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Ubuntu Sufferers

i like widgets/gadgets--Android got me into them first, and KDE (whatever comes form the 12.10 repos) does not feel bloated! this isn't a very powerful laptop and it can do things as smoothly as in Unity but with levels of customization that makes Android feel primitive in comparison (trust me, a lot has changed since the KDE shipped with my ancient Red Hat 7 complete system discs)

besides, you can turn the bloat off, uninstall what you hate. the widgets are not permenant and not turned on by default. i do like how that annoying top bar is not covering up important parts of Star Trek Online now, i was unable to see how much XP i gained or how much i needed to level up again with that annoying Unity status bar up there being permenant even in fullscreen mode

what i found interesting is that after i installed and shut the system down when i turned it back on i was greeted by the Kubuntu logo and name, instead of the distro i actually installed. first time it did a disk scan (said unmounted unclean, even though i did a proper shutdown first?) the second time it locked up tighter than a drum, some weird kernel panic, third time it was fine. perhaps part of the install but it's fine now

i was able to disable the error (strange, kept getting this random 'Ubuntu 12.10 has encountered an internal error' even though not one program or widget had crashed which was weird) by editing some file to remove the 'apport' feature. i guess it is a lot like the annoying Bug Buddy in Mandriva since it, too, seemed to pop up when nothing was actually wrong, just like Windows 'This program stopped working'. some weird type of crash detection which is a lot of times a false positive. the stupid send crash report was a reminder of MS i hated so bye bye it went.

Unity was not THAT bad, had a nice selection of wallpaper and you can auto-hide the launcher, but the themes were not very flexible, lacked provisions to install new ones, no widget support, and you cannot relocate the launcher when it is visible. gestures seemed no-go, and it was hard to find apps of specific category in the launcher main menu, which resembled Pear Linux's launchpad (but without the organized category list up top) and i ended up using keyboard shortcuts to work around certain programs i couldn't find easily in it, such as the console. in a way it lacked most of the customization and felt very dumbed down, as if for newbies. Reading posts online this whole move to Mint has a lot to do with the change to Unity
 
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I normally use gtkphoto but some reason Mageia doesn't have it in repositories. Mga is only 2 yrs. old or so

I have nothing against KDE, it is one of the best around and have some great apps but I get lost using it. I'm a minimalist and mostly use Openbox/Fluxbox. I have Gnome for the family members to use.

After I started using linux more, then I started using Debian and net install and only added what I needed/wanted. Another reason for this I always had low spec hardware.
 
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i do adore simplicity but i do not like not having the option to do more. because there will be a time when i want to change stuff besides the wallpaper and two themes. limiting that ability just makes me upset. this is one reason i dumped Windows 8 after finding out Star Trek Online worked fine in Ubuntu. After all, what is Linux without customization? it should not be Unity out of the box. somehow the 'if you don't like it change it' attitude makes me irked. the way Desktop and mobile OS is beginning to resemble a kid's plaything from Fisher Price is really beginning to bug me. at least we are still given the option to install other DEs otherwise i'd truly be miffed. when i tried Ubuntu more recently before committing to it, it was an older version known as Maverick Meerkat. it had Gnome but it still had the dumbed down feel and poo colors that made me feel like i was inside of another's digestive tract. i am not sure who designs the default interface but it looks meant for color blind kids.

not to nitpick but what is it with the animal names for each distro? are they being co-opted by the DeHavilland aircraft company? (they used to name their aircraft after animals as well)

I may have blown away Win8 but in actuality it was a mistake. i resized the partition and then the installer crashed (error number 5, input output error) and when i restarted the installer from scratch it had erased all my partitions and had only a ext4 and a swap. not sure what happened but oh well
 
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I just found this in the show us your desktop thread. Mageia 1 with Openbox, Audacious, Tint2 panel, and conky...wow


attachment.php
 
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not to nitpick but what is it with the animal names for each distro? are they being co-opted by the DeHavilland aircraft company? (they used to name their aircraft after animals as well)

Why not? I mean, what's with all the dessert names for each version of Android? :) They're in alphabetical order, and IMO are more memorable and distinctive than just numbers...ahem Microsoft..."Windows 8" i'ts not even the 8th version of Windows.
 
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The reason they call it 'Windows 8' is because it is the eighth NT-Based Windows. they did not count Win 1.x and up as part of the version numbering scheme. it really is confusing though.

1. Windows NT 3.x
2. Windows NT 4.x
3. Windows 2000
4. Windows XP
5. Windows Server
6. Windows Vista
7. Windows 7
8. Windows 8

there is even debate whether Windows versions 1.x to 3.x were actually Operating Systems or apps which simply run on top of MS-DOS (even MS themselves called it the 'Microsoft Windows 3.1 Operating System')
 
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not to nitpick but what is it with the animal names for each distro? are they being co-opted by the DeHavilland aircraft company? (they used to name their aircraft after animals as well)
Why not? I mean, what's with all the dessert names for each version of Android? :) They're in alphabetical order
Not exactly. :eek: It wasn't until version 5.10, AKA Breezy Badger, that the alphabetical thing started. The first two releases, versions 4.10 and 5.04, were named Warty Warthog and Hoary Hedgehog, respectively.
 
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BTW does anyone know what happened to K-Office, the KDE office suite. That seems to have died all of a sudden.
This taken from Wikipedia.

After the Calligra Suite was forked from it in 2010, the KOffice project was seemingly shut down permanently without any official announcement in September 2012.
It never really got the support it should have anyway. I think Openoffice/Libreoffice was getting the users.
 
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The reason they call it 'Windows 8' is because it is the eighth NT-Based Windows. they did not count Win 1.x and up as part of the version numbering scheme. it really is confusing though.

1. Windows NT 3.1
1.5. Windows NT 3.5x
2. Windows NT 4.x
3. Windows 2000
4. Windows XP / Server 2003
X. Windows Server <<-- NO
5. Windows Vista / Server 2008
6. Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2
?. Windows 8
It's especially confusing when you count a product version as a release. :p

Every major release is available in a workstation and a server version. Although later schemes are ridiculously confusing in their naming, there's a one-to-one match at each level. Windows 7 / Server 2008R2 is version 6.1.

For those who don't know, there was no Windows NT prior to 3.1. Before that, OS/2 was the chosen successor to MS-DOS. Why Microsoft broke with IBM and made its own product can fill a book, but that's the gist of it.

there is even debate whether Windows versions 1.x to 3.x were actually Operating Systems or apps which simply run on top of MS-DOS (even MS themselves called it the 'Microsoft Windows 3.1 Operating System')
Versions 1 & 2 were little more than ANSI art shells (like DOSHELL). They added no OS functionality. Windows 3.1 is a different story.

Although Windows 3.0 was the first to look like more than a glorified DOS program, and had some '286 Protected Mode support, it was 3.1 that started piling in the stuff that a modern OS is made of: virtual memory, multitasking, abstraction layers etc. The 32-bit disk drivers and Win32s that came with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 were a dress rehearsal for Windows 95. Windows 3.1/3.11 weren't complete operating systems, but they were getting close.
 
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I normally use gtkphoto but some reason Mageia doesn't have it in repositories. Mga is only 2 yrs. old or so
digiKam is so perfect for me, I rarely even try anything else.

I have nothing against KDE, it is one of the best around and have some great apps but I get lost using it.
Can you expand on that a bit? :thinking: How/when/where do you get lost? I'm actually having a hard time picturing this, because everything about KDE seems so intuitive and straightforward--to me.

I'm a minimalist
SO AM I! Have you seen my most recent desktop shots? They're in the desktop thread, but here:

desktop_123112_1.png


desktop_123112_2.png


Look at them full size so you can see that there's NOTHING on any of my nine desktops--no widgets, no icons, nothing; everything's confined to one panel at the bottom of each desktop.
 
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It's a personal thing with me, if I'm using Gnome I don't like to install KDE or Xfce stuff and vice versa. I have at times for certain programs. By getting lost, KDE installs too much software by default. 3-4 music players, video players, etc.

By minimalistic I mean the whole exprience, installing Openbox/Fluxbox or similar window manager. Install programs that doesn't have lots of dependencies, such as Firefox, Audacious, VLC etc. Programs not tied to KDE, Gnome or XFCE. It have been times I will install one of those programs, but not many.
 
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It's a personal thing with me, if I'm using Gnome I don't like to install KDE or Xfce stuff and vice versa. I have at times for certain programs. By getting lost, KDE installs too much software by default. 3-4 music players, video players, etc.

By minimalistic I mean the whole exprience, installing Openbox/Fluxbox or similar window manager. Install programs that doesn't have lots of dependencies, such as Firefox, Audacious, VLC etc. Programs not tied to KDE, Gnome or XFCE. It have been times I will install one of those programs, but not many.

I installed KDE 4.8.5 onto my Linux Mint system, which uses Mate by default, to see what it's like. I found it didn't actually install much bloat at all, just the base system. Didn't even get KDE file manager(Dolphin) by default. That's why I enquired earlier, what happened to KOffice? It wasn't in the Mint/Ubuntu repos. And it's a couple years since I last looked at KDE.

If you install a KDE based distro like Kubuntu, then it will probably full of KDE specific software and widgets, rather than GTK/Mate/Gnome based stuff.

One thing I've certainly noticed with KDE, is that it takes significantly longer to get going than Mate. It's 40-45 seconds from when X starts, to when KDE is fully ready. First the hard drive icon appears, then the screwdriver and spanner icon, etc.. and eventually the desktop gradually appears. 70 Mongolian students were staring at it this morning on the classroom projector and screen, probably wondering what was going on with teacher's laptop. Mate is fully loaded in about 10-15 seconds, and LXDE in about 5 seconds after X starts. To me it seemed rather like going from Windows XP to Windows Vista.
 
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forget KOffice, what happened to OpenOffice? it seems to have been replaced by LibreOffice?

As for those complaining about KDE bloat, let's not forget how long it takes to load up a Windows 7 desktop after login, at least in KDE i can start browsing the web and opening some MP3s long before all the widgets have fully loaded up :)

there are also means to speed things up just like there are in Android. minimizing what starts when X starts, uninstalling, hell turning widget support off entirely. it all depends on your hardware, much like PC Gaming. either you can have the graphics all the way up or you turn it all the way down depending on the hardware--either the game looks nice or plays well in many cases. some have to accept certain tradeoffs depending on what they got--if you got a cheap budget laptop you can't have it all. or vice versa, just like budget-vs-expensive Android devices

Moody, how the hell do you get that cool Compiz pentagon effect going? i installed it a lot of times but it NEVER loads up that way! it always seems limited to window minimize/maximize and open/close transitions....i must be missing something
 
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forget KOffice, what happened to OpenOffice? it seems to have been replaced by LibreOffice?

OpenOffice is still around, still developed and supported. It's in the Ubuntu repos or can be downloaded from OOs website. LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice, which was owned by Oracle at the time. It's now Apache. Not like KOffice, that's dead. I use LibreOffice, because it seems to be better for MS Office compatibility and PPTs downloaded from Baidu Wenku.

As for those complaining about KDE bloat, let's not forget how long it takes to load up a Windows 7 desktop after login, at least in KDE i can start browsing the web and opening some MP3s long before all the widgets have fully loaded up :)

there are also means to speed things up just like there are in Android. minimizing what starts when X starts, uninstalling, hell turning widget support off entirely. it all depends on your hardware, much like PC Gaming. either you can have the graphics all the way up or you turn it all the way down depending on the hardware--either the game looks nice or plays well in many cases. some have to accept certain tradeoffs depending on what they got--if you got a cheap budget laptop you can't have it all. or vice versa, just like budget-vs-expensive Android devicest

Most of the time I'm using applications, so don't care so much about desktop eyecandy and widgets. Chrome looks exactly the same whether it's running on OpenBox, LXDE or KDE4. :) Similarly for LibreOffice or MS Office running on Wine.

Waiting 40-50 seconds for KDE4 to complete it's startup sequence and animations can be a long time when I'm wanting to get started with the lessons, as I found out this morning. Even Windows 7 and 8 fully booted quicker on the same PC. :rolleyes: That's why I've taken to using LXDE for this. The laptop I'm using is indeed a budget PC, a Lenovo S110, but on the other hand it's very lightweight, small and easily carried around, barely larger than an Apple iPad. :)

Moody, how the hell do you get that cool Compiz pentagon effect going? i installed it a lot of times but it NEVER loads up that way! it always seems limited to window minimize/maximize and open/close transitions....i must be missing something

Personal preference, but I like my applications to minimise/maximise/open/close instantly. Don't care so much for fancy animations and transitions here.
 
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Moody, how the hell do you get that cool Compiz pentagon effect going? i installed it a lot of times but it NEVER loads up that way! it always seems limited to window minimize/maximize and open/close transitions....i must be missing something
:D Follow this path: System Settings | Desktop Effects. Then plunge in and start trying its ZILLIONS of options/combinations. :D

Go to its "All Effects" tab and explore the "Desktop Cube" option. Look at, and experiment with, its options.

Note that you have to, obviously, have more than one desktop or there won't be anything to display on the cube. How many sides the cube has depends on how many desktops you have. I always set my desktops at 9, so my cubes have 9 sides.
 
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Personal preference, but I like my applications to minimise/maximise/open/close instantly. Don't care so much for fancy animations and transitions here.
Me either. The only effect I use is the cube; I don't do any of the fancy animations, like fire or whatever, when minimizing/maximizing a window. I like everything to JUST HAPPEN when I want it to. I don't care about special effects. :rolleyes:
 
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now, if they included animal-themes with each version to match its name, that would be interesting

They actually used to do this. There were a few wallpapers included that would have a very stylistic rendering of said animal. It was something that I originally found very 'warm' about Ubuntu. :)

I know it's in 8.04 (last cd I have to include it [[I think]] )
 
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It's a personal thing with me, if I'm using Gnome I don't like to install KDE or Xfce stuff and vice versa. I have at times for certain programs. By getting lost, KDE installs too much software by default. 3-4 music players, video players, etc.

By minimalistic I mean the whole exprience, installing Openbox/Fluxbox or similar window manager. Install programs that doesn't have lots of dependencies, such as Firefox, Audacious, VLC etc. Programs not tied to KDE, Gnome or XFCE. It have been times I will install one of those programs, but not many.
AFAIK KDE doesn't use a separate installer; it's installed by the distro. Don't blame KDE for the distro maintainer's decisions.

To be fair, Xfce has nothing to do with KDE, and uses the GTK+2 libraries that would come with the GNOME install. Audacious uses the GTK+2 or GTK+3 (depending on version) libraries that GNOME uses, but which are just excess bagage to KDE installs. (Equally unacceptable from a KDE user's POV.) The last time I checked, Mozilla has mandatory GTK dependencies in Linux, and VLC uses the Qt libraries.

By the same token, applications like AmaroK and DigiKam don't require the entire KDE environment to be installed, just the Qt libraries.

If you look at the dependencies list for lots of popular X programs, you'll find that most of them use one or more popular visual libraries (like WxWidgets) and/or media players like XMMS (using GTK+1). The average Linux/X install is going to have lots of support libraries, even the "minimal" ones.

It's really not fair to say that programs that use one set of libraries are automatically better than those that use a different set of libraries just because you prefer the desktop environment that also uses the same libraries. Qt got a bad rap due to the less than 100% FOSS Qt library, but that was resolved ages ago! KDE4 may suck, but that's not reason enough to boycott all Qt-based programs.
 
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