Hi,

I have been a supporter of KDE Desktop when needed, most times CLI from console or vt. So I took the bite and installed Slackware64 -current rc1. I cannot use my Superkaramba schemes for system information. I will look into the Plasma System widget to see if it can be modified to suit my needs. I have been a long time Slackware user and only use other distributions when I need utility on my bench. Most of those are Live. Sure I use Slackware Live when I can.

My change over has had some tripping points but most are my not knowing semantics or familiarity of Plasma so time will tell. I do like the looks of the Desktop and with the adaptability to suit as I see fit.
Still stumble with the menu but it does seem intuitive so I will get around. Need to keep up with my system logs so I can regress back or make changes to get things the way I want.

Some of things that I do not like is the new Firefox 90 and newer. Tabs are not as I want but to make them look the way I want then I need to work more. Mozilla is starting to get me upset for their new way of doing things. Just to get my Thunderbird back to normal I had to dig into my old system to pull out information. Not just address book but to get my folders back was more work. I lost my provider information & utility when I switched to Fiber but am willing to work in order to have reliable faster, cleaner service. Mediacom is not my provider any longer and the reason was service or lack off. Too many blackouts or dropped service for Internet in my area.

Damn Firefox sync can be a pain sometimes but it does provide some service. Thankfully I do keep records, bookmarks and sessions so I am manually able to recover when sync fails me.

Sorry for the winded post but I am sure that I am not the only Slackware user with on going issues.

Glad to see our rc1 from PV.
Some great work!


Have fun & enjoy Slackware Gnu/Linux!

Yes, I finally bit the bullet a few weeks back and installed the newest FF using Ruario's script. I've kept it updated the same way ever since. I had issues with the floating tabs, but have actually gotten to like them. One thing I had to change, though, was the size (vertical thickness) of the tabs. I had to use about:config to enable "Compact Mode" in order to decrease the tab thickness. Once that was done, all's been OK.

Firefox 90.x thinner tabs screenshot

As far a T-Bird goes, I LOVE my Mozilla Thunderbird. I've been using it as an email client for over 20 years now. I have it HIGHLY customized and am NOT looking forward to how the newest version is inevitably going to screw that up. I'll be reluctant to upgrade T-Bird any time soon for these reasons.

Moz T-bird screenshot

As to the thread topic re: KDE Plasma... I haven't run KDE in any way, shape, or form since v3.15. It became much too "busy" and bloated for my tastes. I like simple desktops. For this reason, I've been run Xfce, and will stick with it into the future; although, I do have some issues with their newer versions CSD and all that bovine feces. There are work-arounds, though.

My nothing fancy, boring Xfce desktop

2 members found this post helpful.

If that can help some, when upgrading firefox, first I close the old one if running, then to start the new version the first time I type:and select the previously used profile, instead of the newly created one. Ditto for thunderbird.

This way I don't loose anything, unless some installed plugin be not compatible with the new version.

FWIW it is possible to keep a copy of ~/.mozilla with any and all your created profiles. One cool thing is you can "open profile in new window" and see if it has all you want... or not. Nice feature.

1 members found this post helpful.

I never had an issue with firefox upgrade wiping off old profile.
first time when I run firefox, I run it from command line:
# firefox -p
this "-p" not "-P"

deselect option "Use the selected profile without asking at startup"

next time you start firefox all profiles created will be visible.

You can use gkrellm. It works fine with KDE5. The stock theme is rather ugly, but it still works with the old themes.

1 members found this post helpful.

No apology needed; it's good to see you on the forum. I decided to try out the newest shiny offering from Debian, version 11. It's pretty good, but, after a few days of running it things didn't feel right. I'm back to running RC1 and I couldn't be happier. I love the vanilla version of KDE-plasma in Slackware.

I found kde4 to have some missing features that I liked in 3 and then 5/plasma moved things around too much and wanted to force me to do things their way so I started trying out XFCE as well. So far I like it and have found just a couple things missing.
Firefox and Thunderbird have been fine for me with the only real issue being the gtk changes where clicking on the scrollbar isn't the same anymore.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi,

I have tried to use the System Monitor widget. When I put the widget on the Desktop it seemed to install two and the widget(s) just locks. Only way out is to do a ctl-alt-backspace. When I startx again the widgets are on the start up page. I have been searching for a solution but no joy to date. Just not sure about this Plasma, my first issue since my new Slackware64 rc1. It's me and I am lost. I did check the logs but no joy there.

I will need to do more research on this issue but I am hoping someone has the solution before I go crazy.

Widgets behave better on Plasma 5 in Current/15.0-RC1 than they did on 14.2 KDE 4 for me. I'm not 100% happy with the default weather widget but a download alternative option works pretty well. I used to use a lot of Widgets trying to eliminate the need for GKrellm or Conky by using a widget for instances of STDOUT but the view and layout weren't sufficiently customizable. I just use Clock (bar and desktop) and Weather (bar only) widgets plus the defaults these days and depend on Conky for usage, temps, fan speeds etc.

I've used plasma ever since AlienBob first provided it. I like it and I use it and have always been a KDE user. That said, my only wish is that I knew how to create a style, because I sure miss Keramic from KDE3.

Such as?

Luckily KDE is not the ones to show their longtime users the middle finger. I'm using the "classic startmenu" and the classic look for "system settings" (although they removed old-classic). I'm sure the new ones are fine, but I like the older ways, and I've been using them through kde4 and kde5.
Adaptability surely is a strength of KDE, and adapting things to the way you like is a basic function of Plasma with its modular kind of approach. I really like that, and I like to be able to do the same things in different ways (new-old-older etc, and special, more special, most special etc).

I actually have both start menus buttons side by side..

This in my opinion is where "activities" come in incredibly handy. I used to think activities were useless, since we could have multiple desktops with different widgets, but activities are actually even more useful (and less buggy/messy), as you can combine them with desktops. One activity could be performance monitoring for example. Another could be programming, and yet another video editing or whatever, and each would have their own virtual desktops. So activties kind of become a wrapper for virtual desktops.

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I settled on using 'Configure desktop and wallpaper'>'Mouse actions' to configure built-in application menu to be opened upon middle click on the desktop. Classical and speedy.