without any setup (other than physical placement of screens with respect to each other).
I believe this is a great win for KDE devs!
17 • BSD (by César on 2018-03-05 11:25:50 GMT from Chile)
Saludos.
Well, i think the same of @7 "TuxBSD fan", the great number of BSD are not for newbies, the install process is not easy for users without the acknowledgement, is a lot of steps for configure a basic desktop environment.
Even the Slackware install process is more easy than a tipical BSD (with my own experience, i use every Slackware version since 2003).
But, exist a few exceptions (sure exist more, but i don't taste):
* TrueBSD
* GhostBSD
The last month i install GhostBSD in my old Compaq Presario laptop, the process is very simple, "click & run", only a simple questions is made in the procedure, change the disk format to BSD needs and a few more steps, nothing difficult.
The apps are the same of Linux, but the disk folders are different. And if you are user of Chrome or Opera, for example, only Chromium is in the repos, boy is very unstable, hangs and freeze every time, the most stable browser is Firefox, works without any problem.
The update process is very simple:
For update and upgrade the system:
# pkg update
# pkg upgrade
and this is for update and upgrade the BSD base of the system:
# freebsd-update fetch install
Perhaps the most problematic is the wifi, not working "out of the box" (if you install PCLinuxOS or MInt this is almost automatic), the wiki instructions and the forums are not simple to follow, sometimes you need to recompile the kernel...this is the great problem with my BSD system.
P.D.: Sorry for my bad english, is not my native language.
Saludos desde Santiago de Chile.
18 • KDE & Mini install .isos (by KC1DI on 2018-03-05 11:31:35 GMT from United States)
I'm rather ambivalent to the KDE thing - think the vault is a good Idea, but KDE is not my cup of tea. I do try Neon every once in a while to see where it's going.
I believe Debian give an opportunity for and expert install that you can choose what you want and don't want also. the net install disc it quite small also.
The thing about removing software after installing for a newbie they can get in trouble with this because they sometimes remove dependencies that are needed by the system or other programs and break there systems. Just causes confusion. In my opinion it's better to start small and add rather than start big and remove.
Nice reviews this week -Thanks.
19 • Ecosia (by Jesse on 2018-03-05 13:06:28 GMT from Canada)
@12 "Jesse - Ecosia web search is disabled by default in the latest version of Firefox, according to Ecosia's FAQ page. To get it to work, you'll have to go into Firefox settings and enable it manually. "
The issue I brought up in the review is that Enso claims Ecosia is enabled and available by default. Which suggests they have already set up the search engine in Firefox. However, Ecosia is not only not the default, it is not even available. The steps you outline should already be done, according to the Enso website.
20 • KDE Global Menu (by Christian on 2018-03-05 13:35:43 GMT from Brazil)
I have to try it yet, but while using Unity, I kept the menus on its respective windows... The global menu works better on smaller screens if you keep a top panel and have all your windows maximized (as it will save you some screen space).
What I would really like to see is KDE (or any other DE...) adopting something like Unity's HUD. Now that's a feature (IMO, obviously).
21 • New Plasma features (by Kevin on 2018-03-05 14:18:08 GMT from United States)
The poll should probably include a "none of the above" option. I use dwm. I'm not interested in KDE.
22 • #21 (by jadecat on 2018-03-05 15:35:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
With you on that option Kevin. Although in my case I'm still happily using KDE4 on FreeBSD and Slackware.
23 • Plasma 5.12 (by Bobbie Sellers on 2018-03-05 16:10:24 GMT from United States)
I am using System Settings Version 5.12.2 to work with on my KDE Plasma 5
setup(PCLinuxOS64). Not sure what that equates to in terms of KDE 5.12 LTS.
It is not KDE 4.14.18 still lacking features that many found useful.
I learned more about the so-called improvements in the article than
I have seen from any other source.
I do not run default. I have my own preferred background image, remove
all icons from the desktop and have two task panels/bars and I won't recite
the contents but I use a different Menu icon and put my main tools and
controls on the task panels at the top of the display and to the left, clock and
system tray on the top to the right. This is a rough copy of how I had
my Amiga Workbench setup in the 1990s and early 2000s until I switched
to Mandriva Linux. If you want a look you might try:
<http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,143367.0.html
My screen shot is smaller than the others and features a yellow flower
and transparent task panels.
bliss
24 • New Plasma features (by Alessandro di Roma on 2018-03-05 16:19:18 GMT from Italy)
@21: It's the same for me. I'm happy with XFCE and Xubuntu, and I'm more interested in applications than in GUI frills.
25 • Poll (by dragonmouth on 2018-03-05 16:23:24 GMT from United States)
Where is the NONE option? I,too, like KDE4 better than Plasma.
26 • BSD (by Tim Dowd on 2018-03-05 17:10:54 GMT from United States)
I've really enjoyed my experiences with FreeBSD. I currently use it as a server, but I had it running the MATE desktop for a while and it was fine. It doesn't install much by default, but the flip side to that is that installation is incredibly fast and there's a lot of good packages. Documentation is also really good. I wouldn't say it's a good choice as one's first Unix-like system, but between their wiki and the helpfulness of the community they're pretty good to newcomers who want to use their system.
@7
Not having the same priorities as you doesn't mean that a distro is "stuck in the '90s." These have been productive communities that have contributed a bunch to the open source world. We all owe OpenBSD for openssh
27 • Smart Improvements vs Stagnation (by M.Z. on 2018-03-05 17:27:07 GMT from United States)
@5
"...Bells and whistles get in the way of efficient use of a computer."
I've generally found that KDE has enhanced my computing experience & find that innovation that is well done is rather enriching. That being said, options are good.
@14
"...When you want to click on the K menu, you need to click in the icon,but not in the corner of the screen..."
Doesn't work that way in Mint 18.3 KDE. I can't move the mouse down far enough into the corner to avoid clicking the Menu, unless I set the corner as a hot/active corner.
@3
" I complained about the new green + marks on folders (for some "feature" I've now forgotten) which in practice means that you must dodge the upper left corner of icons. That's not improving my use; indeed, I just QUIT."
Easy to change via opening dolphin & going to 'Settings > Configure Dolphin > General > Show selection marker'. Or, given that I'm sure I've heard that from you before, you could stop making the same old complaint over & over again & acting like it's more cleaver to give up & complain after the fact rather than check a box.
28 • @21, @22, @24, etc (by Ricardo on 2018-03-05 18:13:29 GMT from Argentina)
The option is simply not to vote :)
What's wrong with that?
But even if you don't care about KDE you may still like some of those features.
29 • @14, Plasma issues (by Ricardo on 2018-03-05 18:22:06 GMT from Argentina)
"- I am using a Synology NAS, with SMB shares, and when I double click on a video on the NAS, it actually download the file on the PC, instead of launching it in Dragon Player
Bug 253547 since KDE 4.5 in 2010... Come on..."
This is actively being worked on, I believe that with the latest 5.12.x and VLC for example it's working as intended.
"- When I press the Super Key (Win$ key) it doesn't launch the K menu. Annoying to be unable to set a shortcut to a Single Key ! I don't like Ctrl+Esc..."
Weird, the Super/Win key is actually the default but I found it annoying and desabled it. Maybe your distro is doing the same? (And Ctrl+Esc is actually the process monitor, you surely meant Alt+F1 for the menu).
Check out https://superuser.com/questions/1156130/kde-disable-super-l-windows-key-key-shortcut-as-menu-luncher#1158462
"- When you want to click on the K menu, you need to click in the icon,but not in the corner of the screen... Means you can't simply drop the arrow in the corner and simpy click. Annoying."
Works for me, although I have a vertical panel on the left, with the K menu on the bottom.
Care to try with a different theme, or even another K menu icon?
"It is sad as some K apps are very good, like Kdenlive, digikam, dolphin, Krita, gwenview...)"
Well, no need to use Plasma to enjoy those apps :)
30 • BSD system (by TuxBSD fan on 2018-03-05 18:29:46 GMT from Canada)
@26
I understand your point of view.
I use OpenBSD on my Laptop and l like it for security reasons. Work great every day.
B
ut I remain objective for all standard users. When a BSD project claims to build a Desktop oriented operating system for normal users, You need to have an easy step for installation, configuration system with basic tools such as wifi. The normal user will not spend his time on wiki, open the terminal for simple basic operation.
It's in this sense that I believe many BSD Projects remained in the 1990s.
Many people say they use BSD but many of them use it in Virtualbox for fun.
Sorry, but a Virtual user is not a real user.
I'am a real OpenBSD user on my Laptop
best regard
31 • Ecosia (by gelkxxx on 2018-03-06 03:52:37 GMT from Belgium)
It looks like ecosia is actually not a search engine, but using the Bing of Microsoft. Bing runs on 44% Green Energy and rest nuclear. So Ecosia might not be so Green after all.
32 • KDE Applications (by Winchester on 2018-03-06 10:11:13 GMT from United States)
I have found Nautilus to be the most reliable file manager for copying files without error. 20 GB or less at a time,anyway. More reliable than Dolphin and the others. (Although,I prefer the layout of PCmanFM which,in some versions,allows you to unmount OR eject USB drives as opposed to "eject" only.)
K3B is a very solid GUI program,though. The K-Calc calculator has a nice look and feel to it. I prefer a few KDE applications but,for the most part,I would rather use non-KDE applications with a handful of exceptions. That's part of the reason I have multiple distributions installed.
33 • KDE/Plasma (by Jordan on 2018-03-06 15:11:29 GMT from United States)
I think the whole "bells and whistles" thing can be helpful for those doing the Windows or Mac to Linux transition. Perhaps later in the Linux life of the new user s/he'll come around to seeing that all of that stuff is not necessary and almost in the way of good computer use. Perhaps not, but I do think KDE and even Gnome have been developed over time with that in mind.
I began my Linux life back when KDE seemed like the closest thing to Windows and that was important to me as a newbie.. then learned a bit along the way, so XFCE eventually won.
Never could stand Gnome. ;)
34 • KDE 5.12 (by Kurtbw on 2018-03-06 18:10:14 GMT from United States)
Try running KDE 5.12 LTS under Maui Linux.
Only problem: Maui development is moribund. You will have to install the ISO and go through the update cycles.
I'm running the end result. Stable system, does what I want it to, little fuss or muss. Of course, YMMV.
35 • Plasma improvement (by Voncloft on 2018-03-06 19:09:46 GMT from United States)
Add the "tab" function back to windows where you can group multiple windows as one via tabs like in kde 4.12
36 • poll (by jon on 2018-03-07 01:01:23 GMT from United States)
If a poll solicits liking features with no option for "Don't like any" or "Not applicable" or "No opinion" or "Not interested" then it is NOT a poll, it is a slanted, biased, imprecise survey.
A poll should have pro & con choices that reflect the most likely yes or no opinions, including 'I don't know because I have not downloaded, installed, run, tried, or reviewed the product'.
Over the years I've noticed the polls always seem to be incomplete or unbalanced by yes/no or this/that choices, so the comments often will criticize the lack of choices.
But, I'd rather see a poll that asks for opinions than no poll at all.
37 • KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS (by JeauBleau on 2018-03-07 04:08:23 GMT from United States)
Back in the day KDE was my desktop environment of choice, but they lost me years ago when 4.x was released. I cannot deny that KDE presents a beautiful desktop, and the screen shots of subsequent releases often lured me back to give the next iteration a try, but I was always frustrated by too much mousing around and clicking for me to seriously consider using it as my daily driver. I also would have liked a "none of the above" option for this weeks opinion poll.
38 • Openbox (by Carlos on 2018-03-07 12:26:16 GMT from Portugal)
@10 - "Anyone for Openbox?!"
YES!
Openbox with the tint2 taskbar and thunar file manager.
No need for more.
39 • Desktop environments and also BSDs (by B Stack on 2018-03-07 13:32:28 GMT from United States)
I came from a non-free operating system, and entered the Fedora (through Korora). I found Cinnamon the best DE because it operates in a manner I understood and expected. For my lighter systems, I use XFCE. Really, the only reason I don't switch to xfce entirely is because I like the "Super-left" and similar keystroke behavior of the window manager in Cinnamon, where it will place the current window on the left half of the current screen/display. And then pressing "Super-up" will put the window in the upper, left quadrant of the current display. That's really it for Cinnamon. Otherwise, I'd be using xfce exclusively.
I did try KDE5 Plasma for a few months, but ultimately switched back to Cinnamon. I just didn't need the value-add of KDE. It definitely looks slick, and I don't care too much about GTK vs QT. But as the other big DE along with Gnome itself, KDE takes up too much space, RAM, configuration time, etc., that I just don't want to spend.
I tried TrueOS, but after I installed it the GUI package manager never worked, and I hadn't discovered how to manage packages from the terminal, and I didn't really care for the value-add of Lumina (which is what I tried TrueOS for). It looked a little unpolished, and it didn't seem to be configurable in a manner I was used to or expected.
I then tried FreeBSD, installed xfce, and was impressed that doing it all myself was so much easier than the TrueOS. Maybe I messed up the TrueOS install, but for myself, if I ever want a BSD-based system, I will go straight to FreeBSD and never need to consider TrueOS again.
40 • KDE for root user with nVidia ??? (by curious on 2018-03-07 14:07:16 GMT from Germany)
I'm most interested in the KDE features that are available for users with nVidia graphics cards. That means, NO NEW features anymore (see e.g. DWW747), since Wayland is BROKEN for nVidia. (Don't bother suggesting nouveau - I didn't invest in capable graphics hardware just to not use its capabilities!)
I would also be interested in new features making the file manager usable again for the root user.
41 • Ecosia (by RJA on 2018-03-07 14:42:23 GMT from United States)
@19, I found Ecosia annoying. Unlike DuckDuckGo, Ecosia decided to punish me with a CAPTCHA, IIRC... (or forced me to wait in a RapidShare-like manner)
42 • Priorities In Search (by M.Z. on 2018-03-07 18:57:57 GMT from United States)
@31
"It looks like ecosia is actually not a search engine, but using the Bing of Microsoft. Bing runs on 44% Green Energy and rest nuclear. So Ecosia might not be so Green after all."
Well, that all comes down to a matter of opinion doesn't it? Nuclear energy can be an excellent source of near zero emissions base load energy; however, there are some obvious drawbacks related to long term clean up & storage of waste. Still I've heard environmentally conscious people make decent arguments in favor of nuclear & others make arguments against.
Regardless I'm likely to stay with the privacy focused search engine I know in large part because ecosia admits that they have to give some information over Bing regardless of receiving a 'Do Not Track' header. I suppose it all comes down to your priorities in terms of which search engine you want, but to me privacy is a more connected & immediate issue when it comes to web searches, and of course direct donations would make a far larger impact on environmental causes.
43 • I use KDE for it PIM (by BeGo on 2018-03-08 03:06:38 GMT from Indonesia)
KDE PIM need some support. I use KDE mainly for it PIM.
It compatibility with new mails and social medias are poor. :)
44 • KDE vs. LTS (by Microlinux on 2018-03-08 19:29:50 GMT from France)
Here's what would be nice for KDE : LTS which really means LTS. Ten years... and not ten months or even ten weeks. I'm mainly a KDE user myself, running KDE 4.14 on my workstation with CentOS 7. Maybe some charitable soul could implore the KDE developers to slow down their frantic release cycle. Or eventually publish - on their side - an enterprise class version of their great desktop, maybe with a reduced feature set, but rock-solid. So I don't have a tsunami of new features that have to be potty-trained every six weeks or so.
45 • @44 Re: KDE vs LTS (by Rev_Don on 2018-03-08 23:29:37 GMT from United States)
I hate to tell you this but that concept goes against everything that the Linux environment stands for. Introducing new features that are unstable and don't work correctly are much more important than fixing the bugs in existing releases. If it gets close to stable and functional then you have to screw it up somehow as heaven forbid it actually becomes useful for the masses.
46 • KDE PLASMA 5.11 (by KDE KiDDo on 2018-03-09 15:35:28 GMT from Canada)
I use KDE plasma 5.11 and very much liked it. It's with rich GUI, applications and features.
I found KDE Plasma most elegant DE.
47 • Stable Linux Distros (by M.Z. on 2018-03-09 18:55:55 GMT from United States)
@45
"If it gets close to stable and functional then you have to screw it up somehow..."
I call BS on that. I've run the LMDE version of Mint for some time now & I can tell you that a distro based directly on Debian Stable can be extremely stable & reliable, just as the name implies. There are also some other base distros that prize stability meaning there are other options as well, like Mageia or perhaps something like Debian proper or CentOS if you don't mind the lack of desktop polish of those two. Either way I'd contend that there are options for stable desktop distros that make large portions of their users happy. That being said making distros that work on a large variety of hardware with a lot of different configurations is difficult, so no distro or general purpose OS is going to satisfy everyone.
48 • @47 Re: Stable Linux Distros (by Rev_Don on 2018-03-09 20:40:04 GMT from United States)
I stand by my comments. I have yet to see a distro (and I've tested and used a lot of them) that didn't have a lot of bugs that had been there for several years that the developers knew about and didn't bother addressing. When you call them out about it their response is always the same. They don't have the time or manpower to fix the known bugs. It's funny that they have the time and manpower to introduce some whiz bang new feature though.
49 • KDE (by Frank on 2018-03-10 03:36:48 GMT from United States)
I abandoned KDE after version 3. If I had to use any form of KDE, it would be Trinity, actually.
50 • KDE 3 (by Winchester on 2018-03-11 03:13:11 GMT from United States)
KDE 3 is still in the OpenSUSE Tumbleweed repositories.
It was going to be dropped about a year ago but,someone stepped up and committed to maintain it.
I have it installed on a cheap netbook. Just had to create a file so that it would appear as a session option in the LightDM greeter. It takes some customization much the same as Trinity. For some reason,there is only a "log-out" applet and no "power-off" applet. I have had to power-off via LightDM after logging out ..... until I get around to figuring out how to add a power-off button to the desktop menu and panel.
51 • KDE and sudo (by walter_j on 2018-03-11 16:47:23 GMT from Canada)
Can you explain the reasoning behind kde's changes to dolphin, kate and kwrite so that sudo is nolonger an option to run these applications? It's incredibly annoying. Opensuse patched dolphin, but the latest version doesn't recognize my NIC.
Kubuntu's getting nuked from my drive, and now I need to find a os with a decent file manager that won't impose restrictions on me.
52 • KDE and sudo/root (by Jesse on 2018-03-11 17:18:27 GMT from Canada)
@51 "Can you explain the reasoning behind kde's changes to dolphin, kate and kwrite so that sudo is nolonger an option to run these applications?"
As the Linux ecosystem moves toward Wayland this will become a common thing where no applications will be launched as root. (Wayland does not allow programs to launch with root access.) Applications will instead prompt for a root password when they require elevated access. The idea is that your file manager/text editor/etc will have the lowest access possible and only raise its access to perform specific tasks.
See this page for more info: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1274451
53 • Moving toward Wayland (the Unix way, or the Wear'em-down way?) (by Fairly Reticent on 2018-03-11 22:14:37 GMT from United States)
@52 • "Applications will instead prompt for a root password when they require elevated access." - repeatedly, even when you ARE root, or when they shouldn't need 'root' access? Will there be a way to set up a script or something that includes appropriate clearance(s)?
54 • KDE and root (by walter _j on 2018-03-11 23:53:46 GMT from Canada)
So SU is no longer super user under wayland. Thanks for the warning. That seems like a big shift away from the "roots" of Linux (couldn't resist)
55 • Root/su/sudo desktop applications (by Jesse on 2018-03-12 00:05:21 GMT from Canada)
@53: Whether the program prompts for a password repeatedly or just once will depend on the application, just like it is now when you run programs as regular users.
@54: su and sudo still run programs as the root user, they just won't work for Wayland desktop applications.
Number of Comments: 55
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Grml
Grml is a bootable CD (live CD) based on Debian GNU/Linux. It includes a collection of GNU/Linux software especially for users of text tools and system administrators. It also provides automatic hardware detection. Grml can be used as a rescue system, for analysing systems and networks, or as a working environment. Due to on-the-fly decompression, Grml includes about 2 GB of software and documentation on the CD.
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