A Fresh Start With Mint 17 KDE for my Workstation

I've recently had a bit of a Linux desktop crisis as my favourite desktop, Cinnamon, has been playing up somewhat on my main workstation, after I had been satisfied with it for so long. It started getting flickering with one of the dual monitors going black briefly when fullscreening VLC or anything that runs fullscreen. Cairo Dock was also becoming increasingly buggy too, so it was time for a change. I tried LXDE and XFCE installed on Mint but they all felt lacking on my dual monitor setup. I then tried to install KDE but it messed up the install, and so it was time for a reinstall.

I briefly tried fresh installing Xubuntu and then stock Ubuntu but for some reason the mouse and keyboard stopped working on them on the first boot. Quite odd. I then reinstalled Mint Cinnamon 17, then installed MATE again and had that running for a few weeks until today, when I decided to start fresh again. I used MATE for a few weeks, but although it worked OK, Gtk2 feels old and just does not feel as smooth as Cinnamon used to do.

So I decided to try KDE again, but this time with a fresh install of Mint 17 KDE, but keeping my /home partition and that's what I am running now. I already have KDE installed on one laptop, so I knew what to expect. It got off to a slightly shaky start on the LiveCD as Desktop Effects are enabled by default and they do not play well with the open source Nouveau driver! So I disabled them for the install and disabled them on the first boot, then re-enabled them after installing the Nvidia drivers.

Then after installing my favourite apps, such as Chrome, Filezilla and others, I got down to customizing my desktop to how I wanted it. KDE is great for those who need to customize everything, but the only thing lacking is the way it treats desktops separately, so you cannot span a single wallpaper across multiple screens. A workaround is to split your wallpaper down the middle with GIMP, and set the left and right bits appropriately.

I set the main KDE panel to the top of the screen and then made an auto-hidden panel at the base of the screen for most used apps and resource monitors etc. I did briefly try Docky, but it does not work how I want. I did try a completely dark theme all over the desktop, but they are very tricky to get right, especially with gtk apps and WINE etc so I decided to stick to stock theme other than a dark desktop theme for the panel. I also installed Conky with Gotham theme. Here's how my KDE desktop looks with the lower panel visible, with Dolphin and Amarok open:

I did actually install Gmusicbrowser too, but the keyboard media buttons don't seem to work with it. Thankfully Amarok works very well in it's native KDE, unlike whenever I have tried it in other desktops. I do also like the KDE main menu's Favourites list, a good contender feature-wise for Cinnamon's menu.

KDE has some nifty features and the desktop effects can actually be quite useful, like the 3D app switcher and taskbar window previews, which I have not had for years.

Another cool feature is KDE Connect which makes Android Notifications appear as notifications in KDE, as well as enabling you to control audio/video playback in KDE from your phone, amongst other things.

So I am quite happy now with Mint 17 KDE on my HP xw6600, it's very nice and usable once it's been setup right, and now that I have got used to it. I would say though it does need plenty of resources to run smoothly, so it's not ideal for low end laptops with integrated graphics. My desktop is a HP xw6600 with 8GB RAM and 4 core 2.5ghz Xeon CPU and Nvidia 7600GT. It has been stable so far though, more so than Cinnamon, I have only had one settings dialogue crash once, that's about it, so hopefully I shall keep Mint KDE on my main workstation for a long while.

How to add Gmusicbrowser to the Media Menu in Cinnamon/Gnome desktops

My favourite music player for a long time has been Gmusicbrowser as it's lightweight and can handle extremely large music collections with ease, taking only a short time to scan my 50,000+ track collection. However for awhile now, it's tray icon never shows in Cinnamon or Gnome desktops, which has it's own Media Menu with playback buttons and volume controls. Without a fix it usually just shows only 'Gmusicbrowser' clickable that just opens the player, and no controls. I found a work around sometime back that I just rediscovered after a reinstall of Mint 17 Cinnamon on my main desktop.

Essentially you need to use your favourite text editor to add 'cinnamon' to the list of players in  /usr/share/cinnamon/applets/sound@cinnamon.org/applet.js in the "compatible_players variable" section, save the file, then restart Cinnamon (Ctrl+F2 then enter a single letter 'r' and press enter) or just logout and log in. Now start Gmusicbrowser and it should now have a proper entry in the Media Menu with playback controls and we're done. I've also rediscovered Gmusicbrowser's built in desktop widgets.

Revitalizing a Sony VAIO with Xubuntu 14.04 (Part 2)

Back in June of this year, I rescued a 2008 Sony VAIO VGN-N31S/W from a fate worse than being recycled, a life with Windows Vista. It had a dodgy power cable,  dead battery and a missing letter 'O' on the keyboard. I have bought a new PSU, upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 3GB and have just replaced the missing key.

When I first got the VAIO, I replaced the broken Windows Vista installation with Xubuntu 14.04 32bit, but I now wish I had installed the 64bit version. I wanted to reinstall but could not get it to boot from USB or DVD, which is odd because I managed it before. And I check every time that the boot settings are correct in the BIOS. I would also like to replace the dead battery but I am wary about spending more money it. I have recently switched from the Xubuntu desktop to Cinnamon desktop using the PPA and the how-to detailed in this article and it runs very well on the VAIO with it's 3GB RAM.

Having used the VAIO for about 2 months now I now know it's strengths and weaknesses and faults. Although it weighs 6.6lbs, it does not feel heavy when sat on my lap, but it does feel back-breaking when carrying it in my rucksack! I am not usually a fan of glossy screens but I love the VAIO's beautiful 15.4" screen that gives a 1280 x 800 (16:10) resolution. My family always remark how good it looks when I am showing them photos on it. I can also store plenty of photos on the 320GB hard drive, which is handy when away from the Internet. It also suspends and resumes perfectly and is very quiet in use, it's cooling fans can barely be heard. It's also the only laptop I have with an Express card slot.

On the downside, the keyboard is not as comfortable as most of my other laptops. I don't know whether this is because of age or dirt or it was built that way. I often find i get more typos than I do with my other laptops. The trackpad buttons aren't very responsive either, you have to hit them in just the right place for response. the trackpad itself is just fine though. It also would be nice if Sony had put Gigabit onboard rather than just 10/100 Ethernet.

Overall it does feel more of a consumer grade laptop than a corporate one, but I am fairly happy with the Sony VAIO, especially considering it has not cost me much to obtain and repair so for now I shall keep it running until it dies. I find it very useful for showing photos and videos to my folks, mainly because of that fantastic screen. I used to use my Samsung N145 netbook for this but the screen is tiny and not very bright, so despite it's weight, the power and screen of the VAIO makes it better suited to the job.