The unofficial LMDE KDE UP6

[Jesse654]

After a few prayers...

I was able to do what you asked, except there was no payload line in grub, and no drm in modules. So Plymouth was there on reboot.

My password still didn't work, but going into the console and logging in as root, I was able to reset the passwd. Then I restarted X (don't know if that was necessary) from the graphical login screen and logged in with the new password.

So it seems that the install didn't record my password correctly. Could it have something to do with length or special symbols? My passwords tend to be on the secure side.

[Schoelje]

After a few prayers...

I was able to do what you asked, except there was no payload line in grub, and no drm in modules. So Plymouth was there on reboot.

My password still didn't work, but going into the console and logging in as root, I was able to reset the passwd. Then I restarted X (don't know if that was necessary) from the graphical login screen and logged in with the new password.

So it seems that the install didn't record my password correctly. Could it have something to do with length or special symbols? My passwords tend to be on the secure side.

Your guess is as good as mine!

[TeaSwigger]

This will probably not be reproducible but... I have a new user profile (I reinstalled the whole system - new harddrive) and still find many of my user-only settings being reset. I had this randomly and couldn't figure a pattern. The culprit seems to be changing the KDM theme (which, unlike other settings I change, requires admin privs). After I do that, on next boot, many user settings are reset to default: I'd set Dolphin to single-click behavior but it reverts to double-click; Akregator RSS wants Chromium to launch links in, I have to reset the default browser to firefox; the icons are back to Oxygen; the theme is back to Oxygen from QTCurve; the fonts return to default instead of the larger settings I use. Not all settings, for instance plasma theme sticks. Why is it doing that? Wastes time having to reset stuff.

Also, launching System Settings from konsole gives this: "QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave." But I'm not sure that's of any importance / relevance.

Other than this occasional settings hiccup, it installed fine and runs rock solid!

[Schoelje]

This will probably not be reproducible but... I have a new user profile (I reinstalled the whole system - new harddrive) and still find many of my user-only settings being reset. I had this randomly and couldn't figure a pattern. The culprit seems to be changing the KDM theme (which, unlike other settings I change, requires admin privs). After I do that, on next boot, many user settings are reset to default: I'd set Dolphin to single-click behavior but it reverts to double-click; Akregator RSS wants Chromium to launch links in, I have to reset the default browser to firefox; the icons are back to Oxygen; the theme is back to Oxygen from QTCurve; the fonts return to default instead of the larger settings I use. Not all settings, for instance plasma theme sticks. Why is it doing that? Wastes time having to reset stuff.

Also, launching System Settings from konsole gives this: "QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave." But I'm not sure that's of any importance / relevance.

Other than this occasional settings hiccup, it installed fine and runs rock solid!

This behavior is by design. It's the price we pay for having a pre-configured distribution (versus manually installing a DE on Debian or another base distribution and configuring it your self). With a clean install, the setup treats the system as thus, installing the minimal needed set of configuration files (and overwriting existing ones). You could, like I did, backup the most important files: copy them to a backup directory, keeping the directory structure. Especially take care of the files in these directories:

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~/.kde
~/.config
~/.local

After a clean install you can copy them to your home directory.

Do not worry about the warning message: it's been there since I can remember.

[TeaSwigger]

Oh I understand about that. What I'm saying is that the user settings I listed revert to default every time I change the KDM theme. I have to go back and reset those user settings. It did that on the old install and it's doing it now with a fresh install. Not a show stopping bug but the only one I've been noticing.

[Jesse654]

So it seems that the install didn't record my password correctly. Could it have something to do with length or special symbols?

Your guess is as good as mine!

I think my guess was correct. I reinstalled using a simple, short password. When I logged in the first time, there were no issues. I didn't touch the username (did not select it with mouse or Tab key).


Actually this was the second time I tried to reinstall. The first reinstall apparently crashed. My monitor was off, but about 3/4 of the way through, I checked it and there was no install app running. Rebooting gave me the correct grub screen, but all of the options resulted in a kernel not installed message. The only changes I made before running the install was turning off desktop effects and the screensaver.


One minor thing: I can't get the welcome application to run from the menu. When running it via menu search, a message pops up saying the executable cannot be found (via Applications|Settings or Recently Used, nothing happens).

Otherwise things seem to work fine.

[Jesse654]

Installed unofficial LMDE KDE 32-bit on a modern machine (triple-core, 2.1GHz CPU, 2 Gig RAM). Typing from it now.

Good news is that everything seems to work now and installation of files during install took only 9 minutes.

I had to add "nomodeset" at the LIve install bootup on the "Linux Mint" option. I thought that you had included that in the past. Maybe with the new installer things changed? Perhaps I should have chosen another option to bootup.

After installation, first boot stalled at Plymouth; the dots kept highlighting. I rebooted with "nomodeset" and took out "splash quiet," and it worked. (After changing the password) I ran DDM. It took 18 minutes to install the recommended nvidia driver. Is it supposed to take that long? I was getting status bar messages like, "debconf: Unable to initialize frontend: Readline." Like I said, it worked, so I'm not sure if you want me to play with DDM more and report results on the DDM thread. I'd be glad to if you think it might help.

A minor point: In the Welcome application the headings "Community" and "Contribute" were cut off at about "Communi" and "Contribut." While I appreciate fonts that aren't painfully small (like I find on so many websites), all the headings (including the "Welcome" and "Device Driver Manager" ones) would probably look better if they were slightly smaller.

After turning off some of the pretty effects, performance still noticibly lags. I tried changing the compositing type from XRender to OpenGL (as I've done with good results on this machine with LMDE in the past), and got a black screen. When the desktop finally came back, there were a few error messages saying some effects were not able to be restarted. Effects remained with XRender. I'll try again and report back.

[Jesse654]

Ok, it seems to work much better now that I've: switched back to 1600x1200 (default) resolution, changed to OpenGL, then switched back to the 2048x1536 resolution that I was in.

[Jesse654]

Schoelje, now that you have your own distro, I'm wondering where that leaves LMDE KDE (and Lxde).

Also, your website's About page states, "SolydXK and Linux Mint closely work together to make our distributions even better." Would you care to elaborate, please?

EDIT: Of course, I meant Xfce, not LXDE.

[Schoelje]

Schoelje, now that you have your own distro, I'm wondering where that leaves LMDE KDE (and Lxde).

Also, your website's About page states, "SolydXK and Linux Mint closely work together to make our distributions even better." Would you care to elaborate, please?

Clem is going to communicate that to the Linux Mint community soon.
When he does we can answer all questions there are.

[Jesse654]

When using Zoom (Meta-+, Meta--, Meta-0), then going back to 100%, my mouse cursor disappears.

Work-around: Use Ctrl-Alt-Del to logout; the mouse cursor reappears; login.

If someone knows of a fix or a better work-around, I'd love to hear it.

[Schoelje]

Sorry, I can't seem to be able to reproduce that.
Are you running UP6?
Could you post the output of:

Code: Select all

inxi -F

Perhaps something with your graphics driver / card...

[clem]

Hi everybody,

As of today, I will discontinue my work on both the unofficial LMDE KDE and the unofficial LMDE Xfce.
Clem is searching for a maintainer so that you will be able to have these CE's for a long time to come.

I want to thank you all for the help, support and your valuable feedback to make these CE's as good as they are now.
It was a lot of fun doing and I absolutely couldn't have done it without you.

Regards,
Schoelje

The unofficial LMDE KDE and Xfce editions are now discontinued. I'd like to thank Schoelje for the fantastic work he has done within our community. Rest assured that his efforts, and your feedback, did not go unnoticed.

We talked a lot Schoelje and I. The next logical step for LMDE KDE and LMDE Xfce is to get official releases and proper QA testing. Because the demand is too low and the team is too stretched that can only be done via community editions (which are official, but for which there are no commitments made on the release schedule).

Schoelje hesitated when offered the maintenance of these projects and eventually declined. As official Mint editions he would have lost the ability to release when he wanted and as often as he wanted, to present ISOs publicly without following QA and some of his design decisions would have been reverted. In the end of the day it boiled down to whether he was interested in following his own vision or do things the Mint way. There are a lot of pros and cons associated here and I fully respect his decision. Schoelje now focuses on a new distribution called SolydKX (http://solydxk.com).

Fred is the maintainer of the main KDE edition and he's also currently coordinating the Cinnamon and MATE UP6 releases. He will take the LMDE KDE and Xfce editions through QA and probably eventually release them as official community editions.

You'll hear more from Fred soon and although it's outside of our scope I wish Schoelje the very best.