Update to Jaunty and KDE4

[Myriam Schweingruber]

Hi Rob,

On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 19:36, Rob Wright <debianrob at poncacity.net> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I've been using Linux with KDE as my desktop for quite some time and I'm
> pretty comfortable with it, how it looks, how it works, and how I've had it
> setup for years. Right now I've got Hardy installed and I want to go ahead
> and update to Jaunty, but frankly I'm afraid of moving to KDE4.
>
> I've installed KDE4 a couple of times to look at it and I just feel lost.
> Basic tasks, like adding an application to the taskbar as a shortcut just
> don't seem possible, for instance.

Yes it is. I guess you tried a version previous to KDE 4.2 : go to the
application in the Menu and right click on it: you will see the option
"Add to Panel", click on it and you are done.
But instead of adding shortcuts to your panel (which overloads the
panel IMHO), why don't you try to use krunner instead? It's already
there in KDE 3: launch it with Alt+F2 and type the name of the
application you want to launch.
Another approach could be to add the most used applications to the
'Favorites' menu which is the first menu panel to show up when you
click on the KDE icon on the left of the panel: right click on the
application and you get various options, amongst them "Add to
Favorites".

> Other things like "why are the desktop
> icons so freakin' big and with an interactive border?"

Actually, these are not icons but plasma widgets and are in fact
individual applications. You can remove those easily: hover over it
and click on the X in the lower end of the interactive border.
I don't suggest to remove them though: plasma widget are one of the
real powers behind KDE 4. Try it out, you will be astonished how easy
you will get used to it and wouldn't miss them after a few days.

> have just kept me away
> from KDE4 to this point, but I realize that I can't stay stuck in 3.5
> forever.
>
> Does anybody know of any howtos or guides for old stick in the muds like me
> that need to change but don't really have the time to spend totally
> relearning a desktop system?

Why not use a live CD to get yourself used to some basic features till
you are comfortable with it? IMHO the best way to learn something is
hands on, and KDE 4 is not more different from KDE 3 than for example
Windows Vista from XP ;-) . Many things are still the same, there are
new things like the plasma widgets (of which earlier versions were
already available in KDE 3 through Superkaramba, although more static
then), and many more.

> Searching around the 'net I find all kinds of
> stuff with information on the cool new features, but not anything that tells
> me how to do the stuff I've always done, or a side by side comparison of if
> you did $THIS in KDE3, you'll do $THAT in KDE4.

The latter would indeed be an interesting approach, yes. Did you have
a look at the KDE website? You can find a lot of stuff over there,
like the following:

http://userbase.kde.org/

You should find enough information there to answer your questions.


Regards, Myriam.

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