Ramp up to Mint 5 KDE

Well I have started development or a ramp up to Mint 5 KDE. What does this mean or what am I doing? To start with I am doing a clean up of applications and deb packages in an effort to make the KDE edition smaller, faster and cleaner. Due to the nature of development of the KDE version there are some legacy and double up of packages and the best time to get rid of these is after a new stable release. My initial cut reduced the the iso image to 860MB from 998MB but there is still a long way to go to get to 700MB.

A big help to reduce size would be to convert the frontends of the mint apps to Qt so I could get rid of GTK libs and dependancies. So are there any budding Qt develpoers out there who want to help?

Cheers

Boo

12 comments

  1. Is there some compression technique that you could be using to fit more apps? Take a look at Mepis for example, they fit an unbelievable amount of apps on that 700 MB CD.

  2. Is there some compression technique that you could be using to fit more apps? Take a look at Mepis for example. They fit an unbelievable amount of apps on that 700 MB CD.

  3. Is distributing on a DVD-medium, instead of a CD-medium, a possibility for Mint 5 KDE?

    Also, KDE 4.0.2 was just released. Will Mint KDE 5 use KDE 4.1/4.0.*?

  4. I’d personally like a disc with both Gnome and KDE on it. That would mean a DVD, no doubt, but it would also be convenient.

  5. I disagree with NoobixCube, no one wants to download 4.7GB just so they can install and OS. Most people (if not all) know if they want KDE or GNOME before they download, so it seems silly to have to download BOTH Desktop Environments.

    Also, I’d much prefer a CD over a DVD. 🙂

  6. Hi,

    I am using Mint KDE Edition and please find a way to update from 4.0 to 5.0 so that I don’t have to reinstall, b/c that takes up a whole weekend for nothing!

    I would really appreciate it!

    Keep up the good work,

    Mips

  7. I don’t know if I’d get rid of the GTK libraries, because it would be such a headache to install separately. It’d also be a large download which would be best avoided for many users.

    GTK libraries are kind of essential in the Linux desktop world, I think. But I’d agree with removing as many GTK apps as possible and make the whole desktop experience a Qt-based one.

  8. I think the CD is the best medium too. Small download, easy on bandwidth, easy on disk space and high quality, carefully selected apps. If it proves too difficult to fit Mint KDE on CD, I would aim not to break the 1GB mark.

  9. I’ve been experimenting with the KDE from the repositories. I tried 3.5 and 4 but found the 4 to be lacking in user friendliness, so i un-installed it. I hope who ever is working on this project can get some of the cool things from gnome to work in KDE like the right click options in the start menu. Also so far, compiz is a pain in the neck to work with, or maybe it’s just me. As Far as the CD or DVD issue, I figure you only have to download it once so either one is fine with me. I would say to save on space, just put the bare essentials and everyone can download what each person wants. Well that was my two cents worth.

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