Posts Tagged ‘kde’
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
I have an EeePC 1201n that has a pretty descent graphics processor (Nvidia Ion), but I was still noticing a little bit of sluggishness with KDE’s KWin desktop effects enabled. Things like minimizing or switching desktops produced minor little hiccups. Overall, it was still fast, but it was enough to make me try some different settings.
I happened to like QtCurve (style and window decorator) anyway, so I compiled the latest version and installed it. As soon as I started using the window decorator, replacing the default Oxygen one, poof, instant speed. The response time is excellent with absolutely no hiccups at all. Is QtCurve just that much faster than Oxygen, or did building it from source specifically for this hardware make enough of a difference to increase the speed?
Either way, it is smooth sailing from here on out.
Tags: 1201n, desktop effects, eeepc, ion, kde, kwin, nvidia, qtcurve
Posted in Free Software, Technology | No Comments »
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
KDE 4.4 Beta 1 has been released, and the talk of the town is the new “tabbed windows” feature. They completely slipped this one past me. I didn’t even know anyone was working on it. Anyway, it is exactly what the name implies: the ability to have multiple windows all tabbed in one window. You can even drag one window onto another window’s row of tabs.
As a writer, I have long wished for tabbed word processing (outside of Google Docs), and now that will be possible with this KWin feature.
Tags: beta, Free Software, kde, kde 4, kwin, linux
Posted in Free Software, Technology | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
Digikam is a free and open source photo management software package for KDE. Many KDE-based Linux distributions either come with Digikam installed or have it available in their repositories. With Digikam, you can import photos from your digital camera or flash memory, organize and tag them, rate them, edit them, and export them to various services or custom galleries.
Three popular services that Digikam can handle are Flickr, PicasaWeb, and Facebook. The first two are social photo sites, and the last is a social networking site. All three support photo plugins used by Digikam. This makes uploading photos quick, easy, and painless.
I am operating under the assumption that you already have accounts on the services you want to use. If not, you will need to register and activate whichever accounts you want before you proceed.
Read the rest
Tags: digikam, facebook, flickr, kde, linux, Photos, picasa
Posted in Free Software, Technology | No Comments »
Monday, August 17th, 2009
One of the many ways KDE makes our lives easier is by providing graphical interfaces for many of the tasks that computer users want to perform. Web browsers typically accept certain protocols that connect them to resources, such as http, https, and ftp. In KDE, these are called KIO slaves, and nearly all KDE applications can interact with them.
What makes KDE unique is that there are over 50 KIO slaves available for use. These include everything from basic file management (file:/directoryname) to remote network management (remote:/). I have selected a few notable KIO slaves to demonstrate how they are used and have also included a list of useful ones at the end of this post.
Read the rest at MakeTechEasier
Tags: ftp, kde, kio slaves, linux, protocols, ssh
Posted in Free Software, Technology | No Comments »
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
KWin is a free and open source window manager and is the default in KDE. It is a powerful, highly customizable window manager with a plethora of both aesthetic and nuts and bolts features. With the release of KDE 4, the developers added 3D desktop effects, but they also carried over many customization features from KDE 3. Here are some of the window-specific settings that you can use in KWin.
Read the rest at MakeTechEasier
Tags: kde, kwin, linux, window manager
Posted in Free Software, Technology | No Comments »
Monday, July 20th, 2009
In an effort to bring more exposure to KDE and its features, I have created two videos. One is a brief introduction to KDE and some highly acclaimed features. The second is about a specific application: Krunner. It is based on an article I wrote for MakeTechEasier.
Both videos are available for streaming and download.
Introducing KDE 4.3
10 Awesome Features of Krunner in KDE 4
The production plan is also available in PDF format.
Tags: Free Software, kde, linux, open source, video
Posted in Free Software, Technology | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
I just installed KDE 4.3 RC 1, and it is fantastic. This will undoubtedly be the best KDE release to date and will answer a lot of the complaints about missing features and stability that people have raised.
The drop shadow glitches from 4.2 are gone from Kwin, but it seems as though they fixed it by regressing back to their earlier unmodifiable shadows. Nevertheless, I can live with that for now, and that is not the topic of this blog post.
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Tags: kde, kwin, plasma, plasmoids, widgets
Posted in Free Software, Technology | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
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.
Read the rest…
Tags: command launcher, Free Software, kde, krunner, linux, open source
Posted in Free Software, Technology | No Comments »
Monday, June 1st, 2009
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.
Read the rest at MakeTechEasier
Tags: ati, intel, kde, linux, monitors, screens, xorg
Posted in Free Software, Technology | No Comments »
