Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. This is a duplicate of a post in the Mandriva forums and I will close it when either one is resolved.

I am planning to install mandriva on my computer. In the past I have used Ubuntu and Fedora, but both were using GNOME. I am currently planning to install Mandriva KDE (I liked the live cd) but I have three questions ranging from not stupid to stupid before I do:

1) Is there an equivalent to GNOME's "Force Quit" panel button for KDE? I couldn't find one and I really like this button.

2) Really stupid question: How do I add a launcher for just one application to a panel, like the firefox button that turns on firefox ("Custom Application Launcher" in GNOME)?

3) I've seen images of people with a Mac OS X style application dock in KDE (I don't care about technical features, I just like that particular bit of the OS X interface) - how can I get one for KDE4?

2) You should be able to drag the application icon from the Application menu to the panel, assuming it isn't locked.

1. I don't know what "force quit" does, but can't you just use xkill? Ctrl-Alt-Escape (by default), or you could add an icon that executes xkill (just be careful to not double click and kill Plasma )

3. Check kde-look.org, e.g.
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.ph ... ent=102077
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.ph ... tent=99737

Good luck with your move to Mandriva/KDE, and don't hesitate to ask if you have any further questions.

First thing to note is that Mandriva KDE (Mandriva rather than KDE) didn't work because although it was all fancy and looked cool and had a simple and intuitive UI, it crashed every hour or so with a complete system hang. I believe it was the 3D effects that did it.

Apart from that, I am probably going to try to make mandriva work, because it does look like a cool OS (Mandriva KDE and GNOME both have the 3D problem, although GNOME's is to a lesser extent).

Thanks for everyone's posts! xkill is just what I need to be able to force quit apps in KDE; I haven't tested it in KDE yet.

I found cairo-dock for the application dock; it is amazing! Apparently it works in GNOME and KDE, although I've only tested it in GNOME.

The only thing that I really didn't like about KDE was Dolphin. I find nautilus much better than either that or Konqueror, at least so far.

I do have one more question: Is there a file manager for KDE (or can you get Nautilus with a KDE theme) that will let you do what nautilus does where you start typing in multiple characters and it gives you the first file starting with those characters? This was a really good feature and it doesn't appear to exist in Dolphin or Konqueror.

The freezes propapbly are because of the grafik card driver and 3D Effekts.
Intel and ATI Cards should have such problems with 2009.1.

For ATI Cards you can switch to the proprietary driver which did not have this problem.
To switch go to the Mandriva Control Center -> Hardware -> Configure your X-Server (or something similar). Reconfigure your grafic card and you will be ask if you want to use the proprieatry driver (if it supports you card).

Intel Cards should also be able to work:

See the errata page for further information:
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2009.1_Errata

As a MAC OSX Doc you could also try Daisy which has an option to be a dock.

Regards,
TeaAge

zorgoth wrote:I do have one more question: Is there a file manager for KDE (or can you get Nautilus with a KDE theme) that will let you do what nautilus does where you start typing in multiple characters and it gives you the first file starting with those characters? This was a really good feature and it doesn't appear to exist in Dolphin or Konqueror.

Dolphin/Konqueror already does that (although they don't show a text box with what you've typed - from my experience with the Gnome open dialog, I guess Nautilus does that?). You can also filter the files with Ctrl+i in Dolphin (don't know about Konqueror, I like Dolphin ).

Anything else you miss from Nautilus?