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@Clem, I made the wall, here is the link for the wallpaper.

http://mmesantos1.deviantart.com/gallery/27949432?offset=48#/d35pi87

Here is the screenshot as a link.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Saj_2evLv7U/TgUmim_gtnI/AAAAAAAAFeM/1JX1M7pAASQ/s1024/snapshot4.png

Added fushigi-plasma-theme.deb, updated meta and config....building iso.

The problem is due to mmesantos' picture.

Marc, can you replace it with a link?

@mmesantos1: Very nice and clean. I wouldn't change the panel size or add a dock, but the look itself is very nice. I still prefer Fushigi though, mainly because of how cool the tray bar looks with it. What background are you using on that screenshot?

i have the same problem with the text as Boo but in firefox the rest of the testingisos text is fine just this one for some problem

This page is not rendering well in chrome or chromium-browser. text is going off the left side and not wrapping. :(

Sounds good Boo. :-)

I have created a Faenza-icons-kde.deb, and updated some packages.

Hello Boo and Clem,

Just wanted to mention a idea, I know you were thinking of Debian as a base for the KDE version of Mint. The screenshot I posted with the Blue theme was done on a SimplyMepis base, I like how they have the Nvidia driver installed during the install process. I would like to suggest that you look at what they have done if you decide to move the KDE version to debian base since that is what SimplyMepis is based off of. They do a great job with ease of use and stability. I have run there OS for long periods of time and never had any issues with it so they seem to know what they are doing. Again this is just a suggestion that may help you guys if you do transition to a Debian base.

Marc

Some other thought after reading all the comments on some changes to the KDE Edition. I agree a KDE centric  version would lighten the load. 1 app per task would be a great idea. I agree with some services being disabled or removed.

This edition is good but could stand for some changes. I know I am not the expert on KDE but those items I have mentioned would make for a better over all experience for the end user IMHO.

After running Distro's like Chakra and PC-BSD I have seen a difference in the performance of there KDE desktops and Mint KDE, I understand also some of this is due to your base Kubuntu so some of this is upstream issues I so keep that in mind while making my comments.

Marc

Hi Boo,

I normally use 2 Panels as well but found Daisy widget and used it, nice widget, can customise it many ways but worked well as lower panel and set to transparent. But either way you can use panel as get similar reults.

Also like how the Window Decoration goes well with the panel theme. Well let me know what you guys think and if this is a look you would be interested in. I will be more than happy to help out any way I can.

Marc

I make my desktop look similar to that but using 2 pannels and swap top to bottom.

Oh sorry Boo... yes. There's some critical updates regarding libcairo and firefox 5 going on at the moment and I didn't want users to be impacted until it was completely ready. I should have it back on some time this afternoon. Sorry about this.

 clem has the rsync stopped working on the packages server?

Hi Boo, it's the ubuntu one as far as I know: plymouth-theme-ubuntu. You might have to force mintconstructor into updating vmlinuz and initrd, issue an initramfs -u, and an apt reinstall linux-image-.... after changing the theme. This should result in the live initrd/vmlinuz files being the same in your squash and in the CD itself.

Plymouth bug/error: I installed the mint one and chose it but the live can not find it during boot and once installed the boot is black but the shutdown shows the old plymouth green not a black screen. is mint plymouth the theme to use or ubuntu/kubuntu?

I may have a HAL fix for the ctl-alt-bs.

backgrounds: ksplash and KDM use a single image (1920x1200). A propper background has multiple resolution/ratio images and the correct one is used on the desktop. this means when you go form ksplash to desktop you can change ratio. ie 1920x1200 to 1600x1200 so the blend seems to strech/squish.

I have been woundering about the number and core apps that should be used, it is getting messy. But I have also been woundering about a more KDE version (kde_all) or as you say a power user version.

I worked out the gimp/theme problem by putting .gimp-2.6 in /etc/skel/.

@ Clem:  Well I am at work know but when I get home I can work on something and post it for you to decide on.

@mmesantos1: What do you have in mind?

If you 2 would like I would be willing to help with the look of the KDE edtion. Let me know. :-)

Here's a picture of what it looks like:

I'll release an update for mintDesktop before the KDE and LXDE editions reach stable. We can ignore this for the RC.

There's some significant changes I'd like to see in the KDE edition though and it's better we get the feedback from the community on this. Basically I want to make it more mainstream, cleaner than it is in its current form. Other than fixing bugs on test cases which fail, there's three things that can be improved in my opinion and we should tackle them for the RC:

- Better look and feel

- Performance

- Software selection

I'll detail them below.

Performance

I'm not sure how to solve this, but with 4GB RAM, a QuadCore CPU, nVidia drivers and the effects turned off, the desktop still isn't as responsive as I'd like it to be.

Are there services we could turn off by default? Is there anything you can think of we could do on our side to make KDE/Ubuntu faster? There's reasons not to move to Debian for the KDE edition, but the resources needed for this desktop to be as responsive as others are getting quite high.

Better look and feel

KDE 4 could look beautiful. As it is now though, it looks like Oxygen with the Mint background. I know it's because of me and my earlier decision to stick to a similar look and feel across editions, but as we're already going for blue and since KDE 4 is distinctively and esthetically different than other DEs, maybe we should try and make this the best we can, even if that involves getting a different look.

I just tested the LXDE edition, and the default Mint look suits it perfectly. Here it's not the case. By changing the desktop theme, the icons and the backgrounds, we can get a much better result.

- Icon theme: Faenza Cupertino http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/10/faenza-cupertino-icons-come-to-kde-and-look-amazing/

- Desktop theme: Fushigi

- Background: Something blue, modern, unbranded... Air, Blue Curl, Code Poets Dream, Emotion, EOS, Ethais, Horos.. all good choices. It's probably better to use something different than other distros here. Code Poets Dream looks pretty cool... Emotion is specific to Mint if I remember well... I'm not too sure when it comes to that, what do you think?

- Login manager theme: Horos, with the same background as used for the desktop.

Software Selection

OK, there's a few things that could be done better here. Again, this is going to frustrate some and please others. Like we did with the Xfce edition, mainstreaming will result in annoying the hardcore KDE fans but will bring more people towards this edition.

First, there are some apps in there installed by default than very few people might want. Second, some of them, some people might not even understand what they're for.... Tucan, Akkregator, DNG converter :) Then there's the issue of multiple apps for the same use case.. for instance, assuming you add lightning to thunderbird, you don't need kmail, kontact and all the PIM apps. Same goes with Firefox, rekonq, konqueror etc... if we were to target the power user we'd install everything in there, including opera, chromium...etc. But for the desktop user, we should provide only apps that most people need, and only one of them, preferabbly, the most popular and the least obscure ones :)

<style type="text/css"> <!--{cke_protected}{C}<!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } -->--> </style>

• Remove Konqueror and Rekonq

• Remove choqok

• Remove frostwire

• Remove kftpgrabber, akkregator

• Remove kpat

• Remove kipi-plugins

• Remove xsane

• Remove kmail

• Remove KRDC

• Remove Tucan

• Install simple-scan

• Optionally, install Dropbox, GoogleEarth

• Replace Digikam/Photoshot with Picasa

• Isn't there a default viewer in KDE4 for pictures? Do we need gwenview for this?

• Remove AcetoneISO

• Remove kaddressbook, kontact, korganizer, ktimetracker

• Remove hplip-gui

• Remove kmymoney

• Remove software-properties-kde (software-properties-gtk is better suited, doesn't show tabs for updates and all ...)

There's a lot of apps the user will want to add to the default selection, and that's ok. We made this easy with the software management. Some of the niche apps installed by default (like KMyMoney) might appeal to many, but they're not there yet in terms of popularity, and for things where you think they might become popular it's important they integrate well with the desktop. Minitube is a good example of that. It's not very popular, it's a niche app, but it has the potential to be used by everyone and it integrates well with the desktop. If it didn't, then it should be there. AcetoneISO has it all right... almost... but it looks out of place there.

Other things

The desktop background isn't using the proper ratio. When ksplash shows up, it looks nice, then when the desktop loads, it's like it's scaling or something. This might not be an issue if we switch to an unbranded background though.

Bugs mentioned below.

I have partially worked out the gimp issue. it is gtk themes in KDE.

the default is oxygen-gtk. gimp will not start so you go into settings set gtk to use raligh theme, then back to oxygen-gtk and then gimp works. if you apply the minor changes in .gtkrc-2.0-kde4 to the default settings clear your home dir relogin and gimp does not work again. 

hmmm maybe there is another file modified in .kde too.... i will keep looking.

Ok I have fixed nearly everything. gimp still crashed but it will work with sudo.

so it looks like a permission change. even if i set /usr/lib/gimp and /usr/share/gimp to owned by me and 777 permissions it stil seg faults.

so it must be some lib some where I guess, some other package has changed premissions of some file and inadvertently killed gimp.

mintDesktop.desktop file has comments that say "Comment=Fine-tune Gnome settings" in every language.

/usr/share/applications/mintDesktop.desktop

Clem do you want me to fix the mintDesktop package just for KDE or do you want to fix it in main?

In mint-artwork-kde's postinst file, you should add:

gconftool-2 --direct --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults --type bool --set /desktop/linuxmint/terminal/show_fortunes true

Passes Intel Chipset Test

Sorry, busy here and I need to call it a day, but here's what I found so far:

Plymouth theme isn't all black                        
mintDesktop    its summary says fine-tune gnome settings                    
Mint-artwork-kde needs to set gconf key for fortunes                        
Mint-local-repository is missing                        
ctrl alt backspace not working                        
login manager artwork, circles should be removed                        
default color theme should be oxygen-cold, default one doesn't integrate with the background and looks very windows-like. Also creates a subtle difference with dolphin open as root.                        
really subjective, but feeling like Air fits better than Oxygen on the desktop theme. Not sure Air is ideal either.. maybe we should find something else.                        
kate creates ~ backup files, it shouldn't by default                        
apport and apport-kde should be removed                        
gimp doesn't run                        
quassel shouldn't join pimpmymint automatically                        
apt extension isn't associated to apturl in firefox                        
amarok suggest installing fluendo... maybe gstreamer0.10-packagekit, or even packagekit itself should be removed   

gimp worked up untill i installed mint meta package. something in there kills it.

I think i found the installer problem and other OS's.

I started a new iso and just installed gimp, ran it on a VM live an it works.

Time to rebuild the whole iso.

the unary operator error should be fixed by putting the variable in quotes.

at work I would write it like

if [[ "${showfortunes}" == "true" ]]

then

...

fi

tried to install a package from the software package page and got the following error when trying to install stellerium
Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (apt) isn't associated with any program.

to get the fortunes to work your /usr/bin/mint-fortune file should look like this

#!/bin/bash

function show_fortune {
    RANGE=3
    number=$RANDOM
    let "number %= $RANGE"
    case $number in
        0)
            cow="moose"
            ;;
        1)
            cow="tux"
            ;;
        2)
            cow="koala"
            ;;    
    esac

    RANGE=2
    number=$RANDOM
    let "number %= $RANGE"
    case $number in
        0)
            command="/usr/games/cowsay"
            ;;
        1)
            command="/usr/games/cowthink"
            ;;
    esac
    /usr/games/fortune | $command -f $cow
}

if [ -x "/usr/bin/gconftool-2" ]; then
    showfortunes=`gconftool-2 --get /desktop/linuxmint/terminal/show_fortunes 2>/dev/null`
          if [ $showfortunes=="true" ]; then     
        show_fortune
    fi
else
   show_fortune
fi



i changed line  36 and 37 in the file to get it to work i found how to get it to work by finding what the file looked  like at http://scottlinux.com/2011/05/29/usrbinmint-fortune-line-35-unary-operator-expected/

Will attempt to install on my intel test machine once i am home to see how it runs.

gimp was seg faulting the first time i built my dev system. when i reinstalled my dev system before building the isos it was working.

my VM test system is seg faulting on gimp too. no matter how i reinstall gimp it keeps seg faulting.

Rebooted and tried mintInstall again and it worked.

When I click install to install a package with mintInstall, nothing happens. I tried several packages.

When I launch Amarok I get system notifications to install fluendo mp3 and video codecs.

Killed nepomuk and it's service and things are much better now.

Nepomok is enabled by default and I am pretty sure that is what is causing all the crashes.

I am reinstalling because I everything is crashing and I just can't keep this running.

Now Synaptic is crashing when I try to refresh. Either something is seriously wrong with Virtualbox or something is wrong with this install.

Restarted the virtual machine, now it's in low graphics mode and I can not log on. Man, this just isn't my day...

Firefox keeps crashing...

The network manager is displaying that there is no network connection but the system is connected to the network...

Gave a warning for Home folders because the was no "Downloads" folder. This might be intentional but the test instructions do mention this folder specifically.

KNotify crashed when I logged on completely freezing up the system....

Fortunes are installed, they just don't work.

Terminal fortunes are not working. The colors are there but no fortunes appear.

Had to fail other OS in grub because the installer did not even see the first install. Had to fail the spash screens because Gimp does not launch, it segfaults in both of the installs I have done.

The partitioner does not see the first install....

Gimp will not launch from the menu.

I have started testing but my cable modem keeps going out. Comcast is supposed to come Monday to test the cable and the modem....

Great to see the KDE so early. Fingers crossed for a quick release. I'll be testing this over the week-end Boo.

Time for some testing and feedback on the artwork/look/feel, the vibe. Are the KDM and Ksplash backgrounds too much? etc.