On Tuesday, 14. August 2012. 13.17.58 And Kemp wrote:
To practice prior to my exam I would like to be able to enter commands
at the command line: obtaining (separate) terminal windows using KDE
comes across as clunky (I usually use Ubuntu - sorry!). Whilst
<CNTRL><ALT><F2> to enter a full terminal screen is straightforward,
it's not helpful (to me at least) in terms of being able to switch
between panes (I generally like a lot of them for things like man pages,
different directories, etc.). Konqueror, Konsole and all other thinks,
"K" start off as being chipper but after a day, not so much... Access
via the main menu is now becoming more than tiresome.
Konsole is the preferred terminal emulator in KDE. You can reach it via the
"F"-menu -> System -> Konsole, or as a first option to a context-menu of the
desktop (just right-click somewhere on the desktop), or by putting a launcher
onto the panel or the desktop (unlock widgets, find Konsole in the menu, right-
click, choose "add to panel" or "add to desktop" or whatever...). You can go
to systemsettings and assign your favorite shortcut-key combination to start
Konsole via the keyboard.
Once started, you can open a various number of tabs with different sessions
inside, and easily switch from one to the other. Konsole itself is very
configurable both visually and functionally, just go to its "settings" menu and
choose "configure current profile".
Ditto for Konqueror and other stuff you might need. In general, KDE is waaay
more configurable than Gnome, as far as GUI is concerned.
I've trawled through the documentation as best I can (all I want is a
couple of meaningful shortcut icons on a desktop - hardly a mammoth
operation to my mind) in terms of, "getting started" but creating icons
comes across as an insurmountable problem (That whole, "create shortcut
on desktop" option just doesn't work on my installation . The shortcut
appears: does it run when clicked? Does it cuckoo...).
I hope that you are aware that "icons on a desktop" is considered to be a Bad
Idea (tm) that comes from the Windows world and eventually clutters an
otherwise useful desktop space.
In KDE there is the "folder view" widget (you can even put many of them on the
desktop), configurable to show the icons from a specific folder (the ~/Desktop
by default, IIRC). In addition, if you really really really want to put icons
on the desktop (as opposed to the folder view widget), you can:
1. unlock widgets
2. right-click on the desktop to open the context menu
3. choose "Desktop settings"
4. change the "layout" option from "desktop" to "folder view".
That way the whole desktop will behave as one big folder view widget.
Regarding step 4., there are some other interesting choices, you might try
them out.
Simple things
like mounting the CD drive from a command line can be summarized,
according to my impression of Google forum replies, as, "RTFM!
RTFM!... It's automatic (the only thing missing here is, 'You
idiot')!". [Note: It's *NOT* automatic; nor is in any manual I could
locate: one has to create a device folder (at least, that's how I fixed
the problem in the end, having tried (and failed) to adopt the "Fedora
way", assuming there is such a thing!)]
By default, you should have a "device notifier" widget installed in the systray
of the panel (or you can put one on the desktop...). Once the CD is in the
drive, the device notifier should pop up and ask you what do you want to do
with the CD (open it in file manager, view photos, listen to music, etc.). If
the CD contains regular data, it should be already mounted by now, in
/media/whatever directory. In the device notifier there is also an "eject"
button that basically unmounts/ejects your CD. This all also works with USB
flash drives etc.
From the command line, you mount the CD via the command (assuming it is not
already mounted automatically):
# mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /your/mount/directory
or something along those lines. You need to be root to do it.
Part of this familiarization
process is the reason I downloaded Fedora in the first place, but as a
general-purpose (Ubuntu) Linux user, don't really expect to have to read
through the entire manual to be unable to accomplish the simplest tasks
for a variant of an OS I'm relatively comfortable with.
Every distro has its own quirks. As a long-time Fedora KDE user, I found
myself completely inside-out when put in front of an Ubuntu desktop. I found
it hard to readjust to the fact that the "close window" button is in the top-
left corner instead of the top-right... ;-)
In terms of rpm / yum, it's mainly plain sailing, but I'm having an
issue which don't appear to be addressed effectively from google
searches: I try and query packages (using -qv) to be informed that the
package is not installed. I try and install it to be informed it's
already installed!
How about an example? Copy&paste your querries and the responses.
Any advise you can offer in this regard would be
gratefully received.
In general, don't use rpm manually. Use yum instead (that's its purpose).
Familiarize yourself with man yum, it is very powerful when you know how to
ask it. Use it from the terminal session (I don't like GUI's for yum, they are
all clunky...).
Finally(!) a question: At the risk of opening a kettle of worms [can of
worms / kettle of fish] I believe I'm having a poor Fedora experience
because of my being unable to adopt a KDE mindset (correctly?). I
believe I've missed something really 'obvious' with regards to the UI.
The most nonobvious obvious thing that you might have missed is the
functionality of (un)locking widgets. Other than that, most of the
configuration stuff is in systemsettings. There are also other (advanced)
aspects of KDE usage like for example "activities". I never needed them, but
they can be quite useful in some usecases.
Also, there is a big distinction in philosophy if DE usage between Gnome and
KDE. You might need to mentally readjust a bit. :-)
Is it possible to eliminate KDE or should I attempt a different
download?
You can have several different DE's coexisting on a single Fedora installation.
Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Sugar... Not to mention window managers. Switch
between them on the login screen (choose session). To install them,
1. yum grouplist
2. find your desktop of choice in the list
3. yum groupinstall "name of the group"
Don't omit the quotes in step 3, there might be spaces or stuff in the group
name.
Which would you recommend?
I use KDE. Default is Gnome3 (but under a lot of criticism since the switch
from Gnome2). Most Gnome2-oriented people on this list will recommend XFCE or
LXDE (and they are probably right if you are used to the old Gnome2). You can
also try Sugar if you are 10 years old... ;-)
Mind you, since you are running Fedora in a VM, the 3D accelerated graphics is
probably not supported (or not supported well enough...). Gnome3 will probably
fail miserably into the fallback mode, KDE will miss all the Compiz-like eye-
candy visual effects that are otherwise present, and maybe something similar
for XFCE/LXDE. YMMV.
Am I creating problems for myself
by selecting a 64-bit installation or should I go with 32-bit?
In general, no. There should be no difference between 32/64bit installs, bar
some very peculiar situations (proprietary software, amount of RAM, skype,
etc...). I am on 64bit for several years now, and never had any issues. 64bit
is considered computationally superior in some generic circumstances, which is
to be expected.
In particular, since you are running Fedora in a virtual machine, the 64bit
guest OS depends on how well 64bit software is supported by your virtual
machine and the host OS. I've seen cases where 64bit clients are not supported
or do not work properly. However, I've only ever run Windows in a VM myself,
Fedora was always on the hardware.
HTH, :-)
Marko
