Linux Mint Forums

Hi guys,
I know the team is working hard on the new Daryna KDE edtion and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of that. In the meantime, I'm using the Celena-based (or is it Cassandra-based?) 3.0r1. My impression is that the kde mint is basically kubuntu + nuvoX + mintMenu. That leaves me curious about a few things:

1. will the Daryna version be similar? A few mint tools on top of kubuntu?
2. Are there any plans to build a KDE edition without the kubuntu influence? I ask because the general impression seems to be that kubuntu is one of the slowest KDE distros available. Personally, I can't compare, but I do notice it takes some memory (along with some xorg bugs)
3. Will I be able to upgrade and should I even bother? I've got my /home on a separate partition tho I imagine that can still leave a mess of old configs & files
4. Will the Daryna version integrate compiz-fusion into kwin? I don't believe that kubuntu gutsy is doing this but pclinuxos 2007 has it along with ubuntu & metacity of course. I understand compiz is still unstable and I'd be happy enough without it if it meant losing significant stability.

Thanks for all the work and for releasing the best-looking KDE I've seen. It took me a long time to find a KDE that looked anything but ugly. Now that I'm past that, I consider it the best DE I've seen, perhaps outside of OSX, which I haven't played with much.

Jay

Mint KDE CE (starting with Cassandra) is based off the Ubuntu repos but using the KDE desktop Environment.
(bianca KDE was based off Kubuntu but was changed to Ubuntu reops for Cassnadra)
so Mint gnome and KDE are using the same repos now.

most of the mint tools will be in Daryna KDE, noted exceptions are mintWifi and mintUpload.

I would not update, do a fresh install and mount your home dir during the install.

compiz-fusion replaces kwin when you enable it.

glad to hear your liking it.

I agree that mint kde is the best kde version I've ever seen. When I first started to use linux it was a kde distro and I hated it. It just seemed clunky, slow and very unattractive. And I hated the application menu. Mint has done a wonderful job with kde. It's unique and very elegant as a mint edition should be. I'm using Cassandra kde and can't wait til the Dayrna kde is stable.

I would not update, do a fresh install and mount your home dir during the install.

Does this stop the install overwriting all your settings & data. When i used to use Mepis, there was always a very handy option in the installer that you ticked to preserve Home folder. This was great because i could do upgrades without loosing any of my settings or data etc. Ever since leaving Mepis for mint, whenever I did an upgrade I have been selectively backing things up from my home folder & then putting them back into the newly created home folder after the install (a real pain).

Couldn't MInt put this option in its installer?

that is a really cool feature of an update/upgrade in mepis.
are you updating or doing a fresh install?
because you should not loose anything in your home directory on an upgrade.
on a fresh install the / partition will get formatted normally but if you choose to not format the partition files can get over written but none should get deleted.

any way this is why it is recommended to create a /home partition.
you can then do fresh installs, which are always better, and preserve all home directories, and remount it once the install is done.

Cheers
Boo

I am not planning to do a upgrade or install at this moment as I am using/testing your latest 044 KDE release. It would be handy if when I have finished, I could do a fresh install of the next release without having to loose all the settings & data in the home partition.
How would I go about preserving the home folder because Mint doesn't have the option to preserve it like mepis does & when it installs its going to format the partition.

if your home directory is on a separate partition then it is easy and in my release notes.
I hope we are talking about the same thing when it comes to partitions and directories.
if you do a df -h in a terminal window it will show you all your partitions both physical and virtual.
here is mine:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5 7.4G 3.0G 4.0G 44% /
varrun 1.8G 92K 1.8G 1% /var/run
varlock 1.8G 0 1.8G 0% /var/lock
udev 1.8G 140K 1.8G 1% /dev
devshm 1.8G 0 1.8G 0% /dev/shm
lrm 1.8G 17M 1.8G 1% /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile
/dev/sda3 92M 56M 31M 65% /boot
/dev/sda6 46G 37G 7.1G 84% /home
/dev/sda1 147G 57G 91G 39% /media/sda1
/dev/sdb1 145G 49G 89G 36% /home/boo/Projects
fusesmb 7.4G 3.0G 4.0G 44% /home/boo/Network

as you can see my /dev/sda6 is my home partition that has my home directory.
my root partition (/) is /dev/sda5.
the home partition is mounted at /home directory in the root partition.

hope this helps.
Boo

if your home directory is on a separate partition then it is easy and in my release notes.
I hope we are talking about the same thing when it comes to partitions and directories.
if you do a df -h in a terminal window it will show you all your partitions both physical and virtual.

Mepis puts everything on one partition so when it gives the choice of installing while preserving home ,is it just doing a file copy that is overwriting all the system files outside the home folder. I used this option everytime i installed a newer version of Mepis when they were released as it gave me a new install but saved all my Data in my home folder. Is it possible that this is what was being done by the Mepis installer when I selected to preserve my home folder during an install?

mint KDE is based off Ubuntu repos not Kubuntu repos.
Ubuntu do not maintain Kubuntu, is a separate project, like edubuntu,...

the default install for ubuntu (and most distros) is to put everything in one partition and another for swap.
I would say that mepis deleted all but /home directory, and most likely /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow too, then copied everything from the CD.
as the CD has no user dirs in it there would be nothing to copy but it would also have to not create an initial user during the install.

I always suggest creating a swap, / and /home partitions as a minimum.
the other thing about creating a home partition is that multiple linux OS's can use it. this is what i do.
but it is best if they dont all use the same DE otherwise you can get conflicts. eg Kubuntu and mint KDE and PCLOS.

the best solution is to create partitions for:
/, /home, /var, /tmp, /boot and swap.

Boo