Advanced

This section covers the basics of configuring Kubuntu to suit your needs. One of the strengths of the KDE philosophy is the focus on control of just about every aspect of the desktop environment. Wallpapers, themes, widgets, color schemes, splash screens, and more; the options for customization are endless.

KDE-Look is the number one location to find customized settings for the KDE Plasma desktop. Some of the applications even allow direct connections to KDE-Look to download a new configuration or image.

Global Themes

Kubuntu allows themes to be changed easily. To change your global theme follow these steps:

  1. Open System Settings

  2. Left-click ‘Global Theme’

  3. Now choose from the list of installed themes

  4. Pick from the default choices that are installed, or left-click the ‘Get New Global Themes…’ button for more choices

Plasma Styles

  1. Open System Settings

  2. Left-click ‘Plasma Style’

  3. Now choose from the list of installed themes

  4. Pick from the default choices that are installed

  • Left-click the ‘Get New Plasma Styles…’ button for more choices

  • Left-click the ‘Install from File…’ button to install from a local file

Plasmoids

Plasmoids (also called Widgets) can be added by right-clicking the desktop and selecting Add Widgets…, which will bring up a list of Widgets. For more information, see Plasma Widgets.

Panel

../_images/panels.png

By right-clicking on the desktop once again, you can select Add Panel to get more panels. You can left-click the button on the far right side of the panel to alter the properties of the panel, like changing its height or width or adding Widgets, for example. For more information, see Plasma Panels.

Activities

Activites are specific and exclusive to KDE. As such they’re often under utilised and misunderstood. In this section we’re going to explore what KDE Activities are, how to set them up, and how to use them.

Think for a moment about your average day working on your PC. It will often traverse different activities. For example doing email and researching things on the internet, perhaps developing some documents, working on a piece of software, writing your thesis in LaTeX etc…

Commonly KDE users might use Virtual desktops to seperate these workspaces.

KDE Activites in Kubuntu provide a slick way to setup and configure environments specific to your task routines. For example your might want to have your email, and social networks configured as one activity. Perhaps your research, and writing for your thesis configured as another activity.

Activities First Look

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Let’s take a look at the default KDE Activities configured in Kubuntu. Right Click anywhere on the empty desktop and choose “Activities” from the menu. The Activities side bar appears on the left, with the Default activity. Notice the + Create Activity at the bottom. Click that, and lets created a new “Social” Activity. Enter “Social” as the Activity name: and then click Create.

That’s it you have created your first activity.

You can theme, and configured this new activity desktop in the same ways as mentioned early in this section of the manual.

A Step Further

OK, looking good, let’s create another Activity. Call this one “Misc”. Once created switch to this Activity, either by Right Click on the Desktop > Activities or use the Keyboard shortcut Alt+D,A ( Hold Alt down, press D, then Press A ) Then select the Misc Activity from the side bar.

OK, lets configure a few useful tools

  1. Change the desktop wallpaper to something you like

  2. Right-click > Add Widgets, and add the Analog Clock

  3. Right-click > Add Widgets, and add the Weather Report

You can now resize these widgets and lay them out on the desktop however you wish. and configure them to suit your needs, as in the example below.

../_images/activity-misc.png

Drivers

On every Operating System (Windows, macOS, and Linux) there are programs called Drivers which you install on your computer. These Drivers let your computer use new hardware or existing hardware, like Wi-Fi. There Drivers also cover your graphics card e.g NVIDIA, AMD, sometimes the nonfree or restricted drivers let the cards perform better than the free ones. The ‘Additional Drivers’ section of Disocver handles installing and uninstalling these for you. These improvements may cover gaming, video editing and processing to image editing.

  1. Start Discover

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  1. Select Settings then left-click the ‘Software Sources’ button to the right of ‘Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish’

  2. Enter your administrative password at the prompt

  3. Left-click the ‘Additional Drivers’ tab

../_images/drivers.png

If there are any drivers (both Open Source and Closed Source) for your hardware they will be in this window. If you install any drivers you may need to restart your system for the change to take effect.