A few problems with KDE 4.2
Hi there.
It's become annoying to try to keep Sid on my machine, with KDE 3.5
on. A few KDE 3.5 apps I need to use started breaking, and I had other
annoyances. So I'm trying 4.2 again.
I still have the same problems as before. Before reporting these as
bugs, perhaps other people could give me suggestions. I've tried
researching for info on most of these, but I can't seem to find
answers. Yes, there are a large number of them. This is why I didn't
want to use KDE 4 originally :-/
- Konsole no longer has configurable inactivity time setting. It
defaults to 10 seconds, which is too short for me in many cases.
- Ctrl+Alt+Backspace seems to have been disabled.
I'm already using the Dontzap serverflags xorg.conf option, that
doesn't seem to make a difference (I disagree with with xorg having
changed this package, and users not being warned afaict, but that's
offtopic for this list...).
- I can't configure the date format in the system tray clock. It shows
"3 Jun 2009", I want it to show 2009-06-03
- When I installed kde-full with aptitude, sound wasn't working in any
any apps (even mpg321 on the command-line), and the KDE sound settings
couldn't detect backends. I think that phonon was blocking /dev/pcm
(for example) in such a way that apps can't use them any more, but not
able to play sound sent to the devices. The only sound that worked was
the KDE login and logout sounds. It was by pure chance that I found
out about gstreamer backends and tried installing a few of those
packages, which seemed to fix things. I didn't notice a
recommend/suggest for gstreamer plugins when installing the kde4-full
package.
- The USB device detection popup from the bottom bar, gives an option
to unmount, but when I use that option, the entire bottom bar freezes
up, and I have to restart kdm on the command-line (which I have to go
to with ctrl+alt+f1 since I can't use Ctrl+Alt+Backspace any more) to
get my system back into working order.
- Sometimes when my system is under load, compositing is switched off.
I don't seem to be able to turn it back on.
I tried going to System Settings -> Desktop. Enable desktop effects
was still checked. I tried unchecking and re-checking it, but I got an
error message saying that it couldn't reenable. I also found info on
the web about pressing ctrl+shift+f12, but that didn't seem to make
any difference. Compositing was only reenabled when I restarted kdm on
the command-line
- Many of the downloadable plasmoids (when you go to "install
widgits") have errors and don't work at all.
- I used to be able to set a "Redmond" KDE theme in kpersonalizer,
which made the windows and keyboard shortcuts work like Windows XP. I
can't seem to find the theme, or an equivalent to kpersonalizer. For
instance, I usually use windows key-M to minimize all Windows. To fix
that, I had to disable Meta-M in Amarok, install the "Show the
Desktop" plasmoid, and set it to activate with Meta-M.
- The migration process is a bit weird. Sometimes you need to login
twice into KDE 4.2 (after upgrading from 3.5) for the migration wizard
to pop up.
- Kmail seems to lose several settings from 3.5. For instance, I need
to re-add the sender info (SMTP server, etc).
- The new Kmail layout with aggregation was confusing. I turned it
back to a flat view as soon as I found out how.
- The startup progress display (with icons that animate from left to
right) disappears if you click outside it. The KDE startup completes,
but it doesn't look very nice. Yes, I shouldn't click outside, but it
still bothers me me.
- The application launcher seems to have two matches for many
applications. eg if I type in "amarok", then I get these two results:
Amarok
Audio Player (Amarok)
- Konsole has hidden away many of the features I use daily. I now need
to go through menus or keyboard shortcuts, instead of being able to
click on visible icons, or find them in the context menus.
- KWrite has beome weird. I can't seem to set the
indentation/hilighting type anywhere, it autodetects, and I don't seem
to be able to manually set the hilighting type.
- Kwrite doesn't set the correct auto-indentation for Python. I have
to go into the Kwrite settings and change the indentation there, which
will probably affect editing of non-Python source files.
- The application launcher program doesn't always automatically close
when you click outside. Sometimes I have to click on it's icon on the
bottom of the screen to make it close.
- I can't find a way to set the "KDE 3.5" "look and feel" for KDE 4.2.
3.5 had a nostalgic (win 95/98)-like simplicity, with very little
bling, but it was very functional. I'd love it I could set apps back
to that window theme instead of the newer OSX/Windows-like shininess.
The shininess and effects are nice, but I prefer KDE 3.5's somewhat
spartan and highly responsive UI more.
I think those are most of the things I've noticed so far.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
David.
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