Preparing for Mint to drop the KDE distro

[catweazel]

And as I said elsewhere, File Managers were really good a few years ago: all twin-pane with a side-tree, Konqueror for living, Dolphin for root stuff. Now there's only Dolphin...

You can still successfully install and run Krusader.

[Claverhouse]

No reason not to have a sane old-fashioned full file manager as default.

The problem with devs is that after inventing something neat --- or altering stuff that works just to change the past ways --- they insist on ramming the new down everyone's throats.

[tovian]

or altering stuff that works just to change the past ways

I'll bet that's the "Thought for the day" - in a gold frame - over the front door in Redmond !!

@Claverhouse... you seem like you have a lot of experience with Linux. You said you will likely return to opensuse, but are there any other distro's (with KDE) you have used and would consider again?

* I have been working on other things and letting my alternate distro testing slip. I need to get back to it.

[banjo]

Speaking of old style tools, I just discovered "mc", another Midnight Commander clone.... all text based. It looks like a Win98 era tool.

mc-screenshot-20180520.jpg

This could be the throwback of all throwbacks.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[tovian]

Speaking of old style tools, I just discovered "mc", another Midnight Commander clone.... all text based. It looks like a Win98 era tool.

That's just flat-out scary !! Methinks that's too far to go back.

By the way: just another little tip for anyone who's interested...
I DO NOT subscribe to any threads/topics. The way I used to check for activity in the topics where I posted was to login then do the "Your posts" (egosearch) from the "Quick links" button at the top. Problem was - I had to login first. Solution: 1) login; 2) go to the search settings (gear symbol right of magnifying glass); 3) don't put in anything for keyword; 4) put in YOUR MINT-FORUMS USERNAME (spelled just like you login) for author; 5) change whatever other settings you want (like how far back to search); 6) do the search; 7) when the search results are returned (and you like them) copy the URL in your browser address bar. Make it a bookmark/favorite - IT CONTAINS THE ENTIRE SEARCH ARGUMENT and you can use it without being logged in. (Psst... you can save other links as favorites as well).

[jaymot]

In light of Mint KDE going away I finally decided to go ahead and try Cinnamon. I like the fact that it does display scaling properly. I'm getting used to its various apps and tools (file manager, image viewer, etc.) They're different than the ones I'm used to, but I remember the trouble I had with Plasma when KDE4 went away and Cinnamon isn't giving me nearly the headaches that Plasma originally did. Mint Cinnamon's screaming fast, too, which is always nice.

[banjo]

During my search for a new distro I installed Mint Cinnamon and immediately ran into a showstopper issue. The issue was that I could not access my backup drives, which are standard USB WD Passport drives. When I attempted to open a drive with the default file browser, I got an error saying that the file system was not recognized, and did i want to format the drive. The drives have NTFS on them.

After a bit of research I figured out that Mint was mounting the NTFS drives just fine, but that Nemo, the default file browser, was not able to deal with NTFS. If I manually ran Dolphin and dug down to /media/<user>/<drive> etc I could open the drive in the browser. But going through that every time I mounted a drive was a pain in the neck.

Figuring out how to replace the default file browser with Dolphin was a daunting task that I did not want to engage in, so I bailed out of Cinnamon.

I assume that the issue has not been fixed in Nemo.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[BG405]

I'm holding off until Mint 19 Xfce is released so I can see how a KDE conversion works out before I make a decision. Will probably set up a triple-boot on the Acer; existing LM17.3 KDE, adding KDE Neon and LM19 + KDE. However, I'd sooner stay within the Mint ecosystem on both my main machines if practical, and not just for my Cinnamon & Xfce installations.

[kc1di]

During my search for a new distro I installed Mint Cinnamon and immediately ran into a showstopper issue. The issue was that I could not access my backup drives, which are standard USB WD Passport drives. When I attempted to open a drive with the default file browser, I got an error saying that the file system was not recognized, and did i want to format the drive. The drives have NTFS on them.

After a bit of research I figured out that Mint was mounting the NTFS drives just fine, but that Nemo, the default file browser, was not able to deal with NTFS. If I manually ran Dolphin and dug down to /media/<user>/<drive> etc I could open the drive in the browser. But going through that every time I mounted a drive was a pain in the neck.

Figuring out how to replace the default file browser with Dolphin was a daunting task that I did not want to engage in, so I bailed out of Cinnamon.

I assume that the issue has not been fixed in Nemo.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

I've never had a problem with Nemo not finding my NTFS drives.

[BG405]

I've never had a problem with Nemo not finding my NTFS drives.

That could be read either way I know what you mean though. Never had a problem accessing them with Nemo myself, either.

[banjo]

I've never had a problem with Nemo not finding my NTFS drives.

That could be read either way I know what you mean though. Never had a problem accessing them with Nemo myself, either.

Well that is a puzzle then. I just plugged in the drive, and when the dialog popped up I selected "Open with File Manager", and the File Manager posted an error saying that it could not recognize the file system. These drives are just off-the-shelf WD Passport drives.... nothing strange. I did not format them myself. Maybe something got borked in my installation.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[tovian]

Early in my search for a successor to Mint-KDE I tried and eliminated Cinnamon - mostly due to my dislike of, and problems with, Nemo. If I can remember back that far I believe there was no "split pane" feature, and I had serious issues with (reading/writing) shared files on networked drives (shared from Windows machines). At one point I thought I might try Caja on Cinnamon, but I decided that would probably not work and, even if it did, it was more work than I wanted to expend just to have a file-manager that worked as well as Dolphin right out-of-the-box.

I basically figured that the Mint team had chosen Cinnamon as their flagship because, of all their distro's, it would be the biggest challenge and would keep the most people working the hardest for the longest.

Please note: I didn't say anything ugly about Cinnamon, I simply referred to it as a challenge (at least for me).

[jaymot]

I don't know, it seems to me that disliking Cinnamon's default file manager is kind of a lame reason to pan Cinnamon entirely. It's not as though Nemo is a core component of Mint that it needs to even run, and it's not very difficult to install a different file manager and set it as the default one. (Although, this being Linux, you'd probably encounter situations later where Nemo was opened or required by something-or-other by default and you'll have to find out what's causing that and fix it, or else simply lower your expectations and live with that behavior by that one thing. They say that Linux is only free (as in free beer) if you place no value on your time.) It'd be like dissing an entire distribution just because you don't like its default web browser. In my humble opinion.

[banjo]

I just installed Nemo on my Mint KDE installation, and then I mounted one of my WD Passport drives. Digging down to /media/<user>/<drive>/ Nemo did manage to open the drive normally. This is the same drive that failed on the Mint Cinnamon installation. So I do not know what happened there.

Also, to clarify bailing out on Cinnamon, there were many other factors taken into account. The issue with Nemo was just one consideration. I was tearing through distros pretty quickly to see what is out there to replace Mint KDE. I am sure that Cinnamon is a fine DE, but I have other issues to deal with WRT the desktop tools.

I thought that I would post this clarification in case anyone had taken my comments as a condemnation of the Cinnamon DE. Whatever happened with Nemo on my installation appears to have been a one-time incident.

Banjo
(_)=='=~

[tovian]

It'd be like dissing an entire distribution just because you don't like its default web browser.

I agree. Several years ago I forever discarded opensuse - simply because I didn't (still don't) like their logo. But, that's kinda the point is it not? My quality of life has not diminished because I chose not to use opensuse. It's a personal "thing". There are so many choices that one is not compelled to "settle" for something one doesn't like... whatever the reason.

Somewhere out there will be a distro that really pops for each person. It may take some searching to find, or it may fall out of a tree right onto your head.

BTW: I did have other issues with Cinnamon. It's just that the Nemo problems were the show-stopper for me.

[jaymot]

FYI in Nemo, View/Extra Pane (F3 shortcut key) runs it in split pane mode.

[sdibaja]

logo

I respect that

[tdockery97]

Well, I've tried just about every flavor of the 18.04 releases on the Ubuntu side and none have the stability I associate with Linux Mint. I think my best bet is to run 18.3 KDE until the release of Mint 19, and then do the install of KDE onto Mint XFCE. Then I have the nice stable distro underneath.

[TeaSwigger]

Speaking of old style tools, I just discovered "mc", another Midnight Commander clone.... all text based. It looks like a Win98 era tool.

It may be. Still an excellent file manager. Could see it being one's top choice if one is better with remembering and using keyboard shortcuts and command line ops than I.

My fav was Krusader, KDE's dual-panel-er. Reliable, rich feature set incl. handy multi-tabs and the best (IMH) gui sync facilities. Although I favor the xfce desktop and favor Nemo for most file management, I still use mc or Krusader on occasion for involved file managing. Wish it were more 'desktop agnostic'. Needing phonon etc for file management seems silly to me (and unlike all other kde/qt apps I've tried, it or some other kde factor doesn't respect the colorscheme/theme set via xfce's tools). Tried the gtk oriented dual-pane file managers gnome-commander and sunflower and encountered serious bugs.

soundKonverter, kid3 and k3b are other stand-out KDE apps which I've not found a substitute I'm as satisfied with.

Usually I've had 2 PCs around for different uses; one had xfce and one KDE 3.x, which was a fine, flexible DE. For a while the transition to KDE 4 seemed to swap features with bugs and I really didn't need phonon, nepomuk, strigi nor baloo bundled in. Just as it regained features and stablized and its theme sets (incl. its lovely oxygen theme and versatile color customization) found harmony with gtk2, along came gnome's gtk3 change-up and KDE 5. Customizing themes seems to have become quite involved or limited and full visual harmony between the toolkits has been lost again. Through all that, xfce has been the steady ship and offers all I need, so it's now the desktop of choice on both PCs. The up-side to it has been, in line with the shenanegans of certain online entities, to stress the value of non-proprietary/non-app-specific management of info and data on as well as off one's own devices.

[KBD47]

Well, I've tried just about every flavor of the 18.04 releases on the Ubuntu side and none have the stability I associate with Linux Mint. I think my best bet is to run 18.3 KDE until the release of Mint 19, and then do the install of KDE onto Mint XFCE. Then I have the nice stable distro underneath.

That makes sense to me. Wouldn't be much different than KDE on Debian, might need a few tweaks but should work great.