Kubuntu low fat settings

UPDATE:
Kubuntu low fat settings package was removed from Kubuntu 13.10. More info here.

If you are using Kubuntu, you might be interested to do:

vic@wic:~$ sudo apt-get install kubuntu-low-fat-settings

I do this in every new Kubuntu installation.

Kubuntu 11.10 introduces Kubuntu-Low-Fat-Settings: a collection of configuration options that reduce memory usage and even speed up KDE's loading time. This will help Kubuntu run better on older, lower-end systems.

Some of the many tweaks include:

• Turning off compositing by default.
• Disabling the automatic loading of various modules, such as bluedevil, the free space notifier, some Nepomuk services, and a other components.
• Reducing the number of default Krunner plugins that are loaded automatically.
• Reducing the amount of graphical effects used in the window decoration.
• Significant reductions in memory usage (up to 32%) and the subsequent savings in KDE's loading time (up to 33%) can be had simply by installing the package kubuntu-low-fat-settings!

XnView - Gwenview alternative for KDE

I've been so bothered that the default image viewer in KDE, gwenview, is not user friendly, but could do nothing - i could not find an alternative to it. To view next image - press 'Space'. To view previous image - press 'Backspace'. Not 'Left'/'Right' or 'Page Down'/'Page Up'. And so on...

I even submitted a bug: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=199264

Yesterday i finally decided to uninstall gwenview and find a decent alternative to it, even written using GTK.

On Windows  i always use xnview, which has nice keyboard shortcuts by default. I even thought to use it in KDE via Wine.

I went to xnview website, and was surprised to find that there is a multiplatform version called XnViewMp, which is written using Qt!

I downloaded the beta version - and even in this beta state it works better for me than gwenview!

There is a PPA with XnView, which you can use to install it and automatically update to new versions:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dhor/myway

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install xnview

Backup Chromium profile in KDE including passwords

I am using KDE and Chromium browser (Kubuntu 11.10).

Recently i wanted to reinstall Kubuntu from scratch. I have /home on separate partition, but i wanted to create a new user - to be sure that only applications I choose will get old settings. I copied from old home folder settings of some apps to the home folder of the new user. For example: Skype, Krusader, Wine and Chromium.

It turned out that if I copy ~/.config/chromium/Default to the new user home folder - bookmarks are restored, but passwords are not copied. Then i remembered that on the first run Kwallet asks whether to allow Chromium to access the wallet. Google confirmed that Chromium on KDE uses Kwallet to store passwords.

So, my passwords came back after I did the following:

1. Stop kwalletd
2. copy ~/.kde/share/apps/kwallet/kdewallet.kwl to the new user home folder
3. Start kwalletd

Now the passwords for my websites are back!