The MASTER KDE CE update thread!

[akshunj]

I know the biggest question on everyone's lips:

WHEN? WHEN? WHEN?

I, for one, can't stand it when the response is, "when it's ready." But, in a way, that's the accurate response. Community Edition projects are not on a specific timeline, and in the case of KDE CE, it is pretty much a one-man-show with Boo doing the heavy-lifting between breathers from his day-job.

Now that we've got that out of the way, we can get down to the nuts and bolts. KDE CE is now up to internal BETA 037. The internal BETA's are for developer testing only, ahead of the public BETA release. BETA 037 has incorporated the changes from Hardy 8.04.1, but there are still a few outstanding bugs. Most of them are minor, but the PulseAudio bug is major. There will be another internal BETA 038, and perhaps a couple of more after that. When exploder and clem give the final stamp of approval, Boo will release a public BETA. Watch this space for more updates on that process.
******************************************************

I know the next question everyone is wondering...

Will it be a CD-sized ISO?

Nope. Although, expect a mini-KDE soon after the full CE release.
******************************************************

Here's a cool thing! The atheros drivers are now WORKING for the LiveCD, and I think clem will incorporate this bug-fix for the next Mint release...
******************************************************

Finally, I need any and all recruits for the wiki after KDE CE finally drops. I'd like to do a blitz after the release so that we've got solid documentation and workarounds for this semi-LTS.

See ya!

--Akshun J

[Rob Brill]

Hi,

Now, the news about Mint Kde CE 5 became more specific, solid
and explained.

It doesn't matter much to me as a dvd sized iso full release.

Following the steps of Kubuntu 8.04.1 the kernel is 2.6.24.19-generic
Users will save so many updates since Kubuntu 8.04 LTS release.
Am i right?

- semi-LTS - I have an idea but would you please,can you explain it better?

Then. let's wait for an external Mint KDE CE 5 Beta Public as long it will
available for dowload.

Thanks in advance.

Roberto

[akshunj]

- semi-LTS - I have an idea but would you please,can you explain it better?

Roberto

My bad. Clearly the KDE CE is *not* an LTS. But, it is still "linked" to an LTS release (Elyssa). So there's a degree of extra polish that's going into this one. Thanks!

--Akshun J

[AK Dave]

I'm looking forward to it! Should be excellent. I haven't had any troubles with the 8.04.1 rollup to Elyssa, and on my machines I haven't experienced any pulseaudio problems that I'm aware of.

Except, possibly, one and I don't know if this is pulseaudio or Banshee but if Banshee is open (song loaded, playback paused) and I suspend my laptop then when I restore from suspend audio is nonfunctional until I reboot. But since recovery from the error requires a reboot, I haven't been diligent in experimenting to determine if other apps can reproduce the problem. I've simply made a habit of the workaround: completely quit from Banshee when not listening to music. As a general rule, my laptop is only ever shut down or rebooted after a large update and otherwise it is always suspend/resume.

[67GTA]

Did they patch madwifi? I've been using ndiswrapper for my Atheros ar5007eg in Elyssa.

[roadrash]

Did they patch madwifi? I've been using ndiswrapper for my Atheros ar5007eg in Elyssa.

I'd like to know this as well. You don't need ndiswrapper anymore because Madwifi does now work with this interface. I use the "madwifi-ng r2756+ar5007" drivers in linux mint Daryna which do get the Atheros Ar5007 wireless working on my Fujitsu laptop. I don't know if the latest Madwifi drivers work with the AR5007 but these ones did. The trouble is Ubuntu incorrectly identifies the wireless interface and installs another Atheros driver from the restricted drivers which has to be removed. I also have to patch the kernel with the AcerHK fix to get the wireless network activation key to work as well. It would be nice if someone made a utility to make this easier.

[symon1980]

arghhh, i got so frustrated with waiting for linux mint's kde release, that i just swapped distro's, to something that isn't a 1 man kde distro and can be sure that it
is always quality, and reliably on time... Not to diss boo, he does good work, but c'mon.... anybody that is serious about kde should use a kde priority distro ie Opensuse 11 Kde 3.5 ftw, although there are lots of other good kde distro's. but i won't get into it. Linux mint gnome works well, and will always deliver on time joy for the gnome users frowns for the kde users

[Tony G]

Horsefeathers. (Just my opinion).

[deadguy]

Horsefeathers. (Just my opinion).

I second that.

[kaddy]

why would you say that...? out of curiosity? not tryin to start a flame war or anything...
but for a Kde fan, Why use Linux mint? They are mainly focused on Gnome and do a very good job with gnome, although their kde community
remaster is good too, but there is only 1 guy working on it... which is a bit off putting.... any bugs or problems has to be sorted out by 1 guy, hence...
is gonna take a long time to fix which is what is happening..... All im saying is that there are better alternatives out there for a kde Desktop, Although i do
admit that Linux mint has got THE best Gnome Desktop, EVER! period.... but its not for me anymore.
Kde in Linux mint is like... the little brother.... sorta like how Kubuntu is to Ubuntu. Just my opinion.

[deadguy]

why would you say that...? out of curiosity? not tryin to start a flame war or anything...
but for a Kde fan, Why use Linux mint? They are mainly focused on Gnome and do a very good job with gnome, although their kde community
remaster is good too, but there is only 1 guy working on it... which is a bit off putting.... any bugs or problems has to be sorted out by 1 guy, hence...
is gonna take a long time to fix which is what is happening..... All im saying is that there are better alternatives out there for a kde Desktop, Although i do
admit that Linux mint has got THE best Gnome Desktop, EVER! period.... but its not for me anymore.
Kde in Linux mint is like... the little brother.... sorta like how Kubuntu is to Ubuntu. Just my opinion.

better alternatives for a KDE desktop??

how do ya figure??
what's "better" about other "main" KDE desktops??


here's why I use Daryna KDE as my main o.s.:

1. It works just fine for me. no problems.
2. I have it tuned to my liking.
3. it's stable. very stable.
4. all my peripherals work just fine(camera dock, scanner, cell phone etc) with it.

so, for me theres no need to try another "kde desktop"

cheers,

Deadguy

[Tony G]

I replied "horsefeathers" simply because, at heart, I took your post as criticizing boo for not working (without pay, in his spare time) fast enough. A more specific reply to your post would have fallen dangerously close either to invective or to "My distro is better than your distro" dreck. But you asked, so (trying to keep it polite and flameless):

Ultimately, of course, it's simply a matter of taste. I've tried the other major KDE-centric distros and found them wanting, for me. Leaving my discussion to the major "more than one-man" distros:

Mandriva One Spring 2008.1 would be the distro most likely to replace Mint for me, but a couple of bugs ruin it. First, the Tasty Menu flickers. Constantly. It drives me nuts, and as Tasty is my favorite K-menu, it kills things. Second, in Mandriva-based distros, Opera (my browser of choice) misinterprets scrolling up when it gets to the top of a page as clicking the "back" button, which makes scrolling up incredibly frustrating.

Suse 10.3 took so long to install I gave up on it (11.0 may be better). I also won't support Suse, given Novell's pact with Microsoft.

Fedora I should try, but its reputation for being on the bleeding edge scares me off (and Gnome is its main DE).

Kubuntu? It's nice. I just think Mint is nicer.

any bugs or problems has to be sorted out by 1 guy, hence... is gonna take a long time to fix

I have experienced few, if any, bugs that I can attribute to Darnya KCE. I credit this to boo's refusal to release a public beta until all major kinks are ironed out, combined with his attention to the other bugs the public beta unearths. For Elyssa KCE, given the choice between a premature buggy release and a mature stable one, I'll happily wait. Also, for my purposes, the "old" Darnya KCE (released 3/3/08) has all the features I need, and compares favorably to the "fresher" KDE releases that I've tried.

But again, it's a question of preference. I can understand wanting to use a distro that has more than one man at the helm, from a long-term continuity perspective. But this is irrelevant to me--I'm not chosing an OS to implement for a corporate IT department; just what to run on my laptop. I'll happily take the risk that boo may move on at some point, given that for now, if I have a question, he answers it.

Best,

Anthony

[AK Dave]

I may or may not go back to KDE CE with Elyssa, despite being very happy with Daryna KDE CE. Several reasons:
1. I found the need for a newer version of Amarok and glibpod than Daryna/Gutsy support without a lot of DIY compiling and tweaking; Elyssa/Hardy solve the problem nicely; I now use Banshee with my iPod instead of Amarok anyways. Similar problem, also solved by Elyssa/Hardy, is a mission-critical (for me) requirement to use OO 3.0b instead of OO 2.4x and the need to install this on an Elyssa/Hardy base to avoid supposed backport issues (ie, I'm too lazy to backport it myself). So now I'm locked into an Elyssa/Hardy cycle and don't have the option to "go back" to Daryna KDE CE.
2. I recently migrated my home machines, used by wife and kids (aka "local users"), from XP to Ubuntu to Mint and everyone loves Mint (esp Elyssa). While some linux users may grouse about how gnome "treats them like 5 year olds" and therefore want KDE 3.x for its flexibility, I do in fact have young kids using my computers at home and I like them using gnome. So while my wife might like KDE better, she doesn't know the difference and gnome is more suitable in my opinion to younger users. Mint with a heavy dose of Edubuntu is an awesome kid-friendly combo.
3. There is presently no way to put the KDE CE on top of a gnome Mint, like there is Kubuntu on top of Ubuntu (ie no "apt-get install mintkde-desktop" package), without dual-booting. Which defeats my kiosk-like kid-friendly approach. Logoff/Logon or Switch User is much more efficient than rebooting.
4. The installation and regular usage on my laptop of Elyssa is based on my need/desire to provide tech support to my own local users (aka "wife and kids") and maintain familiarity with the same interface that they use regularly, which is defeated by using Elyssa KDE CE while they use stock Elyssa.
5. My computers almost never reboot. They suspend or hibernate, but only reboot when a kernel upgrade requires it. I'm averse to rebooting. I like my computers to be "instant on" appliances, and thats what my local users are accustomed to.

I would therefore LOVE to see the option to apt-get install a "mintkde-desktop" package onto stock Elyssa. That would be paradise for me. I wouldn't care if it requires a bazillion dependancies and is a bigger package than the LiveDVD itself as long as I can Switch User to pop back and forth between stock and KDE CE on Elyssa. Yes, I could apt-get the kubuntu-desktop package onto Elyssa. But Kubuntu is horrible and Mint KDE CE is so much more refined and better integrated. I'd rather not use KDE at all if I can't use Mint KDE, and right now I can't use Mint KDE for more than an occasional sideshow even if the Elyssa KDE CE came out today.

But I'm patient.

Any chance of an installable package upgrade to roll Mint into Mint-KDE?

[Boo]

Ok i have uploaded beta 039 for dev testing.
not too long now i hope.

Boo

[Catze]

Great News! I am watching the DL Servers!

[akshunj]

Well folks, it looks like pulseaudio won't make the cut for KDE CE. I, for one, don't think I'll miss it. aRTs seems to do a decent job within KDE, whereas pulseaudio really addressed a NEED within Gnome. That's my opinion, at least.

The devs are testing BETA 040 right now, and it looks like the only bugs at this point are minor. Hang tight, and we'll keep you updated...

--Akshun J

[Catze]

Sorry for being so impatient, but are there any News about how the testing is going?

[akshunj]

Sorry for being so impatient, but are there any News about how the testing is going?

It looks like Exploder has only found a few minor bugs at this point. Boo is correcting them. Not sure if there will be an internal BETA 041 yet. I will update this space as I know details...

--Akshun J

[akshunj]

Internal BETA 041 is being tested. It's a rigorous process, folks. The bar is set high, but in the end, we get an awesome distro!

--Akshun J

[kanishka]

AAAARGH it's a slow torture!!!