[Plasma 15.6] region/language time/date only pretends to apply and other foibles

mrmazda · October 4, 2023, 1:15am

Time selection screen has two selections for United States, one with mixed endian dates and AM/PM clock, the other with 24hours per day and big endian dates. Applying the good latter, labeled “English (United States)” allows to be selected and applied, but it doesn’t stick. On return to the previous screen where examples are shown or described, it’s back to screwball American double half-day, mixed endian nonsense. This seems to be a carryover from 15.5, 15.4 & before IIRC.

Scollbars in systemsettings5: usually absent, too narrow when they do appear, hard to get to appear. E.g. in “Desktop Effects” main right side pane, keyboard scrolling is not available, and scrollbar quickly disappears once made to appear if not clicked quickly enough and in the right place. The boxes are of three types: blank, checkmark, and minus sign. It’s totally non-obvious what the minus sign is about. Once a scrollbar click event occurs, the content jumps to where it’s entirely unclear where focus had been in relation to current focus, what the scrollbar actually caused.

Window Open/Close Animation: missing option is no animation at all.

Keyboard delay seems to be impotent. Set on minimum 100ms there seems to remain at least 500ms delay.

I’ve tried clearing .cache/, .config/p*, .config/k* and various other KDE files/directories to start over fresh, but I keep getting the same settings frustrations over and over, just like in 15.5.

What’s required to edit particular menu items like is readily possible in KDE3 with a right click on the menu starter? My Konsole menuitems need some kind of customization because konsole5 is not installed, only KDE3 konsole (which I did too long ago to remember how). Settings for it show /usr/bin/bash, but what actually starts is /usr/bin/sh, and MC does not like that at all.

# pinxi -GMSaz --vs --zl --hostname
pinxi 3.3.30-05 (2023-09-29)
System:
  Host: ab560 Kernel: 5.14.21-150500.55.19-default arch: x86_64 bits: 64
    compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 clocksource: tsc available: hpet,acpi_pm
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz root=LABEL=<filter> noresume
    ipv6.disable=1 net.ifnames=0 consoleblank=0 preempt=full mitigations=off
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.4 tk: Qt v: 5.15.8 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm:
    1: KDM 2: XDM Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.6 Alpha
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: N/A v: N/A serial: N/A
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME B560M-A v: Rev 1.xx serial: <filter>
    UEFI: American Megatrends v: 1601 date: 05/07/2022
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel RocketLake-S GT1 [UHD Graphics 730] vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-12.1 process: Intel 10nm built: 2020-21
    ports: active: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2 empty: HDMI-A-3 bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:4c8b class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X:
    loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa alternate: intel dri: iris
    gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3600x2640 s-dpi: 120 s-size: 762x558mm (30.00x21.97")
    s-diag: 944mm (37.18")
  Monitor-1: DP-1 pos: primary,bottom-l model: Acer K272HUL serial: <filter>
    built: 2018 res: 2560x1440 hz: 60 dpi: 109 gamma: 1.2
    size: 598x336mm (23.54x13.23") diag: 686mm (27") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 2560x1440 min: 720x400
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-1 pos: top-left model: NEC EA243WM
    serial: <filter> built: 2011 res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94 gamma: 1.2
    size: 519x324mm (20.43x12.76") diag: 612mm (24.1") ratio: 16:10 modes:
    max: 1920x1200 min: 640x480
  Monitor-3: HDMI-A-2 mapped: HDMI-2 pos: top-right model: Dell P2213
    serial: <filter> built: 2012 res: 1680x1050 hz: 60 dpi: 90 gamma: 1.2
    size: 473x296mm (18.62x11.65") diag: 558mm (22") ratio: 16:10 modes:
    max: 1680x1050 min: 720x400
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: intel iris platforms: device: 0 drv: iris
    device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: iris surfaceless: drv: iris x11: drv: iris
    inactive: wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 22.3.5 glx-v: 1.4
    direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (RKL GT1)
    device-ID: 8086:4c8b memory: 29.48 GiB unified: yes
  API: Vulkan Message: No Vulkan data available.
#

JanMussche · October 4, 2023, 1:25pm

Just tried this and I have a scrollbar which is constantly visible. It is about 2,5 mm wide and easy to catch with the mouse. Also, but I use a laptop and I think you don’t, on the mousepad (is that the correct name?) I have set scrolling using 2-fingers. When I do that the whole list goes up and down. Maybe it is caused by the themes that you use.

hui · October 4, 2023, 1:35pm

That sounds like a totally broken user profile with leftovers from unmaintained KDE3 and more. As Jan already explained, the scrollbars in systemsettings5 are permanently visible and easy to catch. So maybe try with a fresh user and untinkered profile…

Which tool do you use to measure the time?

Nothing is missing. Simply uncheck the effect and you wont have any…

mrmazda · October 4, 2023, 8:36pm

I don’t know of any tool suited to such purpose. My main DE is KDE3 set to 250ms, which seems as close to perfect as possible. I utilize the function many times most days in MC. No matter the Plasma delay setting, or the computer’s graphics performance, Plasma’s delay quite obviously is much longer than KDE3’s 250ms setting.

That only works for checkboxes. Window Open/Close Animation has radio buttons. One and only one can and must be selected, unless you know something about these common GUI select functions I don’t. I’m familiar with those built into HTML as employed by Mozilla and other browsers, but not those from QT.

mrmazda · October 4, 2023, 9:35pm

Global Theme I keep on plain Breeze default.

Application Style I keep on default Breeze.

Plasma Style I keep on default Breeze “follows color scheme”.

Colors I’m not sure what default is. The one I’m looking at, from which I started the thread, is on Breeze Light.

Window Decorations I always change from default Breeze. Typically the only other option is Plastik.

Fonts I always change to “Sans Serif”, which here equates to Droid Sans, and 10pt, except for 9pt for “Small”. All settings following/beneath Window title I leave alone. However, actual DPI is configured globally in Xorg (usually via xrandr in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/) to 108 for displays under 1920x1080, and 120 for those at or above.

Icons I don’t recall touching normally, but on this I have Adwaita, since icons are why I don’t like Breeze.

Cursors I don’t touch.

Font Management I do via /etc/fonts/ and package managers, never GUI tools.

Splash Screen I leave at default unless there is/are other option(s) beside Breeze and None.

Workspace Behavior I only change “Animation speed” from middle to Instant (aka no animation)

Window Behavior I only change titlebar double-click to “Do nothing”.

Task switcher I don’t touch.

KWin scripts I can’t recall ever using. All are currently deselected.

Window Rules I can’t recall ever using. “No rules for specific windows are currently set”.

Shortcuts I don’t have enough recollection to utilize, so don’t touch.

Autostart I don’t touch; “No user-specified autostart items”.

Background services I touch plenty. All but two are deselected: KSysguard and Status Notifier Manager remain selected.

Load-on-Demand Services I can’t recall ever touching.

Desktop Session I only deselect “Logout Screen” “Show”.

File Search and Plasma Search wouldn’t seem to be applicable to this. This one is enable probably due do the .config/ & .local deletions and creating this thread I just didn’t get around to disabling yet.

Major categories Network, Hardware and Sysadmin would seem to be inapplicable.

In Personalization, Notifications, Users and Applications would seem to be inapplicable.

Accessibility seems inapplicable.

Spell Check and Date & Time I don’t touch.

Region & Language is where this thread got started. I use Metric and Letter, simple enough. Others I don’t mess with, except Time, the fundamental cause of this thread. I can’t find any way to get the date into YEAR/MO/DA mode in the summary pane, only in the details pane. Similar for clock, 24 hours is achievable in details pane, but reverts to 12 hours in summary pane.

mrmazda · October 4, 2023, 10:18pm

As previously noted, it recurs after removing all obviously KDE/Plasma files and directories from .config/ and .local/. It doesn’t leave much as a starting point:

$ tree .cache .config .local
.cache
├── gstreamer-1.0
│   └── registry.x86_64.bin
└── mc
    ├── Tree
    └── mcedit
.config
├── QtProject.conf
├── Trolltech.conf
├── fontconfig
│   └── fonts.conf
├── glib-2.0
│   └── settings
│       └── keyfile
├── gtk-3.0
├── gtkrc
├── gtkrc-2.0
├── mc -> ../.mc
└── user-dirs.dirs
.local
├── share
│   ├── inxi
│   ├── mc
│   │   ├── filepos
│   │   ├── history
│   │   └── mcedit
│   │       └── mcedit.clip
│   └── pinxi
└── state
    └── wireplumber
        ├── default-routes
        └── restore-stream

15 directories, 14 files

KDE3 files are in .kde/

Logging in as above described, and going straight into systemsettings5 via main menu starter to Region and Language, there is no scrollbar necessary for the initial/summary pane. Clicking “modify” for “Time” produces this, where scrollbar is definitely necessary:
(upload 220k .png image selected from menu, and seemingly accepted, but did it actually happen? I don’t see it anywhere.)
So I susepasted .jpg conversion with 1 month expire:
paste.opensuse.org/pastes/dd16ea1e16b5
3 months expire was rejected (“failed”).

Clicking at or to the right of where the mouse pointer is in the image produces a scrollbar which quickly disappears, within about 3 seconds.

hui · October 5, 2023, 3:42am

No. Did you ar least try it? All radiobuttons in this part of systemsettings can be unchecked (this requires a untinkered user profile). Here a screenshot from Leap 15.6 (untinkered user profile) with completely unchecked radioboxes. (Also note the permanently visible) wide scrollbars at the side.)

The picture which you show seems not even to be from an actual Plasma version. Here pictures from Leap 15.6 with permanently visible wide scrollbars (untinkered user profile):

A tinkered user profile is not a fresh user profile…
Maybe you free up your mind and test a secure up to date desktop environment like Plasma without any remnants of unmaintained KDE3 on your machine. This can easily be done with a VM like Virtualbox.

hui · October 5, 2023, 3:57am

The menu which you mentioned looks completely different on an untinkered Leap 15.6 profile. It has permanently visible wide scrollbar on the right side and also icons on the left side. Your picture is missing several parts of the window which are existing in a untinkered Plasma profile…

JanMussche · October 5, 2023, 4:18am

Sorry, my fault, I did not see you use KDE3. I immediately started looking in my setting and saw what I wrote above. I did not read the whole thread. My mistake.

mrmazda · October 5, 2023, 6:49am

Of course I tried it, or so I thought. It was a whack-a-mole exercise I didn’t understand. Select an unselected when another is already selected, up pops the newly selected, as I said. But select a selected, and away it goes, as you say. But, apparently radio buttons in this QT configuration are just checkboxes that look different, and you are right that clicking a selected deselects, just as with checkboxes, making their visual difference inexplicable. Apparently I managed repeatedly not to try selecting to deselect any radio buttons, as I didn’t and don’t expect that behavioral inconsistency with decades of radio buttons in web pages, where normal radio button behavior demands one and only one be selected in any given group. Next opens in TW I need to see if this non-different difference remains in 5.27.8, which isn’t installed on the instant PC’s TW.

KDE bug 422529 needs to be fixed years ago (shouldn’t have happened in the first place to place anything but (a) directory(s) in .config/ for any of KDE’s settings), while KDE6 is on verge of release with no fix contemplated. Everybody shouldn’t have to start from scratch with a virgin installation to fix a niggle. What you and I consider untinkered apparently differs. One should be able to leave behind only that which has nothing to do with Plasma and consider Plasma “untinkered”. So I repeated and then some, stripping beyond what should reasonably be expected to be considered clean:

(TW booted in order to first setup “barenaked” 15.6 user without causing more files to be created than we wish Plasma to find already existing)

# tree
.
├── .Xresources
├── .config
│   ├── mc -> ../.mc
│   └── user-dirs.dirs
├── .mc
│   ├── hotlist
│   ├── ini
│   ├── mc.keymap
│   ├── mcedit
│   └── panels.ini
├── Music
├── Pictures
└── Videos

5 directories, 9 files
# cat .Xresources
xterm*faceName: Droid Sans Mono:antialias=true
xterm*faceSize: 11
xterm*rightScrollBar: true
xterm*savelines: 4095
xterm*ScrollBar: true
xterm*vt100.geometry: 120x43
xterm*scrollTtyOutput: true
# cat .config/user-dirs.dirs
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="/<filter>/Desktop/"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="/<filter>/"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="/home/downloads/"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="/home/AV/music/"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="/home/AV/pix/"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="/<filter>/"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="/<filter>/"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="/home/AV/videos/"
#

I went straight from logging in to systemsettings5 Region & Language. The result was as you have already seen in the image I couldn’t get accepted for attachment and had to susepaste. No detectable difference; no point in more screenshooting that won’t attach. Now I have Plastik back, and still no scrollbars where/when/as expected.

It’s Plasma 5.27.4, just with icons inexplicably absent, which I forgot to mention in OP. Again, no sign of scrollbars on initial start, or any time later, except skinny ones very briskly disappearing whenever I try to make one appear. I have yet to see an icon anywhere but the taskbar, and the right hand end of the titlebars. Is there a non-existent dependency that needs to be fixed for theming to work right when solver.onlyRequires = true in zypp.conf?:

# rpm -qa | egrep -i 'icon|theme|branding' | sort
adwaita-icon-theme-41.0-150400.1.10.noarch
branding-openSUSE-15.5.20220322-lp156.4.1.noarch
breeze5-icons-5.102.0-bp156.2.1.noarch
gio-branding-openSUSE-42.1-lp156.7.1.noarch
hicolor-icon-theme-0.17-150400.12.5.noarch
icewm-theme-branding-1.2.5-lp155.4.1.noarch
libKF5IconThemes5-5.103.0-150500.1.3.x86_64
systemd-default-settings-branding-openSUSE-0.7-3.2.1.noarch
systemd-presets-branding-openSUSE-12.2-lp156.5.2.noarch
wallpaper-branding-openSUSE-15.5.20220322-lp156.4.1.noarch
yast2-theme-4.6.0-lp156.1.1.noarch

“Up to date” with fresh bugs and paradigm changes supplied before removing the old ones. KDE3 is maintained, just not to customary SUSE QA standards. There isn’t much maintenance to do trying to fix what ain’t broke.

I have 40+ working computers, 50 or so TWs, 50 or so 15.5s, 45 15.4s, 8 Slowrolls, 6 15.6s, plus Plasma on at least half as many current and/or devel Mageia and Fedora installations, most brought up to date within any given 4 month period, with most of the faster PCs’ openSUSE ones done within any given 6 week period or less. I also have more Debians than either Fedoras or Mageias in the inventory, but none with Plasma, all with the KDE3 fork TDE that often provides the few patches that keep KDE3 working (and vice versa). VMs are an extra layer in which things can break, so I decided many moons ago I have no need of VMs, except for using OS/2 to run my DOS apps in a native graphics mode unsupported by any Linux software I’m aware of. Adding VMs to the hardware and installation inventory I have I can’t imagine “easily” done, so it just ain’t happening here. I only test software using real hardware.

I don’t much like doing installations. Upgrades don’t make me spend hours getting things back how I’m used to and like. Installations I do mainly with openSUSE alphas and betas just to see how they are doing, to test on real hardware before release, report bugs if any found, but rarely on anything else if there is anything I can clone from, which usually there is.

mrmazda · October 5, 2023, 6:50am

Looks like scrollbars must somehow be related to icons, most of which are absent here.

hui · October 5, 2023, 6:56am

In which world? The last KDE3 was released 15! years ago. It is unmaintained, dead and unsecure. You always refer to the “maintained” KDE3 repo in openSUSE. If you have a look into OBS, you will see that this zombie is only kept alive in a way that it builts on any actual operating system. The source packages are 15! years old and unpatched.

mrmazda · October 5, 2023, 7:48am

There’s little about using OBS I understand, less about the content of source rpms. Here I see the frequency of KDE3 updates seem to be higher than any other package type. I don’t think much more than a week goes by that a bunch of KDE3 updates don’t become available in Leap or TW. 15.5 ATM has 6 rpms on mirrors dated Sept 29, and too many to count after 31 Aug. In the few KDE3 bug reports and mailing list posts that occur I do see patch mentions on occasion, so something must be going in and/or coming out between TDE and KDE3, the former of which has been releasing new versions roughly twice each year, with 14.1.1 due this month. If openSUSE drops KDE3, I’m ready to switch to TDE, but I’ve seen no evidence of actual need. What ain’t broke don’t need fixin. Whether it was v2 or v3 in SuSE 8.0 I don’t remember, but it was KDE (and YaST NET installation) that brought me to (open)SUSE in the first place, so KDE3 remains part of what keeps me attached to it.

hui · October 5, 2023, 8:16am

An often used sentence from admins who have absolutely no clue about basic IT security…
Thats the same type of ppl which still use MS Windows XP because “it works”.