XFCE: some KDE icons are not shown

I've noticed that some icons in KDE Applications are not shown, or replaced by other icons from default gnome set. Solution should be to change icons in the XFCE setting, but if it doesn't work, you can try setting them with gconftool:

gconftool-2 --type boolean --set /desktop/gnome/interface/buttons_have_icons true
gconftool-2 --type boolean --set /desktop/gnome/interface/menus_have_icons true

IRC notifications from remote server

Like many people, I use irssi client on remote server to connect to IRC chat. With tmux or GNU Screen you are able to be connected 24/7, and it would be great to be notified when someone is writing to you or has mentioned you on a channel.
Read more on how to setup such a scenario.

Remotely lock KDE session

To remotely lock your KDE session, login via ssh and execute following command:

for KDE 4.9:
DISPLAY=:0 /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kscreenlocker --forcelock >/dev/null 2>&1 &

for KDE 4.10:
DISPLAY=:0 /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kscreenlocker_greet >/dev/null 2>&1 &

USB hub stopped working

After recent system update my keyboard and mouse connected via USB hub stopped working, although flash drive and external HDD were still recognized perfectly.

Thunderbird: how to open links in firefox (or other app)

There is one simple solution to set the right application for handling links in thunderbird. However finding the solution wasn't as easy, so here it is:
 

In TB 5.0 the hyper-links in the messages don’t work, even with the changes like these they do NOT work:
1) To be absolutely sure: make back up using MozBackup http://www.mozbackup.nl/
2) In Thunderbird, go to Preferences / Advanced /Config Editor (it will warn you, say yes)
3) Scroll down to network.protocol-handler.warn-external.http and make sure it’s set to true
4) Do the same for network.protocol-handler.warn-external.https
5) Do the same for network.protocol-handler.warn-external.ftp
6) Do the same for network.protocol-handler.external-default
7) Exit Thunderbird
8) Restart Thunderbird. The first time you try clicking on a link (or sooner) it will ask you to confirm that you’re using an external handler. Say yes and check the “Always do this” checkbox.

Thanks to Charell.

EDIT:
Recently, with thunderbird 31, the above steps are not working.
To change associated application, edit the mimeTypes.rdf file, placed in thunderbird's default profile folder.

Example: in my case, I wanted to change http(s) associated files to be opened with firefox-aurora, instead of firefox, so I've executed:

sed -i.bak 's/\(firefox\)/\1-aurora/g' ~/.thunderbird/m3e8sg0w.default/mimeTypes.rdf

KDE freezes for few seconds after login

This was happening to me for a while, with different KDE versions. KDE desktop is loading, almost before all startup programs are running but suddenly everything stopped. The plasma workspace freezed for 5-20 seconds. This was going on randomly, sometimes it has frozen, othertimes not.

Turn off Nepomuk and Akonadi in KDE4

If you don't need Nepomuk Semantic Desktop you can turn it off in System Settings > Desktop Search. After that you have to disable akonadi server to get rid of the error notification about problems with connecting to nepomuk.
This you can disable in:
~/.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc
where you should change StartServer=true to StartServer=false.
Note that this change will disable KDEs KIM services such as KMail.

KDE 4.6 - kmix eating up CPU

It happened to me few times, the CPU load was high because kmix was pretty hungry. It also stopped responding. The problem was in the corrupted profile file.

Unmounting removable drives

This script is for safe removal of devices such as USB flash drives, portable HDDs etc. It's written in bash and uses notifications for KDE about the devices state when unmounting.

Unable to turn off touchpad on Ubuntu 10.10?

I ran into a situation, that the touchpad on Ubuntu 10.10 always enables itself after a while. If this has happened to you either, here's a solution for you.

KDE 4.6: desktop switching with mouse wheel

The fastest way to switch desktops in system is with the mouse wheel. In compiz, you could assign shortcuts for mouse switching, but in KDE (kwin) this is not possible. I really liked the mouse switching, so I created a small script to handle this...

Controlling mpd with notifications for Gnome 3 and KDE

If you're using media player daemon, this script might be useful for you. It can start the daemon, controll the playback, delete actual playing song and create notifications of the player state with gdbus.

Change the login screen background and icon on Ubuntu 10.10

In the newer versions of Ubuntu there is no option to directly set backgroud for the login screen. After a bit of googling I found an working technique.

KDE and transparent conky

How to set up transparency for conky on KDE...

kosd - on screen notifications for KDE

If you don't like default KDEs notification for volume and brightness adjusting, try kosd.