Yesterday I switched from Gnome to KDE, now Maya works much much much better, even with composite is on (under KDE, opening the hotbox while composite is on doesn't lock the interface as it does in Gnome, I've red that there is a dead lock issue between Maya and Gnome when composite is on), no sticky keyboard bug under Maya any more and I can adjust the Maya panels so the editors like Attribute editor Hypershade stays on top of the main Maya window until I click to the title bar of the main window... so its cool, its fun again to use Maya under Linux...
Here is the pros of switching to KDE:
I wanted to get rid of the extra gnome tools. But now I need to configure all the things from scratch again. I've lost the sound in my laptop (HDX-1080) again, I need to compile 2.6.30 version of the kernel, I think this time I'll wait for the ubuntu version of the kernel to update. I need to install a lot of the programs again, like JEdit, WingIDE, KDevelop etc...
Hopefully, Maya installed very quickly, with the help of this site...
So for now, if nothing bad will happen I suggest to use KDE with Maya...
Here is the pros of switching to KDE:
- Maya works flawlessly
- Using hotbox doesn't hang the whole desktop process
- Window manager could be adjusted to make the Maya Panels behave as expected
- A more candy look compared to Gnome ( which may others like )
- Need to get used to the different tools like kate instade of gedit, konsole instead of the regular terminal etc.
- KDE and Gnome tools lays side by side if you just install KDE to Ubuntu ( which again may doesn't disturb other people )
- Finding a tool under the application launcher is more difficult compared to Gnome ( which may I later will get used to )
I wanted to get rid of the extra gnome tools. But now I need to configure all the things from scratch again. I've lost the sound in my laptop (HDX-1080) again, I need to compile 2.6.30 version of the kernel, I think this time I'll wait for the ubuntu version of the kernel to update. I need to install a lot of the programs again, like JEdit, WingIDE, KDevelop etc...
Hopefully, Maya installed very quickly, with the help of this site...
So for now, if nothing bad will happen I suggest to use KDE with Maya...
Comments
About the window manager adjusted to make the Maya Panels behave as expected, you can do that also in gnome, just go to the Window Preferences in System and activate "Select windows when the mouse moves over them". We mapped the gconf-editor command to a shortcut to toggle on/off this behaviour.
And we don't care too much about working with the composite off
We like the simple-clean yet powerful-useful gnome desktop.
One thing I do miss from kde is the ability to maximize horizontally/vertically using MMB and LMB.
clusterstudio.com
1- last month i tried using kde, its ok but it didn't solve my issues completely.
q: main issue for me is not compiz, i have disabled it and my life is pretty much OK, when i opened any sub windows in maya (outliner, hypershade, script GUI's etc) they opened as a window, which means, when i click maya UI, they go back (specially if not dual screen ) now this is quite different than normal windows xp bahaviour, is there a way to fix this
sol- a: is there a way to tell system (gnome or kde) that all of these such windows are children of maya main window and let them remain on top of maya always???
sol- b: there may be way to "always on top" turned on for all newly opened windows??... i tried setting up key for this, but again each time running script or command n pressing a key is not too ideal.....
hope to hear soon..n already feeling glad that i m not alone in my problems :D
But in KDE you can easily set the window behaviour, so the windows are raised only if the user clicked to the title bar... By using that, I've been able to normally work in Maya...
But my really annoying problem about gnome was the keyboard. It got stuck all the time whenever I press ENTER or RETURN in channel box, to rename something and it was not releasing without opening a text editor and then hitting the key several times etc.
Now I'm absolutely happy with KDE...
cheers
fixed things are
1- outliner doesn't go back even i m clicking on maya viewport :D
2- renaming doesn't hurt or enter key long pressed is gone .
feeling much better