Hi guys!

Ive been a member of this forum for some time now, but its been a while since Ive posted. I decided to try out Linux again. My old Distro of choice was Gentoo but frankly I'm to lazy for it now a days.

I'm looking for a Distro to come back to - Mandriva may be the one but I'm not sure. Here is what I would like to see in a Distro:


1. Im a hard core KDE user but I want KDE 4. I want something new to come back to. I would prefer to have KDE4 come with the distro - not have to upgrade it to KDE4. Having it come with KDE4 tells me it was built for it and not a "upgrade".

2. One time install. I want to install the distro once and be done with it. Upgrade from there till eternity.

3. For lack of better words a "Control panel". I really like YAST , MCC and like programs. A one stop shopping center to get it all done.

4. I don't want to have to search for repos on the web.


I just got done trying Mint Linux. It comes with KDE3.5 and was very polished. It didnt have the MCC,YAST I was looking for but I have had luck and like ubuntu distros in the past. I tried to install KDE4 by adding the repos and installing the "core" as instructed on the Kubuntu page. KDE4 was not working well at all. Didn't remember my settings on logout. I have my dual monitors set up but every time I booted up KDE4 the left monitor didn't work (worked with KDE3.5).

Finally I thought I may have to dist-upgrade to get it to work good. So I changed my repos to hardy logged out of KDM (prefer dist-upgrades out of GUI) and apt-get dist-upgrade. 1 hour later I was done and rebooted to make sure it took. It dropped me to a terminal (no KDM). When I tried to even login I couldn't - for some reason my typing came out as Arabic I think. I couldn't read what I was typing - and couldn't log in because of it.

Im thinking Ive got another 6 months or so before KDE4 comes stable and standard right?

btw - I tried the Suse with kde4 - it was a mess. I couldn't install half the repos and couldn't install the nvidia drivers. It was beta though so no fault of Suse.

Also - by my sig you can tell I have a amd64. Id like to try a 64bit Distro but do they still have flash issues? Are the 64bit package repos as big as the 32bit now a days? thanks


btw - good to see some of the old faces again. Anyone seen btv around?

I would have suggested Kubuntu to you, but I don't know it's KDE version status, but it would do all the rest you wanted. I think I will go this route once the new version is out which should be sometime soon I would have thought. You'll be looking at Kubuntu 8.04. They also have a 64 bit version with.

Flash isn't a problem, but java can be a problem, especially if you need javaws - there's only a 32 bit version of it. Therefore, go with 32 bit java and not 64 bit, and you should be OK. I'm currently using Fedora 8 64 bit, but intend on changing this to Ubuntu 8.04 when it comes out - currently preferring Gnome to KDE. Whether I choose 32 bit or 64 bit I'm yet to decide.

Wow - thanks for the fast reply!

Ive tried Kubuntu a few times in the past. I think the KDE4 version is in beta right now.

I dont know - Im probably wrong here but the the KDE version (Kubuntu) seems like an after thought for Ubuntu. Because the distro 's main focus is Gnome when you go to look up anything via google its easier to look up via Ubuntu and then look for the KDE equivalent. Plus no central "Control panel style". Yea Im lazy.

I think if Ubuntu / Kubuntu had a YAST or MCC like program it would really rock.

I also found that Compiz with dual monitors is a pain in the back side. Hopefully in the future it will be worked out.

I just read the the newest Mandriva can be upgraded to KDE4 via the repos. Anyone done this yet? Was KDE buggy or work well? Its been a while so I may give Mandriva another go.

If you want Control Center like MCC or YaST, I think there're only three distros you can choose now: Mandriva, PCLinuxOS(based on Mandriva), and SuSE. There were Conectiva and Lycoris which both had Control Centers, but also both acquired by Mandriva.

SuSE 11.0 will have KDE4 by default, but it's not yet released. Currently it's at alpha3, and scheduled for release in June.
PCLinuxOS does not have regular release schedule, the current release (2007) can be upgraded to KDE4.
Mandriva 2008.1 has been released and uses KDE3.5.9 by default. You can install KDE4 in addition and it will not replace/upgrade your KDE3 if you already have it.

I think you are right. IMO (off topic) if Ubuntu (Kubuntu) came out with a MCC / YAST "Control Panel" it would be icing on the cake for them.

You may compromise your expectations a bit as KDE4 is very new. They are still working hard to iron out bugs and add new features and apps to it.

From Kubuntu.org

??? I use compiz-fusion on Mandriva 2008.1 (as I had on Mandriva 2008.0) with dual monitors and it works great. I've used the Cube, but generally use the Wall with 9 virtual desktops. I can do stuff much faster than I can without compiz-fusion.

hmm - May try Mandriva then. I set up dual monitors (1 nvidia card) via the nvidia utility fine. But when I enabled the compiz it would lock up at times or just not work very well. For a time it wouldnt even remember my compiz settings.

(this was on Mint)
I couldnt get dual monitors to work in KDE4 either. When I logged out of KDE4 and into KDE3.5.9 it worked great.

Ill try the new Mandriva this weekend then. KDE4 in the standard urpmi repos from the easy urpmi found on this site?

You can take the tour: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Tour before taking the plunge. I have added the KDE4 desktop to my 2008.1 install. It's still a bit flakey in places, but useable enough to have fun with. It does remember your settings after logging out.

I have KDE4 on Mandriva, I have also used it on SUSE, in its present form it is nothing but a disaster, you really don't want it unless you like ugly unfunctional desktop managers. If KDE4 is the future and it doesn't improve dramatically, I might be forced to use Gnome and that is like extracting your own teeth. It has to get better surely? Or have the KDE devs found a self destruct button and pressed it?

Not wishing to hijack a thread, but after such a melodramatic post by viking777 perhaps you could expand on why you think KDE4 is so disasterous? I mean considering it's a work in progress, just what is so dire about it?

I think the problem is that it seems to be a "work in progress", yet it's supposed to be a "stable release". I think they pushed out KDE4 before it was really complete (the parts that were shipped may have been complete, but a lot of stuff was still missing, from what I've been told).

OK you asked for it.

1) I have used 3 versions of KDE4 so far, one came from a cover disc designed to show purely what KDE4 was, the second is from Mandriva on 2008.1 and the third is on a SUSE disc. All displayed exactly the same error right from the start which was the takbar/system tray appeared half way up the screen instead of at the bottom. Initially I though this was a 'feature' until I launched a few windows and found all those were split in two as well. Now I did find a way to cure this (I can't remember what it was) but it was not an auspicious start.

2) Taskbar. The taskbar appears to have been inspired by a piece of 4x2 timber with icons drawn on it 4" high. It is configurable of course, in exactly the same way a piece of 4x2 would be. If you saw off the bottom of a piece of 4x2 and make it a 3x2 you also lose the bottom inch of all your icons - exactly what happens with KDE4 unless you put up with it being full size.

3) Icons. Continuing the 'building site' analogy, the desktop icons are about the size of house bricks, and have a strange way of behaving as if they were house bricks as well, in other words they cluster together like they were built into a wall and no matter how many times you seperate them, the next time you start up they will all be on top on one another again. This would be bad enough, but if you hover your mouse over them they change from house bricks to breeze blocks, making it just about impossible to tell one icon from another (unless you pull them all apart again). These 'breeze blocks' have another 'useful' little feature, in that they in display another 4 icons in each corner of the block whilst your mouse is over them. When I last looked three of these icons did absolutely nothing and the fourth made the original icon disappear until you rebooted. Now I just know that somewhere out there lives somebody that has been begging for the ability to make an icon disappear for the rest of a session but have it magically reappear later, but that somebody isn't me.

4) That 'thing' in the top right hand corner. I have no idea what it is called, I only know that within 45 seconds it had started to irritate me to death. Never mind 'clippie' from Microsoft, at least you could turn him off. Now suppose you put up with the irritation of it keeping expanding every time you want to shut down a window with the 'x' button, what actual use is it? As far as I can tell it has two uses. The first is to 'add widgets'. Leave aside the fact that at the present moment in time there are none that are worth adding, you can achieve the same by right clicking the desktop, so that function is completely superfluous. Its other function is to 'zoom out'? This is really useful. Invoking this makes the whole desktop minimise to the top left of the screen leaving three quarters of your desktop as unusable white space. Again, there has to be someone who has been dying for this feature, probably the same person that wants to make icons disappear temporarily, again it isn't me. The whole thing is irritating and unnecessary.

5)Mounted Devices Icon in Taskbar. This super useful device tells you if you have plugged a new device into your computer! Wow, if that wasn't there I would never have known that I had just plugged a device into my computer would I? When I first saw this device I thought it might actually be useful in other words that it would offer you mount/unmount choices but it does absolutely nothing except tell you what you already know - useless.

6) I don't like slab menus. Now I know that is purely a personal preference and others prefer them. To my mind the only useful feature of the slab menu is the search function, include that in a basic menu and you have the ideal solution. The problem with the KDE4 slab menu is that I haven't as yet I haven't found a way to switch it back to a normal menu, although I must admit I haven't invested much time in finding out if it is possible or not because the whole user experience of KDE4 is so bad that although I have it installed I never use it.

I could go on but I think I have answered your question by now.

RTFT. Read the thread.

KDE4 is not complete, and the interface is NOT representative of the final interface.

The KDE4 release was to announce a stable _FOUNDATION_ -- the libraries and technology that KDE4 is built upon.

While I think they have versioned it differently, or named the release better, that's the way it is. the KDE4 desktop itself is NOT stable or ready for use.

For the record, Archlinux has an unofficial modded KDE branch, named kdemod, which alongside KDE3, offers very fresh, bleeding edge KDE4 packages- you can hardly find something newer in any other distro.
They are working fairly decently, and without serious crashes. Factly, it's the only desktop I have currently installed aside from my main one (XFCE4 that is).
All that said, you cannot use ArchLinux, or KDE4, without getting your feet wet. Bleeding edge comes at a price.

Well - by installing a few distros I got the linux bug back. So far Im on Mandriva. My .02

First boot
This thing is slick. I had nvidia drivers installed and compiz on first boot. Man that rocked.

KDE3
very nice - just like the rest of the KDE distros.

MCC
Very nice "Control Panel" that a lazy man like myself likes.

I installed KDE4. Thats when the pain started. Took me a while to figure out how to install it - until I read somewhere on the forum what package to install. Like others have said on this thread its a KDE4 problem and not a distro issue. KDE4 is junk IMO for the current status. I have high hopes though.

I booted to KDE4 - hit that widget button on the top right and selected pager widget. Moved the pager to the top of the screen. Then I browsed to the konsole app from the menu - rightclick on placed it on the taskbar.

logout out > logged back in. None of the work I just did saved. It was a default KDE4 screen. Seems Mandy KDE4 also don't save me stuff :(

Also I dont use xinerama for my dual screens. Each screen has its own taskbar / menus. Works great in KDE3 but left screen nogo in KDE4 (again).

I have another issue the mandy but thats for another thread.