Saturday, August 9, 2014

Upgrade from Netrunner 14.04 to Windows 95?

I really need to upgrade from Netrunner 14.04. Everytime I try to edit a text file from within FileZilla, Netrunner goes haywire. The operating system cannot find Jedit. I have to drop to a command line, chdir to the correct directory, and enter "sudo jedit [ name of text file ]. What's the point of having a GUI desktop if I have to use the command line to load a text editor? None at all.

"Primitive" doesn't even begin to express my feelings here. I don't know what audience Neanderthal is designed for, but it certainly wasn't designed for anyone that needs to get work done.

The screenshot below illustrates what I call the "KDE Stupidity". There is no option for setting any default text editor in the operating system, because KDE is philosophically opposed to people getting actual work done.What does the dropdown menu display? Why, nothing, of course. There are no text editors available, according to Netrunner, despite Kate, LibreOffice and Jedit being installed on the system. A more schizophrenic operating system I never hope to see.



I did find "File Associations" in the Settings, but although it seems promising, it just doesn't work; the text editor is not known to FileZilla. Editors are listed, but the paths to those editors are not passed on to an application such as FileZilla, perhaps because FileZilla is a non-KDE app.  There is only one way to edit a text file from FileZilla when Neanderthal rules the roost, and that is to drop to a command line, chdir to the right location on the drive, and sudo jedit [ name of text file ]. And everytime I have to do that, I rue the day I ever installed Neanderthal on my machine, and go hunting on Ebay for install disks for Windows.

In Windows, editing a text file takes all of one second. I right-click on the file, load Notepad++, and I'm there. What did I, the user, have to do in order to set up this miraculous convenience? Why, absolutely nothing, other than install Notepad++. With Neanderthal, editing a text file is a complete nightmare. The operating system simply is not designed for any kind of useful work at all besides, I suppose, surfing the Net, hence the name.

I don't honestly know what KDE has been working on the past twenty years other than screensavers and desktop effects. It would be nice to have a text editor available to edit text files without having to drop to the command line. Perhaps that feature will be available in KDE by 2015?

Update: I bought a copy of Windows 8 Pro today, although Windows 95 would have been a dramatic improvement. I can't think of a better use of $100 that to be able to edit a text file whenever and wherever I please and not have to think twice about it.

Netrunner, your days are numbered. I'm going to format c:\ and get rid of the blasted thing once and for all. No more "uh, I dunno where your text editor is, go run and find it." No more of Muon's infamous "Enter your password to update your system. Okay, you entered the right password, but I still won't let you update, because I've got a bug. Thank you for helping test this alpha-ware software." No more "can't install such-and-such because it's not compatible." No more "Oops, your desktop crashed. Were you wondering why Firefox froze, and the keyboard and mouse were unresponsive? Well, that's why." No more "you cannot use the Netrunner forum and get help with technical issues, even though you did register, because the Netrunner forum registration is broken, just like Kubuntu's." No more, "Oh, were you searching for that .htaccess the past ten minutes and wondering why you couldn't find it? It's because I decided to hide it from you! Hee hee!"

As for text editors, KDE installs Kate by default and seems to prefer it, but even Kate is not accessible to FileZilla. I could possibly make do with Kate, if it would just load for once after a right-click. But Kate is not a programmer's text editor. Kate is cute, I'll grant you, but Jedit is a real programmer's text editor. Jedit is what I use when I want to get things done. Jedit is the Notepad++ to Kate's Notepad. When KDE has Jedit installed and working in all apps, including FileZilla, then it will have arrived. It will be a civilized operating system. Until then, KDE is not ready for prime-time, and sorry, but I just don't have time enough in my day to help alpha-test it.

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