Personally, I think KDE 4.x is pretty nice. It comes with host of applications. I think KDE is cool (.. and acknowledge that cool is subjective – personal.)

Since I moved to KDE from Gnome,  I have become dependent on several GTK apps. (GTK is the cross platform widget library used to write the Gnome applications) But by default they don’t look good in KDE.

1. Firefox tabs would merge into each other, and visually I could not differentiate the boundaries.
2. Firefox scrollbars didn’t work correctly either
3. Gnome DO had weird problem, as is the drop-down list which allows me to select the theme went completely bonkers.
4. The Edit box in Autokey is completely Hidden (See the image Above)

Something had to be done. See the images below. Click on the images to see the details.

The Edit Box is missing

Edit box visible after the dialog is resized

The tab boundaries merged

Follow these simple instructions to ensure that GTK apps “play well” with KDE

1. Go to System Settings ->Appearance
2. Click on “GTK Styles and fonts” from the left hand side panel
3. The very first (at the top) option is GTK Styles. The Default is use KDE Style. Select USe Another Style.
4. Select Clearlooks (For blue) or Human Clearlooks from the drop down.
5. You need to restart the GTK Apps.

Now all your KDE/QT apps as well as GTK apps would work well (in terms of display)

See the screen shots after the above fix is applied. Click on the images to see the details.

The Edit box visible clearly - As designed

Tab Boundaries Visible Clearly

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Image via Wikipedia

If you are not sure what is Gnome Do, read my previous post on this topic. Ubuntu 8.10 repositories has older version 0.6.0.1 of Gnome-DO. This was probably released around October 2008 time frame when Ubuntu 8.10 was released. It has been several months since then, and Gnome DO has progressed nicely.

If you want to try the latest version of Gnome DO, which now comes with Docky, then read on How to upgrade to latest version.

Remove the existing version

Although update might work after adding coorect sources, it was adviced (on various ubuntu forums) that removing exisitng version is better. Use following command.

sudo aptitude purge gnome-do gnome-do-plugins gnome-do-plugin-rhythmbox

Add new sources

You need to add what is  called PPA – Personal Package Archive. This is where newer packages, which aren’t yet approved by Ubuntu are available. In simpler terms, this are additional Software Sources.

1. Go to System->Administration->Software Sources
2. Third party software Tab, Add, copy following line one by one. (Create two entries)

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

Install

1. System->Administration->Synaptic package manager
2. Click on Not installed from left hand side, then type gnome do in the search box.
3. Select gnome-do (it will also add gnome-do plugins) Click Apply, and wait for the installation to complete.
4. Once done, go to Applications->accesories->Gnome Do.

Docky still not available ?

So far so good,  But I wanted to install Docky. As per the instructions, I was supposed to select Docky theme. But there was an error that I had not enabled composting.

Since I had four years old machine, I had turned off all the effects, I thought I won’t be able to use Docky, after all. But apparently one can enable composting without having latest and greatest graphics card.

Follow this link to Enable Composting in metacity