Many KDE 3 users depended on Krun, a simple yet effective application used to execute commands. Executed simply by pressing “Alt-F2″, it was much easier to start applications using it, rather than navigating through a launch menu or opening a terminal window. The only catch with Krun was that you had to know the exact name of the command you intended to launch. With the advent of KDE 4, that has all changed.
Krunner operates independently of the Plasma desktop system as a standalone application. It includes a ton of features that make it useful beyond simple command launching. It has retained many of the features present in KDE 3 and greatly expanded them. We would fail to do it justice if we did not give it a top ten list.
Dual monitor setup in Linux has never been easier. While methods such as the xinerama extension sometimes drive people insane, using RandR (Resize and Rotate) is quick and painless. This will allow you to use both monitors as one big screen instead of two identical ones (cloning). Follow these simple steps to get started.
Note: This HOWTO assumes that you are using the opensource drivers for your video card (ATI or Intel). Nvidia and AMD proprietary drivers come with their dual screen components.
The KOffice team is extremely pleased to finally announce version 2.0.0 of KOffice. This release marks the end of more than 3 years of work to port KOffice to Qt 4 and the KDE 4 libraries and, in some cases, totally rewrite the engine of the KOffice applications.
I can remember turning on my computer, dialing into IndyNet, and opening the World Wide Web inside of a terminal window. My first web experience was through a text browser. At $10 a month, that was all I could afford. Eventually, I learned to hack it and give myself access to the graphical side of the web and my first experience with Netscape Navigator.
Back then, web sites usually consisted of long single pages with mostly text, a few static images scattered about, some horizontal rules, and maybe an animated GIF, if you were lucky. For those of you too young to remember, I am not reminiscing about the 70s or even the 80s. It was not until the 90s when the World Wide Web burst onto the scene, drawing people away from their television sets for the first time in a way that nothing else before it could.
You would be hard-pressed to go anywhere or even watch television without hearing some reference to “Twitter”, “tweets”, or “tweeting”. From your cousin in Iowa to Shaquille O’Neal, all types of people from all walks of life have taking a liking to Twitter.
Whether or not Twitter will become a technological standard as email or just a passing fad, remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that if you want to use Twitter while it is hot, you will probably want some type of client so that you do not always have to open your web browser and go to Twitter.com.
For KDE there are a few options, but there is one that I have found to be superior to them all. Keep reading, or if Twitter has convinced you that you can only process 140 characters of information at one time, scroll to the end of this article.
One of the most innovative and simultaneously controversial features of KDE 4 is the Plasma widget, Folderview. Simply put, it allows a user to display the contents of a file system folder within a widget on the desktop.
Beyond just displaying files on your computer, Folderview can be used to launch applications, display remote file systems, filter large folders for particular types of files, or serve as a traditional desktop.
May 6th, 2009. The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.2.3, another bugfix and maintenance update for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop. This is a monthly update to KDE 4.2. It ships with desktop workspace and many cross-platform applications such as administration programs, network tools, educational applications, utilities, multimedia software, games, artwork, development tools and more. KDE’s award-winning tools and applications are available in more than 50 languages.
See the full announcement.
I tried to upgrade my Eee PC 900 to Ubuntu 9.04, but it introduced a serious problem. Apparently, there is a flaw in the Intel i915 driver that Ubuntu packaged with this version of Linux (the kernel). There is more information at this bug report.
I am about to start trying to fix this now, but in the meantime, consider yourself forewarned. From what I have heard, this bug seems to only affect the 900 model, and the newest array.org kernel is not yet available for Jaunty.
Hijrah calendar gadget
Kubuntu ships with a modified version of KDE’s plasma that has Google Gadget support disabled. If you care, their justification for it is here. I have wanted to add Google Gadgets seemlessly to my desktop for some time and had hoped that the new version 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope would fulfill my dreams. As of Release Candidate 1, however, it appears it will not.
Nevertheless, hope is not lost. Someone has put together a nice quick and easy guide to getting Google Gadgets into Jaunty’s plasma desktop.
