Ha, recognized the name. I looked at the patch and decided to wait on Slackware's next update. I will try this out. Thanks! :hattip:

perfect
thanks

No idea about Akonadi, but KDE Connect is excellent, I use it quite a bit for transferring files and sometimes for sharing the clipboard between desktop and phone.

As expected, works. I make a slackware package to do the patch so I can distribute among my other computers and quickly "unfix" when it's incorporated in the next version.

Out of curiosity, you may or may not know but, why aren't these devices simply unmounted. It really annoying to have to remove and reinsert a device if you find you need to mount it again?

akonadi is not something you use, but it's a daemon needed/used by some applications, PIM mainly but I don't know if other apps make use of it.
In my case I use kmail and korganizer pretty heavily and akonadi is a bit of a nuisance but I learned to live with it :)
At least it's not the nightmare it was at the beginning :)

kdeconnect on the other hand is super useful to connect my various mobile devices to my laptop.

BTW: are you sure you meant kdeconnect and not baloo, the file indexer? It seems more related to akonadi than kdeconnect.

Cheers!

The devicenotifier applet calls the "unmount" method of solid, the kde framework that handles hardware.
It looks like solid always tries to eject / poweroff devices after unmount:
https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/so...ccess.cpp#L222
So right now there's no way from the applet to umount the device without killing it.

Well, you do use Akonadi if.. And I don't if, I else, so I don't use it at all.
I did mean kdeconnect or kconnect or whatever it's called. I don't use that either. I had the impression it's mostly for mobile phones of the apple and google type, but clearly it's used for other things too as explained here by others.

Baloo is relevant too yes. Didn't think of that one.

Fair enough :)

kdeconnect started life as a KDE<->Android conector but was then ported to iOS, Plasma Mobile, Sailfish, Gnome, etc.

And at some point it also got PC<->PC capabilities, though I haven't used it that way.

I'm having issues burning data to a bluray with k3b.
I set it to burn at 4x but it isn't obeying and I end up with a "Fatal error during recording: Input/output error." It is burning around 1.8/1.7x instead.

Thanks! I just looked through the Solid bug list, don't see anyone else complaining, guess it's just me. This has been around since the beginning I think, so it's not new. It is a minor yet somewhat annoying behavior for me at least. The hardest part about KDE is figuring out what Product/Component an issue belongs in. ;-)

That seems unfortunate. Sadly I haven't burnt disks in years. But perhaps the old saying still holds: try to burn it at the (near) lowest speed possible, and check if that changes anything. And well, also back in the days, some disks were just bad quality, and would not burn properly, while other ones would.

Thanks for the reply. 4x is the lowest option the burner gives me. I always burn at 4x. I successfully burned stuff a few weeks ago with these discs.

I looked at the log and found more information. It fails at verifying the disc but I know something is wrong when it is burning half the speed it should.

One effective cure for optical burn failure is ramping up the max laser power. Over doing it can cause early failure but if you keep your machine reasonably cool (ie have good, powered airflow) +10% is rarely a problem. Many brands offer fairly easy access to the firmware but some don't. It should be obvious to clean it first.

This week's new features, bug fixes and improvements,
https://pointieststick.com/2021/09/1...tion-of-stuff/

Maybe it's interesting, maybe not. But when I ran the other day, I ran it twice in seperate tty's, and subsequently ran two seperate displays with two seperate KDE instances.

BTW, the Slackware ships "startkwayland" for launching a Wayland/Plasma5 session from console command line.

And yeah, as could be expected, you can launch multiple sessions.

This week's new features, bug fixes and improvements (Wayland),
https://pointieststick.com/2021/09/1...ents-and-more/

Today's updates:

We have this bug too , but people here say not ..when i noticed i ask here , all say no have this issue , but we have, im pretty sure.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440663

https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphi...e_requests/261

There is the exact commit is supposed to fix, ..

https://github.com/KDE/dolphin/commi...3998ea5dc395a0

EDIT: I test latest ,master from dolphin , and is not fixed.

According to the comment in the fix commit, the issue appears when using Wayland:
I don't run Plasma on Wayland and I don't have the issue.

Im not run plasma under wayland session and im pretty sure , we have the bug.

In dolphin , preferences startup , you have a option called something like

"open new folder in a new tab"

Then after extract if you enabled this have a new tab , ...but if extract again ..you win another new tab ,,and other ,and other ..

If you uncheck this , then win new dolphin instance with the directory you extract the compressed file , if extract again , you win another instance ... and other and other ...every time.

But is strange cause i can fix this issue , turned back to ark-21.04 branch , all start failing since ark 21.08.

I see commit in ark , removing json code , he say unnecessary , but ...i suspect ark mantainer break some plugin removing json code.

And of course , i remove my personal preferences in .config and .local , we have , cause all distros up to 21.04 have it.

So.... I am beginning to rethink my decision in using Plasma5, seems this latest update is a bit on the heavy side. I did a full install of --Current updated to today's chanelog:
Although the last KDE update for Slackware was the day before. Anyways, running KDE with nothing removed and well imo it is getting up there now with memory usage. I was fine with 600+MB or so.. but now we are pretty much pushing a 1GB, I haven't really done anything other than open Konsole. Again I know I know this is KDE , but....I can just as much use MATE to get a desktop experience - (can't wait for a --Current/15.0 MATE 1.26 then...)

The winner of the wallpaper contest for plasma 5.23

https://kde.org/announcements/plasma...3.0/patak.webp

Decent look, but does nothing for me.

This is not a problem with Plasma. I get similar memory usage when starting XFCE.

Really?! And XFCE is supposed to be 'lightweight' compared to something like KDE. I wonder if MATE 1.26 will be this heavy on Slackware 15... I'll have to then probably take a look again at LXQT then even. I'm kinda in the middle, much too lazy to use something like xmonad or other tiling WMs, and even too lazy for Fluxbox or OpenBox - for a time LXDE was a good compromise I felt, not too heavy and for me offered the full "desktop experience." Hell I'll have to even look at Cinnamon now if / when there are packages available for 15.0 when it is ready.

Again if I wouldn't mind even using MWM, doesn't even reach 200MB of usage, but customizing and configuring it again seems like a pain, and tried to follow the man pages but..... tl;dr , mostly.

This week's new features, bug fixes and improvements,
https://pointieststick.com/2021/09/2...a-on-the-move/

Anybody know why some Plasma "get new features foo" in System Settings fails with QT error
when /tmp/runtime-User exists?

Because you have somehow XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set? How you managed this?

Keyboard layout
 

Hi, I am sorry if this is a bit of a stupid question but I am having trouble with changing my keyboard layout in KDE.

Usually I am an XFCE4 user but yesterday I decided to spend an evening having a look at KDE. I went through all the settings, playing around with how I could configure it. All was going smoothly until I got to "Input Devices". I changed my layout from English(US) to English(UK) and removed the (US) entry but I'm still stuck on a US keyboard. I added a shortcut too thinking it might prompt KDE to switch layouts but no success. Outside of X11, on a tty, my keyboard is as it should be and XFCE4 is happy for it to be British.

Am I missing something really simple?

It would seem I needed to activate 'Startup and Shutdown' > 'Background Services' > 'Keyboard Deamon'...

...I think...

..Nevertheless its working. My apologies for the interrupt

I didn't originally know to do that (if I'm not mistaken XDG is new with Pam/elogind) but I don't ask questions here without researching first so I have run that exact command and still on some apps get that error message. In researching it I see that the problem isn't very common but it does exist. It doesn't prevent anything crucial so far but it is a wrinkle I prefer to iron out.

FWIW I'm far more concerned why in Dolphin and System Settings trying to do something that requires elevated privileges, a login prompt is not popped up... but that, too, isn't a huge deal... there are workarounds. It's just curiosity.

So I accept that KDE is just going to start with 1GB from a cold start sooner or later, after startx finishes - right now it clocks in at 915M according to htop.

I just checked XFCE, cold started again - start x , and htop reports 835M -- I think at this point XFCE can no longer be considered "lightweight" as it seems just barely below Plasma5.

This is all on --Current all up to day's updates on Fri Oct 1. I'll have to now look back to MATE 1.24 (no 1.26 packages I have seen yet), or reluctantly go to LXQT.

After a cold boot:
just by disabling some unwanted stuff under plasma settings / autostart and akonadi

I always remove Akonadi (advanced slackware install and uncheck Akonadi) - but I am keen to ask, what did you disable to slim down KDE ?

mainly, in my .config/autostart/ (Hidden=true)
in /etc/rc.d : nothing more than a fresh&clean install

And from plasma settings /startup & shutdown / background service:
My autostart programs:
a very small conky (showing only the slackware logo at the bottom right + kernel version + ram used)
yakuake

EDIT : the 2nd screenshot, after a restart (661 Mo)
the conky memory command line:
EDIT2 : ps faux in attach.

As you can see I like things uncluttered...
I trust Patrick to do things cleaner than me. So I try to keep the installation as close as possible to a fresh install

"Getting Plasma 5.23 Ready For Release"
This week's new features, bug fixes and improvements,
https://pointieststick.com/2021/10/0...y-for-release/

It really matters little which DE one chooses regarding resource usage. Far more important and effective is what services one allows or desires. It's not at all difficult to get KDE pared WAY down, even below 500MB, as long as you don't want or use such services. In my case, I do hover around 1GB at idle because I keep akonadai, Time and Date, Weather, NM, Notifications,and ballo on autostart and add HP printing, Corsair keyboard lighting control, Conky, and more. I consider 1GB pretty light when compared to 16GB system RAM. 1/16th isn't too high a cost for those services to me.

I can still configure, compile and install a custom kernel in about 15 minutes on an i5 boxen.

Overall I agree; but then again some services to me are superfluous and I can live without - such as the bluetooth service on my desktop - I don't have bluetooth anything , so ... I don't need it. I am legit interested in trimming down KDE - and yes I realize that also kinda might go against the idea of a "fully featured" desktop environment - but at the same time - if there is something there that I don't use ever, well why shouldn't I get rid of it? I mean I also don't see myself using the kfloppy utility - sure its not using any memory other than disk space, unless I obviously launch it - but I don't have any kind of floppy drive so, bye to kfloppy. I realize also the next thing to eat RAM obviously is the god damned web browser, but oh well. I don't see myself using lynx or something like Midori either because unfortunately the web is bloated and just might not even work well in Midori or other more lightweight browsers.

-edit

I still wish I could just not have baloo installed - but Dolphin complains; but at least balooctl disable suffices. Still, at least I can still get away with just outright not installing Akonadi - because again, Akonadi can go fsck itself.

Alright so dumb question then , why is there such a discrepancy between the memory usage displayed of htop or top vs free ? I went back in, and also confirmed that free shows around 600M used, but htop shows almost 1GB (1GiB) - so what gives? :scratch:

The exact values are in /proc/meminfo
Then, It depends on how each program interprets them

for me, the closest values to /proc/meminfo are provided by free

If indeed that is so, then I am absolutely prepared to retract my negative comments about KDE then - still though (maybe this deserves its own thread perhaps I don't know) , but what do top/htop draw upon vs what free uses to display memory used/available? I am not an expert by no means, maybe still just an intermediate Linux user - but I think to someone also coming in new to Linux/Unix-like systems and using something like top/htop and not free - they would obviously think that was accurate vs what free says (assuming they never heard of or used free). I can then assume if free is accurate because /proc/meminfo is what is always accurate? If so, why doesn't htop/top draw upon that or maybe because there might be overhead from such programs?

I think also a lot of people will debate which is accurate unless we can get a definitive answer - if again indeed /proc/meminfo being pulled by free is deemed accurate , then it should also be stated as the defacto representation of memory (RAM) usage; other wise like me there will still be more confusion on this.

/proc/meminfo shows different values of your memory consumption.

free, top, htop are just frontends that interpret these values

you can make your own in bash or whatever, grep|awk|cut /proc/meminfo
and [memfree] = [memtotal] - [some values]
It just depends on the values you consider for [some values] : used, cached, shared, pages, files, etc ...
in a sense, there are no good or bad values

So I can only interpret that there is almost no real agreed upon standard - ok obviously lets say a GUI based program will show different results vs a commandline because the gui would be using more RAM just to be drawn , but I feel that if one is still getting different results in the commandline - then that will just cause confusion.

htop shows buffered as blue and cached memory as orange and combines all that as "memory usage". However, only the green is actual memory being used. Under free, buffers and cached are in a separate, but combined field (buff/cache). If you add the "used" and "buff/cached" from free, it should be the same as htop.

Anyone here tried btop++?

I tried bpytop some time ago
very nice similar UI

https://pypi.org/project/bpytop/

This URL might shed some light:

https://www.linuxatemyram.com/

It is/was especially useful with older versions of free which used to treat cached/buffers as used memory.

Cheers!

Soooo, then ..... htop is indeed correct then if that is what your statement implies? :scratch:

Eh, kinda. Buffers and cache are things that don't need to be in RAM, but can help future operations. They can be dumped at any time without data loss. It is actually really good for them to be heavily used, because it's the kernel trying to preload things that you might end up using. The kernel tries to put commonly used programs into memory before you ask for it or retain things in RAM after the task is accomplished, which improves speed since it won't need to go to your disk to find it and load it when you actually ask for it. If something memory intensive is started, the buffers/cache will dump stuff to make room for the others.

The "used" section in free and the green portion of the memory usage in htop is the memory that's actually being consumed by programs you have open. That used memory needs to stay in RAM, swap, or written back to the drive, otherwise there'll be data loss.

If that's still confusing, maybe this from RedHat would help:

I would also recommend reading through the site that @richarson posted, https://www.linuxatemyram.com/, as it goes through and explains this in a different way.