Tag: Plasma 5

LXDE and Plasma 5 .desktop -Files don’t meet the same requirements.

I’ve just switched a Linux computer of mine from the LXDE to the Plasma 5 desktop managers, because Plasma 5, the successor to KDE 4, is infinitely more-powerful. But then there were some issues with the transition, that may be relevant to my readers, if the readers also wish to switch desktop-managers, on an installed Linux computer.

One fact which I learned, was that even though LXDE and Plasma 5 both use .desktop -Files to launch applications, each system’s .desktop Files are different.

There is a directory named:

‘~/.config/autostart’

In which we find .desktop -Files that are to be run when the user first logs in. And we may find that the initial log-ins don’t run those files:

screenshot_20171017_083544

Also, because the configuration in question is just a set of files, trying to click on these entries  in the Plasma 5 settings center does not enable them.

One main reason for which this happens, is the fact that the professional who set up these configuration files, gave the original ones a line that goes like this:

OnlyShowIn=XFCE;LXDE;LXQt;

On my system, this fact was a life-saver, because the LXDE version initially had Compiz installed, which is a fun compositor, but which is not compatible with KDE or Plasma 5. If that had launched, it would have messed up my first attempt to establish a Plasma 5 session.

But there exist other applications which I’d want to have run, even if I’m logging in to Plasma 5, for which reason I used the GUI, to create a Plasma 5 -compatible launcher for the script that updates my version of Flash to the latest version:

screenshot_20171017_083357

And I edited-in a line with a text-editor, which now goes:

OnlyShowIn=KDE;

The exact appearance of the icons here is purely coincidental. But if we wanted to transfer such scripts to:

‘/etc/skel’

Then a big problem for a user like me would be, that scripts which we created in our own home-folders, are likely to contain configuration-details, which will only work for the one user who created them. And so I kept this .desktop -File spartan, to make sure that it will work, regardless of whose home-folder it eventually ends up in.

Dirk

 

Freshly switched to KDE 4 or Plasma 5, and unable to Browse Network Shares using Dolphin?

I just installed Plasma 5 from the package-manager, on my tower-computer named ‘Plato’, only to find that for some time, I was unable to browse Windows File Shares – i.e. ‘SMB Shares’ – casually, just using the ‘Dolphin’ File Manager. Yet, I was able to mount these shares using ‘Smb4K’, making them visible in my local folders as though there.

Dolphin was showing me an essentially empty set of icons when displaying the Network.

As it turns out, we need to install a package named:

‘kio-extras’

Which will give Dolphin the additional plug-ins it needs, to recognize ‘smb://’ URIs. If our Plasma 5 desktop manager was set up professionally, then the person doing so would know about such details. But when individuals set up KDE or Plasma for the first time, we need to learn such details first-hand.

screenshot_20171017_074924

screenshot_20171017_075006

 

As an added note, we might find that when we click on the Trash widget in our Panel, which I left just at the right-most end, we may get the error-message to the effect that ‘trash:/’ was a corrupted URL. Yet, from within Dolphin, the trash bin displays just fine.

In my case this was happening, because I did not have Dolphin set up as my default File Management application, in my Plasma 5 Settings, where instead I had an application selected which would have been appropriate to an LXDE desktop, and which does not recognize URIs that begin with ‘trash:/’. Switching this setting to make Dolphin my Default File Manager, fixed this problem.

Dirk