LM 10 KDE RC – First Impressions

[aelfinn]

I only had a chance to quickly pop a usb drive with LM 10 KDE into one of my machines, but I’m impressed, to say the least. No problems so far, everything went smoothly and there’s a lot of polish went into this release. Excellent work, Boo, this is a very, very nice release. Thanks a million!

What are everybody’s thoughts?

[Azrael]

Haha ... well the installation was a bit painful. The installer seemed to have some trouble formatting partitions on my hard drive. I'm not sure why. However, I had a similar problem with the main edition. What I ended up doing was formatting the ext4 and swap partitions using the partition editor. Then I selected the ext4 partition as root, but did not tell the installer to format it. So that seemed to work until I got to the grub2 install. It failed while configuring grub2. So I figured, that was the last step, so if I can install grub2 myself I'm good. I just followed the ubuntu documentation on grub2 rescue and rebooted (crossing my fingers ). And here I am posting this using Linux Mint KDE 10 RC. Whew!

Also had some trouble with OpenGL for effects. Everything would freeze when window previews were loading for example. This is a problem in Kubuntu Maverick with KDE 4.6 as well. So its not a Mint problem really. Switched to XRender. XRender works much better than in previous KDE releases. Effects were quite slow up until KDE 4.5. But 4.6 seems to have fixed that problem.

The Oxygen theme also didn't look right on my computer. Lots of breaks in the graphics of plasma widgets ... not sure on the correct term. But gaps where there shouldn't be. The Air theme seems to works ok though.

Hope this doesn't seem too negative . Just wanted to give everyone a heads up! I can say on a positive note that the RC runs very quickly and smoothly after the changes I made.

My computer is an HP Pavillion dv6435ca, in case anyone else is using this model.

[Dupo]

Hi,

I tested this release. Sound volume is mute by default in live-DVD, and I tried to changed the lancelot menu to classic menu in settings but I don't see difference (live-DVD) ???

[FreshFlesh]

Just finished installing. All went well. Even the partitioning, wich scared me the most (I was afraid not to loose my windows 7 partitions somehow). So now I have my separate 3 linux partitions ( / , swap area , /home).
Effects are ok in KDE, but i can't really compare them to a well tuned compiz-fusion+extra animations+emerald decorator, so I installed all that. No problems so far. Even Simple CCSM works fine (didn't in kubuntu 10.10 kde 4.6) so everything ok so far.
Next step is further configure compiz, add smooth tasks to pannel (for iconized pannel, w7-like ... don't judge me) and... I'll figure out on the way if anything else.
I have a question though.... what can I do to make my youtube videos not lag when in fullscreen. I got Google Chrome (my fav browser), I installed adblock and auto-hd set to 720p. Those are to disable google ads in youtube videos and to start those videos in 720p automaticly. But when i press the fullscreen button, videos either freeze or run well until i moove my mouse and they start lagging and freezing. Any suggestions ?
I'll come back after I get more into it. I might even get kazam and make a cool video + comentary about it. Go LinuxMint!

[Boo]

I think the youtube/flash/video/streaming lag is a upstream cache/buffer problem.
you may just have to let the cache/buffer fill up a bit first...

Cheers
Jamie

[Azrael]

Nice to see the google chrome repositories there by default .

Boo, I also noticed there are no search engines set in the search box for Firefox.

[Boo]

That is probably a mint thing as the mint/google search earns $ for the project.

[Azrael]

Actually, I have no search option at all. Not even the Mint Google Search. I was concerned because I know it gives money to the project.

The update manager is also not starting at login as it usually does.

[tdockery97]

Actually, I have no search option at all. Not even the Mint Google Search. I was concerned because I know it gives money to the project.

The update manager is also not starting at login as it usually does.

I think the Update Manager thing is a problem that was inherent with Mint 10 in general, because it did that with Gnome also. I remember having to remove it from Startup Applications and then add it back in manually to get it to work right.

[Azrael]

Yeah I added "/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/mintUpdate.py" to autostart. It works now.

[Boo]

MintUpdate does not start for live sessions.
Once installed it does start.
But if you put it on a thumb drive you may want to enable it.

[Azrael]

MintUpdate does not start for live sessions.
Once installed it does start.
But if you put it on a thumb drive you may want to enable it.

Well I did have some trouble installing which may explain the trouble. It is installed on the hard drive though.

[wayne128]

So I downloaded 64-bit RC and use unetbootin to prepare USB stick.
Some feedback:

1. same as posted be Dupo, lancelot menu change does not take effect, both Live or installed.

2. Tried install on my intel i3 computer, at first I let installer pick the available space, it did create new partition and proceed to install, however on next step the installer crash and ask me to file a report.

So on next try, I give it an existing partition, mount as /, and installer is happy to proceed and complete the installation.

3. Tried on another computer, AMD athlon, I thought this one is interesting:
When computer boot up on USB stick ( the same one used to install i3 computer), Mint KDE logo appeared as normal, after a while, guess what I have? Mint 10 Gnome desktop..
Tried two more times, it consistently brings me to Gnome desktop, and the terminal is mint@mintkde ~$

4. On installed i3 computer, tried my Audio Video test.
Insert USB stick, auto mount OK, test a few media files
4.1 mp3 , flv , rmbv, all runs ok for both sound and video
4.2 mkv file opens by default with Gnome MPlayer, a popup error windows appear with following
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
yet the sound and video playing run OK
4.3, using vlc to play mp3, mp4, flv, rmbv, mkv all OK

5. Mint Welcome font rendering?: not sure if this is my graphic issue, the Mint Welcome font rendering looks smaller and not nice to my poor eye sight, when compared with other standard installation like Mint 10 and LMDE on the same computer.

6. saw some 20+ updates , went ahead to update all .

..continue to play...

Edit :
7. Youtube play small screen OK, full screen Adobe flash plug-in crashes.

[mintnoob]

Giving the RC a thumbs up!

It recognized everything, the Broadcom B43 wifi driver worked, and closing my laptop screen to suspend then opening it worked like a charm among the previous problems I had on my Dell laptop.

I booted off a USB flash drive and had to take my HDD out because I lost my BIOS password needed to change the boot-up order. That's what I love about Linux, don't even need a hard drive.

Good job on the RC, Boo!

[tdockery97]

Also a thumbs up on the RC. Everything installed easily and quickly, and all devices worked out of the box. Installation of additional packages I wanted also went quickly and flawlessly. My only complaint about KDE (all KDE) is Quassel for an IRC client. Have a heart Boo, and make Konversation the default client in the final release. It's much easier to configure and feels more familiar to those used to using XChat. Other than that, it's the best implementation of KDE that I've tried on any distro.

[BrOiler1985]

Hey!

I downloaded and installed the RC yesterday. Just had a few graphic issues (most of the screen was white) with the installer, but you could install it without any proiblems. First I disliked the lancelot-menu, but I got used to it very quickly. I had no real problems at all with the RC. The only problem I had until now is that I installed the oxygen-transparent style and the window decorations of it are not transparent.

Thumbs up!

[kmb42vt]

(Note: See signature for PC specs)

Booting into the LiveDVD went well although I'm not sure having full desktop effects enabled by default is such a good idea. Some PC's (desktops and mobile) may experience a problem with that until the proprietary video driver is installed. Just a personal opinion though.

For me the install went very well (custom partition, formatting, etc--no problems) with the exception of some GUI anomalies (break up of dimmed background, dialog box fragmentation around edges). This may be due to the Nouveau driver which I've never been impressed with.

Upon the first installation reboot overall performance seemed a bit sluggish considering the specs of my desktop but after the updates were applied, the proprietary Nvidia driver installed (the "Recommended" driver, not the one from the x-swat ppa) and after a couple of reboots, things became more snappy. Had one problem with Plasma freezing up at random times without throwing an error which I also experienced with Kubuntu upgraded to KDE 4.6 and Pardus 2011 with KDE 4.5.5. Disabling "Blur" in "Desktop Effects" solved the problem. Obviously a bug in KDE rather than Mint.

By the way, YouTube videos play just fine in full screen using the "recommended" Nvidia driver although I might try the updated driver from the x-swat ppa since this is just a test install and I can putz around with it.

Now here's a rather annoying one. In the past in KDE, Synaptic never adhered to system font settings leaving the fonts in the Synaptic application too tiny to read comfortably or not at all for folks with poor eyesight. However, this problem was easily overcome since custom font settings for both the Package Manager and the Package Manager terminal can be set within Synaptic itself via it's settings. With LM 10 KDE RC this no longer works. Not only does Synaptic ignore system font settings but also ignores it's own custom font settings as well so the application's fonts remain tiny. I have no idea how to fix this unfortunately.

On the same note, the fonts used in MintUpdate also do not adhere to system font settings making them too tiny to read comfortably. I can't clearly recall if the MintUpdate fonts were tied to the Synaptic custom font settings in the past but I believe they were. In fact, it appears that the none of the fonts in any of the Mint tools adhere to the system font settings as far as I can see.

Oh, and I ditched the Lancelot menu for the old Kicker style. Just personal preference on my part since Lancelot and I never got along very well. If only the MintMenu could be adapted to KDE. Not complaining, just dreaming.

And of course, Plymouth looks horrible with the Nvidia driver installed, even worse than LM 10 Main Editon (even with the Startup Manager set at 1024x768 and 24 bit color) but that's hardly Mint's fault.

Otherwise the RC is very impressive, stable and easy on the eye. A fine job and an excellent implementation all around.

[Andyjb]

Loving this release, very nice.
One thing. Why can't I move icons on the desktop in folder view mode?
Switching to 'single click to open files and folders' seems to fix this problem.
Any Ideas??

[Oelsner]

Looks really nice. This is my first time usung KDE, but i have a feeling that i will stick with it for some time

One thing though. Is there a way to get the search thingy in Firefox to work ? Its not a big deal though. Can always navigate to google.com and do my searches from there.
Everything else seems to work flawlessly for me.

Oelsner

[tdockery97]

I initially was going to replace the Lancelot Launcher with the kickoff menu, but when I tried that the kickoff menu went to the right end of the panel and of course didn't have the Mint logo. This led to much playing with the panel, ultimately resulting in having to reinstall to get everything back to normal. This, of course, was my own doing and lack of KDE knowledge, not a problem with Mint 10 KDE . After some time I became accustomed to Lancelot and decided to leave it as is. I never did figure out a simple and safe way to replace it with the kickoff.