KDE's Discover, Okular, Gwenview & K3B See Improvements

[skeevy420]

Hmm, I'm not sure AUR makes any sense for a non-sysadmin-or-IT person to use. AUR packages are anything but stable, and people already have a tendency to blame Discover for problems caused by our software sources.

If packages your parents care about are only available via AUR, that may be a sign that they should be using a distro with a wider selection of software available in the normal repo (or that they need your help and probably always will).

It honestly depends on the AUR packages and the user. In my case I install wine-gaming-nine, linux-amd-staging-drm-next-git, & amdvlk-git from the AUR for GPU drivers and software packages with features for my GPU. For most of those packages, the features I use them for will eventually be in repository packages, but until then, I have to use the AUR to get full usage of my hardware. For staying up-to-date with my graphics hardware, the AUR is my only option.

If I were to install a modern AMD based Linux system for anyone, I'd have to use the AUR (or various PPAs or whatever) since not all the drivers and support have made it into the mainline Linux kernel yet; "because it's the only source for various hardware drivers" is a valid reason to ask for AUR support. The AUR is also the only source for WiFi and other drivers on my PC -- not all distros have a non-free repository and the AUR covers some of the stuff that Ubuntu or Debian would put in a non-free repository. Granted, that falls under the "sysadmin/IT person use", but wouldn't they blame y'all if it doesn't update critical AUR packages during a Discover update that ends up breaking the system just as much as they'd blame y'all for breaking the system even though it's user error from installing a bad AUR package?

For non-sysadmin reasons....Godot is in the Arch repos. Godot with Mono support is only in the AUR. Firefox is in the Arch repos; Firefox with KDE integration patches from SuSE is in the AUR. With other distributions, we'd just add in a repository to use alternate versions of software like those and Discover would just work and use those packages, on Arch/Antergos we have the AUR or some AUR based repos that may or may not contain the packages we use so we may or may not have that option.

AUR aside, Discover needs better cross category support. For example, if you click on 'Application Addons > Konsole' and search for "solarized" you get nothing, but a search of "solarized" from the main screen gives Konsole color schemes from 'Plasma Addons > Color Schemes'. The only items under 'Application Addons > Konsole' are, you guessed it, color schemes.

There is also nothing at all under Settings except for a "Check for updates" and a "Help" button. Not sure if that's a bug or if there really is just nothing there yet.

The search bar was being kind of annoying on how it works...until I realized I had to go back to the top menu to do a new search for something, it was pissing me off because it isn't readily apparent that the search bar changes what it'll search and where it'll search as you enter or exit sub-menus of the program.

OK, after changing themes before posting this I realized that the search bar is a bit more apparent on what it does...but if using a dark theme that suffers from the same colored text as the input box bug**, white on white in my case, it isn't readily apparent that the bar changes functions as you change menus; there's a lot of unused space above that search bar...hint, hint :P.

**just the "Search..." text or "Search in 'Application Addons'..." text is what I was unable to see in Discovery's search bar, not the text I typed like "firefox" or "solarized"

I also have the same search results for "firefox" as bug77 does on my up-to-date Antergos desktop using Discover version 5.12.5.

[lucrus]

And K3b... Great app at its time, but who burns CDs and DVDs these days?

I do, and I always use K3B. In cases when making a USB pendrive boot is a nightmare (and it still happens nowadays), a freshly downloaded SystemRescueCD ISO booted from a good old USB DVD drive saves me. And when my father listens to music, he chooses from his CD library.

[Guest]

Discover literally killed my KDE Neon last week when it removed almost all of the KDE apps and core KDE modules when I only wanted to remove VLC.

I'd still use it next time I install Neon though because I like the idea of a simple software center.

And it's definitely gotten much better compared to a year ago. Even snaps were working last I tried it.

[bug77]

It's not a missing feature, it's a bug. Works fine for me with Kubuntu 18.04 BTW: https://i.imgur.com/4pKa7zE.png

Kubuntu 18.04 is really fantastic and I highly recommend upgrading.

Oh, I did update, but I had that screenshot handy from a previous discussion about Discover. Will recheck, but I doubt it works right because on my up-to-date Arch it doesn't.

Also, who thought it was a good idea to add the "plasma addons" section? That only duplicates functionality already available elsewhere.

Edit: Just checked again on Kubuntu 18.04 and it's still as atrocious as that screenshot shows. Now I'm curious: what exactly did you think was the cause of this that got fixed between now and then?

[makam]

And K3b... Great app at its time, but who burns CDs and DVDs these days?

I do. I even sometimes burn Blu rays for archiving when my portable HDD gets full. I still have some backups from back when I was in high school, and look at me now, finishing my masters degree, having a job...

[makam]

(For anyone thinking, why would I give an Arch-based system to my parents? Finding and adding PPAs is certainly not easier than using the AUR).

To be honest The Debian and Ubuntu repositories are not much smaller than the AUR and you don't risk the chance of compilation errors, not to mention compilation time.

Here is an outdated(depending on distro) list but still good for having a general idea about repository sizes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...d_installation

[ngraham]

Discover literally killed my KDE Neon last week when it removed almost all of the KDE apps and core KDE modules when I only wanted to remove VLC.

This is not Discover's fault, but rather a known KDE Neon packaging bug: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=379721. Discover even warns you by displaying a list of any packages that need to be removed as part of the operation, which should have sent up some red flags. It's possible that you clicked through it without reading. If not, and if you're using a reasonably up-to-date version of Discover, then there's a bug, and I would encourage you to file one at bugs.kde.org.

[Vistaus]

Hi, Nate here. Have you used the 5.12 version of Discover? IMHO it's a lot better than older ones. We've been putting a lot of effort into making DIscover good, so if you have any suggestions for improvement, we're all ears.

My problem with Discover is Kirigami. I like side menus when implemented properly (like on BB10, for example), but I don't like nested side menus like Kirigami apps use.

[Vistaus]

I also have the same search results for "firefox" as bug77 does on my up-to-date Antergos desktop using Discover version 5.12.5.

Which is why you need to switch to Kubuntu 18.04, as Nate pointed out, because it's supposed to be fantastic and bug-free (just kidding)

[Vistaus]

To be honest The Debian and Ubuntu repositories are not much smaller than the AUR and you don't risk the chance of compilation errors, not to mention compilation time.

Here is an outdated(depending on distro) list but still good for having a general idea about repository sizes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...d_installation

It's not even fair to compare Debian and Ubuntu repos to AUR. Arch also has Unofficial User Repositories, those are much more comparable to Debian and Ubuntu repos.