Totally new to Kubuntu

[Inoki]

Hi all,

I'm not entirely new to Linux in general, have been using it for almost three years now, but previously, when I gave KDE a shot I found it very demanding and later on got to know, that it suffered from memory leaks in the past, maybe it still does, but with 12.04.2 i doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

I just gave Kubuntu 12.04.2 a shot again, via LiveUSB, and was quite impressed, I must say, with just up to 600 MB of RAM being used for the base system it's very nice and speedy with moderate amount of effects enabled.

The thing about the panel, that it has become an all-in-one pleases me the most. Adding launchers, setting the panel to intellihide, very useful.

The thing why I turned to Ubuntu Studio is that it contains most, if not all, artistic software, but despite my attempts at customizing it to my likings there's still something I'm missing and KDE, like I happened to find out, resolves this.

I would still need someone using KDE to provide answers to a few questions, since this is a completely foreign environment for me, like:

- what's KDE Wallet good for anyway and can it be easily uninstalled
- I saw GIMP only v2.6.* in Muon Software Center
- is it difficult to get apps I've been used to in Xubuntu / Ubuntu, like Quod Libet, since searching for them returned no results

Thanks for your time!

[whatthefunk]

- what's KDE Wallet good for anyway and can it be easily uninstalled

I hate KDE Wallet. Its the first thing I disable when installing.
System Settings > Account Details > KDE Wallet
Unclick "Enable the KDE Wallet Subsystem"

- I saw GIMP only v2.6.* in Muon Software Center

Muon Software Center is not very good in my opinion. It doesnt include all programs and is cumbersome to use. I have GIMP 2.8.2 installed on my Kubuntu system.

EDIT: I just realized that youre running 12.04. Im running 12.10 which would explain the version differences. A later version of GIMP might be available in the 12.04 backports.
EDIT #2: You can use this PPA to get newer GIMP versions:
https://launchpad.net/~otto-kesselgulasch/+archive/gimp

- is it difficult to get apps I've been used to in Xubuntu / Ubuntu, like Quod Libet, since searching for them returned no results

Again, Muon Software Center is not very good. I just searched for Quod Libet in the terminal and its in the repos. Everything in the Ubuntu and Xubuntu repos is also in the Kubuntu repos. Try searching for things with Muon Package Manager or in the terminal instead of with the software center.

[Inoki]

I hate KDE Wallet. Its the first thing I disable when installing.
System Settings > Account Details > KDE Wallet
Unclick "Enable the KDE Wallet Subsystem"



Muon Software Center is not very good in my opinion. It doesnt include all programs and is cumbersome to use. I have GIMP 2.8.2 installed on my Kubuntu system.



Again, Muon Software Center is not very good. I just searched for Quod Libet in the terminal and its in the repos. Everything in the Ubuntu and Xubuntu repos is also in the Kubuntu repos. Try searching for things with Muon Package Manager or in the terminal instead of with the software center.

Thanks for the reply!

I too have been looking for e.g. Synaptic over Muon, or any possible means, but it didn't give me any results, hence the questions.

If not Muon, is there another package manager, that is specific to KDE, or Synaptic and Ubuntu Software Center can normally be used and installed via terminal, since via LiveUSB I got no results when searching for e.g. "synaptic", it in fact returned with Muon as the result.

An additional question would be:

- how's gaming under KDE? Steam? Memory usage?

[whatthefunk]

You can run basically any Ubuntu software on Kubuntu. It will work fine, it just might not follow KDE themes. Muon Package Manager (not Muon Software Center) comes with Kubuntu and works fine for me. Synapitc is another good option.

Gaming in Kubuntu is basically the same as gaming in Ubuntu. Steam works fine (their customer service is proving to be less than adequate though....) and any games you can play in Ubuntu you can play in Kubuntu. The only thing is that, like I mentioned above, they might not follow KDE themes. More of a visual thing than anything else.

Also, in case you missed my second edit in my first post:
You can use this PPA to get newer GIMP versions:
https://launchpad.net/~otto-kesselgulasch/+archive/gimp

[offgridguy]

I hate KDE Wallet. Its the first thing I disable when installing.
System Settings > Account Details > KDE Wallet
Unclick "Enable the KDE Wallet Subsystem"

Totally in agreement. I just reinstalled kubuntu yesterday, I like the KDE features, but I
had forgotten how slow the Behemoth was.

[Inoki]

For now, thanks a lot guys and yer, whatthefunk, I've truly missed your first edit.

I don't have any additional questions at the moment. Guess pretty much artistic software, GIMP in first place followed by Blender and Inkscape together with gaming software like Steam is the focus, rest seems pretty s(l)ick.

oo-buun-too! Thanks!