Update frustrations...

[Bald Brick]

Strange - I update every few days (or whenever updates are available) and none of my settings are changed in that way.

Same here. I never had an update reset my personal options.

Are you logging in as root?

Dulwithe's example is a good one albeit trivial: the monochrome systray icons.

If you edited them (or removed them to get the old colourful ones back) the last updates would have restored them, and you'd have to edit or remove them again.

None of your configuration files would have been changed, but your edited files would have been overwritten and your removed files restored. I don't find this particularly irritating as it's so easy to fix, but Dulwithe does have a point: bad, bad KDE people!  

[Rudge]

Strange - I update every few days (or whenever updates are available) and none of my settings are changed in that way.

Same here. I never had an update reset my personal options.

Are you logging in as root?

Dulwithe's example is a good one albeit trivial: the monochrome systray icons.

If you edited them (or removed them to get the old colourful ones back) the last updates would have restored them, and you'd have to edit or remove them again.

None of your configuration files would have been changed, but your edited files would have been overwritten and your removed files restored. I don't find this particularly irritating as it's so easy to fix, but Dulwithe does have a point: bad, bad KDE people!  

Now I am trying to mess up my perfect desktop, just so I can re-create a problem. (( back in the day, it was the other way around ))  LOL

[Texstar]

Strange - I update every few days (or whenever updates are available) and none of my settings are changed in that way.

Same here. I never had an update reset my personal options.

Are you logging in as root?

Dulwithe's example is a good one albeit trivial: the monochrome systray icons.

If you edited them (or removed them to get the old colourful ones back) the last updates would have restored them, and you'd have to edit or remove them again.

None of your configuration files would have been changed, but your edited files would have been overwritten and your removed files restored. I don't find this particularly irritating as it's so easy to fix, but Dulwithe does have a point: bad, bad KDE people!  

Any changes manually made to /usr/share/icons folder will get overwritten by an update to an existing package because you are manually editing system wide icons and a new package simply replaces what is there. It doesn't know that you have edited system wide icons.  

[Bald Brick]

Any changes manually made to /usr/share/icons folder will get overwritten by an update to an existing package because you are manually editing system wide icons and a new package simply replaces what is there. It doesn't know that you have edited system wide icons.  

Anybody could understand that. But the icons Dulwithe was complaining about aren't in /usr/share/icons. They are in /usr/share/apps/desktoptheme/default/icons. And they aren't part of any icon set, system wide or local.

Naturally a new package will replace what is in that directory too. And precisely that means that some of Dulwithe's personal settings won't survive some updates.

Now, as I wrote, fixing this is trivial. Nevertheless some KDE developer has made it more difficult by placing the icons in such an outlandish place -- far from the madding crowd of any other icons.

[Texstar]

Any changes manually made to /usr/share/icons folder will get overwritten by an update to an existing package because you are manually editing system wide icons and a new package simply replaces what is there. It doesn't know that you have edited system wide icons.  

Anybody could understand that. But the icons Dulwithe was complaining about aren't in /usr/share/icons. They are in /usr/share/apps/desktoptheme/default/icons. And they aren't part of any icon set, system wide or local.

Naturally a new package will replace what is in that directory too. And precisely that means that some of Dulwithe's personal settings won't survive some updates.

Now, as I wrote, fixing this is trivial. Nevertheless some KDE developer has made it more difficult by placing the icons in such an outlandish place -- far from the madding crowd of any other icons.

Personal icons are stored in ones /home folder.  ie /home/texstar/.kde4/share/icons

[Rudge]

Any changes manually made to /usr/share/icons folder will get overwritten by an update to an existing package because you are manually editing system wide icons and a new package simply replaces what is there. It doesn't know that you have edited system wide icons.  

Anybody could understand that. But the icons Dulwithe was complaining about aren't in /usr/share/icons. They are in /usr/share/apps/desktoptheme/default/icons. And they aren't part of any icon set, system wide or local.

Naturally a new package will replace what is in that directory too. And precisely that means that some of Dulwithe's personal settings won't survive some updates.

Now, as I wrote, fixing this is trivial. Nevertheless some KDE developer has made it more difficult by placing the icons in such an outlandish place -- far from the madding crowd of any other icons.

Personal icons are stored in ones /home folder.  ie /home/texstar/.kde4/share/icons

Indeed, Icons that are a part of the DE, (while they CAN be modified) can not be expected to survive an upgrade of said DE.

[Bald Brick]

Any changes manually made to /usr/share/icons folder will get overwritten by an update to an existing package because you are manually editing system wide icons and a new package simply replaces what is there. It doesn't know that you have edited system wide icons.  

Anybody could understand that. But the icons Dulwithe was complaining about aren't in /usr/share/icons. They are in /usr/share/apps/desktoptheme/default/icons. And they aren't part of any icon set, system wide or local.

Naturally a new package will replace what is in that directory too. And precisely that means that some of Dulwithe's personal settings won't survive some updates.

Now, as I wrote, fixing this is trivial. Nevertheless some KDE developer has made it more difficult by placing the icons in such an outlandish place -- far from the madding crowd of any other icons.

Personal icons are stored in ones /home folder.  ie /home/texstar/.kde4/share/icons

Indeed, Icons that are a part of the DE, (while they CAN be modified) can not be expected to survive an upgrade of said DE.

Actually they can, but in this case storing them in something like /home/texstar/.kde4/share/icons won't help if you really want to override the global settings. To do that and to survive an update they should be in /home/texstar/.kde4/share/apps/desktoptheme/default/icons. (If your user name is also "texstar".)

[menotu]

bad, bad KDE people!  

Go get your potions and cast a spell on them Bald Brick    

[Dulwithe]

Dulwithe,

I certainly couldn't see any evidence of anger or hatred in your first post. You appeared to be a bit irritated because some updates had replaced your settings with the default ones. And obviously that is something an update should not do. On the other hand the changes seemed rather trivial and easy to fix. That's why KDE is still my main DE.

But have you tried the other desktops? (When E17 is just a bit more stable I'll probably switch to Enlightenment.)

Hi Bald Brick,

Thanks for the post.  Re: trivial, yes, agreed  - trivial in the sense that the issues I have had haven't broken my system.  However, things like the tray icon issue are non-trivial in the sense that I spent nearly 30 min in the first place trying to figure it out (google it, yahoo for more multi-color icons, install, test, didn't work, install again, test, repeat until fixed to my liking) and to repeat the process may take another 10-20 min of my time.  Again, this isn't so much a PCLOS issue as it is a kde4 issue.

As much as I like (in fact LOVE) the kde4 desktop experience, I wish that the dev team would put a priority of focus on getting the basic functionality working 100% rather than new stuff and bells and whistles.  For example, kmail will NOT print a mail that is written but not sent.  (Often times at work we like to print emails before sending to get input from other staff members.)  Tiff file attachments will not open automatically with kmail (have to type in "okular" EVERY time, even though correct mime types are specified and the same file when saved on HDD will open with one-click.)  And the mail list will not remember settings "time, sender, subject" and ALWAYS resets the order to 'subject, sender, time" upon start-up.

I have indeed tried enlightenment, and gnome, and xfce, and some of the other more minor DE's available, but I always come back to kde.  It has the best blend of functionality and customizability for me.  And I just cannot come to terms with the gtk file dialogue interface.

Anyhow, I tried to contact the kmail team in the past (and so has my uncle, for that matter) and I have never been given a reply.  This is unlike a lot of times I have contacted devs from certain projects and have been given thanks for the feedback and the courtesy of a response.  My efforts in contacting different project members has always been pro-active and positive, focusing on feedback to enable them to improve the product.  If I was a software coder, I'd certainly do more, but alas, I am only a power-user, former musician, and guitar repairman/builder.

TTFN

[Dulwithe]

And we can add to the list the fact that my user font sizes have all been reset to 11 (used to be all 9) after the most recent update.  If I remember correctly, the font style has also been reset as well (but I can't 100% confirm this because I don't 100% remember my most recent font choice/setting).

At any rate, what's up with this kde4 thing where there are so many issues like this??