Top 10 Must Have Apps/Widgets

[SteveRiley]

Hey Steve, few question if you don't mind. How can I purge the foreign language fonts and such? How come you disable the update notifiers?

I noticed that you started a separate thread on things to remove. To keep somewhat on topic, I'll answer this question over there.

How come you use DejaVu-extra and disable the rest?

There are two DejaVu font collections:

steve@x1:~$ [B]dpkg -L ttf-dejavu-core[/B]
[I]<...snip...>[/I]
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansMono-Bold.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerif.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerif-Bold.ttf
[I]<...snip...>[/I]

steve@x1:~$ [B]dpkg -L ttf-dejavu-extra[/B]
[I]<...snip...>[/I]
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansCondensed-Bold.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansCondensed-BoldOblique.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansCondensed-Oblique.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansCondensed.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerifCondensed-Bold.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerifCondensed-BoldItalic.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerifCondensed-Italic.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerifCondensed.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansMono-BoldOblique.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansMono-Oblique.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerif-BoldItalic.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerif-Italic.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans-ExtraLight.ttf
[I]<...snip...>[/I]

IMHO, the condensed versions of DejaVu are the most attractive fonts in the entire collection. The regular ones are too wide. So I install the -extra package, and then (using kdesu systemsettings) I disable all fonts except the condensed versions:

I find that this creates a very visually appealing and consistent desktop.

Is LibAV just a cli tools?

Parts of LibAV -- certain codecs, mostly -- are included with Kubuntu. I like to install the full libav-tools package and also use the "-extra" versions of the various codecs, device handlers, postprocessing filters, scalers, and container/format muxers.

While the filters and codecs are used by many GUI programs, the tools and utilities from LibAV are command line. One of my favorites is using LibAV to record a screen capture:

avconv -f x11grab -s wxga -r 30 -i :0.0 -sameq /tmp/out.mpg

As usual, see man avconv for all the details.

What parts of kdeadmin, kdegraphics and kdeutils are not included?

The list is somewhat extensive, so I'll summarize this way. Check apt-cache depends bold-package-name to see what each one will pull in. When I install them, though, I don't use the meta packages, but instead install each depend/recommend individually.
kdeadmin: all depends
kdegraphics: all depends and recommends except kruler
kdeutils: all depends except kremotecontrol and plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba

Why the switch from dropbox?

I don't trust them anymore. Don't misunderstand: I'm certainly not sour on the cloud; matter of fact, I remain convinced that cloud security is not a oxymoron. Dropbox has simply fscked up too many times. My trust goes only so far.

I really like OwnCloud. But currently there's a problem with their Linux client: each time it checks to see whether a file has been updated, it drops some PHP garbage on the server. Thousands of little files measurably affect the server's performance. Although, I see now that this has been fixed, according to the bug report. Time to test, it appears.

How do you like Calligra so far?

I'm happy with it. I've realized that all the bells-and-whistles-plus-plus in Microsoft Office are superfluous to my requirements. I like Calligra's right-side toolbox orientation, which our dear Woodsmoke has written about before.

[Snowhog]

There is still a graphical front end to UFW available in the official repositories: gufw

[SteveRiley]

When I take a look at what I originally wrote...

...if you want to run [a host-based firewall], UFW is the Ubuntu-supplied [one]. Kubuntu 10.10 shipped with a KCM to manage UFW via a GUI. Even though this KCM is no longer included in Kubuntu, the developer has kept it updated and you can find it on KDE-Apps.org.

I can see that I was probably being less than fully informative. netfilter is the base-level packet-filtering engine in the Linux kernel. The traditional interface for manipulating netfilter is iptables. Ubuntu provides another tool, the Uncomplicated Firewall (or UFW), as an easier-to-use front-end to iptables.

UFW, alas, is still command-line, so those seeking a GUI will need to do more work. Firestarter is a Gtk program that, according to Ubuntu's firewall wiki, is no longer maintained. Kubuntu Maverick (10.10) shipped with a KCM (KDE Control Module, or Systems Settings Module) that offered a GUI to manage UFW. This package is no longer included in the Kubuntu distribution (I don't know why) but it's still maintained and available. I neglected to mention in my earlier post that the KCM is distributed only as source code, and requries a properly-installed build environment to compile.

Sumski: given how much many of us have come to appreciate the work you're doing with KDE Goodies, might we encourage you to add this to your PPA? Meanwhile, I'll check in with the folks at kubuntu-devel to find out why this KCM was dropped after Maverick.

[kubicle]

Opened a terminal, sudo apt-get remove ufw; then went to Synaptic and loaded ufw from it's repo's. Went back to terminal, both sudo ufw and kdesudo ufw; same error; not enough args.

ufw is the cli backend, and like the error said it needs more arguments. For example, to enable the firewall (with the default policy) you can run "sudo ufw enable"...you can also add firewall rules from the command line (see 'man ufw' for details). A word of "warning" though, it can be a bit tricky to get a hang of (depending on your comfort level with firewalls and working on the command line). If you are more at ease with a GUI interface you'll want to install the GUI module.

[Snowhog]

In the console, type:

ufw --help

[capt-zero]

Opened a terminal, sudo apt-get remove ufw; then went to Synaptic and loaded ufw from it's repo's. Went back to terminal, both sudo ufw and kdesudo ufw; same error; not enough args.

[kubicle]

Tried that, now I get the error: not enough args. Arguments?
capt-zero

What exactly did you do? (post the command you were trying to run)

I was just following the link in steve's post. Didn't realize it was in the repositories or that I needed so many dependencies. I'll just apt-get remove what I've got and try it from the repositories. Sorry to get everybody so off thread content.

Err..."ufw" the backend is in the repos (it should also be installed by default)...the GUI configuration module for system settings (that Steve linked to) isn't, if you want that you have to compile (or search for a ppa with it)

[capt-zero]

Tried that, now I get the error: not enough args. Arguments?

capt-zero

[capt-zero]

I was just following the link in steve's post. Didn't realize it was in the repositories or that I needed so many dependencies. I'll just apt-get remove what I've got and try it from the repositories. Sorry to get everybody so off thread content.

capt-zero

[kubicle]

Why are you 'building' the ufw application when it is already available for installation from the official repositories? It can be installed from the console with:

sudo apt-get install ufw

or search for it in the Package Manager and install from there.

He probably means the kde config module for ufw...to compile that one needs at least "build-essential" and "kdelibs5-dev" packages (and their dependencies) installed.

EDIT: too slow

[sumski]

capt-zero, you need at least build-essential and kdelibs5-dev

[Snowhog]

Why are you 'building' the ufw application when it is already available for installation from the official repositories? It can be installed from the console with:

sudo apt-get install ufw

or search for it in the Package Manager and install from there.

[capt-zero]

I hate to keep comming back everytime I download a tar.gz file, but Steve, I downloaded UFW, extracted it, opened a terminal there, followed the instructions in the read me file:
1. mkdir build
2. cd build
3. cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix`
4. make
5. sudo make install

Had to install cmake, but when running number 3 got this error:


CMake Error: your CXX compiler: "CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER-NOTFOUND" was not found. Please set CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER to a valid compiler path or name.
CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-2.8/Modules/FindKDE4.cmake:98 (MESSAGE):
ERROR: cmake/modules/FindKDE4Internal.cmake not found in
/home/capt-zero/.kde/share/apps;/usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde4-profile/default/share/apps;/usr/share/kde4/apps
Call Stack (most recent call first):
CMakeLists.txt:19 (find_package)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!


Thanks,
capt-zero

[SteveRiley]

I have many of the same, but I'm suprised no one uses firestarter. Why?

All my machines are protected by a firewall that sits just behind my cable modem, so there's no need to run host-based firewalls. That said, if you want to run one, UFW is the Ubuntu-supplied firewall. Kubuntu 10.10 shipped with a KCM to manage UFW via a GUI. Even though this KCM is no longer included in Kubuntu, the developer has kept it updated and you can find it on KDE-Apps.org. I'd imagine this fits in better with Kubuntu than Firestarter, which is more for Gtk-based systems.

[capt-zero]

I have many of the same, but I'm suprised no one uses firestarter. Why?

capt-zero