Desktop Effects, Screen Locker

Just installed 42.1 on my AMD system. Here are my vitals:

stephen@linux-ktuz:~> cat /etc/issue
Welcome to openSUSE Leap 42.1 - Kernel \r (\l).
stephen@linux-ktuz:~> uname -a
Linux linux-ktuz 4.1.34-33-default #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Oct 20 08:03:29 UTC 2016 (fe18aba) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

According to the Great, The Powerful YAST → Hardware Info, my video is RS780L (Radeon 3000). Everything seems to work pretty well. I haven’t tried Celestia yet (that’s my iron test for graphics), but so far, so good …

EXCEPT, for a few things regarding the display.

First, I don’t like animations. (I’m a dinosaur.) A search here and via Google found all sorts of helpful suggestions about using Configure Desktop->Desktop Effects. I’ve unchecked everything I can find. I’ve checked “disable for full-screen windows” in the Advanced tab. I hit apply, and I get “Desktop Effects Are Not Available”, with the message, “No such method ‘compositingNotPossibleReason’ in interface ‘org.kde.KWin’ at object path ‘/KWin’ (signature ‘’)” If I close “Configure Desktop” and reopen it, that message is gone. The boxes are unchecked.

And yet, the effects are still there. Windows fade up/in and down/out as I click on them, they go transparent, and so on. I’ve rebooted. No luck.

Second, the screen locks after one minute. I’ve gone to Configure Desktop->Display And Monitor and the ONLY thing available is to set the time for start automatically, and the type. I’ve unchecked “start automatically.” The screen still locks after one minute. I set it to 30 minutes, applied, rebooted just to be sure. When the system came back up, the screen locked after 1 minute. The “start automatically” box was unchecked, but the time had reset itself to 1 minute.

It’s like it ignores my settings, almost like something in the home directory is write protected (I’ve checked .config and .kde4 and it all is owned by me and seems writeable).

Finally, in previous versions of Opensuse, I was able to change the size of the fonts on the menus for Firefox and Thunderbird via the gnome-config-tool (I think it’s called). The tool runs and says it changes them from the default 11 point fonts to 14 point, but nothing happens, even after a restart.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Oh, and I always set my keyboard for a short delay and fast repeat, but that won’t “take,” either. It resets itself to the defaults.

Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks!

I might have figured it out.

I did an upgrade from 13.2. Apparently, some artifacts from the previous installation are arguing with Leap.

I created a new user account, logged into it, and the “Configure Desktop” options don’t even look the same. I was able to get what I wanted there.

I think I’ll do a clean installation and restore my critical files from backup tomorrow. I’ll also post here to confirm, in case someone hits this in a Web search.

Apparently you ran KDE4’s systemsettings then instead of Plasma5’s systemsettings5.
Probably you were using an old shortcut or Favorite that got migrated?

Try running systemsettings5 explicitly (in konsole or krunner).

Probably still have the systemstting4 in the menu still instead of systemsettings5

I think that was indeed the problem. When I get time, I’m going to file a bug report.

Apparently, when you do an upgrade instead of a clean install, some things will be missed. I opened the Applications Manager and looked at the command for “Configure Desktop:” it was “systemsettings.” I then started a Konsole and entered “systemsettings5” and set everything up the way I wanted. This time, it stuck.

But here’s the interesting thing: after I closed the systemsettings5, then closed the console, when I went back into Application Manager (I figured I’d add the “5” to the end of the command) … it had changed itself to “systemsettings5.” Go figure. :slight_smile:

Anyway, thanks for the help.

On my wife’s laptop, I’m think I’m going to back her up, then do a clean install. She’s visually impaired and it takes a while to get her desktop the way she needs it to be.

Again, thanks, folks.

Thanks. See my other reply. That worked.

There’s no point in doing so.

KDE4’s systemsettings is still included on purpose (you need it for certain KDE4 settings, there still are KDE4 applications around, and for launching config modules that haven’t been ported to KF5 yet), not to mention that we cannot really drop it as it is part of kdebase4-workspace which also contains kdm (sddm is not really an equal substitute for kdm, at least not yet).
And it is not removed on upgrades if it was installed, that cannot be fixed really as it would prevent installing it in the first place if you want/need it.

There is a problem in Leap 42.1 though, in that KDE4’s systemsettings hasn’t been renamed to “Configure KDE4 Applications”, but is named “Configure Desktop” in the menu like systemsettings5.
This is known, and has been fixed already (for Leap 42.2).

And if you started it from a favorite that pointed to KDE4’s systemsettings, an upgrade can (and should) not do anything about it.

Btw, KDE4’s systemsettings is in the package kdebase4-workspace-addons, so if you don’t want/need it, just uninstall that package.

But here’s the interesting thing: after I closed the systemsettings5, then closed the console, when I went back into Application Manager (I figured I’d add the “5” to the end of the command) … it had changed itself to “systemsettings5.” Go figure. :slight_smile:

I suppose that’s caused by the fact that both have the same name (in 42.1). The application menu filters out duplicates, and apparently it may be a bit random which one is dropped.