Looking at Kubuntu and Mint

[Tom_Carr]

I have been using Ubuntu Unity for the last 2 years and like it OK but want to try something new. I have installed Kubuntu and Mint. In Kubuntu I like the panels, but miss the ability to right click on the desktop and create a new folder. Mint lets me create folders on the desktop but does not have the panels. Is there a distro that lets you do both?

I like the dolphin file manager in xubuntu and the advanced search function built into it. I can install it on ubuntu, but it does not have the advanced file search. I haven't tried installing it on mint yet.

What is your favorite distro other than Ubuntu, and why?

[Rob Sayer]

Actually Kubuntu is a Ubuntu distro. When you say Ubuntu you're talking about the version/flavor with the Unity DE. I think you may be confusing distros and desktop environments (DEs) a bit.

There are different DE versions of Mint too, and it's hard to comment without knowing which one you have. You may not be aware that Mint is based on ubuntu, though they're freezing their releases to 14.04 based for a while.

I don't like Unity personally. It's slow. Kubuntu is what I mostly use. KDE is considered slow and heavy too but you can tweak it to speed it up considerably. You can't do that with Unity.

One of the first KDE speed tweaks I do is to disable the Nepomuk index/search facility. I think that's what you mean by file searching in Kubuntu. That's a real hog and it slows the system down quite a bit. If you install Dolphin on a non KDE DE nepomuk won't be active. You may think that it's fast now but just wait a while ...

Dolphin is my favorite file manager. I've used it on all the other DEs I've used. Not so much for the searching but because it's very powerful and configurable.

KDE is the one I mostly use because it's so configureable and powerful. I actually get better video performance with it than any others I've tried. It's also the least buggy DE I've used.

XFCE is good too, but I had Xubuntu 14.04 on my netbook and it doesn't seem as fast as I remembered. My netbook runs Lubuntu 14.04.1 now. Lubuntu 14.04 had too many bugs for me but 14.04.1 is running OK.

LXDE (Lubuntu) is seriously fast but it's a bit clunky compared to the heavier ones, and it's not as easy to config. I'm happy with it now ... on a 1Gb netbook it's much, much faster than the other 'buntus ... but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to a linux newbie unless they had less than 1Gb RAM.

The only Mint DE version I've used was MATE. That was on my netbook, which I'd never install CInnamon or Unity on because they need 3D hardware video acceleration just to run themselves. Mate isn't bad but I wasn't that impressed. I'd take XFCE over it.

I think Mint is good overall but I wouldn't recommend it to novices because their tech support isn't good. Ubuntu has the best support of any linux distro, and that's very important for linux newbies. They'll probably need it. Minux is reliable but it usually needs more config than *******.

[yancek]

but miss the ability to right click on the desktop and create a new folder

Maybe that is something specific to Kubuntu. I'm using a system with KDE and dolphin and have no problem creating a folder or desktop shortcut by simply right clicking it.

[Tom_Carr]

Maybe that is something specific to Kubuntu. I'm using a system with KDE and dolphin and have no problem creating a folder or desktop shortcut by simply right clicking it.

I just found the setting in Kubuntu to let me right click and create folders. It is one of the 4 desktop setings. The other 3 don't let you create folders,
So I think I am going to stick with Kubuntu for now.

[Tom_Carr]

Rob, thanks for all the great info.

I have a question on this:


One of the first KDE speed tweaks I do is to disable the Nepomuk index/search facility. I think that's what you mean by file searching in Kubuntu. That's a real hog and it slows the system down quite a bit. If you install Dolphin on a non KDE DE nepomuk won't be active. You may think that it's fast now but just wait a while ...

If I turn that off, will search in dolphin still work?
Kfind is the best search tool I know of. Will it still work if I turn off the Nepomuk index/search facility?

[Rob Sayer]

I disable nepomuk and search still works fine ... though I'm not an expert in doing that. I prefer to be annoyingly verbose creating subfolders, as it's just a lot easier that way to find stuff. I rarely need search.