Gripe of the day: KGet

Can someone please tell me why the hell KGet still doesn’t have an “open with…” option? What the fucking fuck?!

-pd-

HOWTO: Install _only_ KDE4 on Ubuntu 7.10

UPDATE: Please stop using this howto, it is obsolete and only being kept up for archiving purposes. The Kubuntu-KDE4 8.10 beta is out! Use it instead!

…

Yes, I know I can install KDE4 on top of KDE3.5 in Kubuntu. I know that the final release of 8.04 will have separate install discs for KDE3.5 and KDE4. But I want what I want and I want it right fuckin’ now. Here’s how I did it.

1. Install the server edition of Ubuntu 7.10. I will not detail this process here; if you don’t already know how to work with the debian-installer, don’t take it personally, but this howto is probably a little beyond you. Go forth, read the fabled manual, and come back when you’ve built your first lightsaber, young Jedi. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.
2. Reboot, log in. Install the generic kernel. This step is not strictly necessary, but the generic kernel is optimized for low latency desktop use. What this means to you, Joe User, is that applications can pre-empt the kernel, resulting in slightly lower overall processing power, but increased desktop responsiveness. Oh, the things you learn hanging out here!-> sudo aptitude install linux-generic. _Reboot_ into the generic kernel (you’ll have to select it from the GRUB menu just this once) before moving on to step 3.
3. Remove the server kernel. -> sudo aptitude remove linux-image-2.6.22-14-generic linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.22-14-generic linux-server linux-image-server. GRUB will update itself. (Note: By the time you read this, the kernel version may have changed, in which case you’ll have to change the version number above. You can find out what kernel you’re running with -> uname -r.
4. sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list and add the line “deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main universe multiverse restricted” (no quotes)
5. sudo aptitude
6. In aptitude, press “u” to update the package list. Press “/” to bring up a search bar, and search for kde4-core. Press “+” to install. This should automatically install the x server with it, but check to make sure by searching for xserver-xorg and making sure there’s an “i” next to it. Also search for and mark kdm for installation.
7. MUY IMPORTANTE! Search for kdm-kde4 and press “-” to cancel the installation. I have a showstopper bug with kdm-kde4, wherein when kdm starts, it kills all my other ttys*, which I cannot live without. I have seen no known fix for this, and I haven’t even seen anyone else with the problem, so your mileage may vary, but you’ve been warned. After all this is said and done, press “g” to install. It’ll pull down about five million package, so if you need to go to the corner store for a pack of smokes, now’s a good time. EDIT: Okay,my ttys vanished again.kdm-kde4 is not installed, it happened after an update to xserver-xorg-video-intel. I think it may be related to this bug, but I’m not sure. I have a seperate bug report filed here. EDIT TO THE EDIT: This seems to be fixed in Feisty.
8. Reboot into KDE4! Right now, only the base KDE4 desktop is installed, but wait there’s more! First, install Adept (there isn’t a KDE4 version yet) with -> sudo aptitude install adept. Then check out extragear-plasma, kdepim-kde4, koffice-kde4, kde4-amusements, kdeadmin-kde4, kdeartwork-kde4, kdeaccessibility-kde4, kdeedu-kde4, kdegames-kde4, kdemultimedia-kde4, kdenetwork-kde4, kdegraphicskde4, and kdeutils-kde4. Etc, etc. You may just want to search for KDE4 in Adept and go down the list.
9. Enjoy!

-pd-

Blogroll addition

To complete the trifecta of three half-assed KDE4-related posts in evening (and yes, I’m still working on a full review of the Kubuntu Hardy alpha with KDE4), I came across a neat blog in my travels tonight: Introducing KDE 4. Luis Augusto Fretes is doing very detailed, thorough walkthroughs of the basic KDE 4 applications, replete with screenshots and useful information. (Yes, much more thorough than my “jog through” of KBlogger.) So far, he’s got posts up for Gwenview (which I’ve toyed with a bit and adore), Okular (which I haven’t even looked at yet), and Dolphin (I haven’t read it yet, but being a loyal Krusader user, I frankly loathe Dolphin, so I’m interested to see a thorough review of it, maybe it’ll inspire me to give it an honest shot and review it here).

-pd-

A ten-minute tour of KBlogger 1.0 alpha

This is a test run of KBlogger 1.0 alpha2 for KDE4. I’m fairly pleased with the wordpress.com interface and probably won’t be using this very often, but I wanted to at least kick the tires on this, so I’m going to try (really, I just opened this program for the first time, this is being written as it happens) to compose and publish this post from inside KBlogger. Before I begin, if you want to try KBlogger on K/ubuntu, it’s in the KDE4 repository. If you have questions, comments, or bug reports for KBlogger, please take them to the project’s KDE-apps page. On with the show!

Good stuff:

Autoconfiguration for the most common blog formats. (fig. 1) Enter your blog URL, username and password, and go.

A two-pane, tabbed interface that’s really nice. (fig. 2) On the left is the compositionn pane, with tabs for “visual editor,” “HTML editor,” and “post preview,” updated in real time. No more waiting for a new page to load to see a preview, or switch from visual to HTML editing! Sweet! The right panel contains a drop-down menu for handling multiple blogs if you’ve got more than one, and a “categories” selection menu. Well put together, no complaints here.

Speaking of the post preview tab, there’s a cryptic button in there called “get style.” Guess what it does? (fig. 3) Cool!

Handy-dandy image uploader Note: I noticed on the author’s kde-apps page that the image uploader is still very rough. I’m glad I read that before trying to publish this. A good idea, though, I hope the developers can work it out.

Not-so-good stuff:

When the composer window is open, you can’t activate the main window. I assume this is a bug.

Saving drafts is real dicey. Once KBlogger forgot my categories, the next time it seemed to forget all my changes. WTF? Not Good.

The visual editor, not to put too fine a point on it, totally sucks. No hotkeys, like nine options, no bullet lists, if that’s not enough for you, of course, you can use the HTML editor…

Or can you? Just now I tried to go to the HTML editor to make this a bullet list. Went to the preview tab, and it looked good. Went back to the visual editor, and my formatting was gone. Well, maybe the editor can’t parse it, oh well. Went back to the HTML editor and my formatting was gone! Okay, the visual editor not being able to handle it was acceptable, if not thrilling. But this is not at all what I expected, and completely uncool behavior. If you go from the HTML editor to the preview and back, the formatting remains intact. I haven’t tried to publish yet, so I don’t know if that works or not.

“Publish” doesn’t seem to publish. It just sits in Local Entries. I don’t know if this is a problem with the publish function or the blog autoconfiguration.

Some wishlist stuff (Note that I have no idea if the developers are working on any of this already or not):

It would be nice to run it in the system tray and be able to pull it up with a global shortcut.

Support for tags as well as categories, and the option to add new tags/categories.

There’s no documentation that I could find, and I did look. The documentation link on the homepage is for 0.5.

The reason I looked is that it’s not at all clear what the “Set Publish Date” does, or what its relationship, if any, is with the “Publish” checkbox.

In all it’s a good beginning. Yeah, it’s rough, but it’s an alpha, and the outline of something good is there. If there are more items under “bad” in my list, I don’t want that to reflect poorly on the good work being done here, these are just a random sample of issues I had in my ten-minute tour of the program. Also keep in mind that I’m running alpha software on alpha software (Kubuntu Hardy alpha 4), and made no effort to debug any problems. This is just the view from the cheap seats, folks. Anyway, the point is, the parts of it I like I really like, and I’m going to keep my eye on this project.

Note: I’m going to copy-paste this into the wordpress web page now, to give a demonstration of the visual editor. I did this post in the visual editor, then copied the code out of the HTML editor. The images are the only part of this post not done with KBlogger.

-pd-

fig.1

fig.2

fig.3

KDE4 progress…

KDE4 continues to shape up on Kubuntu Hardy alpha4… The pager got configuration options today, huzzah! Stay tuned for the dime review of KBlogger for KDE4, later tonight.

-pd-

KDE 4: “Be Free”

A brief excerpt from Aaron Seigo’s blog:

a theme for our KDE4 promotion campaigns was also unveiled using the slogan “Be Free”. It was a long time arriving at those two small words… a lot of thought and planning in behind this. The core of the idea is that the freedom aspects of our software is a unique attribute of our projects, something our proprietary competitors can’t really match..

This is exactly what I’ve been talking about. Stallman said in his essay Why Free Software is better than Open Source, “At present we have plenty of “Keep Quiet,” but not enough freedom talk.” There’s a commonly held (but still false) assumption among FOSS folks that Joe User doesn’t care about freedom. That’s a lie, it’s an excuse, and it hurts us.

Joe doesn’t know what freedom means. Why not? Because we have failed to explain it to him. Failed and failed and failed again. That’s job #1 here at Guerrilla Tech, it’s what I started doing this for. Spinning cubes aren’t going to win the battle for hearts and minds, people. They’re cool, I’m not trying to shit on spinning cubes, but they will not win the battle.

Here’s the bottom line. A very simple three step plan for everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present “How We Win:”

Show them that it’s better.

Show them that it’s free.

Show them that it’s better because it’s free.

Anyway, my hearty applause to those involved in this campaign for KDE! I very much look forward to seeing this (and the entire KDE4 project) unfold in the months to come!