Now using XFCE
With all the speculation and consideration that I might be switching to KDE 4.5 next month - and I just end up switching to XFCE instead? Yes, that is true.
But wait a minute... that looks a little like how I had GNOME configured. Thats one of the things I love about XFCE, its lighter weight, however, it packs a huge punch. It uses the GTK Themes that you may have installed in your GNOME configurations, and although you may not see it in the screenshot, I'm using the metacity Window borders by using Compiz Fusion. another thing I would like to mention about XFCE that I like, is they actually pay attention to those who use dual monitors, and have options in simple things like Panels or the wallpaper configuration to either have something on monitor 1, or 2. In XFCE I can set a different wallpaper per monitor, without having to create an image in GIMP. I absolutely love it.
However, I am running into a few small issues here and there. Adobe Air apps rely on KDE or GNOME's Keyring applications, which don't automatically run in XFCE, so I had to set that up to be able to run Tweetdeck in XFCE. Another thing I'm getting used to is the different applets in XFCE panel, especially when I have gotten used to the ones I have used in GNOME-Panel. For example, the default clock applet in XFCE, when you click on it you don't get a calendar where in GNOME/KDE you do. However, there is a way you can put GNOME applets on the XFCE panel, so I might do that for a FEW applets.
So overall, I'm going to try using XFCE for a week or so and see how it goes, and see if I go back to using GNOME or not. Today's question for you all to answer in the comments is: Which desktop environment do you use, and why?
Anyway, thanks for reading Today's post, sorry for not having one Monday or Wednesday, share this post with anyone that might be interested, subscribe to this blog with your favorite RSS client, check back Monday for a new post and have a great Weekend! 
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Fun w/ Synaptic and KDE 4.5
Today's post is going to be me more or less venting a little bit about Synaptic and the Kubuntu PPA. So earlier this week I read about the KDE 4.5 Release Candidate and I decided to give it a little spin. I added the Kubuntu Beta PPA repositories and installed the KDEBase packages, etc. etc.
I guess I should first talk about my experience with KDE 4.5. From the probably 4-5 hours of me using it I can definitely see that this is going to be a release focused heavily on fixing bugs and stability. I noticed a few changes here and there to features, but I haven't really seen any new SIGNIFICANT features in KDE 4.5 RC. I would also like to say that the problems I had previously w/ Audio in KDE 4.x, where if you use a GTK app in KDE it would try to take control of the audio and not let any KDE apps use the Audio, is actually fixed, and I can now actually have the really annoying result of listening to a Youtube video in Chrome and Amarok at the same time, or just simply be able to hear an IM notice from Pidgin or Emesene while listening to music in Amarok. I did noticed a few bugs here and there, since it is a release Candidate, however, the issues I have previously with it have been fixed, and once its finally released next month I will heavily consider going from GNOME over to KDE!
Soo... if you managed to get anything from that mess of a paragraph, you can probably guess that I am still using GNOME for now. So, earlier Today I decided to try and install KVIRC, and this is where the troubles began. The .deb package was looking for older versions of the KDE packages and not the version that indicated it was the Release Candidate, so I just decided "hell with it" and started to remove the KDE packages anyway since I don't plan on using it until the final release of 4.5 anyway. Well, first I removed the repository, and I had to keep going from Dependency to Dependency until I found the one package that was still using the version from the repository. Needless to say, I finally managed to get it removed, but to remove that package it did ask me of one bizarre thing, that I had to remove fglrx. In the end I was able to reinstall my ATI drivers, but that was a bit weird (I haven't rebooted yet, so I hope nothing screws up). In the end I was actually able to install KVIRC, but that did take up about half an hour of my time trying to fix it and find out which packages I needed to remove/downgrade.
In the past 4 years of me having used Ubuntu (off and on of course), this is the first time where removing a repository and downgrading/removing packages from it has really given me any issues like this. But I guess it happens to most people at one point or another.
Oh, and while typing this I just thought of another thing I might do is ask a question at the end of each post in relation to what the topic was, so for example Today's question is:
So, have you had an issue w/ any repositories like that? And have you been able to fix them, find the root of the problem, or did you just say hell with it and reinstall Ubuntu?
Please leave a comment answering the question, or just what you think of the post in general. Also, if you like what I write, please subscribe to me using your favorite RSS reader. Have a great Weekend and Check back for a New Post Monday!
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)
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