Hi,




Because I think GNOME 3.0 is going to be a big failure I already decided to switch to KDE.I have some minor issues with this new desktop environment. I'll list them here below and below that I'll add some details.




1) Multimedia keys aren't working properly

2) Keyboard volume control doesn't manipulate the volume (I installed pulse-audio)

3) Hard drives (e.g. external drives and Windows partition) aren't mounted by Dolphin. But they are by Nautilus

4) I can't find a manager to manage my start-up applications (I want to add; pidgin -f)

5) Google Earth does install, but there is a dependency conflict

6) Is there a KDE webcam application in the repository?

7) Temperature gadgets don't work, the option to set the location aren't
functioning

8 ) X-server artifacts on start-up of KDE

9) Amarok is too slow

10) Wine repository doesn't work in KDE, sum mismatch error


__________



Details/fixes
1) I edited the Global Keyboard Shortcuts in the System Settings. Is this the best approach? In GNOME they keys immediately work okay.

2) I installed the pavucontrol to select the right device to use with Pulse-Audio. But the Kmixer doesn't have any effect on the volume levels.

4) Autostart is not what I'm looking for. In GNOME the options are more detailed and you can edit all start-up apps in there. Not just add them. Check this to see what I mean.

5) After I installed the googleearth-package and I did make-googleearth-package and dpkg -i [google earth package name] I get this error:

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You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  googleearth: Depends: ia32-libs (< 15) but 20090808 is to be installed or
                        ia32-libgl1-mesa-glx but it is not installable
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

The only thing I can do is remove googleearth.

7) This is because the RSS feeds have changed? I read this would be fixed in KDE 4.4, is that true?

8 ) Every time when I boot I see artifacts before KDE's boot up screen appears. These are very strange, they appear to becoming from the cache memory of my graphical card. Because when I bootup after I played a game in Windows I get to see the game in the artifacts for a split second. Am I the only one that experiences this? Below is my XF86Config.

9) I followed this tutorial. But although Amarok created the tables in the database it is still very slow on startup.

10) I get this error when I do aptitude update:

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W: Failed to fetch http://www.lamaresh.net/apt/dists/squeeze/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz  Hash Sum mismatch

E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

So I can't install the latest Wine software. This is only the case in KDE, my laptop that still has GNOME works okay with this.





My XF86Config, generated by nvidia-xconfig

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# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (randy@juliet2)  Fri Sep  5 15:03:39 PDT 2008

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"   
EndSection                                   

Section "Files"
    RgbPath         "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
EndSection                                 

Section "Module"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "type1"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "glx"     
EndSection                   

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse" 
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" 
EndSection                               

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "keyboard"
EndSection                   

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 110.0
    VertRefresh     50.0 - 150.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

3) Do you have HAL installed? Are you in the plugdev group?

4) Why Autostart in systemsettings is not what you want? You get the full list of programs if you click on the 'Add program' button.

5) Not a KDE problem. After installing Google Earth, please run 'apt-get -f install'

6) There is one, Kamoso, but I do not know if it has had a release.

10) Not a KDE problem. Try removing the repository, apt-get update, readd the repository and finally update again.

dpalacio wrote:3) Do you have HAL installed? Are you in the plugdev group?

4) Why Autostart in systemsettings is not what you want? You get the full list of programs if you click on the 'Add program' button.

5) Not a KDE problem. After installing Google Earth, please run 'apt-get -f install'

6) There is one, Kamoso, but I do not know if it has had a release.

10) Not a KDE problem. Try removing the repository, apt-get update, readd the repository and finally update again.

3) Yes I've installed HAL. Does this look okay?:

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Apollo:/home/kees# cat /etc/group | grep plugdev
plugdev:x:46:kees

This solution didn't work either.

4) I don't see a complete list of the programs that are being start-up. I can just add a program, I want to select and deselect all the programs that are being started at start-up. When I add pidgin -f it doesn't behave very pretty. Because it looks like it's started twice because the icon in the taskmanager looks like it's overlapping another pidgin icon.

5) When I do that I get this message:

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# apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  googleearth
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

10) didn't work

Another question, in GNOME I can start gedit as root, this is pretty handy because I can edit root privileged configuration files very easily.

How do I start kwrite as root? I get this error when I do that:

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Apollo:/home/kees# kwrite
No protocol specified
kwrite: cannot connect to X server :0.0

2. Generally (from what I've seen) PulseAudio doesn't work very well with KDE. You can try to change the master channel in KMix by right clicking on the icon -> Select Master Channel.

3. As far as I know, there'll be a module for automounting in KDE SC 4.5. Do you see the devices under "Places" in Dolphin? You should be able to mount it by clicking on it.

4. You can disable the "Restore previous session" feature in System Settings -> Advanced -> Session Manager. Then you have to rely on System Settings -> Advanced -> Autostart to autostart applications. Or you can do like me, choose "Restore manually save session", set up a session (i.e. how you want a "fresh" workspace to be) and then hit "Save Session" in the application launcher.

11. Try

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kdesu kwrite

You can also try Root Actions Servicemenu for Dolphin/Konqueror (I had it by default, but I guess it's because of my distro).

You need to run something like `kdesu kwrite`, or manually give other local users access to your X-server, like this; "xhost +local:root", for example, before running any X-applications as root.
This isn't really a KDE issue, though, rather a distro issue (too paranoid default security settings).


1.: It works for me. Maybe a distro issue? Broken HAL setup or something.
2.: Broken PulseAudio configuration, I think. I don't use PulseAudio, so I'm not sure. Mandriva also ships with much improved PulseAudio integration, that is going to be in KDE 4.5, that might help.
In the meantime, try looking at this for hints: http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup
3.: Works for me, hard drives are automatically mounted when I try to access them.
4.: I don't understand what you're missing from the Autostart KCM. Just click "Add Program...", type in "pidgin -f", and hit enter? If this doesn't work, it's probably a bug in Pidgin.
5.: This is a problem with Debian, not KDE.
6.: There is for example Kamoso, but I don't know if it is available in Debian. You can get the source code at least from here: http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=111750
7.: Works for me, maybe a distro issue again?
8.: Probably a bug in the graphics card drivers. I don't have these issues on ArchLinux, with an NVidia card (and the proprietary NVidia drivers).
9.: Amarok is relatively slow to start here too, but AFAIK it is because of the scripts (a faster solution is under development by rdale and eean).
10.: Debian issue again, not KDE.

Thanks for the info!

I'll keep searching for solutions today, I'll also check out how e.g. Arch works. Maybe this is a wake-up call for me to also switch from distribution

But first I have to see what KDE 4.4 will improve for me in Debian.

Keyboard volume control works perfectly for me, with PA installed. It is most important that you keep installed the most up-to-date phonon packages you can get. New phonon packages have been released in the last couple of days, so you should try to get them.

As already mentioned, the PA guru is with Mandriva.

Note that KMix in KDE 4.4 will have some capability to perform PulseAudio mixing, and control application volumes.

For 3, I suggest checking ~/.xsession-errors immediately after it fails to see if any form of an error message has been printed.

I just wanted to write that I have the same artifact issue when I sign in to KDE using Debian Squeeze. (I also have an nVidia card, and use the proprietary drivers.) It is exactly as TheGuy mentions -- I dual boot this box with Ubuntu, and if I've been in Ubuntu previously it's as if it accesses some hidden memory chunk and pulls in screen data from that session for a split second, before delivering me to the desktop.

If I am in a fresh boot of Debian, the screen still flashes at this login moment -- but with a black-and-white checkerboard-ish thing (no screen data available perhaps?) Just for one second.

It's very odd. Not a huge deal (somewhat annoying and unpolished looking), but I thought I'd verify the behavior.

@Brimlar: that is a fault of your graphics driver, which fails to clear the graphics buffer before commencing rendering.

Thanks, bcooksley -- that makes sense.