Hi,

More than often I'm better off when I wait a month, two before I install a new distro when it's released. But I thought that after 10 months OpenSuse 12.2 should be very stable. This time I came across minor but very annoying issues. First I thought the upgrade I did was guilty so tonight I installed a new, clean system. I was wrong. I have the same and interestengly - new problems.

I'll try to list them - the ones I know and remember:
- Amarok: it plays music for some time and then stops after some tracks (when a track ends). I have to manually change a track.
- PIM/TODO: when I mark a task as finished, the whole list is expanded. Very, very annoying. Now it's impossible to work with my lists.
- Terminal: between the text I'm typing and the cursor there is a large gap - ca. one inch

This is not meant to be a comprehensible list. Before I fill a bug report, I'd like to be sure, they are really bugs that others can confirm. Are these known bugs? Only related to 12.2 or generally to 4.8?

thanks in advance!

could you create a new user and test? the only issue I can confirm or deny is the terminal one and I don't experience it

wouldn't think it will matter but 4.9 repos are available

So I created a new test user account. The problems still occur apart from the one with terminal (no problem at all). And I can add a new one: my wifi connection is not detected - I have to uncheck 'enable wireless' and enable it again. That's too much for me.

Sorry for griping but as long as I'm using Linux (6.5 years now) I always have some problems when a new version of a distro is released. If I needed one to play, that'd be OK, but I use it in my everyday work. There's still much to be done in the Linux universe.

One more thing. I don't mind testing, trying to detect what's going wrong. But what about ordinary users? They'd probably give up and switch to Windows.

I also can't see the problems with TODO and terminal in live CD. The check sum was correct. What gives?

for your Konsole problem I'd rename ~/.kde4/share/config/konsolerc and see if that helps

you should post the wifi and Amarok problems in the appropriate forums, you didn't mention that the new user did not have the Amarok issue. If you go to the openSUSE forums you'll bunch of threads regarding wifi (search for just wifi) so this very well could be a distro issue.

You could try clearing your kdecache (/vat/tmp/kdecache-<username>) when KDE is not running

The problem with konsole still persists even when I deleted the config file completely. I'm rather positive about wifi but it should work now - though time will tell - next days I mean.
Amarok is playing music so far. TODO is still broken.

// edit
I was wrong about Amarok
May the problems be related to different host names? It seems to me that I had different one using 12.1 than now.

for Konsole you can try deleting/renaming the Konsole apps folder ~/.kde4/share/apps/konsole

Didn't help. I renamed .kde4 folder to a temp one to see if that helps. But I ended up with more problems with Akonadi not syncing my notes properly (even when I tried to make akonadiconsole to work). Though the problem with konsole disappeared, I don't have time to configure everything from the beginning.
I looked at all symbolic links in .kde4 pointing to cache and purge them (target folders, not links). Didn't help either.

The problem with Konsole is solved now. Lack of fonts that were previously installed cased the problem. I reported the one with KOrganizer and I’m going to report the one with Amarok.

The problem with Amarok is solved too. It turned out that there’s problem with phonon-gst and packagers have not updated the package yet. Following the advice on Amarok IRC channel I installed phonon-vlc and it works.

Perhaps I wrote too hastily – I shouldn’t have complained that much.

The only problem I have now is with KOrganizer and I’m sure I’ll be able to solve it soon.

Where can I find a clean fast laptop version of Linux v3.x with KDE v3.5.x?

I was running openSuSE v11.2 with KDE v3.5.9. But since it can't use the Wifi adapter, I finally installed openSuSE v12.2 with KDE v4.8. It's a dual-boot system that came with Win/7 Home Premium pre-installed. Win/7 works with all the hardware features, plays videos, the whole shootin' match....

I use a separate /home partition to preserve my data and settings across 'upgrades'. (I've used SuSE with KDE on desktops ever since v7.3)

The sad thing was that everything initially seemed to be working for circa 3 days; my Wifi feature was recognized, Thunderbird was happily getting my mail, and almost everything was working except Akonadi kept trying to seize my KNotes and oput them in a MySQL database. Which I don't want. Then suddenly on the fourth day I booted up, and couldn't sign on to my KDE desktop..

So, after going at the situation via the 'no-fail' and 'recovery' options, I gave up and installed Linux Mint v13 with KDE v4.9. It reported that my / partition had gotten moved by 2,000 bytes, so I had to delete and recreate it. Then I installed Mint and and again things were good for two days. On the morning of the third day, I booted into Mint, and -you guessed it- KDE v4 was **** again.

The really nasty thing was each time I was suckered into believing that "this time it's working", and then I got dumped back into the 1980s M$ World. Well, at least I only lost some customizations such as an edited desktop image....

So now I'm back to openSuSE v11.2, with additions from Novell's v10.x DVD (such as the locate and updatedb commands), using KDE v3.5.9. But my Acer 5250-BZxxx Wifi doesn't work with a v2.6.x Linux kernel.

Virtually no distribution ships with KDE 3.5.10 anymore - although you may be able to install it on openSUSE 12.2 if the repositories have it (you may need to add openSUSE Build Service repositories to do so).

However, given you got these problems under both Mint and openSUSE and the similarity of the problems and their severity I doubt the fault lays with KDE. Did you attempt to diagnose or otherwise troubleshoot the failure to login / startup?

Examining ~/.xsession-errors can often prove informative.

bcooksley - "Did you attempt to diagnose or otherwise troubleshoot the failure to login / startup? Examining ~/.xsession-errors can often prove informative."

Seeing that the desktops consistently froze during the log-on process, I wasn't able to look at anything. That did make me suspect that KFM (or whatever program is (programs are) now between X and the graphical desktop) was the real problem.

In order to investigate I would have needed to install Gnome or another desktop engine (Xcfe) , and I was then unwilling to do that. I couldn't find my copy of Knoppix either.

Thing is, I like KDE v3.5.x; it is relatively simple and I pretty much know now know where everything is in the .kde and .local directories. The few real quibbles I have with it are that, 1) its control files don't use a XML format, and, 2) it puts menu, .desktop, and some control stuff in places besides /opt/kde3, /usr/shared/application, and /home/$USER/.kde.

KDE4 is far more complex under the covers. Plus the use of MySQL introduces something third-party beyond Linux file systems. It's one thing to store KDE control stuff in a formal DB, but I don't want my own (or client) data hidden away behind any DB engine.

There isn't anything particularly wrong with using .vcd files for addresses, .ics for calendar data, and whatever format to store KNotes, etc. And there's some things right. Being able to store application data in particular independent formats and files means one may use programs other than just the KDE ones to access information.

If I send out a .ics file, or store it in a server directory, others can read it, eg, using Mozilla's calendar program. Depending on file authorities, FS journaling, and record locking, such things may even be shared for update. Also, back on any one desktop, one can have multiple KNotes, calendar, address, etc. files, divided by project, or by whatever other organizing scheme one chooses.

KDE4 is a Microsoft-style attempt to create lock-in for users, and I resent that. Fiercely. As should everybody else.

Gnome 3.x is no better, plus one gives up the unified metaphor that is the KDE merit for users. Xcfe etc. are specialist things without the 'walled garden' merits of Apple.

So, once again my question; are there any downloadable, or buy-able, v3.x Linux kernels with KDE v3.5.x extant versions, complete with all the UNIX tools that once were in openSuSE v10.2? The dropping of locate and updatedb discommodes those who wrote scripts so root can find things on a desktop...

So,, are there going to be any substantive responses for the issues I outlined?

Or, am I getting an implicit and dismissive response - It's free, so enjoy those freeze-ups?

No, thanks. Guess I'll need to search for a totally different Linux implementation, like a PCLinuxOS...

I was busy for a while - which is why there was no response. In regards to what you wrote:

Seeing that the desktops consistently froze during the log-on process, I wasn't able to look at anything. That did make me suspect that KFM (or whatever program is (programs are) now between X and the graphical desktop) was the real problem.

Was this a hard freeze, or an application level freeze? Hard freezes often leave the machine unresponsive to pings, and sometimes with a flashing caps lock light or other indicator. Application level freezes can often be recovered from by killing the offending application. In this case, another computer on the same network would be necessary to debug the issue.

KDE4 is far more complex under the covers. Plus the use of MySQL introduces something third-party beyond Linux file systems. It's one thing to store KDE control stuff in a formal DB, but I don't want my own (or client) data hidden away behind any DB engine.

You have misinterpreted the use of Virtuoso and MySQL by KDE. For PIM data, standard formats are still strictly used as the *master source* for data. The MySQL database is simply a convenient cache, particularly for remote email (accessed via IMAP for instance) or calendars. It is not used for storing actual user data - just a cache to enhance performance.

KDE4 is a Microsoft-style attempt to create lock-in for users, and I resent that. Fiercely. As should everybody else.

KDE 4 is actually reducing vendor lock in as KMail in KDE 3 used it's own variant of a Maildir to store email which was not readily compatible with other mail clients. Under KDE 4, the exact method of data storage depends on your setup, but the defaults at least use Maildirs, vCards and *.ics files to store email, contacts and calendars.

So, once again my question; are there any downloadable, or buy-able, v3.x Linux kernels with KDE v3.5.x extant versions, complete with all the UNIX tools that once were in openSuSE v10.2? The dropping of locate and updatedb discommodes those who wrote scripts so root can find things on a desktop...

The dropping of those tools was not made in any part by KDE, but by the distribution you are using, openSUSE. I suggest you ask them for further information. With regards to KDE 3.x, I suggest you look into the community maintained versions on the openSUSE Build Service.