Hi all!
I am an Arch user on an old but fine 64-bit machine from about 2008. And that's one reason I might prefer TDE over mainstream Plasma/KDE, because it's probably much lighter on resources and has less overhead and dependencies.
And since I am also a fan of the tiling WM XMonad, I want to make work both of them together; let's see if it's going to be XMonad inside TDE, or XMonad along with Trinity's KDE 3.5 apps. And I'm pretty sure they'll make a good team!
Currently, I have disabled Plasma and simply run XMonad in EMWH desktop compliant mode (i.e. no KDE/Plasma) invoking single KDE apps, designed by GTK or GTK/Qt styles, and using alternative status bars. The virtual desktops are managed by "pcmanfm --desktop"; compositor is xcompmgr (or betimes compton, the legacy version of picom).
That's my status quo. Soon, I am about to get rid of all of "modern" KDE, Plasma, and Qt5/6 stuff – prior to installing TDE's binaries!
These are my prime resources of knowledge:
[ https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Trinity#Binary_packages ] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Trinity#Binary_packages [ https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unofficial_user_repositories#trinity ] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unofficial_user_repositories#trinity [ http://trinitydesktop.org/ ] http://trinitydesktop.org/ [ https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Release_Notes_For_R14.0.11 ] https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Release_Notes_For_R14.0.11
Yet there are still a couple of issues and questions:
(1) Failure of the Trinity repo integration ---------------------------------------------
I followed the Arch wiki's instructions for adding key and repo.
$ sudo -i # pacman-key --recv-keys 0x8685AD8B gpg: key C93AF1698685AD8B: public key "Trinity Desktop Environment Archive Signing Key" imported gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 786C63F330D7CB92: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 1EB2638FF56C0C53: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: key 1EB2638FF56C0C53: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10 gpg: marginals needed: 3 completes needed: 1 trust model: pgp gpg: depth: 0 valid: 1 signed: 7 trusted: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 1u gpg: depth: 1 valid: 7 signed: 83 trusted: 1-, 0q, 0n, 6m, 0f, 0u gpg: depth: 2 valid: 79 signed: 26 trusted: 79-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 0u gpg: next "Trust-DB" validation on 2022-01-20 gpg: total number of keys processeed: 1 gpg: imported: 1
# joe /etc/pacman.conf ... [trinity] Server = https://mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity/archlinux ...
Updating the system then fails:
# pacman -Syu error: trinity: signature from "Trinity Desktop Environment Archive Signing Key" is unknown trust error: failed to synchronize all databases (invalid or corrupted database (PGP signature))
Well, I mean there are "trusted: 79-" = 79 dis-trusted keys and no user IDs..? So I wonder if there are any changes, or if the provided gpg key (and Arch's wiki) is outdated, and would like to ask for the latest valid one.
(2) KDE 3.5 virtual desktop management ---------------------------------------
I am also a fan of different wallpapers for the virtual desktops, "pcmanfm --desktop" can do that! – So, is KDE 3.5 able to create individual workspaces?
If yes, I am probably going to run XMonad inside KDE with the "kdeConfig" module; c.f.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xmonad#KDE_and_xmonad https://wiki.haskell.org/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_KDE
If no, I will first also trying to do the latter AND to load "pcmanfm --desktop" with a certain delay. – Or, I dispense with the KDE desktop and just run KDE apps.
An example: As in [ http://trinitydesktop.org/faq/desktop.php#idm140487998295328 ] http://trinitydesktop.org/faq/desktop.php#idm140487998295328, does something like
kstart --desktop 1 --activate --window "feh-bg1" 'feh --bg-scale /path/to/image1.file' kstart --desktop 2 --activate --window "feh-bg2" 'feh --bg-scale /path/to/image2.file'
work (to have different walls on desktop #1 and #2)?
(3) Conflicts with official Arch KDE/Plasma stuff? ---------------------------------------------------
I wonder if there aren't any problems having both modern KDE/Plasma/Qt and Trinity's KDE 3.5/Qt packages in parallel? I don't intend to and would like to stay with pure Trinity stuff – but couldn't this happen by accident though: interfering dependency conflicts, or double versions of KDE apps?
Thanks in advance!
Mike
On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 18:53:02 +0100 Mike info@mito-space.com wrote:
Hi all!
I am an Arch user on an old but fine 64-bit machine from about 2008. And that's one reason I might prefer TDE over mainstream Plasma/KDE, because it's probably much lighter on resources and has less overhead and dependencies.
[...]
(2) KDE 3.5 virtual desktop management
I am also a fan of different wallpapers for the virtual desktops, "pcmanfm --desktop" can do that! – So, is KDE 3.5 able to create individual workspaces?
TDE's kdesktop is capable of handling multiple desktops with different wallpapers—my big machine has 12, and my laptop (an Athlon64x2 from 2008) has six.
(3) Conflicts with official Arch KDE/Plasma stuff?
I wonder if there aren't any problems having both modern KDE/Plasma/Qt and Trinity's KDE 3.5/Qt packages in parallel? I don't intend to and would like to stay with pure Trinity stuff – but couldn't this happen by accident though: interfering dependency conflicts, or double versions of KDE apps?
In theory, you should be able to install TDE and KDE5 side-by-side—TDE usually installs in its own subdirectory under /opt or /usr (depending on how the packages for your distro are set up) to avoid stomping on KDE files, and part of the reason the TDE project exists is to keep everything functioning with new libraries (so if there's a dependency conflict, it may be a packaging bug —please report it so it can be fixed). There are two things that may trip you up:
1. Depending on how your PATH is set up, you might get a KDE5 application starting when you're expecting a TDE application with the same name. The solution is to either call the program with a fully qualified path ("/opt/trinity/bin/kedit" instead of just "kedit", for example), or alter your PATH to put the TDE directories first. I'm not sure how many of these are left, if any.
2. Fancy GUI management things for display managers, etc. I don't know whether Arch has anything like this, but judging from the number of complaints that make it to the list, the ones for Debianoid distros often decide not to play nice with TDE.
Hope that helps.
E. Liddell
UPDATE on this one:
(1) Failure of the Trinity repo integration
[ ... ]
# joe /etc/pacman.conf ... [trinity] Server = https://mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity/archlinux ...
Updating the system then fails:
# pacman -Syu error: trinity: signature from "Trinity Desktop Environment Archive Signing Key" is unknown trust error: failed to synchronize all databases (invalid or corrupted database (PGP signature))
RTFM!! o_O – My fault: I simply didn't finish the process of properly importing the key (cf. [ https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Package_signing#Adding_unofficial_ke... ])
Not having installed something yet, at least now TDE's repository has also been successfully imported.
Sorry for inconvenience!
-
E. Liddell -
Mike