and a return to KDE, version 3.5.8 while I’m at it
I find the lipstick style that PC-BSD uses by default a little yucky to stare at all day so I set it to my favorite (Keramik). I have installed a ton of colour schemes off kde-look.org but hate most of them….. One that I found was essentially an emulation of Ubuntu’s “Human” setup, which I do like very much or else I wouldn’t be using a modified form of it.
The colour scheme and GTK+ widgets is actually the only good thing I can say about Ubuntu 6.06 when I tested it last year. At first I thought I might try a custom colour scheme with a red title bar, give KDE a nice little FreeBSD flair 😉 But I couldn’t get a shade of red that I could live with, like using, and not be distracted by in the same colour. PC-BSDs default window decor, ‘Crystal’ didn’t match well with the human colour scheme so I changed it repeatidly trying to find one that did match well and I could live with. I couldn’t find one I liked, so as usual I wound up with Keramik haha. No matter what I do I always find that window decore attractive 0.o. I also installed the Human_KDE icon set to match the human colour scheme.
I copied over the KMenu and Konqueror icons from PC-BSDs default theme into a copy of Human_KDE and I made a clone of the Human colour scheme. Then changed the desired portion of the title bar to use PC-BSDs default colours for it instead, adding some contrast. I loved the match up and it is much more appeasing to my eyes 🙂
A bit of both muahuaha !
As far as the screen shot, the background is my ‘choice picture of the day’, rxvt-unicode is running and displays a listing of my home directory and the system versioning. Normally my desktop is some what dominated by a terminal emulator and a web browser with a few IM windows for icing on the cake. Below urxvt is linux-flock open to a live journal page. Lower left hand corner is XMMS blasting music while the lower right hand corner is a ‘KasBar’ which provides a replacement for the usual taskbar. While still giving me some thing similar to how Window Maker solves the problem hehe. There are no icons on the desktop only the panel.
I placed the main panel on top because with a laptop + touch pad I find it easier to use and more comfortable on my eyes with the widescreen display. From left to right on the top panel there is the K-Menu button, System [folders] Menu, Settings Menu, Web Browser (flock), Terminal (~/sh/urxvt big), Network Folders, the system tray applet which shows PC-BSDs battery monitor, Klipper the clibboard app I wish Windows XP had, KMix (volume/mixer control), PC-BSDs update manager, KOrganizer (which may be getting the ax soon), Pidgin (AIM/MSN/YIM/ICQ/XMPP chat), and Konversation (IRC). Over to the righter’ side is a desktop pager, lock/logout buttons, and a clocklet.
I feel the system has a bit of a Gnome / Ubuntu look and feel to it but I’m finding it quite comfortable. Because I like the pleasant feel of it plus it matches my work flow while still being KDE3 and FreeBSD powered instead xD.