Mint 13 KDE (KDE sterilised)

[Fandangio]

After toying with a number of other KDE Distros (Chakra and Sabayon9, which are both aawesome by the way) I've finally installed Mint 13 KDE on my main home machine.

Whilst I am very pleased with it a few key KDE parts are missing. One such thing is the KIPI plugins for Gwenview etc, being able to upload pictures to a number of online services is a great feature (which I think was implemented in KDE4.6). It's a small additional download that could be included in the .iso. New users may not know that this exists and are therefore shown a watered down version of KDE.

Instead of trawling through other KDE features I'm just installing the KDE-full package from Synaptic.

It's a little sad that new KDE users are not shown the full potential of KDE with this Mint release.

[claudecat]

I agree with you that Mint KDE is a bit watered down in terms of KDE features. If the iso is gonna be bigger than a cd's worth, why not include more? I'd like to see at least some of the KDE games included myself... they make gnome's weak assortment look like a joke. Am I the only one out there that's addicted to kbreakout (top score 111,000+)?

[Fandangio]

I'm a fan of Palepeli myself, though Kbreakout is good for the occasional releif of boredom

[RJim]

I am a new user, and I am curious... besides uploading pictures to online services (which does not interest me), what other features of KDE are not included in Mint 13 KDE by default? And how would I add them?

Thanks in advance.

--Jim

[Fandangio]

I am a new user, and I am curious... besides uploading pictures to online services (which does not interest me), what other features of KDE are not included in Mint 13 KDE by default? And how would I add them?

Thanks in advance.

--Jim

Hi Jim, I've not done an exhaustive check but there were a couple of notable omissions and I'd not be sure how to fully check. KIPI was a key pluging which affects Gwenview, Digicam, Ksnapshot and other programs. The tar file is only 7MB.

I think adding the Kubuntu backports and installing the KDE-full package might provide a good KDE desktop


NEW FlickrExport: export images to a remote Flickr web service.
NEW SimpleviewerExport: export your images in a nice flash movie.
NEW HTMLGallery: export your images to HTML
RawConverter: A raw image converter for digital cameras.
SlideShow: Slideshow with effects ripped out from kslideshow and 3D effects using OpenGL.
MpegEncoder: Create an MPEG slideshow from your images.
PrintWizard: A wizard to print images in various format.
JpegLossLess: Batch process your JPEG images without losing meta information and compression.
CdArchiving: Archive your albums on CD or DVD using K3b.
ScanImages: Scanner management using Kooka.
ScreenshotImages: Snap screen based on KSnapshot and adapted to Kipi.
Calendar: A plugin to create calendars.
SendImages: A plugin to send images by email, allowing resizing and recompressing before sending.
RenameImages: Batch image renamer.
ConvertImages: Batch image converter.
BorderImages: Add border to your images in batch.
FilterImages: Batch image enhancer using digital filters.
ColorImages: Batch image color enhancer.
EffectImages: Batch image transformation effects.
ResizeImages: Batch image resizer.
RecompressImages: Batch image recompressor.
FindDuplicateImages: Find duplicate images in albums.
WallPaper: Set your image as wallpaper.
TimeAdjust: Adjust image file time and date.
GalleryExport: Interface for export images collections to remote Gallery web server.
KameraKlient: Digikam 0.6.2 Gphoto2 interface ported as a Kipi plugin. Note: this plugin is disabled in digiKam release >= 0.7.x because this part have been re-written from scratch using KIO Slaves.

[claudecat]

I am a new user, and I am curious... besides uploading pictures to online services (which does not interest me), what other features of KDE are not included in Mint 13 KDE by default? And how would I add them?

Thanks in advance.

--Jim

The full breadth of the KDE SC is pretty staggering really... everything from kalzium (an educational program that teaches the periodic table of elements) to kiten (a tool for learning Japanese). I already mentioned the games, and there are literally dozens and dozens of other programs and features that Mint and most other KDE distros don't include by default. Installing kde-full can be educational to say the least.

[Fandangio]

I agree claudecat and I am not recommending that the whole suite is included.

I need to do some more digging but I think this (again referring to KIPI) was included in the standard package set from about KDE4.6. As I said it is a key piece of software that adds some great functionality to a number of included programs, and at 7MB I see no reason to omit it.

Mint 13 KDE is a great release despite this but I do think it could have been much better with some very minor changes.