KDE - changing the way you use Qubes

[EncryptedGiraffe]

I’ve been using Qubes for a couple of years, and had slowly tuned XFCE to look nice for me, with dark theming, dpi scaling, etc. Took me many collective hours, now I try KDE, and getting the same kind of config takes less than an hour. And wow, it’s beautiful.
Absolutely love the Activities, and being able to force-move windows from a qube to it.
Installed on R4.1 easily with just kde-settings-qubes, then I also switched to sddm from lightdm.

thanks @unman for GitHub - unman/kde and thanks to anyone who worked on the integration

[KarlinQubes]

I’m loving KDE, but unfortunately I’m having trouble editing my Application Menu. When I right click on it and go to ‘edit applications’, and make alterations like adding new submenu’s and dragging AppVM’s in to them, and then save, it doesn’t change anything.

Nothing changes in the KDE Menu editor, and even after saving when I close and reopn the ‘edit applications’ box all the previous changes are gone. This persisted after reboot also.

When I run kmenuedit from Dom0 terminal, I get this:

[User@dom0 ~]$ kmenuedit
qt.svg: link #facesize is undefined!
qt.svg: link #facesize is undefined!
qt.svg: link #facesize is undefined!
qt.svg: link #facesize is undefined!
qt.svg: /usr/share/icons/breeze/apps/48/rocs.svg:5099: Could not resolve property: #linearGradient4636
qt.svg: /usr/share/icons/breeze/apps/48/rocs.svg:5099: Could not resolve property: #linearGradient4592
qt.svg: /usr/share/icons/breeze/apps/48/rocs.svg:5099: Could not resolve property: #linearGradient4247
qt.svg: QSvgHandler: Image filename is empty
kbuildsycoca4 running…
kbuildsycoca4(12970)/kdecore (services) KServicePrivate::init: The desktop entry file “/home/User/.local/share/applications/Testing.desktop” has Type= “Application” but no Exec line

kbuildsycoca4(12970) KBuildServiceFactory::createEntry: Invalid Service : “/home/User/.local/share/applications/Testing.desktop”
kbuildsycoca4(12970)/kdecore (services) KServicePrivate::init: The desktop entry file “/home/User/.local/share/applications/Test1.desktop” has Type= “Application” but no Exec line

kbuildsycoca4(12970) KBuildServiceFactory::createEntry: Invalid Service : “/home/User/.local/share/applications/Test1.desktop”
kbuildsycoca4(12970)/kdecore (services) KServicePrivate::init: The desktop entry file “/home/User/.local/share/applications/test2.desktop” has Type= “Application” but no Exec line

kbuildsycoca4(12970) KBuildServiceFactory::createEntry: Invalid Service : “/home/User/.local/share/applications/test2.desktop”

"

I’ve tried to run kbuildsyscoca4 --noincremental I get the same errors as above.

Any idea what the issue is here? I’d love to be able to customize the menu!

[unman]

I’m loving KDE, but unfortunately I’m having trouble editing my Application Menu. When I right click on it and go to ‘edit applications’, and make alterations like adding new submenu’s and dragging AppVM’s in to them, and then save, it doesn’t change anything.
Nothing changes in the KDE Menu editor, and even after saving when I close and reopn the ‘edit applications’ box all the previous changes are gone. This persisted after reboot also.

The problem is that Qubes forces you to use the Qubes menu.

Edit the file: /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/55xfce-qubes.sh, so that it
looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/sh

# Use Qubes provided menu instead of default XFCE one
if [ "$XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP" = "KDE" ]; then
  XDG_MENU_PREFIX="kf5-"
else
  XDG_MENU_PREFIX="qubes-"
fi

export XDG_MENU_PREFIX

Now KDE will use the (editable) KDE menu and other DEs will use the
Qubes menu.

[SteveC]

Unfortunately all I get (after half an hour of downloading god-knows-what from the internet) when I issue sudo qubes-dom0-update @kde-desktop-qubes is

Module or Group 'kde-desktop-qubes' is not available.
Error: Nothing to do.

[KarlinQubes]

It wokred! Thank you Unman! I just had to reboot to get it to work.

Last questions I promise

1.With the Qubes Application Menu, the one that i saw you were using, I’m not able to scroll down it to see VM’s that are in lower areas. It’s such a big menu I can’t imagine this will be a big issue as I begin to organize my VM’s in folders, but I just wanted to check and see if there was some kind of wiz solution you had for that?

2. How do you make certain AppVM’s only open in certain workspaces?

Thanks a lot, love your forum contributions, and you’ve converted a Quber to your KDE army. I FAR prefer it to xfce, and did so almost immediately. The customization’s were immensely more intuitive, and I say that assuming xfce has that ability but it’s out of sight / reach for me. perhaps it doesn’t. The look of my setup feels more personalized to me and I do think it works better with compartmentalization.

[KarlinQubes]

Installing and running KDE as Desktop Environment

Don’t do this. (Besides the fact that dnf wont do anything in dom0, so it just wont work.) Because of the refactoring in 4.1, you get KDE with Qubes support by issuing sudo qubes-dom0-update kde-settings-qubes in dom0. Some rough edges, but all the benefits of KDE and decent coloring.

Try what unman said here

[unman]

Unfortunately all I get (after half an hour of downloading god-knows-what from the internet) when I issue sudo qubes-dom0-update @kde-desktop-qubes is

For 4.1 you can just use sudo qubes-dom0-update kde-settings-qubes
Perhaps include sddm as well for a better login screen

[SteveC]

OK, I’m in it now.

Screen shots 8 and 9 show editing the applications menu. I spent quite some time doing this. Apparently it shows me a folder on dom0 for every single qube that ever existed on my system. It took me twenty minutes to delete all that crap, since there’s no way to do multiple selections. It also shows a bunch of no longer existing qubes as qubes at the top of the list.
Also with respect to that menu editor, there doesn’t seem to be any way to drag–with a mouse–something to (or within) the top level without sending it straight to the bottom of the menu. a horizontal line between two elements highlights as if to say “this is where it will go when you release the mouse” but BAM, bottom of the list of hundreds of items (including all those damn folders).

So having plowed my way through all of that and rearranged things in a much more palatable fashion…it doesn’t actually save my changes. I also can’t find the menu that this actually controls.

[NOTE: I scrolled back and saw the bit about editing the file whose name starts with 55. It did not help even after a full shutdown and reboot.]

I’d love to add more desktops. Unfortunately the “desktop icon” you reference is missing, totally absent and doesn’t appear in a list of widgets I can add.

So is the menu at the top left (which you referred to as the top right).
[Edit…tamed the bottom menu icon arrangement]

[KarlinQubes]

Run kmenuedit in terminal and do changes, save, then observe what it gives you after. That’s how I got my error messages.

Also, run kbuildsyscoca4 --noincremental after you’ve made your changes and saved, and see if they are there.

[unman]

OK, I’m in it now.

Screen shots 8 and 9 show editing the applications menu. I spent quite some time doing this. Apparently it shows me a folder on dom0 for every single qube that ever existed on my system. It took me twenty minutes to delete all that crap, since there’s no way to do multiple selections. It also shows a bunch of no longer existing qubes as qubes at the top of the list.

Also with respect to that menu editor, there doesn’t seem to be any way to drag–with a mouse–something to (or within) the top level without sending it straight to the bottom of the menu. a horizontal line between two elements highlights as if to say “this is where it will go when you release the mouse” but BAM, bottom of the list of hundreds of items (including all those damn folders).

At the top level, use the “Move up”/“Move Down” buttons.

So having plowed my way through all of that and rearranged things in a much more palatable fashion…it doesn’t actually save my changes. I also can’t find the menu that this actually controls.

I think you have not read my last post to this thread.

I’d love to add more desktops. Unfortunately the “desktop icon” you reference is missing, totally absent and doesn’t appear in a list of widgets I can add.

I think you have not looked at the available widgets - under “Pager” it says
“Switch between virtual desktops”.

I haven’t figured out how to reorganize the bottom menu bar…I accidentally triggered some mode where it grabbed something at random and I ended up dragging it completely off the menu, but alas I have to say xfce at least shows you a list you can reorder instead of having a sudden case of superglue on the mouse.

Right click on the Bar and select “Edit Panel” - you can then drag and
drop items around to move them.
If you are sloppy with the mouse, there is no reason why you cannot drag
items off the panel to the desktop - you can then drag and drop them
from the desktop to the panel where you want them.

Almost nothing here is Qubes specific, (bar the setting of
XDG_MENU_PREFIX), and you can easily find help with KDE online.

[SteveC]

Haven’t read your last post?

You mean this one?

For 4.1 you can just use sudo qubes-dom0-update kde-settings-qubes
Perhaps include sddm as well for a better login screen

I most certainly DID read it or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I wouldn’t have got in AT ALL if I hadn’t done this. And now I’m in and it’s one of those things where I can see if I could get it working…I’d love it.

[Massive edit, because I had a breakthrough on the menus]

I got the menus to work finally–I went back to the post where you advised to edit 55xfce-qubes.sh. This didn’t work the first time, but I discovered that for some reason XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP is being set to “plasma” not “KDE”. (Could this be a clue as to what’s going on?) So I modified it again to switch menu prefix when it’s either “KDE” or “Plasma” and the menu is MUCH better. The editor now takes saves (and even remembered my prior edits!). It still shows me things in the editor that won’t show on the actual menu (but only stuff I never got around to deleting–the scores of dom0 folders are GONE), and separators don’t show at all in the actual menu.

I did discover the Up/Down arrows before my first gripe post…fortunately. But they are cumbersome when the menu is long.

[Desktop switcher and desktops in general:]

I did look through the widgets, for something named “desktop” or something like that. So now I went back and looked for Pager. It’s already installed. I went into the setup (with the mouse hazards) and realized that it’s there, but it only shows up while you’re setting up the panel. I tried dragging it around, but when I leave setup it disappears. None of the settings for it help, either, other than using it as an activity pager…but then it still won’t let me switch desktops, or create new ones. It’s almost as if it thinks I have NO desktops.

You’re right. None of this is Qubes. It’s all KDE. But this appears to be some sort of custom KDE build of it, so if I go looking over there they’ll just tell me to come back here.

Last and fatal problem, and probably not something to be solved here, but I’ll have to switch back to xfce if I can’t solve it…sound only works with one monitor unplugged (dual monitor system). I doubt this is anything KDE related at all…because in the xfce desktop I generally have to unplug a monitor, plug it back in, and then resetup the desktop to not mirror every time I reboot, to get the sound to work. There’s a glitch at a lower level (or higher level, depending on how you look at it)…and KDE just doesn’t get along with it as well as xfce does. If I end up ditching KDE because of it I recognize it’s probably not KDE’s fault.

I want to clarify, I’m not that other guy who hated on KDE and Gnome. (I responded to him, hating on Gnomes alone.) I use KDE at work, in fact, though I’ve learned to back away from the mouse if I ever accidentally trigger “edit panel.” I AM trying to get this to work, because as I said it looks like I’d love it if I could get the bugs out of it.

[unman]

Haven’t read your last post?

You mean this one?

THIS ONE - my threads clearly differ from yours, but it cant have been
hard to find.

The problem is that Qubes forces you to use the Qubes menu.

Edit the file: /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/55xfce-qubes.sh, so that it
looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/sh

# Use Qubes provided menu instead of default XFCE one
if [ "$XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP" = "KDE" ]; then
  XDG_MENU_PREFIX="kf5-"
else
  XDG_MENU_PREFIX="qubes-"
fi

export XDG_MENU_PREFIX

Now KDE will use the (editable) KDE menu and other DEs will use the
Qubes menu.

I did use the up/down arrow buttons to move things around…but with hundreds of useless items (like all those folders on dom0 for VMs including ones that no longer exist) on the menu that gets cumbersome in a hurry. So does individually deleting all those folders…especially when I know they won’t stay deleted, and won’t stay in any subfolder I put them in.

Drag and drop the items you don’t want to .hidden - or drop them in to
another qube menu and delete that qube.

I did look through the widgets, for something named “desktop” or something like that. So now I went back and looked for Pager. It’s already installed. I went into the setup (with the mouse hazards) and realized that it’s there, but it only shows up while you’re setting up the panel. I tried dragging it around, but when I leave setup it disappears. None of the settings for it help, either, other than using it as an activity pager…but then it still won’t let me switch desktops, or create new ones. It’s almost as if it thinks I have NO desktops.

It thinks you have ONE desktop, so the pager doesn’t appear.
What would be the point of a button that loads the ONE desktop you have?

Again, a basic search would tell you how to set up new virtual desktops.
You can RIGHT click on the pager item in panel edit mode, and select
“Add virtual desktop”, or use “System Settings ->Workspace Behaviour →
Virtual Desktops”

You’re right. None of this is Qubes. It’s all KDE. But this appears to be some sort of custom KDE build of it, so if I go looking over there they’ll just tell me to come back here.

It isn’t. It is standard KDE.

Last and fatal problem…sound only works with one monitor unplugged (dual monitor system). I doubt this is anything KDE related at all…because in the xfce desktop I generally have to unplug a monitor, plug it back in, and then resetup the desktop to not mirror every time I reboot, to get the sound to work. There’s a glitch at a lower level (or higher level, depending on how you look at it)…and KDE just doesn’t get along with it as well as xfce does.

This sounds like a peculiarity of your system.
I have never experienced it.
Without far more detail of your system ,(not here), I have no input.

[SteveC]

Now who’s not reading posts?

I stated how I had done exactly that edit, and it hadn’t worked. That was in the post you responded to, accusing me of not having read your “last post”. (The one that starts with “OK, I’m in it now.”) Here it is, since you clearly didn’t read IT.

[NOTE: I scrolled back and saw the bit about editing the file whose name starts with 55. It did not help even after a full shutdown and reboot.]

In response to that post you accused me of not having read the post about editing that file, but you simply refered to it as your “last post” (it wasn’t; the one I quoted before, was last). But it doesn’t matter; it should be clear that I had read BOTH of them by the time you accused me of not having read “[your] last post.”

In the post you just replied to, I went even further; I described how I had figured out WHY editing that file hadn’t worked, originally, and what I had done to fix it (checking for both KDE and plasma). You clearly ignored that part, because you answered everything BUT that before you again accused me of having ignored that post.

Now I did EDIT both posts, but the edits occurred well before your responses. I suspect (since you seem unaware that I had managed to solve the menu problem) that you somehow never saw my edits–again, made before you responded.

I would like to suggest going back and editing your post about editing the file to reflect the modification I made.

OK, now to the remaining things…OK, I admit it hadn’t even occurred to me to try to use the desktop manager while in setup mode–everything looks like little tokens you drag around, with the intent of getting out of setup mode, it didn’t seem like you could use them in setup mode. I was going to (at some point in the future) try to research to see if there was some other way of setting up desktops. (My thinking was: Logically it should show up in a setting panel somewhere, in fact I am pretty sure years ago it used to–a switch to set number of desktops–I just couldn’t find it.) I was actually using activities like desktops for the interim. I have switched back and made the mod; all my old activities are now desktops.

[Observations (no response expected, you might be interested though) 1: Desktops within the same activity apparently can’t have different wallpaper colors from each other; so I might switch back to one-desktop activities used as if they were desktops. 2: Once I got rid of all but one activity, the activity manager went invisible, consistent with the logic you outlined re: desktops. I was expecting that. 3: I was hoping desktops wouldn’t cause all windows to get dumped onto one desktop when switching between KDe and xfce…that would have been super nice but not expected. Unfortunately, they all do get dumped together and must be re-positioned when I switch KDE<->xfce. So there’s no reason not to switch back to one-desktop activities.]

I probably won’t do too much more with it however, because of the audio issue, which I didn’t expect you to have anything to say about. I merely mentioned it to try to make it clear that although I would like to use KDE, I simply can’t–I will pursue solutions elsewhere but not with much optimism.

Which is a damned shame, because believe it or not I agree with your evaluation of it re: Qubes. It lets you solve everything addressed by the “new” menu that’s not been officially released [it’s not as automatic but it gives you FULL control], and it lets you go quite a bit further.

I want to conclude by thanking you for your help. (I’ll try not to edit this post.)

[unman]

Now who’s not reading posts?

Your repeated references to “accusing” seems over the top, and your
comment here is misplaced.
It’s a “feature” of discourse in mailing mode that if you EDIT a post,
no updated mail gets sent.
Users who interact with the forum in mailing mode never see edits.
I cant read what I dont have.

In the post you just replied to, I went even further; I described how I had figured out WHY editing that file hadn’t worked, originally, and what I had done to fix it (checking for both KDE and plasma). You clearly ignored that part, because you answered everything BUT that before you again accused me of having ignored that post.

I’m interested by this - in none of the users I support has
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP been “plasma” - that isnt even a supported XDG keyword
afaik.
I cant explain why you saw this, but as you did, your solution is good.

[Observations (no response expected, you might be interested though) 1: Desktops within the same activity apparently can’t have different wallpaper colors from each other; so I might switch back to one-desktop activities used as if they were desktops. 2: Once I got rid of all but one activity, the activity manager went invisible, consistent with the logic you outlined re: desktops. I was expecting that. 3: I was hoping desktops wouldn’t cause all windows to get dumped onto one desktop when switching between KDe and xfce…that would have been super nice but not expected. Unfortunately, they all do get dumped together and must be re-positioned when I switch KDE<->xfce. So there’s no reason not to switch back to one-desktop activities.]

1. This was removed from KDE 5 on the grounds that Activities
   provided the same feature.
2. It would be too much to hope that switching from one DE to
   another would carry over all customisations. I dont think that any one
   does this.

I probably won’t do too much more with it however, because of the audio issue, which I didn’t expect you to have anything to say about. I merely mentioned it to try to make it clear that although I would like to use KDE, I simply can’t–I will pursue solutions elsewhere but not with much optimism.

I meant that you should open a separate thread for that specific issue.

[SteveC]

My apologies!

Fair enough, I’ll take the hardware issue elsewhere (I thought of something simple to try tonight). The only reason I hadn’t done so before was because in xfce it was merely an annoyance, not a total lack of function.

As for KDE itself, you’ve responded to everything of importance. Thanks!!!

The last lingering puzzle is why it’s called “plasma” on my system, but now that I’ve compensated for that I can ignore it for now. (It’s less important than the audio.)

[KarlinQubes]

Jeez buddy he’s here helping you and you are being passive aggressive & snarky. Pretty inappropriate.

[SteveC]

Did you read my very LAST posting? right above yours? I apologized and thanked unman profusely (he solved everything but the hardware issue, and I know I need to take that elsewhere).

If there’s something “snarky and passive aggressive” in that, it was absolutely not my intention. (Could your perception be colored by my previous messages, which I am now trying to make up for?) I feel pretty badly about the posts prior to that (which resulted from miscommunication, because I didn’t realize he couldn’t see my edits).

[SteveC]

And the audio issue turned out to be ridiculously trivial. I have a dual monitor system and no audio jack, so I was running an HDMI audio splitter. But I was doing it on the feed for the right hand monitor. Apparently only ONE monitor gets audio in HDMI when there are two or more monitors. In xfce I could get audio working again by unplugging the left hand monitor, which caused the system to send the audio to the right hand monitor (and hence to my splitter). It would retain that feed even after I reconnected the left hand monitor. In KDE, unplugging the left hand monitor sent the audio to the right hand monitor, all right…but it switched back to the left hand monitor when I plugged it back in. (That is an actual difference between the two.) Simply powering down and reconnecting things to put the splitter on the left hand monitor (whilst being careful to run each monitor off the same port it had originally) means my sound start out on the correct HDMI so now it works properly in both cases.

In fact I am now on KDE! (Or, as it seems to want to be called here, “plasma.” )

Thanks again for all help, and again I apologize for my bad reactions to misunderstandings.

[edit: typo fix, nothing substantive]

[unman]

In fact I am now on KDE! (Or, as it seems to want to be called here, “plasma.” )

Thanks again for all help, and again I apologize for my bad reactions to misunderstandings.

Steve
very pleased that you resolved the audio issue, and equally pleased that
you are back on KDE.

Your “bad reactions” were very minor, and understandable in the
circumstances. No more need be said.

[SteveC]

OK, either I’ve really dorked things up…or I’ve uncovered a genuine issue.

If you have a disposable template defined, e.g., one to pop open a browser for a truly private session, over in xfce-land, it shows up in two places in the menu, provided you have the appmenus-dispvm feature set to 1. At the top of the (xfce) menu, is one that you click on to create a new disposable. Scrolling all the way down to the bottom of that menu, there’s another entry that opens the DVM Template itself. OK, so far so good.

Over in KDE land, they are both visible in the menu editor but apparently only the one to open the DVM template will actually show in the menu itself when you pop it up. (There are a raft of things that list in the editor, that don’t show when you pop the menu up. In most cases this is a good thing.)

The entry that launches the disposable (or would if it were actually visible) is labeled “Disposable:” while the one that starts the disposable template is labeled “Template (disp):”

Now I admit I did go hog wild with deleting and I wiped out all but one “Disposable:” entry (and I can’t figure out what to edit (by hand) to fix that, but that’s another story), but the one “Disposable:” entry I didn’t delete doesn’t show at runtime with the menu.

There are, I guess, three of us KDE people here now (at minimum), so unman and KarlinQubes, can you see any entries in your menus that start with “Disposable:”? Or only “Template (disp):”? And what happens when you start one of those from the menu? Do you get the template machine or an actual disp1234 disposable vm?