Over years I tried Gnome, KDE, XFCE, and Unity for the graphical user interface. In the end, KDE won this intense battle for me. And now I am trying to have only Qt-based software for everyday use cases. And here comes KDE Neon, Linux distribution from KDE developers with LTS version of Ubuntu as a base and latest KDE builds as updates.
Here are steps on how I usually configure freshly installed Neon. This is just notes for the future myself. Maybe someone will find it helpful.
Website of KDE Neon: https://neon.kde.org/.
You need 4 GB flash drive and image writer software. Use the one you are comfortable with. Installation is straight forward if you have installed any Linux distribution before.
Open Discover and update your system.
Then install the following software:
Postman is a collaboration platform for API Development.
Go to the Downloads page and choose the appropriate version.
tar -xzf Postman-linux-x64-7.26.0.tar.gz
rm -rf /opt/Postman
sudo mv Postman /opt/Postman
sudo ln -s /opt/Postman/Postman /usr/bin/postman
cat > ~/.local/share/applications/postman.desktop <<EOL
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Postman
Exec=postman
# Before v6.1.2
# Icon=/opt/Postman/resources/app/assets/icon.png
Icon=/opt/Postman/app/resources/app/assets/icon.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Development;
EOL
rm Postman-linux-x64-7.26.0.tar.gz
Note: Postman data, including collections and other settings, is located at:
~/.config/Postman
I use a stable version of syncing. To install it run:
curl -s https://syncthing.net/release-key.txt | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncthing.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install syncthing
Terminator is a console emulator where you can arrange terminals in grid-like structure and tabs. Utility supports plugins.
To install it run:
sudo apt-get install terminator
Next, let's set up a theme. I use a theme called Misterioso.
Create a file named config in the home directory with the content:
[global_config]
enabled_plugins = TerminatorThemes, LaunchpadCodeURLHandler, APTURLHandler, LaunchpadBugURLHandler
suppress_multiple_term_dialog = True
[keybindings]
[layouts]
[[default]]
[[[child1]]]
parent = window0
profile = default
type = Terminal
[[[window0]]]
parent = ""
type = Window
[plugins]
[profiles]
[[default]]
background_color = "#2d3743"
cursor_color = "#000000"
foreground_color = "#e1e1e0"
palette = "#000000:#ff4242:#74af68:#ffad29:#338f86:#9414e6:#23d7d7:#e1e1e0:#555555:#ff3242:#74cd68:#ffb929:#23d7d7:#ff37ff:#00ede1:#ffffff"
And copy this file to the Terminator configuration directory by command:
mkdir -p .config/terminator && mv config .config/terminator
Now if you reopen Terminator you must see a new theme.
I use Calibre to manage my eBooks and finalized documents. It has a functionally rich interface to manipulate PDFs or any other document format.
sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin
After that open Konsole and run the following commands:
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
sudo apt-get install net-tools
sudo apt-get install redshift
sudo apt-get install nmap
sudo apt-get install openvpn
sudo apt-get install traceroute
sudo apt install kazam
Redshift is used to reduce eyestrain. After package installation, you need to install the Redshift Control widget from KDE Store.
Update 28.04.2020
KDE Neon now comes with a built-in Night Color package. You can configure it by opening Night Color. Since it's fresh addition you may experience a small bug as did I. Instead of switching to night mode software starts flickering modes on and off. But the solution is pretty simple, you need to open ~/.config/kwinrc and delete the whole [Night Color] section. After that reboot your machine and now it should work fine. I am sure this small bug will be solved very soon.
Also, install Event Calendar widget.
Copy ~/.local/share/local-mail and press check email before adding identities and emails to sync emails with Akonadi. Spoiler: Resources will be used a lot depending on your total mailbox size.
and then add identities and Emails again.
Contact - Export to vCards 4 and then import on the new host machine. This step gives you syncronization of Calendar, To-do List and Journal data.
Update 14.06.2020
On my fresh installation, I encountered a small bug. There are no batteries displayed in the KDE Battery widget. To fix it the quickest way is to run:
mv ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc.bak
And reboot your machine.
Warning: this will reset some of your plasma settings and you need to set up your widgets from scratch. If it doesn't fix your problem with the battery widget, just rename the config file back to its original name and reboot again.
Pipewire is a new multimedia framework by Gnome. For the last few weeks I regularly find pipewire-media-session eating 25% CPU. You can check the status of this software by running:
sudo systemctl --user status pipewire.socket
sudo systemctl --user status pipewire.service
I prefer to not overheat my machine randomly for unused software so I disabled it by:
sudo systemctl --user stop pipewire.socket
sudo systemctl --user disable pipewire.socket
sudo systemctl --user stop pipewire.service
sudo systemctl --user disable pipewire.service
If after using user flag problem persists, you can disable the service globally:
sudo systemctl disable --global pipewire