How do I actually run KDE3?

The KubuntuKde3Karmic page is all very well at telling me that I can run KDE3 on kubuntu 9.10, but it doesn't tell me how. What do I need to do to install KDE3? -- I need either the package name for Synaptic package manager or what to type in at the command line (sudo apt-get install whatever)
What you should be asking is "How do I install KDE3 on an existing (K)ubuntu system?". Instructions for that are here:
http://apt.pearsoncomputing.net/install.html

Update from Jaunty to Karmic

How to update from Jaunty to Karmic when kde 3.5.10 is installed too?
The updater to the RC seem troubled by some packages or repositories?

2009-10-23 00:03:34,143 DEBUG Marking 'kubuntu-desktop' for upgrade
2009-10-23 00:03:34,495 DEBUG The package 'kubuntu-desktop-kde3' is marked for removal but it's in the removal blacklist
2009-10-23 00:08:18,088 ERROR Dist-upgrade failed: 'Le paquet « kubuntu-desktop-kde3 » est marqué pour suppression mais il est dans la liste noire des suppressions.' [this package is marked to be suppressed but is in the blacklist of removing]
2009-10-23 00:08:18,089 DEBUG abort called

Answer: I just remove kubuntu-desktop-kde3 (sudo aptitude remove kubuntu-desktop-kde3) to apply the update by update-notifier-kde -d

Update from Jaunty to Karmic, without removing kde3

I have the same problem as above. The suggested answer is to remove kde3 prior to upgrade, but what if I want to keep kde3? If removing and then upgrading, how to reinstall kde3 using the remix? What repository to use etc?

Performance

Would the KDE3 remix have better responsiveness on a lower-end system (e.g. Pentium M) than the regular versions of Karmic?

I would expect so--a KDE3.5 user under Jaunty measured the RAM usage of his system and found it was under 300MB with a bunch of apps open. Plus, KDE3.5 is far less graphics-intensive than KDE4.

KDE Applications inside Gnome Desktop

This patch is great!!!

I used it with the purpose of getting some KDE3 applications in Gnome.

Only (apparent) drawbacks (to green users like me):

Only drawback is that I still couldn't find a way to get these done in an automated way: - associating filenames - creating icons - setting the environment variables

My experiments from Ubuntu Jaunty with kde 3 to Ubuntu Karmic

I am still not satisfied with kde4. Moreover, only kde3 works flawlessly on my rusty computer. This story is based on my software configuration. You may or may not facing such problems.

Once updated from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10, kde4 is installed by default but has not overwritten my kde3 configuration files. My previous kde3 was still working but strange things happened.

kde4 starting within kde3 kde4 installation messes up the autostart directory, resulting kde4 stuffs spawning in your kde3 session. To prevent this, I have to clean up the shared autostart directory located in /usr/share/autostart. addendum It seems the update of kde3 has done it.

kde4 application within kde3 kmenu My kmenu has been stuffed with kde4 applications. A bit annoying but bearable since kde4 programs are clearly tagged.

Use the freshest packages for your Karmic Koala The Ubuntu 9.10 update process has disabled my kde3 repositories, I have to reactivate them manually, following these instructions.

No kde4, even in the session login manager I do not want kde4 to start only to display its session manager. So I installed kdm-kde3. Then a popup window spawned telling me that kdm theme data are missing. For a unknown reason, kdmtheme-kde3 is not installed with kdm-kde3. Just install it or fiddle with kdmrc, by removing the Theme item in [X-*-Greeter] section.

Manage your list of packages Ubuntu 9.10 tends to follow Debian Sid Unstable too closely. adept2 was marked deprecated in Karmic, no longer installable and replaced by adept beta 3.

adept beta 3 is still useable but as not as adept2. Since its development has now halted, I have to try some alternatives. synaptic is slow as hell and on top of it, it is Gnome based, yuk . Moreover is it replaced by Ubuntu Software Center promoted by Canonical. On the Kde side, kpackage does not offer the usability I need and kpackagekit is a still in beta version.

All package managers are great and sufficient for Aunt Tillie since they provide an end-user categorization of software. What I miss is a fine granularity when I remove some packages. Why such granularity ? Ubuntu has a tendency to install more stuffs that I want. To prevent bloat and keep some precious sectors on my tiny HDDs.

For now, adept2 was the only piece of software offering me the whole picture of what happening. Fortunately, adept2 is still installable in kde3 packages.

Many thanks to kde3 maintainers -- Nop, 1st of November 2009

marko: I apologize to write here, but I can't find where to signal the crash while performing installationn of "kubuntu-9.10-kde3-desktop-i386" in VirtualBox 3.0.10 (last release) All bugs should be reported on my bugtracker at http://bugs.pearsoncomputing.net