Default KDE 4.10 desktop in Kubuntu 13.04 Daily Build

To be honest, KDE 4.10 is really a wonderful experience. And that’s even with my low specs graphics card from Intel. I read a lot of complaints over the Internet, mainly here, but for me the experience was great. It’s good to see such a feature-rich desktop keeping improving and heading towards the right direction, at least as far as I’m concerned. But let’s see what is new in KDE 4.10 first.

First, the Plasma Workspaces received improvements. From the announcement, the “taskbar received some usability features, with a smoother look for groups or windows”. Minimized windows will be greyed out in the taskbar and now the look of taskbar entries doesn’t provide a border for each window, but only for the active one. It looks smoother indeed, at least from my perspective:

I don’t know if this is new or not, but I like the Expand group/Collapse parent group options when right-clicking on a group icon application in the taskbar. This allows you to have access to all the opened instances of that application by clicking the specific icon in the taskbar. I couldn’t find the Stack icons grouping option from this post by Aaron Seigo.

According to this bug entry, the tiling support in KWin, introduced in KDE 4.5, has been removed because of stability issues, not supporting multi-screens, conflicting issues between KDE components. Too bad, that was a useful feature.

Unfortunately, there is a feature which it seems is unavailable in KDE (KDE 3.5 had it, GNOME has it) – showing .desktop file entries with their Name field instead of the file name. I do like the plasma widget which allows you to select a custom folder and display it on the desktop (like a, hummm, regular desktop):

As you can see, the file names are shown instead of the name field. This is not a bug because it’s logical to be this way, but it does seem kind of like a misfeature. Maybe there is a workaround for this, but I couldn’t find it. Dolphin displays them the same.

In addition to KDE 4.10, Kubuntu 13.04 ‘Raring Ringtail’ comes with Linux kernel 3.8.0, LibreOffice 4.0 Beta 2, Firefox 19 and Amarok 2.7.0.

I liked how the package installer now only contains a brief description when clicking the Details buttons, instead of the raw output of apt-get that you get when installing the packages in a terminal. Firefox doesn’t automatically start after it is installed (which would be desired, since the user probably expects to run it when it first clicks on the Firefox icon in the menu), but that’s no biggie.

I also noticed some downsides – keep in mind this is a development version, not a stable one.

Dolphin received many bug fixes and improvements. Support for MTP devices has been added, the panel icons size can now be changed (?!), current directory and files can be reported to the activity manager.

“There has also been an impressive number of performance enhancements. Loading folders, both with and without previews, is significantly faster and requires less memory while using all available processor cores to be as fast as possible. Minor improvements were made to search, drag and drop and other areas.”

On a downside, choosing not to show the Up button in Dolphin is quite a bad decision. Enabling it is a few clicks away, but still that’s a useful toolbar shortcut and most of the users are used to it. Also, the view mode doesn’t seem to be persistent. It changes for the current directory but when going up the directory tree it switches back to folder view. Setting double-click to open files and folders doesn’t seem to work.

Kate, one of my favorite text editors besides Emacs, received notifications that appear at the top of the editing area. And due to the KDE coding sprint, the number of opened bugs has been reduced from 850 to only 60. Now that’s really impressive!

Konsole brings two new features which were available in the KDE 3.5 version: print screen and send signals, as well as an option to change line spacing. For the latter, go to Settings->Edit Current Profile->Advanced and change the value of the line spacing adjustment.

Okular, Gwenview, Kontact, games, and Marble also received improvements. The KDE typing tutor, KTouch, has been completely rewritten.

A little more about Gwenview. Maybe others don’t find this bothering, but it’s a pain to always see images resized to fit the window and no option to cancel this. The option is not even saved between switching images, not to mention between sessions. I hope Gwenview will get back this functionality, available back in the KDE 3.5 days.

For developers, SDK components for Plasma are now part of PlasMate, which is an IDE for development of Plasma components. You can install it in Kubuntu using sudo apt-get install plasmate. You can create widgets, themes, KWin scrips and effects, as well as runners and window switchers in languages like QtQuick, JavaScript, Python or Ruby. Starting a default widget development has all the code in place for displaying the usual Hello world text on the Plasma workspace. I think this is too easy, and may encourage even users who don’t have much programming experience in developing widgets for Plasma (or any other components).

I did experience some issues, mainly how KDE freezes for several seconds every once in a while. This seemed to appear in 4.10, I couldn’t notice these freezes in 4.8 on Mint. Sometimes it’s only Firefox, sometimes it’s the whole KDE. I’m not sure what causes it, should it be the graphics card or something else. Whatever it is, it should be fixed as it is very annoying and counter-productive.

Firefox 19.0 sometimes becomes completely unresponsive, which is very frustrating. This also happened on Mint 14 with, sometimes when I maximize it from the taskbar it will just show a blank window and then hang. This makes for a terrible experience, needing to kill and restart it manually. But I won’t jump and bash Firefox, most of the time it works perfectly, and this may not even be Firefox-related, I don’t know for sure. Still, makes me smile when seeing that Well, this is embarrasing message every time I start Firefox. Haven’t seen it in a while. This may not even be Firefox-related.

One thing I’ve noticed is that my resolution of choice is now gone. I’m using an LCD with a default resolution of 1366×768, but I normally use it at 1280×768 because it allows me to have a vertical refresh rate of 75 Hz instead of 60 Hz (which is quite useful in shooter games). In Kubuntu, the only available modes are 1366×768, 1280×1024, 1280×720 and several lower ones. More were available in 12.10.

Changing the resolution will bring many artifacts on my Intel card. Here’s how it looks:

I think this has to do with the graphics card, not Kubuntu, since changing it back to the default resolution worked fine. Logging out and logging back in fixed the issue though.

You can download the Kubuntu 13.04 daily build from here. Burn it to a DVD or a USB Flash drive and try it.

If you want to install this KDE release in 12.10, add the following backports repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list file and perform a sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade:

Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin will be the next long-term supported release and as most of you already know, it is scheduled to arrive at the end of April 2012. Here is the release schedule of Ubuntu 12.04:

• Alpha 1 – December 1, 2011
• Alpha 2 – February 2, 2012
• Feature freeze – February 17, 2012
• Beta 1 – March 1, 2012
• Beta 2 – March 29, 2012
• Release candidate – April 19, 2012
• Final release – April 26, 2012

The 12.04.1 point release is scheduled for July.

This review is based on the latest Kubuntu alpha, after a clean install and performing a full upgrade using sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade.

I had a look at Plasma Netbook, by running the live ISO image on an Acer Aspire One D255E netbook from a USB flash drive. The netbook is equipped with an Intel N570 1.66 dual core CPU, 2GB RAM and Intel HD 3150 integrated graphics card.

Here are the main features available in Kubuntu 12.04:

• Kernel: Linux kernel 3.2.0
• Desktop environment:KDE Software Compilation 4.8.0
• File manager:Dolphin 2.0
• Web browser:Rekonq 0.8.71
• Music player:Amarok 2.5.0
• Terminal: Konsole 2.8

Kubuntu correctly detected the netbook and started off the USB drive directly in Plasma Netbook, it detected the graphics card and enabled desktop effects by default, also the Ethernet card, wireless and webcam worked out of the box.

The KDE interface for small screens is really nice in my opinion, and pretty much a lot more functional than Unity if you ask me.

By default, the desktop looks like this:

There is a strange artifact consisting of some blue vertical stripes in the search box, but other than that, the “Search and launch” page really looks pretty neat.

From left to right, the upper panel bar includes the menu of the currently selected application, the Search and launch page, another page titled “Page one” to which various Plasma widgets can be added (like a weather widget, or a web browser). In addition to these, we have the system tray with Klipper, volume icon (KMix), laptop battery icon, network icon, date and time. Options to lock screen and shutdown are also available.

On the top-right side there is an application selector, which, when clicked, shows a list of all the running applications.

To be honest, I could never familiarize with these interfaces designed for small screens, and Unity in Ubuntu seems to me strange and unusable even now. The idea of having to do additional clicks in order to select an application, or switch your hand from mouse to keyboard and viceversa doesn’t look fast, but I guess that’s just me. However, KDE really does a good job implementing the netbook interface. One of the things I still miss is the Alt+F2 run box which doesn’t seem to work in Plasma Netbook.

Here’s the Search and launch page with changed wallpaper and shortcuts to some applications:

Configuring search and launch:

And the widgets page:

Moving forward, here is the default music player which ships with Kubuntu, Amarok 2.5.0:

Amarok has reached a level of completeness, one of the only drawbacks being the fact that it’s pretty slow, and I’m talking about scrolling in a large default playlist (with album thumbnails enabled) and resizing its three main widgets (services, context and playlist). I guess this has to do something with Qt.

Dolphin, the file manager:

Rekonq the default WebKit-based web browser comes with support for HTML5:

To conclude, Kubuntu Plasma Netbook is pretty cool and intuitive, offering fast access to common applications, a pretty solid interface, and the best of them all, it is, as KDE always was, highly configurable. Hopefully the 12.04 release will be a good improvement over the last Kubuntu versions.

Download Kubuntu Precise Pangolin ISO Image – Daily Build

BasKet (Notes-taking application)
I think each time I’ve talked about BasKet I mentioned it is a ‘killer app’ for Linux. BasKet is a full-blown notes-taking application for KDE, but it takes the concept to a whole new dimension, bringing features which make it a fully-fledged content creation program. It supports inserting text, images, links, frames. It organizes notes in a tree-like hierarchical manner, supports tags, importing notes from other notes-taking applications or text files, back/restore function.

BasKet 1.81

Amarok (Music player)
Amarok 2.x has reached the level of maturity each Amarok user expected from such a player, especially since the change from the older 1.4 releases. It has countless features, including music library, lyrics and info widgets, powerful configurable playlist, scripting support, 5-star rating system, 10-band equalizer, integrated music stores and much, much more.

Amarok 2.4.0

Rekonq (Web browser)
When it comes to web browsers, most people use Firefox, Chrome, Opera or Safari on Mac OS X, so there isn’t much room for others. However, there usually is a small group which likes more to use a browser such as Epiphany in GNOME, or Rekonq in KDE. I wasn’t sure to choose between Konqueror and Rekonq, however I opted for the latter not because it’s better (they’re using the same engine), but because Konqueror is also a file manager and much more, while Rekonq only focuses on web browsing capabilities. Rekonq has an interface which resembles the one of Google Chrome and ituses the WebKit rendering engine. Except for all the usual features, it provides capabilities like private browsing (known from Firefox 4), fullscreen mode or changing browser user-agent. Rekonq is very fit for those who are looking for a web browser that integrates perfectly in KDE.

Rekonq 0.7.0

KSnapshot (Screenshot taking program)
The default screenshot taking program, KSnapshot will not only take a simple screenshot, but also offers various options: you can only capture the window under the cursor, select a rectangular region of the screen, select a freehand region of the screen, or only a section of a window. KSnapshot also allows to include or exclude window decorations or the mouse pointer, can save the image to various image formats including PNG or JPG, and it also offers a menu to open the image in another application. I ask you, how much more usable an application which could seem so unimportant could get?

KSnapshot 0.8.2

K3b (Burning application)
The most famous burning program for KDE, K3b can save projects, create ISO images, burn CDs/DVDs, burn ISO images, copy CDs or DVDs, rip audio CDs, on-screen display (OSD), notifications, multi-session burning.

K3b 2.0.2

KTorrent (BitTorrent client)
BitTorrent is probably the most used and efficient protocol for transferring files. What doesn’t cease to amaze me is that although you wouldn’t expect much from a BitTorrent client application, KTorrent continues to improve and to bring new features with each release. Currently it includes anything you would want from such a program: download certain files in torrents only, pausing/resuming downloading, BitTorrent search engines integration, tabs, support for scripts and plugins, shutdown configuration, download queue, notifications, speed limits configuration, protocol-specific parameters configuration.

KTorrent 4.0.5

Kaffeine (Movie player)
Kaffeine is a pretty decent video player with support for subtitles, playlists, and can play various video formats, DVDs, Digital TV.

Kaffeine 1.1

DigiKam (Photo manager)
DigiKam received a lot of acclamation lately, and with every release it gets better, to the delight of the fans. Although I don’t use it very often (I’m not much of a camera guy), every once in a while I try it to see what’s new under the hood. It provides KIPI plugins integration, image processing effects and tools, importing and exporting images, support for collections, support for albums, tags. These to mention a few. Try it if you need a good photo manager and didn’t know about it yet.

DigiKam 1.9.0

Yakuake (Console application)
This is a well-known gem for all users who prefer a Quake-style console over the typical terminal emulators like Konsole or GNOME Terminal. It can be shown or hidden using the F12 keyboard shortcut.

Yakuake 2.9.8

Krusader (File manager)
Krusader is a very powerful twin-panel file manager which provides tools for any possible way to work and interact with files. It features previews, window splitting, zooming in/out, quick access keys to usual functions (Midnight Commander style), tabs, archive tools integration and many more.

Krusader 2.3.0 Beta 1

Kdenlive (Video editor)
Kdenlive is a feature-rich video editor, allowing to cut/crop videos, add audio and video effects, preview the results and save the work as 1080p or 720p HD formats, PAL or NTSC.

Kdenlive 0.7.8

K9Copy (DVD shrinking application)
K9copy uses mencoder or ffmpeg to rip DVDs, and it supports many MPEG 4 encoders, which have preset settings, but can be edited manually. K9copy also allows to set a custom size for the output file and select in how many files should the video be split.

K9copy 2.3.6

Konversation (IRC client)
Konversation is a user-friendly and highly configurable IRC (Internet Relay Chat) application. The only drawback is that it doesn’t support event-driven scripts, but otherwise it offers every possible option to customize it and have a pleasant time on IRC.

Konversation 1.3.1

Krita (Image editor and manipulation program)
Although the website describes Krita as a painting application, it is actually KDE’s most powerful image manipulation application, being also the only one powerful enough to be a perfect alternative to GIMP. It provides tools, effects, filters, saving and opening all the major image formats out there.

Krita 2.3.3

Kate (Text editor)
Kate is not only a text editor, but a powerful tool for writing code too. It includes dozens of features, from which are noteworthy syntax highlighting, block selection mode, automatic indentation, word wrap, spell-checking function, plugin support, bookmarks, sessions, embedded terminal, split window horizontally or vertically. These are not all of its features though, and I can’t cover them all here. Kate can be used successfully to develop projects in various programming languages.

Kate 3.6.2

Kopete (Chat client)
For IM purposes, KDE uses Kopete, a chat client with support for many protocols like Jabber, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, WLM or Skype. It shows contact avatars, chat window themes, emoticons, plugins and video support.

Kopete 1.0.80

KGet (Download manager)
KGet can be integrated in Konqueror, it supports plugins, web interface, downloading and verifying signature keys, pausing/resuming downloads, set downloading priorities, and notifications.

KGet 2.6.2

KDevelop (KDE development environment)
KDevelop is a gigantic IDE, and although made especially for programming in Qt and KDE projects, it can be used successfully for developing in other languages too. It provides tools to generate scripts, skeleton code, templates, and much, much more.

KDevelop 4.2.2

KMail (Email client)
KMail is the default email client in KDE, being a mature, full-featured application. It has support for POP3 and IMAP, tons of options and other tools. On June 10 the Kontact suite (the one which includes KMail) received several new features in KDE 4.6.4, which include faster email notifications, interoperability with other applications and improved performance for IMAP accounts.

KMail 1.13.6

Akregator (Feeds client)
Being a dedicated feed client, Akregator offers much more than what applications like Firefox provide. Akregator is the KDE news feed reader, with support for RSS and Atom feeds, features like system tray integration, notifications, automated feed fetching, configurable appearance and a tree-like way of organizing feeds.

Akregator 1.6.6

Instead of a conclusion, here are a few other powerful applications which fit very well in KDE:

• SMPlayer – powerful video player built in Qt and using MPlayer
• Konqueror – full-featured file manager, web browser and more
• Dolphin – de facto file manager in KDE
• VLC – Qt-based movie player, so I couldn’t include it in the review

- the new Kontact suite brings next generation groupware to desktop and mobile

- Kontact receives a major architectural boost, using the capabilities of the new scalable Akonadi groupware framework to build interconnected PIM-related applications

- software updates to KDE Workspaces, Applications and Development Platform

To install the latest KDE version in Kubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, open a terminal and type in the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

If you don’t have Kubuntu installed, install it using:

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

If you have Ubuntu but want to try KDE with only a core set of applications like KDE Plasma, file manager, web browser, text editor, then install the kde-plasma-desktop package:

sudo apt-get install kde-plasma-desktop

To revert to the default KDE packages from the repositories, install the ppa-purge binary and run it like this:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge kubuntu-ppa

The ppa-purge command will comment your sources lines inside the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubuntu-ppa-ppa-natty.list file, and then replace the packages which were installed from the PPA with the ones in the default repositories.