Install KDE on Gnome Install - Felicia

[locutus]

I really hate KDE4 is there any way to install KDE3 in mint? :

You could probably do it yourself, starting off with the Gnome edition and adding the repositories from Debian or some such distro, a ubuntu derivative would be better. You might lose a lot of what makes Mint, Mint. In any case I would experiment on a virtual machine (like VirtualBox) first. Then after you get it right then duplicate it on a spare partition. But I'm not even sure it would work.

[terdon]

Hi all, I have been trying to install kde on gloria but although I get no errors when installing the kde, kubuntu_desktop packages, when I log into kde I cannot click on anything. Gnome-do (win-space) still works and any other apps i launch from it but the desktop is useless.

Any ideas?

[emorrp1]

well, I don't know why you have that problem, but kubuntu-desktop is an ubuntu package, the equivalent on mint will be mint-meta-kde when the kde CE is released, so you may want to wait for that, or even test it out.

[locutus]

Hi all, I have been trying to install kde on gloria but although I get no errors when installing the kde, kubuntu_desktop packages, when I log into kde I cannot click on anything. Gnome-do (win-space) still works and any other apps i launch from it but the desktop is useless.

Any ideas?

You'll also want to add the ppa-launchpad repositories to your sources.list . I would give them to you except I haven't looked for Gloria's repos yet.

[terdon]

Yeah I know, but still kubuntu_desktop will basically install a complete kde desktop right? I seem to have a working KDE installation its just that I can't use the desktop interface. Since I can load programs with gnome-do (including changing KDE-settings) I think it is a relatively minor problem. My guess is I just have to change a setting and it will work.

Anybody know what setting?

[locutus]

Yeah I know, but still kubuntu_desktop will basically install a complete kde desktop right? I seem to have a working KDE installation its just that I can't use the desktop interface. Since I can load programs with gnome-do (including changing KDE-settings) I think it is a relatively minor problem. My guess is I just have to change a setting and it will work.

Anybody know what setting?

Hmmm. Not so sure about the kubuntu-desktop thing. Back when Mint was at version 3.0, I asked on the forums about installing KDE, and the reply was "that it's not just a case of installing kubuntu-deskto. Mint is different."

I would hate for you to lose any customizations that you've made -- unless you haven't been able to make any yet -- but I would boot back into gnome, remove kubuntu-desktop and install the mint-meta package mentioned above. Maybe that meta package will install kubuntu-desktop all over again, I don't know. But even if it does, it would be installed in the right order and hopefully everything will work.

[terdon]

I haven't overwritten gnome. Its just that I am used to have various windows managers installed. Have done so from in Mandrake (old days), SuSe, OpenSuse, Red had, Fedora, Ubuntu AND last mint. So I dont see why I can't do it now...

I am compiling from source now to see if that works.

And yes, I do realise I should wait for the mint package but hey, I don't wanna!

[emorrp1]

I haven't overwritten gnome. Its just that I am used to have various windows managers installed. Have done so from in Mandrake (old days), SuSe, OpenSuse, Red had, Fedora, Ubuntu AND last mint. So I dont see why I can't do it now...

I am compiling from source now to see if that works.

And yes, I do realise I should wait for the mint package but hey, I don't wanna!

Well you can do it now, but the mint kde package is obviously going to be more appropriate than the kubuntu package. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing wrong with the mint kde package, so what's wrong with trying it out? It's available in the repos, it's just that it may be buggy. You can also install the different Desktop Environments and Window Managers directly, rather than through the meta packages. This would be the equivalent of through source, without the blocks it places on dependencies and upgrading.

[terdon]

Well, I tried installing "kde" instead of "kubuntu_desktop" but go the same result. But what's this about a mint kde package being available? What repos? What is it called? I haven't seen it.

[emorrp1]

Ahh, sorry, my bad: it's in the gloria community repo which isn't enabled by default (but I enable all the repos anyway)

[terdon]

Thanks, I'll try that.

[terdon]

Well, I uninstalled all kde stuff and then installed the mint-meta-kde package. Same problem... I don't get it.

[emorrp1]

Ok, so back to the original problem: no clicking on the desktop. I'm not really KDE person, but in Gnome there's a configuration for disabling "nautilus draws desktop" which also disables things like right-click and icons, perhaps there's something similar in KDE (plasma?) that you need to make sure is running.

[terdon]

Ah, good point yes I'll check that. Thing is I'm not a KDE person either. I have been using WindowMaker for years and switched to GNOME when I switched to ubuntu a couple of years ago. I just figured it might be time to check out KDE again since everyone has been raving about it. Anyway, I'll fiddle around with the settings some more.

Thanks

[terdon]

Well, I tried changing the window manager around: Things did change but not really to the better. I had an unclickable black desktop instead of an unclickable blue desktop...

Oh well, I'll just wait for the new packages from mint. It's not that urgent anyway.

Thank you all for your help.


EDIT: Turns out the problems lay with nm-applet. Manually starting nm-applet gave me a clickable desktop. See here and here for more info. Everything runs OK now.

[delro]

my way for most distros is sudo apt-get install amarok that will install amarok and the rest of kde...
tho i havent tried that on mint yet will do in a hour

I tried that. Instead of Amarok I got Krita. KDE appeared as a choice on the login screen and it works.

Problem is, it's not the Mint version of KDE (looks like my old Kubuntu 8.10 install, my first real foray into Linux) so I removed it and tried to install the Mint Meta Package. I tried that but I'm having dependencies problems. It asks for a different packages, like kdelibs 5 and kio-sysinfo with version 4:4.2.4 or higher. My Synaptic says the latest version is 4:4.2.2.

P.S. I added the Mint Community section to my repositories (and refreshed).

[emorrp1]

deiro, please see the KDE RC bugs thread that details the solution for installing the kde edition.

[delro]

Haven't seen that section of the forum yet. Thank you so much emorrp1!

In case anybody wanting a dual-WM environment might end up in this post: the link to the solution by Boo below is here http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... a&start=15

Mint KDE uses a ppa repo to install KDE 4.2.4, so you need to add it if you are upgrading.

# KDE 4.2.4
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
# KDE 4.3 RC2, amarok 2.1, koffice 2. use by itself to only update amarok and koffice.
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu jaunty main

update and add the gpg keys.
# add kubuntu ppa GPG keys.
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 493B3065
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 8AC93F7A

Cheers
Boo

EDIT: After that, I just fired up the GUI Package Manager and marked kde-mint-meta.

[Husse]

This topic is called
Install KDE on Gnome Install - Felicia
If you want to try KDE 4 then it's Gloria you should think of

[delro]

This topic is called
Install KDE on Gnome Install - Felicia
If you want to try KDE 4 then it's Gloria you should think of

I know it's a Felicia topic*, but emorrp referred to Gloria even before I made a query here so I assumed (wrongly?) that it could apply to Gloria too. Like how when you search for Mint-Gloria solutions but can't find any in the forum, so you look for it in the Jaunty forums. But even the Jaunty help-DB won't give you the answer yet you find a working solution in a Gutsy Gibbon or Debian forum**. Just saying.

Anyways, I have tried the mint-meta-kde with the proper repos. No problems except that there was a conflict between mint-artwork-gnome and mint-artwork-kde, meaning you still won't get the proper Mint theme in KDE.

* (Actually, I sort of intentionally looked over that detail. When I was searching it was the only entry that clearly said about installing KDE with an install that defaults to Gnome. But again, I looked over it thinking that this post can work for me, even if I've a newer release.)

** (To clarify, it's like having a Windows 7 RC problem, but there isn't much literature around 7 yet so you look in a Vista knowledge base since 7 is so much like Vista.)