KDE News

According to the Mint Connection blog, 11% of Mint users run the KDE Community Edition.

If you’re a KDE fan you probably feel left out as there certainly isn’t 11% of our news coverage or focus in general covering your favorite edition.

Also, considering KDE is (arguably but generally admitted) the most popular Linux desktop, 11% seems quite low.

If you’ve been running Linux Mint KDE CE you know this has nothing to do with its quality. Jamie “Boo” Birse is doing a marvelous job and although feedback is excellent when it comes to this edition it’s definitely not attracting users out of the Linux Mint community.

So what’s wrong with KDE CE? Well.. to make a long story short: it’s a CE and it should be more than that.

KDE fans probably prefer to run a distribution which proved a strong focus and dedication to KDE. We’re probably seen as a Gnome distribution. The KDE CE isn’t released as frequently or as fast as the Main edition. The blog doesn’t cover it very much. The user guide only covers the Main Edition. Information in the wiki is more or less targeted at the Main Edition… etc etc..

But one man decided to stand up and put a stop of this.. ok maybe I’m overdoing this a little…. Anyway, one man decided to invest himself into changing that. That man is Jaxon aka Akshunj. After talking to Boo we decided to welcome him in the team and see where to go from there.

The first thing we did was to give both Boo and Akshunj access to this blog as authors so that they could keep people updated as to how the KDE CE is doing. Get ready for more news on KDE CE as Boo and Ashkunj will be here to tell you what happens.

The second thing will be a reorganization of the Wiki. Basically as a KDE user you should be able to access some new “KDE part of the Wiki” directly from the main page and browse articles related to KDE-only.

The third thing will be a User Guide for the KDE CE. Now, for this, we rely on the Community. Neither Boo nor I have the time to guarantee this will be done. Ashkunj shall organize this work and see if people are interested in doing this from the forums.

The fourth thing is to develop QT programming in three areas: 1. KDE frontends for Mint tools, 2. KDE equivalents for eventual Gnome-specific mint tools, 3. QT development for new tools for which there is no need under Gnome. Again, the team is not planning to achieve this itself so we’ll rely on the community for this.

Now KDE CE will remain a CE but if you followed the recent development related to Firefox and the money generated by Mint you probably know we’re in the process of creating a company and generating more income. This directly translates into more development time. With Mint 5 being a long term support release we have the opportunity to make Mint KDE competitive among other KDE distros. The edition itself is already very good, all we need is to give it more focus and this is what we want to do.

As for the stable release of Daryna KDE CE, the ISO was uploaded by Boo a few days ago and is being tested at the moment by Exploder and myself. If you’re a Mint KDE fan you’re going to enjoy what’s coming up.

Of course we’re not big enough yet to guarantee the same attention to KDE as we give to the Main Edition, so don’t expect the same level of support/focus, but if we could start by making this CE a real alternative for KDE users, one which is actively maintained, covered, developped and documented then there’s no reason why it shouldn’t get more attention.  You should definitely see improvements in the coming weeks and if this is not the case don’t hesitate to remind us about this blog post 🙂

Clem.

25 comments

  1. Clem,

    I keep thinking that KDE might be a good desktop, but what does the newest offer that you can’t find in the repositories?

    Hey, unless KDE shows me the best, I’ll stay with GNOME. I’ve asked in a lot of Forums what would be the advantage, and there is no answer.

    I’ve run KDE from SuSE 9.0 up to 10.0+, then SLED with a lot of problems.

    Regards,

    JJMacey
    Phoenix, Arizona
    http://www.jjmacey.net/blog

  2. Thanks a lot to listen the users suggestions and opinions 😉

    It is really appreciated, and this news increased my feelings and attention about Mint…

    Keep going!

  3. As a Linux Mint KDE users, I really feel that Mint KDE is just a sideshow. I feel that just calling it a community edition greatly lessens that feel of quality. Mint KDE is a very high quality distribution, I love it. But just being called a Community Edition just makes it sound shitty. Which its absolutely not.

    To me it will always be Mint KDE, and not Mint KDE CE. That’s just my 2 cents.

    Thanks,
    -LostOverThere

  4. I’ve been using Mint as my primary Linux distro since… uh, a while now. I’ve accepted that it’s primarily a Gnome-focused distro, being based off Ubuntu that doesn’t really shock me.

    Actually Mint has kinda been good for me, as it’s forced me to use Gnome some, and I’ve actually gotten a lot more comfortable with it, but I do prefer KDE, and this post, while not quite as excellent as my dreamed-of “KDE is the wave of the future!” announcement, really does make me feel better for the future of Mint KDE… For a while, I was beginning to fear that this would be another release of Mint to lack a true KDE edition. It looks like things are starting to look up for us KDE users, which cheers me greatly.

    Now, about eeeMint… 😉

  5. I just switched from Mint KDE to Mint Gnome. I have been a KDE user for years. While waiting for the Stable version I tried Kubuntu 7.10 and installed the KDE 4 option. Man it’s a resource hog. Also I do not like the look. So now I’m using gnome.

    Let me say though that Boo’s hard work produced the best KDE edition I have ever used but with KDE 4 being the future, I can’t see myself using it.

    Again thanks to all the Mint Team for their hard and productive work.

  6. Good news for me also, but please, don’t let us wait longer. I’m convinced, that the CE edition may have an increasing number of users, if Daryna KDE is released. Even the mini KDE is interesting for people with a CD-ROM drive only. I hope we see the result of this move soon, thanks Clem for the good work.

  7. I just replaced KDE CE with main edition. KDE CE keeps dropping my Wifi on laptop. KDE CE cannot scale-down CPU frequency on Core2Duo, keyboard cannot control sound volume level. On the other hand, both version still cannot control screen brightness, and cannot manage Japanese Keyboard on English install. (My notebook is Fujitsu FMV.) KDE just not widely support hardware as Gnome-Ubuntu-Mint.

  8. Hi there,

    As a gnome user, I have to say that it is none-the-less a good move to boost the KDE profile in Mint. If the Mint branding is to remain at the top of the Distro-watch list, it needs a good quality, high profile KDE version for those who love it.Full marks for those making the decision and best wishes to the Mint KDE team.(Boo, the football season is about to star.Sure you got the time?)

    Regards
    John

  9. This is good news! It is great to see Boo getting some help on the KDE Edition.Congratulations Akshun, welcome to the Team! I am glad to see the KDE Edition getting more attention. KDE is very popular and the Mint KDE CE is looking to be a very high quality release. Boo does outstanding work and I am sure he appreciates the help and support he is receiving.Again, congratulations Akshun!

  10. The forums were reorganized and a new section made for LM editions. A subforum for the KDE CE is now accessible.

    I’m also planning to reorganize the Wiki in a similar way.

  11. Good news! The forums were *extremely* confusing for me. Much nicer now!

    Have you thought of making a bigger team, and making Boo the Lead Maintainer, in charge of a team producing his vision? Just a thought 😉

  12. I got involved in Linux only a few weeks ago, having tried a lot of different distributions since then. However, with my very restricted knowledge of Linux, I quickly appreciated the effortless way to work with Linux Mint, supported by the Mint-aesthetics being a feast for my eyes. Comparing the different desktop solutions KDE has met my needs best (at least for my fast laptop, for the slow one I prefer XFCE) so I am glad to read that in future this matter will be paid even more attention to.
    Thanks and all the best

  13. The Wiki was reorganized and a section was made for the KDE Edition. My work on this is done. Now I’d like to see the community come into action:

    – Make a KDE CE User Guide.
    – Organize the KDE CE section of the Wiki.
    – Be more active on the forums and eventually organize yourselves on the QT work.

    I hope Boo and Jaxon will be active here on the Blog and if every KDE fan out there does a little bit for it we’ll soon see this edition reach higher grounds.

    Good luck 😉
    Clem,
    going back to his work on the Main Edition.

  14. I for one LOVE Daryna KDE
    however until they are able to fix the issue i have with ATI proprietary drivers i cannot use it.
    i love the look and feel of it.
    however the driver issues are just too unbearable right now.
    as i do know its still beta these things are to be expected.

    Good Work Guys!!!

  15. From an reply by Boo in the forum I understand that he changes KDE conf files by hand and not using a .deb package. So if I install the main Gnome edition and with apt-get install KDE I will get the KDE from Ubuntu or Debian without his changes. So no way to get tweaked/Mint Gnome and KDE easily on the same installation. Any way to have a .deb config pkg or this will open the way for (K)ubuntu users to mint their installation? Tks

  16. Hi Clem & Mint Family,

    I have been using Mint Gnome for a few months now, and changed to the KDE edition when it was more stable, but the recent English Font update stopped my system from logging in properly. It would hang after login and bring me back to the login screen. I am just bringing this up here as I had to revert back to the Gnome desktop so I could keep using Mint. It is a good thing that the KDE community is getting more help and focus. I love the flexibility & customization that KDE 3.5 includes, but I am not in love with KDE 4, and find it lacking in the features that made KDE great – especially customization. Thanks for giving KDE more focus, and please make sure stable updates are tested by KDE also before release. This will stop breaking stable KDE Mint desktops, and help in not losing faith in Mint.

    CLM65

  17. CLM65: Daryna KDE CE now comes with mintUpdate so we can block updates that are buggy. Tell us the package name and version number which did harm to your system and we’ll give it a level 5. It’s as simple as that really.

  18. Hi Clem,

    Thanks for the quick response. I don’t know the full package name, but it was a Level 3 mintUpdate, and it updated on Monday morning Feb.25/08 on my machine. It may have been released on Sunday night. It was the Ubuntu Fonts English Updates. It broke a few systems, not just mine. Some people were more resourceful and found help at Ubuntu forums. I had to do a fresh install of Mint Gnome. The thread in Mint forums is, “English Update Broke My System…” if you want to see what other people did to fix it. It should be a Level 5 though as it didn’t fix itself as it had stated it was doing.

    Thanks Again,
    CLM65

  19. I have always liked KDE over Gnome, and prefered Debian based linux distro’s, but I wasn’t very happy with Kubuntu. I don’t think kubuntu’s implementation of KDE was very good unfortunately, (imo) So I just used ubuntu gnome for about a year or so and was happy with it, but i was always a bit put off by its ugly looks, i mean… cmon, the ubuntu team need to get with the times and polish it up and change that ugly brown theme:s I go to Tafe doing network engineering, and was recommending linux to people, and one day we installed ubuntu gnome, and the whole class hated it. lol, just because it looked ugly, even though the actual operating system is great. They all seemed to like other distro’s with KDE though, like Knoppix, PcLinuxOS etc. Anyways, I really like what Mint have done with Gnome, it looks much better, and ubuntu should really look towards making it look as good, but im quite happy to be back in KDE again:) I love it. I agree that the CE should be taken off the kde version of mint, its great. and does make it look 2nd class with CE labeled to it, but anyways. Keep up the good work Mint team, You guys have done something Really great. 🙂
    symon

  20. I’m looking for a Debian-based distro with well put together KDE. I’m using Kubuntu but looking for a distro that treats KDE as a first-class citizen. After a long search I hope that Mint is the answer. Thanks guys.

  21. I want to thank the Mint KDE guys also. I like the look of KDE over Gnome in any Linux distribution. I am running 2 machines, one with Kubuntu and the other with Mint Daryna KDE CE. The Mint distro runs much better than Kubuntu. I think that there should be more focus given to the KDE version as well. I have installed the Mint KDE CE version on 2 other machines of people I know. At the moment, I cannot get the Compiz to work but otherwise it works the best so far. What can I do to enhance this version of Linux Mint?

  22. Hi

    Just to let you know, that as a KDE lover it was the Community Edition that forced me to try Mint. If there was Gnome only, I would have been very reluctant to try it.

    Thanks those to Gnome lovers for allowing KDE to share the Mint name.

    cheerio

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