[kde-linux] Re: Knotify bug.

[Duncan]

John Culleton posted on Sat, 16 Apr 2011 12:33:07 -0400 as excerpted:

> Slackware 13.1 KDE 4.4.3 (possibly Kmail 1.13.3)
> 
> I get random errors with Knotify but there is never enough data to file
> a bug report. Since I never to my knowledge use Knotify can I just
> delete it?

1) You probably know this already, but kde 4.4 is rather old, by now.  
Personally, I considered 4.4 to be what /should/ have been the 4.0-rcs, 
with 4.5.4 and 4.5.5 finally approaching what should have been 4.0 release 
(early 4.5s were good here but had graphics bugs for many).

4.6 has so far been a tough one.  It does get rid of the hal dependency, 
relying on udev/udisks/upower instead, which means for you coming from 
4.4, you might want to stick with the late 4.5s and avoid the various bugs 
the 4.6s have had.  But hal was rather hated due to its obtuse 
configuration if one /did/ have to configure anything by hand, so if 
you're already trying to get rid of it anyway, 4.6 may be a better choice 
that 4.5.  The problems with 4.6 seem to stem from the fact that kde is 
switching svn -> git ATM, and at least for the 4.6.1 and 4.6.2 releases, 
apparently code was pulled from the wrong branch for a few packages.  The 
result has been a number of bugs, with 4.6.0 being better than the 
following releases for many.

But I'd _definitely_ recommend upgrading to 4.5.4 or 4.5.5 from your 
current 4.4.x.  Beyond that, to 4.6 is up to you.  Because 4.4 really 
wasn't something I'd yet recommend for ordinary users, while the later 
4.5s were/are.

2) In direct answer to your question...  If you run the kde desktop, 
knotify is assumed to be available, and you're likely to have problems if 
you try to remove it.  If rather, you run kde apps on another desktop 
environment, you'll probably have less issues removing it.  But even on 
the kde desktop, given you're already having knotify issues, it's possible 
the issues you'd have without it won't be any worse.  I honestly don't 
know (maybe it won't even start without knotify? should be modularized not 
to be /that/ bad, but I don't know).

>From what I understand of Slack, however (not a whole lot, I'm a Gentooer 
who started on Mandrake), it should be reasonably easy to simply uninstall 
knotify and see, then install it again if the problems are worse instead 
of better.  If that's the case, that's what I'd do... if I /had/ to stick 
to 4.4 anyway.

But I'd really recommend that you upgrade to the later 4.5s (4.5.5 
preferably, 4.5.4 if it's easily available for you and 4.5.5 isn't) and 
see if that solves the problem, first.  If it doesn't, depending on what 
the problem is, posting it here might get some help.  But at least 
personally, I consider it a bit of a waste of time to worry about 4.4 
issues when just the upgrade to 4.5 is likely to cure many of them.  Plus, 
the kcontrol (umm... systemsettings that are more user-specific and kde-
specific settings than they are system settings, the kde3 name kcontrol 
thus being far more accurate!) layout was rather seriously reorganized for 
4.5, so any time we talk about something there, we now have to say 
something about the path we give being the 4.5 path, the 4.4 and earlier 
path was different.  So again, an upgrade to one of the later 4.5s really 
is a good idea.  /Then/ see what bugs you have left to deal with and go 
from there.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman