Hello everyone! We're still working on the 4.4 ISOs and one of the things we want to do is take a look at some of the defaults of our Plasma edition. So for the Plasma users amongst us can you please share the settings that you like to change as soon as you create a new install and why you think we should adopt that particular setting change as the "default".

As an example I always change the behavior for clicking files and folders from "Opens them" to "Selects them" (so in other terms double-clicking is required to open a file/folder which is more like other DEs/Distros). I find this behavior far more intuitive since that's how I learned to use computers. I believe this defaults change has already been adopted upstream, so this might be the new default setting on 4.4.

Note that as always Plasma is focused on user choice unlike another unnamed DE so you'll always be able to change a setting back if you don't like a Solus default.

    as far as im concerned you dont need to change anything, its all fine. but personally i always change to double click like you, turn off those intrusive big tooltips that just get in the way, and change the cursor bouncy feedback thing and disable baloo, and the thing that annoys me most of all, adaptive pointer acceleration. + about 6000 other things. but the defaults are fine with me as long as i can change them myself

      Agree with the double click. I believe everyone changes that to double click. As for other settings, they are fine.
      Either way I think whoever uses KDE makes their own changes to fit their workflow. I don't know if this has to do with KDE, but please enable numlock by default.

      ReillyBrogan can you please share the settings that you like to change as soon as you create a new install

      I think it's fine the way it is. There are settings that I usually change, but mostly because I don't want to be bothered with my screen dimming, locking, and so on, if I take a brief break from the computer. But I seldom use my laptops or VMs on battery power, and of course, never my desktops. So I'm not concerned about conserving power, and I'm the only one who has access to them, but I realize that's probably not a good default for most folks.

      If there's anything I could defend as a default, it might be the night light feature. That helps to protect our eyesight, which is something I care about, and it can make it easier to fall sleep after a late night session. Its color setting and dusk-to-dawn setting are okay as-is, so the only change might be to turn it on by default.

      The rest of the settings I usually change are really specific to my own workflow, and I wouldn't presume to suggest them as defaults for others. For example, I always create eight (on VMs) or ten (on hardware) virtual desktops. I can't work with apps stacked on top of one another, but I know there are those who do. Solus Plasma is very usable right out of the box, and it's so highly configurable that nearly anyone can make it their own in a very short time.

          So I think I'm going to change to Double Click and also to numpad enabled (I also change that setting immediately).

          Lucien_Lachance turn off those intrusive big tooltips that just get in the way

          Not sure what you mean?

          WetGeek If there's anything I could defend as a default, it might be the night light feature

          The problem with this is that you really need to setup a location for this to work effectively and not everyone wants to do that.

                ReillyBrogan The problem with this is that you really need to setup a location for this to work effectively and not everyone wants to do that.

                I'm not sure that's a problem. I've never manually "set up a location" (other than a time zone) and I've enabled the night light feature on every device I've set up. The computers already seem to know their location, in my experience.

                  Numpad enabled for sure. Double click is being changed for Plasma 6 anyway, so why not go with it, it can always be changed by the user. Something I typically do change the widget settings. I always want to see my notifications icon and want the clipboard always hidden.

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                  • Post #8
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                  Here's what I do:

                  • Move "Show desktop" applet to the right side of the clock. I'm used to that from other operating systems and that makes me the most sense there. When it's right on the corner I also don't have to think much where to click when I want to show my desktop. I also set it to "minimize all windows", because I'm not a big fan of that other mode which doesn't fully hide the windows.
                  • Disable that one hot corner. There's no indication or guidance that it exists so it feels out of place to me and I've only used it accidentally.
                  • Change the behavior of double clicking files and folders, like specified in the OP.

                  I'd rather show you what I usually do on any Linux with Plasma.
                  The video is not public, available only by link.

                  In addition to the video, I would also like:

                  1. Make it possible to set a password, less than six characters. (or tell me how to reduce to four characters)
                  2. Add gparted to the installation image
                  3. Take a closer look at the Haruna media player for Plasma, instead of other media players.
                  4. At the first launch of Kdenlive, it asks for some additional packages. I don't remember exactly which ones, but take a closer look at this problem.
                  5. We want new customized wallpapers for Solus Plasma. You can even open a contest for the best photo or drawing.

                  With much love, your loyal user. 😊

                  Thank you for your suggestions.

                  Make it possible to set a password, less than six characters. (or tell me how to reduce to four characters)

                  I think the default requirement is good, people should be encouraged to use something slightly more difficult by default.

                  But if people know the risk and do not care, they have always been able to change their password to anything they want including having no password at all via the command line sudo passwd username

                  Add gparted to the installation image

                  That is the gnome projects partition editor and uses gtk. Plasma has its own KDE Partition Manager using qt included in the install. I think it remains a reasonable default.

                  Take a closer look at the Haruna media player for Plasma, instead of other media players.

                  ✅ Joey added haruna as the default awhile back for Solus 4.4 replacing smplayer

                  At the first launch of Kdenlive, it asks for some additional packages. I don't remember exactly which ones, but take a closer look at this problem.

                  ✅ I pushed a fix for that, mlt just had to be re-compiled with glaxnimate support. It was also pointing out that mediainfo was not installed but that is an optional dependency and always has been, I am unsure if that should be made a hard dependency.

                    Enable Dim Screen For Administrator Mode. The effect is that it focuses the window asking for root, while dimming everything in the background. That's found in Settings > Workspace Behavior > Desktop Effects.

                    Harvey Plasma has its own KDE Partition Manager using qt included in the install. I think it remains a reasonable default

                    For someone who's reading this thread and wondering what the difference is, here's a bit more information. The only difference I've noticed is when it comes to adding flags to a partition. GParted offers a complete list of flags when you click the Manage Flags option in the context menu of a partition.

                    KDE Partition Manager, on the other hand, just allows setting a boot flag as part of the Properties option in the context menu. That allows choosing between a legacy or UEFI system, but for someone accustomed to GParted it can leave them looking for a way to set the ESP flag.

                    And neither partition manager has a way to set the swap flag on a swap partition. Earlier versions of GParted did, but that's been deprecated.

                    Solus actually doesn't need any other flags to be set, because the installer offers to use your prepared partitions instead of creating its own new ones. Doing that requires you to assign your swap partition to the SWAP mount point, and the system partition to the / mount point during an installation. It doesn't need you to assign the boot partition, but uses it based on its flag and its FAT32 file system. The next page in the installer will verify that if it was created correctly, and if not it issues an error that you'll need go back and fix.

                    So, either partition manager will work fine, as you said. The only difference would be which one the user is more familiar with. I also believe that the KDE Partition Manager makes a perfect default for a Plasma system. Nobody actually needs two partition managers, and to me it makes sense to prefer the KDE version in a KDE Plasma system.

                      Thunderbird is the most popular email client, and it's the default for the other three editions of Solus. KDE Plasma, however does not provide it by default, and KMail is a poor substitute. Similarly, Konqueror is a poor substitute for a web browser. I believe Firefox should be provided by default, because of its popularity.

                      Experienced users can always remove that and replace it with Vivaldi from the repo, and they'll know how to do that. I realize these substitutions violate the idea of keeping the KDE stack "pure," but they're exceptions I'd gladly support.

                      I remembered a few more things:

                      1. Calendar. Many Plasma distributives have added a "Kalendar" app.

                      2. Show Flatpak apps in Software Center after adding Flatpak repository.

                      another thing, i always disable 'rename inline' in dolphin. i think thats on by default. the reason is that when i double click something i tend to click to slow or fast or something and i end up getting the rename thing which halts everything if im not really paying attention what im doing.

                      ive been looking for a way to disable rename via double click but still have inline renaming but i havent found the settings - its probably there somewhere though
                      anyway with inline renaming disabled you get a little renaming popup like in nautilus instead

                      17 days later

                      i just discovered by pure accident that if u press spacebar while in dolphin you enter 'selection mode' which allows you to select multiple files and folders whether you use single or double click