Some Questions about KDE

**RapMasterC** · April 28th, 2008

I have recently installed 8.04 Kubuntu with the 4.0.3 KDE desktop. I've been using 7.10 Gutsy with Gnome. I found myself using more KDE apps then gnome apps (QtOctave, RKWard, Amarok, Kdevelop, etc) so I figured with I upgraded to 8.04 I would run Kubuntu but I seem to be running into some serious problems (to me anyways). I understand KDE is different then gnome and KDE 4 is new and has some bugs but is nothing like I expected. Here's what I found odd so far:

1. I get a command not found when I try to run kate to edit my sources list (I think its a pretty serious bug).

2. I've installed unrar, rar but ark will not extract rars, also theres no menu entry for extract here when I right click.

3. Do I really have to restart every time I install something or unzip a file? When I install something it won't show up in the menu until I do a complete restart of my system.

4. Why can't I drop and drag files from the desktop into folders in dolphin?

5. How do I edit the K-menu I've looked everywhere for something like alacarte in gnome). And why does everything feel the need to make multiple entries (QtOctave installed using add/remove had 4 separate entries)

I'm sure most of my problems are caused by being unfamiliar with KDE and possibly that KDE 4 is fairly new and has a couple of bugs but some things seem to make it a lot less user friendly then gnome.

I would really like to stick with KDE, the initial installation of gnome is so ugly compared to the initial installation of KDE. I really like KDE 4 (the menu is nice, looks awesome, dolphin is good).

**jabeez** · April 28th, 2008

I think most of your issues are KDE 4 related. I've got it installed on a separate partition that I monkey with sometimes and it's kinda cool, but ALOT of features of the KDE 3.* series are missing. If you haven't already I would install the regular Kubuntu and experience that KDE before delving into KDE 4.

As for your questions, I think most are bugs/features not implemented yet, but for #1, are you still trying to use gksudo? With KDE you use kdesu. Good luck!!

**RapMasterC** · April 28th, 2008

I should have said I'm using kdesu.

**sunexplodes** · April 28th, 2008

Yeah, KDE4 is NOT ready for primetime yet, my friend. I'd suspect your problems stem largely from that. I've been unable to perform even basic tasks in KDE4 without crashes and lagginess, at this point.

Might be best just to wait, sadly.