My Manjaro KDE Journey, After Ten Days

Keeping you guys up-to-date on my experience living in Manjaro KDE on my main machine. So far I'm loving Manjaro as a distribution. And so far, I'm not that in love with KDE as a desktop environment. In the video, I explain some of my grievances toward KDE.

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[sputnik_tr_]

As a KDE Neon user i completely agree about the cons you mentioned. I use krusader file manager for root stuff and also kate text editor does not open as root but you can still edit files in root directory with it, it asks you your password when you save the file. That being said, i find kde hard to leave even with its flaws. I tried other DE s but kept going back to KDE. Let's hope it gets better. Keep up the good work btw.

[eznix]

When I started with Linux, Windows 98 was current and I used OS/2 Warp and BeOS as well. I have to say that BeOS was by far the quickest OS ever. In 64mb of RAM on a Celeron 333mhz, BeOS ran circles around Windows and OS/2 - programs started instantly, files opened instantly, running multiple audio and video files did not slow down the responsiveness, and file copying was multi-threaded so it did its work in the background and I could go on about my other tasks. I used to rip CDs in BeOS since it would drag and drop CD audio files and then batch convert them to mp3. Slick!

[runnicdesign]

I agree with you on favoring lightweight desktop environments. I love them too. However, I always get screen tearing on lightweight DEs and fixing it causes other problems. I'm at loss and I never want to use Windows.

[ericshimizukarbstein]

Oh! About the scrolling, try removing the xf86-input-libinput (if you have nothing that depends on it) and make sure that xf86-input-mouse is installed, removing libinput should make X fallback to use input-mouse as default input drive
Although, I did that ages ago, there the possibility that now the libinput is required by a lot of softwares, maybe even X itself

[johanb.]

I started with Linux last year after W10 wouldn't start up anymore and I couldn't fix it. I was amazed at how easy Peppermint 8 installed. On it now for 5 months and don't miss Windows at all.

[redrobbosworkshop]

Hi Derek,
Firstly, I always enjoy your videos so please keep up the great work.
I switched to Linux about 4 months ago and in that time have tried perhaps a dozen distros and desktops.
I agree with your observations on KDE - it's slick and highly configurable but lacks the snappiness of a lighter desktop.
Myself having tried tried so many have settled on good old Xubuntu. if you carefully prune the background services, use a well written theme and icon set (some really eat memory such as Adapta/Sardi) I can get the cold boot down to 250mb. Not bad for a full featured desktop with compositing and some eye candy enabled.

I was interested to read your recent review of Archmerge. I installed it using Gnome Boxes. A lovely looking distro but the Openbox desktop comes in at a whoping 500mb cold boot. Very high for one of the lightest desktops.

So I'll be sticking with Xubuntu 17.10 at least until 18.04 arrives.

Best, Rob

PS: Dolphin is superb and the best file manager IMO. You can use it on non QT distros but it drags in a ton of dependencies. A version of Dolphin for the GTK world would be welcome.

[rmcellig]

I couldn't agree with you more!! I also love minimal environments and am not so concerned about looks. What I want from a distro is functionality above all else. I went and installed various pure Debian environments on my HD ( I have 10 partitions). I like Mate, love LXDE and adore openbox! I think it would be a great idea for you to do a video on installing Debian Openbox using the net install iso. I have it installed in a partition but am not quite sure how to fully configure it. You being a minimalist as well would be perfect to show how openbox can really deliver in many cases. It's simple, fast as heck and works!!

[ericshimizukarbstein]

KDE doesn't allow running some, not all, GUI application as root since it's a security hazard, and running these applications as root have been used as a way to exploit inexperienced *nix users in all Desktop Environments for ages.
I never complained as I'm very comfortable using terminal interface for everything, but I get where your comment comes from :)
Nice video, keep going!!

[renardmoreau]

[ Smiles ] Derek, you are a very patient guy. I tried Manjaro KDE for 15 minutes today; it frustrated me and I went back to using Linux Mint "Sylvia" 18.3 with the Xfce desktop environment.

Like you, I prefer lightweight desktop environments.

In my opinion, you would have been better off using LXQt or LXDE.

[tunicana]

Regarding slow animation in KDE you can go to compositor and change animation speed to instant and your menus and windows will be snappy.

[JessicaFEREM]

In Manjaro KDE, Dolphin has elevated privileges by default in the right-click menu, it's under root actions

EDIT: They removed sudo in KDE as it had a security vulnerability. That's waht i hear, i don't know much about it but that's from what i heard. There's a way to remove it, you can look it up in the forums because they can probably explain how to do it better than me.

[lemler]

Switched to Linux after windows vista so I got use to the gnome 2 desktop, tried kde4 but it was super buggy back then trying out gnome shell for the new year. Found this cool extensions called Impatience you can use to speed up the effects thought it was nice really lol

[lucianya]

The slow scrolling in QT apps is a common issue, you can fix it by uninstalling "xf86-input-libinput" and using "xf86-input-mouse" but in arch based distros libinput is needed by xorg-server. for a workaround you need to install "xf86-input-evdev" and to create a Config in "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d" where you put

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "evdev pointer catchall"
MatchIsPointer "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Save it an relog in your system, you should now be able to scroll like a Champ

[GoustiFruit]

Yeah it's a security "feature" to not being able to run graphical programs as root under another user account. That's very annoying when you need to do batch manipulation on files (select a few to move or delete them).
But you can still edit your files in Kate as a normal user and when you want to save them it will ask for the root password if those files arn't allowed to be modified by normal user.

[mikeromero]

I have the same issues regarding KDE obviously. Another gripe I could add is graphics are a pain to get working after a fresh install if you have an old nvidia card like mine. It defaults to using opengl and the result is a barely readable screen, so I have to go into display settings and change to xrender. KDE is the only DE that has graphical issues with my hardware, all other DE''s work fine.

[JessicaFEREM]

I would reccomend that you turn off Some of the kwin effects. and the circular ones are one or the other, it's one or the other or neither.

[coolworx]

KDE is like a hawt chick, that's also crazy.
Sure it's fun for a while, until the headaches start adding up.

[tubelarasa]

Avoided this journey because of the 'KDE-factor'.
You nicely pointed out why I didn't like it in the past and still don't like it!

As for the sudo thingy, that's really annoying!
Did you try it via su? (I know, it still would be stupid...)

Manjaro... used it for a couple of months a few years ago and liked it very much!
Until it started messing up things, breaking stuff, crashing, etc.. then switched to a vanilla Arch installation + Xfce and never went back.
But I'm getting curiuos again about Manjaro because of the good press lately... maybe I'll try it again alongside my current installtion.
Friend of mine wants to switch from Windows to Linux. So far I'm thinking of recommending Mint (he likes Cinnamon) or MX 17.
Gonna follow your journey (don't give up yet! ;)), maybe Manjaro can be a candidate too.
Thnx for your unbiased and very clear contributions.

[BernardoHenriquez]

Thats what i told you about the clock.... the fonts are too big and you can change the font sizes...

[ymi_yugy]

I am still part time windows user and can tell: its not slower at least not anymore