kde

I just "found" kdirstat for KDE. It is a very nice program, that does have a Windows clone called WinDirStat. To install this program using Kubuntu, just use

$ sudo apt-get install kdirstat

and use the CLI to invoke it using kdirstat. There is no menu item..at least one didn't show up for me.

I just got GMail working as the default email client for KDE. To do this, go to KDE Menu -> Computer -> System Settings and click on Default Applications.

There are plenty of notes on getting this working out there, but getting the subject and body working can be tricky. Select the radio button next to Use a different email client: and enter the following:

/opt/google/chrome/chrome https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=%t&su=%s&%u

replacing /opt/google/chrome/chrome with the command for your browser.

I have to say that the quick access feature in KDE 4.2 is very, very nice. It really boosts my productivity by allowing me to traverse file structures very quickly and intuitively.

If you're using Kubuntu with KDE 4.2 and keep getting an error when akonadi starts up, which lists "Akonadi server process not registered at D-Bus" as the first error, try the following:

$ sudo aa-complain mysqld-akonadi
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor reload

Kubuntu uses apparmor to block certain actions on the system. The new akonadi system KDE uses attempts one of these actions. The commands above simply tells apparmor to log the action rather than block it.

Then, use:

$ akonadictl stop

to stop the service, then

$ akonadictl start

KDE 4.2 was released for Kubuntu on the 27th of January, 2009. This was a big deal because the 4.0 release, typically the "ready" release, was not so ready, and a bunch of nerdy types were not very happy about it. Being a software developer, I understand that a complete re-write, as 4.0 was, will have it's problems.

I use Kubuntu at work 10 hours a day/ 4 days a week, as well as at home, and I took the brave step of upgrading in a production environment, after testing at home first on a similar configuration.

In Amarok, under KDE 3.5, podcasts seem to be in a scrambled order. They definitely aren't in the order the author of the podcast put them in. This is a known bug and is going to be fixed in the next version of Amarok due out very soon.

As a temporary work around, I am using Firefox's ability to subscribe to XML feeds and have associated MP3 files with Amarok inside Firefox.

I have been using Gnome at home and KDE at work for the last two months, both with the latest version of Ubuntu. I have decided to go back to KDE for several reasons. By the way, I was able to remove Gnome and install KDE without even rebooting. =)

• The default torrent client in KDE is much more advanced than transmission.
• The system settings in Gnome are spread out on a menu rather than all in one dialog like KDE.
• Integration seems to be better in KDE. For example, using sftp or ftp works by default in most KDE applications and file managers.
• Kontact
• Quanta is much better than bluefish in my opinion.

Using KDE, it is very easy to open and edit a remote file using pretty much any application (any application that uses KDE to open files that is). I use this method using Kate (a sophisticated text editing program), and Quanta .

To open a file using ftp, in the box in the middle at the top that shows the current path you are looking at, type:

ftp://user@site.com:port/