I recently reviewed Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" KDE, and I was quite pleased with it. My long-term review of the Xfce edition just ended, so this one will go for another 8 days. This will be the last such long-term review of the summer, because after this I am going home and won't be back until just before the semester starts, at which point I probably will not be able to continue this.
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Showing posts with label plasma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plasma. Show all posts
Friday, 10 August 2012
Thursday, 12 January 2012
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| Razor-Qt: Main Screen + Right-Click Menu |
There's a new kid on the DE block, and it's called Razor-Qt. It aims to be a lightweight, traditional-style DE, sort of like KDE, Xfce, and LXDE. The best way to put it is that it aims to be to KDE what LXDE has been to GNOME; it is stripped-down and manages the desktop in a more minimalistic way, but it is still compatible with KDE and Qt applications, just as LXDE can still take GNOME and GTK+ applications just fine.
I am trying Razor-Qt as a MultiSystem-made live USB in the form of Ubuntu Razor-Qt Remix. Follow the jump to see what it's like.
Monday, 31 January 2011
A couple days ago, KDE 4.6 was released for the world to enjoy. It boasts myriad bug fixes, new features for applications like Dolphin and Marble (among others), a revamped Activities feature, and better integration of GTK+ applications. I've come to enjoy testing new KDE 4 releases because it gets noticeably better with each release (or so I would hope), as opposed to GNOME, Xfce, LXDE, and other DEs which don't change much between "point" releases (i.e. X.Y ("X point Y")).
That said, it's not available for Linux Mint 9 "Isadora", and I don't plan on upgrading that until the next LTS release (Linux Mint 13 "M[...]a") unless some radical change (that I don't like) makes me switch distributions (but given the lead developer Clement Lefebvre's recent statements on the matter, that is highly unlikely). Right now, it's only (in terms of Ubuntu-based distributions) available in Ubuntu/Kubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" and Linux Mint 10 "Julia" through a backport PPA. As I had a Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME live USB handy, I used that to do testing; I will say that this method may have been the cause of many of the problems that you will read about shortly. Follow the jump to see how it went.
Read more »That said, it's not available for Linux Mint 9 "Isadora", and I don't plan on upgrading that until the next LTS release (Linux Mint 13 "M[...]a") unless some radical change (that I don't like) makes me switch distributions (but given the lead developer Clement Lefebvre's recent statements on the matter, that is highly unlikely). Right now, it's only (in terms of Ubuntu-based distributions) available in Ubuntu/Kubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" and Linux Mint 10 "Julia" through a backport PPA. As I had a Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME live USB handy, I used that to do testing; I will say that this method may have been the cause of many of the problems that you will read about shortly. Follow the jump to see how it went.
Friday, 22 October 2010
I have exams on Friday (today) and Monday, so I'm pretty busy for these few days. However, after my Monday exam, I'll be a lot more free, meaning that I'll be able to tweak Fresh OS some more.
I read WebUpd8 pretty often, and they had an article this week about Manhattan OS, a custom Ubuntu build with GNOME and Plasma along with a bunch of other cool goodies, being renamed Jupiter OS and moving to a rolling-release Debian base. Hey, that sounds a lot like Fresh OS! I'm already feeling the competition (hehheh). I guess that's one incentive to push out a new release of Fresh OS as soon as possible.
My other incentive is that one of my friends has expressed an interest in installing Linux on her computer. As her computer is fairly old and is somewhat limited in RAM, I'm thinking of either installing Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" LXDE or Linux Mint "Debian", both of which are fairly lightweight. I'm leaning towards the latter due to the greater number of features in GNOME vs. LXDE as well as the rolling-release nature of the latter. This could also give me a chance to install Fresh OS. What I'll probably end up doing is installing Linux Mint "Debian" and building it up into Fresh OS by manually getting the necessary packages.
Finally, Fresh OS itself is progressing nicely. For some reason, try as I might, I just can't change the background and theme in GDM 3 (though I successfully did it before, so it may have to do with an update to GDM 3). However, the GNOME Panel global menu applet from Hadret's Debian repository works very well, and so does the Elementary theme. I still need to work out the bottom panel/panel-replacement and the browser (and maybe a couple of other applications), and I'll be mostly done. I think I can push out a new release by next week. Yay!
I read WebUpd8 pretty often, and they had an article this week about Manhattan OS, a custom Ubuntu build with GNOME and Plasma along with a bunch of other cool goodies, being renamed Jupiter OS and moving to a rolling-release Debian base. Hey, that sounds a lot like Fresh OS! I'm already feeling the competition (hehheh). I guess that's one incentive to push out a new release of Fresh OS as soon as possible.
My other incentive is that one of my friends has expressed an interest in installing Linux on her computer. As her computer is fairly old and is somewhat limited in RAM, I'm thinking of either installing Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" LXDE or Linux Mint "Debian", both of which are fairly lightweight. I'm leaning towards the latter due to the greater number of features in GNOME vs. LXDE as well as the rolling-release nature of the latter. This could also give me a chance to install Fresh OS. What I'll probably end up doing is installing Linux Mint "Debian" and building it up into Fresh OS by manually getting the necessary packages.
Finally, Fresh OS itself is progressing nicely. For some reason, try as I might, I just can't change the background and theme in GDM 3 (though I successfully did it before, so it may have to do with an update to GDM 3). However, the GNOME Panel global menu applet from Hadret's Debian repository works very well, and so does the Elementary theme. I still need to work out the bottom panel/panel-replacement and the browser (and maybe a couple of other applications), and I'll be mostly done. I think I can push out a new release by next week. Yay!
Sunday, 3 October 2010
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| Main Screen |
According to the Sabayon developers, Sabayon 5.4 brings to the table a new theme, many bugs fixed, and a couple changes in the included applications. Follow the jump to see how it fares. I tested this in VirtualBox with 1024 MB of RAM allocated for the guest OS, as this is how much RAM my old computer had when I tested Sabayon 5.2 on it directly (i.e. from a live USB instead of from VirtualBox).
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Sunday, 12 September 2010
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| Main Screen, Widgets, and Lancelot Launcher |
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Monday, 6 September 2010
SUCCESS! I have actually remastered Kubuntu!
As it turns out, I didn't need to install Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity to do this remaster. I have already installed it (and made the modifications I detailed in the previous post on the subject) within VirtualBox. I realized that I could share folders between VirtualBox and my Linux Mint installation, so I followed the instructions on the forums to do so. It worked, as Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity in VirtualBox recognized the selected folder on my Linux Mint installation.
I then needed to move folders like .config, .kde3, and .openoffice.org to the /etc/skel/ folder in Kubuntu. After doing so, I used Remastersys to create the ISO image of my Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity installation and moved it to the shared folder. I was then able to test it in VirtualBox, and it worked! Yay!
I have linked the email subscriptions for this blog to my Google account, which also manages Google Docs. I have thus uploaded a compressed file containing my remastered ISO for free download (both as in beer and as in speech). Please note, however, as you try the ISO (either virtualized or as a live DVD/USB), the ISO itself is 1.1 GB which is quite a bit bigger than a CD, so if you want to install this on a computer without a DVD reader, the computer must have a USB port and allow USB boot (or else this just won't work on such a computer). With regard to testing the ISO, note that there may be a full-screen console window that shows up with a bunch of information ending with the word "boot". Just press "Enter" to continue to the boot menu and select either the first (preferred) or second option. Also note that if one is doing this in a virtual machine, after the boot splash there may be a warning saying "Ubuntu is running in low graphics mode"; just click "OK" and let Ubuntu run in low graphics mode anyway. Right before the login screen comes up, an error message may come up. Just click "OK" to proceed. For some reason, the login screen has the username "pvbox" (which was my VirtualBox username) typed in as default. Please change "pvbox" to "guest" and press "Enter" twice. Note that there is no password to log in. You should now be greeted by a screen very similar to the one in my previous post. The KDE desktop and applications should have the Oxygen treatment, and so should OpenOffice.org. Next, note that there is an option to install this remaster (it's a standard Ubuntu installation), but there is no icon either on the desktop or in the KMenu indicating such a possibility. To install this remaster, open Konqueror (which is pinned to the Kicker panel), click on the home folder, click on the icon to the desktop, and then click on the icon labeled "ubiquity-gtkui.desktop"; this initiates the installer. Finally, note that after shutting down, one must press "Enter" (when instructed on the screen) to complete the shutdown process.
I have uploaded this ISO as a 7z compressed file on Google Docs. In most Linux distributions, File Roller or Ark can open and extract 7z files. If they can't, you most likely need to install the p7zip packages from the repositories. In Microsoft Windows, you can download the 7zip program to view, create, and extract 7z files. The file itself is 967 MB, which is still pretty big (but smaller than the 1024 MB Google Docs upload limit — the ISO image is 1.1 GB, which is too big), so downloading may take a while. I will now post the download link. Have fun testing this, and please let me know of any comments, suggestions, and other thoughts you have about this in the comments section (or by email)! Thank you!
As it turns out, I didn't need to install Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity to do this remaster. I have already installed it (and made the modifications I detailed in the previous post on the subject) within VirtualBox. I realized that I could share folders between VirtualBox and my Linux Mint installation, so I followed the instructions on the forums to do so. It worked, as Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity in VirtualBox recognized the selected folder on my Linux Mint installation.
I then needed to move folders like .config, .kde3, and .openoffice.org to the /etc/skel/ folder in Kubuntu. After doing so, I used Remastersys to create the ISO image of my Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity installation and moved it to the shared folder. I was then able to test it in VirtualBox, and it worked! Yay!
I have linked the email subscriptions for this blog to my Google account, which also manages Google Docs. I have thus uploaded a compressed file containing my remastered ISO for free download (both as in beer and as in speech). Please note, however, as you try the ISO (either virtualized or as a live DVD/USB), the ISO itself is 1.1 GB which is quite a bit bigger than a CD, so if you want to install this on a computer without a DVD reader, the computer must have a USB port and allow USB boot (or else this just won't work on such a computer). With regard to testing the ISO, note that there may be a full-screen console window that shows up with a bunch of information ending with the word "boot". Just press "Enter" to continue to the boot menu and select either the first (preferred) or second option. Also note that if one is doing this in a virtual machine, after the boot splash there may be a warning saying "Ubuntu is running in low graphics mode"; just click "OK" and let Ubuntu run in low graphics mode anyway. Right before the login screen comes up, an error message may come up. Just click "OK" to proceed. For some reason, the login screen has the username "pvbox" (which was my VirtualBox username) typed in as default. Please change "pvbox" to "guest" and press "Enter" twice. Note that there is no password to log in. You should now be greeted by a screen very similar to the one in my previous post. The KDE desktop and applications should have the Oxygen treatment, and so should OpenOffice.org. Next, note that there is an option to install this remaster (it's a standard Ubuntu installation), but there is no icon either on the desktop or in the KMenu indicating such a possibility. To install this remaster, open Konqueror (which is pinned to the Kicker panel), click on the home folder, click on the icon to the desktop, and then click on the icon labeled "ubiquity-gtkui.desktop"; this initiates the installer. Finally, note that after shutting down, one must press "Enter" (when instructed on the screen) to complete the shutdown process.
I have uploaded this ISO as a 7z compressed file on Google Docs. In most Linux distributions, File Roller or Ark can open and extract 7z files. If they can't, you most likely need to install the p7zip packages from the repositories. In Microsoft Windows, you can download the 7zip program to view, create, and extract 7z files. The file itself is 967 MB, which is still pretty big (but smaller than the 1024 MB Google Docs upload limit — the ISO image is 1.1 GB, which is too big), so downloading may take a while. I will now post the download link. Have fun testing this, and please let me know of any comments, suggestions, and other thoughts you have about this in the comments section (or by email)! Thank you!
Saturday, 28 August 2010
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| The Desktop with some Notifications |
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