Welcome!
Forum users

Current releases
--MX-23 release info here
--Migration information to MX-23 here
--antiX-23.1 (Arditi del Popolo) release info here

Important information
--If in starting your system it boots to an unwanted Desktop, right click desktop, then select leave and logout. At the
login screen there is a session chooser at the top of the screen.

News
-- MX Linux on social media: here
-- New Forum Features, Marking Solved and Referencing a User: here

MX17 - KDE?

Help on all MX Re-spins
Message
Author
User avatar
dreamer
Posts: 738
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:34 am

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#21 Post by dreamer »

richb wrote:On MX 16 I had kwin installed, in XFCE, not full KDE, just the window manager. It did a nice job of desktop effects.
Kwin is very nice. Compiz is also nice, but was never really "finished". Xfwm4 is good for everyday use, it's just missing the bling; the cube, the scale/present windows (show all windows functionality), the window previews. Nothing essential for getting work done, it's mostly for fun and bragging rights.

User avatar
richb
Administrator
Posts: 10306
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:17 pm

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#22 Post by richb »

More than bling for me, although that is nice. The present windows and desktop features I find very useful. Also with the ability to modify emerald themes I can make window titlebar and buttons a reasonable size for my large display.
Forum Rules
Guide - How to Ask for Help

richb Administrator
System: MX 23 KDE
AMD A8 7600 FM2+ CPU R7 Graphics, 16 GIG Mem. Three Samsung EVO SSD's 250 GB

User avatar
dreamer
Posts: 738
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:34 am

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#23 Post by dreamer »

richb wrote:More than bling for me, although that is nice. The present windows and desktop features I find very useful. Also with the ability to modify emerald themes I can make window titlebar and buttons a reasonable size for my large display.
No it's not only bling. I just wanted to state that being without this functionality doesn't hamper my productivity. I want these features, but one has to respect every project for what it is. Xfce has a focus on stability before eye-candy and that's good.

Ideally I would want a desktop with:
Xfce
Kwin (or a Compiz version that can match Kwin)
Emerald (there is Smaragd for Kwin)
DockbarX or similar to give a modern touch to the Xfce panel

But now we are quite far from a basic "works out of the box" desktop.

User avatar
Jerry3904
Administrator
Posts: 21859
Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:13 am

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#24 Post by Jerry3904 »

Have you tried some of the other bars available in Package Installer, such as Docky or Plank?

I never have, but have often thought about it...
Production: 5.10, MX-23 Xfce, AMD FX-4130 Quad-Core, GeForce GT 630/PCIe/SSE2, 16 GB, SSD 120 GB, Data 1TB
Personal: Lenovo X1 Carbon with MX-23 Fluxbox and Windows 10
Other: Raspberry Pi 5 with MX-23 Xfce Raspberry Pi Respin

User avatar
Stevo
Developer
Posts: 12745
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:07 pm

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#25 Post by Stevo »

dreamer wrote:
richb wrote:More than bling for me, although that is nice. The present windows and desktop features I find very useful. Also with the ability to modify emerald themes I can make window titlebar and buttons a reasonable size for my large display.
No it's not only bling. I just wanted to state that being without this functionality doesn't hamper my productivity. I want these features, but one has to respect every project for what it is. Xfce has a focus on stability before eye-candy and that's good.

Ideally I would want a desktop with:
Xfce
Kwin (or a Compiz version that can match Kwin)
Emerald (there is Smaragd for Kwin)
DockbarX or similar to give a modern touch to the Xfce panel

But now we are quite far from a basic "works out of the box" desktop.
If you do get all that working, that sounds like an interesting respin or add-on possiblity for MX. I built Smaragd a while back for KDE 4; I'll have to see if that got updated for Plasma 5.

Edit: it looks like it did, but repos might have it under another name...this is a pretty cool site that finds packages in repos, and it shows ours is the only one that has it under that particular name: https://repology.org/metapackage/kwin-s ... d/versions

Just smaragd is pretty barren, too: https://repology.org/metapackage/smaragd/versions

User avatar
dreamer
Posts: 738
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:34 am

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#26 Post by dreamer »

My favorite dock was Avant Window Manager. It isn't in development anymore. Docky or Plank are more minimalist. They aren't full panel replacements. They don't support notification area for example. Then there is Cairo/GLX dock which is full featured, but I never liked that one because it had a weird floating notification area.

Let me just say this: I'm perfectly happy with MX-17 as is. I was playing with window-managers and Dockbarx just to see what could be done. I will stick with a vanilla version of MX-17, because it's the cleanest solution.

I don't want to be a pessimist, but with Wayland around the corner I think the possibilities will shrink. I'm glad that I got to try a lot of great Linux software during the last decade. I've played with everything from openbox and up. I'm not a command line guy so I avoided the most extreme minimalist environments. It's been a lot of fun. And to be honest I'm perfectly happy with a vanilla version of MX Linux. Sometimes it just feels good to experiment a little to see what can be done. I didn't expect Kwin to work well in Xfce, but it did.

User avatar
cgriffin
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2011 9:59 pm

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#27 Post by cgriffin »

I'd like to run a few select KDE apps in XFCE, such as Konsole and Dolphin, maybe others.

Would I be better just installing the ones I want, or installing the full KDE desktop. I don't want to screw up my system too bad. If I install the KDE desktop and don't end up wanting it all will i be able to remove it?
--
Chris Griffin

User avatar
Gordon Cooper
Posts: 965
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 5:50 pm

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#28 Post by Gordon Cooper »

I just installed the ones that I wanted and were in the MX repos. k3b, a good disk burner for one, and the reader Okular. Certainly you will get extra dependencies in your system with KDE apps, but I cannot see any need to install the full KDE desktop.
Backup: Dell9010, MX-19_B2, Win7, 120 SSD, WD 232GIB HD, 4GB RAM
Primary :Homebrew64 bit Intel duo core 2 GB RAM, 120 GB Kingston SSD, Seagate1TB.
MX-18.2 64bit. Also MX17, Kubuntu14.04 & Puppy 6.3.

User avatar
m_pav
Developer
Posts: 1383
Joined: Sun Aug 06, 2006 3:02 pm

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#29 Post by m_pav »

I agree with Gordon, there's no need to install the full KDE desktop to get the goodies you really want. I started as a KDE user, but now I find XFCE and the apps installed in MX are more than adequate for my needs. K3B is indeed the best burning app, but I no longer have built in optical drives, so my need for it is next to non-existent. Okular is the pista resistance of document viewers and with plugins, it can be extended further, but I've grown to appreciate and prefer a simpler option with less bells and whistles. I used to prefer Dolphin and it is a very good file manager, though Thunar with customisation's does just as well. I sometimes miss the unbeaten double pane view Dolphin has, but window snapping and having 2-3 Thunar windows open simultaneously makes up for everything Dolphin offered and adds more capabilities besides.

If you do go ahead and install the full KDE desktop, your XFCE desktop will remain unaltered and you will be able to switch between them at the login screen. If you end up not liking it, you can always remove what you can of it, but your base system will not remain unscathed, there will always be the "hangover after the party". You'll find the default KDE configuration will be rather uninspiring and bland as it will be all KDE defaults and will have no polish added, also many apps will look like they have been smacked hard with the ugly stick. It's not impossible to correct a good number of them, but there will always be apps that will just not look right, even after lots of delicate polishing.

I spent 3-4 days building a custom ISO for my wife who is a KDE user before I installed it onto her machine and for the next 2 weeks, I was tweaking a thing here, a thing there to refine it just that little bit more. I eventually had to find a stop point because the more I refined, the more I found. She's happy enough with what she's got, but its not as stable as if she had used straight XFCE.
Mike P

Regd Linux User #472293
(Daily) Lenovo T560, i7-6600U, 16GB, 2.0TB SSD, MX_ahs
(ManCave) AMD FX 6100 CPU, nVidia, 8Gb, 3.25TB mixed, MX_ahs
(Spare)2017 Macbook Air 7,2, 8GB, 256GB SSD, MX_ahs

User avatar
Mauser
Posts: 1333
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2016 7:32 pm

Re: MX17 - KDE?

#30 Post by Mauser »

m_pav wrote:
If you do go ahead and install the full KDE desktop, your XFCE desktop will remain unaltered and you will be able to switch between them at the login screen. If you end up not liking it, you can always remove what you can of it, but your base system will not remain unscathed,
That's not always so. When I had MX-16.1 and ran KDE on it, certain things changed in Xfce which I found out later it was from the settings I changed in KDE also affected Xfce.
I am command line illiterate. :confused: I copy & paste to the terminal. Liars, Wiseguys, Trolls, and those without manners will be added to my ignore list. :mad:

Post Reply

Return to “MX Respins”