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KDE 4 is in Debian Squeeze and Unstable now. Now you do not have to use the old pinning method to install it (which was here: KDE 4.2 in Debian Testing (Lenny)

Now you can install KDE 4.2 by downloading the Debian Testing DVD. Every week there’s a new build that comes out so this DVD is always update: Debian Weekly builds
When you run the DVD, at the first screen, where you can choose graphical install, or standard install, go down to the third option in the list, and go through the menus until you find an option that lets you change the default environment you will install. You have the option of Gnome, KDE, LXDE, and a couple others. Choose KDE and start the install by choosing graphical install or standard install. The installation menu will look the same, but when you finish installing and you boot your machine, it will have installed the environment that you chose.

Or if you have already have an installed system and it is Testing or Unstable, just use

sudo apt-get install kde-minimal kdm

for a basic install or

sudo apt-get install kde-full kdm

for all of it

The 3d desktop effects in KDE 4 are cool and all, but to me they just dont yet come close to the power of compiz-fusion. They seem a little bit too….stiff. The cube desktop seems a little bit too two dimensional and stiff. So i installed Compiz-fusion on my KDE 4.2 desktop.

The rumors arent true, compiz-fusion CAN be installed in KDE 4 easily and without many problems. I heard some places that the two would conflict but thats just not true.

I simply added the repository that I wanted (I used SID because I have more SID stuff in my PC than Lenny)

Etch:
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/shames/debian-etch/desktopfx/stable/ ./

Lenny
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/shames/debian-lenny/desktopfx/unstable/ ./

Sid
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/shames/debian-sid/desktopfx/unstable/ ./

Add this to prevent apt-get warning :

wget http://download.tuxfamily.org/shames/A42A6CF5.gpg -O- | apt-key add -

run

apt-get update

apt-get install compiz-fusion-kde

If you use apt-pinning simply add the pin version you need(i.e apt-get install -t unstable compiz-fusion-kde)

Then run

apt-get install fusion-icon

logout and log back in

Then go to System Settings > Advanced >AutoStart. Hit add Program and type in fusion-icon in the box.

Then simply run fusion-icon and choose Compiz under Select Window Manager

Enjoy

Yea i know, this is a post title that has been used in about a billion different blogs out there, every time I see a blog with that title I want to shoot the writer (like “hyuk hyuk dah i haven’t written anything in a while so i guess u guys think im dead hyuk hyuk im so funny”).

Anyways I have to use this title right now because at the moment I am scrapped for time and cant think of anything, maybe later I will change the title to something more imaginative(probably not, oh well).

Anyways guys the reason I was down was because of that annoying little libdrm2 update that broke fglrx for a lot of people. I did not know what the reason was for the break at first and so I did a lot of things in my annoyance that harmed my setup more than helped. In the end I decided that I got tired of ATI and their stupid drivers and got an NVIDIA card.

I love it

This card was so easy to configure and install it wasn’t even funny. I dont even think you guys will need me to write a blog about how to install it because its so damn simple. Just google it and click on the first link and it should work fine.

The only thing is that I decided not to go for the debian way of installing the driver, for some reason every time I use the debian way to install the NVIDIA driver and tried to install the Nvidia-glx driver it told me to uninstall all of xserver-xorg.

I was like “ummmmm no”

So i looked it up and they got this little bug with some setups but thats no biggie because you can just use the install script from the NVIDIA website that should work fine. Just make sure that you dont have Nvidia framebuffer in your kernel or Nvidia vesa or it won’t install. If you do just make a simple custom kernel and remove them, just copy the .config file and take out the two things, dont even make them modules, I hear just being able to support them can mess it up  for you( besides you wont need it ever again).

Aaaaand…..thats basically it.Im back

As i write this I am currently downloading a torrent for Fedora 10 x86_64 DVD. I have been eagerly awaiting the release of KDE4, but they’re taking a fricking long time to release and every couple of months I create a new partition to install Lenny to and install KDE4, to see if they finally got most of the bugs fixed, and every time leave disappointed. So in order to break into a new change of pace I have decided to learn another side of Linux. I am going to go to the dark side and learn Red Hat Fedora ( Hopefully this time i wont quit like last time, last time i installed Fedora, updated and all of a sudden the update feature stopped wanting to work, talking about a “;” or something i don’t remember). Also since I’ve wanted to reinstall my Debian Lenny partition I am going to reinstall it too and begin anew, I have already backed up all my important information and settings to a FAT32 partition i use to keep music, videos, and .doc files.

Another reason i want to install Fedora is that, even though i really want KDE4, i’ve never used KDE. Sure i’ve played around with it a couple of times but I’ve never really learnt it, i just used gnome because it was the default on most distro’s I’ve used and it’s simple. But i know me, and i know that I love to have personalization, and KDE supposedly should give me that. I’m not going to abandon Lenny yet though, it has been good to me and so far it is the best distro I’ve met, but i know it has its setbacks, Lenny will just be on another partition, ready to access if i ever remove Fedora or dislike KDE.

I will also hopefully post a review on the differences i’ve found for Fedora and Debian sometime soon

I created this website to attempt to record and share my opinions about GNU/Linux and serve as a help source for beginners

When i first installed my first linux distro I had to go through a large amount of trial and error, countless reinstalls, and a lot of frustation. This experience has been shared by most new users to Linux, regardless of distro or hardware. Because of this, many people easily become discouraged and return to Windows. I managed to stick fight through this and after doing some research was able to get everything running correctly, thanks to several helpful posts I found in forums from people who had similar experiences to mine. These forums were a lifesaver for me, in my opinion this is a much better way of getting support than the Windows way, where many times getting help means having to wait for a technician to become available, and then having to argue with them several hours or having to write a support ticket; or, sending an error report and then when no help comes starting to suspect that maybe the “Send Error Report” and “Don’t Send” buttons link to your trash bin.

In my opinion, Linux is much better than Windows. Windows doesn’t let me have the control i want over my computer and Linux does. I also share some anti-microsoft sentiments, although i do not hate Microsoft. I just find it ridiculous that the inner workings of your operating system would be kept secret (Only a few people in the world truly know how windows works, as it is propietary software), and that even though i spent alot of money to buy it, i only bought a license to use it, not own it, so this restricts my options with Windows a lot. I recognize that Windows is a great OS however. There is nothing wrong with running Windows instead of Linux or Mac, everyone should have their own opinions, and it is true that Linux has some ways to go before it is as beginner friendly as Windows.

I created this website to chronicle everything i have done with Linux, and in this way maybe someone out there can follow my steps as a guideline to where to start. This is NOT meant to be a definitive guide to linux however, there is no such a thing, Linux changes daily and although many distros’s are similar, they are not the same so some things that worked for me may not work for you (due to missing dependancies, processesor architectures, etc..), more than likely you may have to alter some parts. But this goes for every linux guide or blog out there.