Investigating Kbunutu

[Guest]

I have been using Ubuntu. I have no issues with ubuntu, but I am concerned by what I have read about Zeitgeist.

If I switch to Kbuntu, using KDE, will I still have an operating system that includes zeitgeist, key loggers, or a service to collect information about my computer use?

I would install Kbuntu as a fresh install, with no attempt at migration, upgrade, etc.

I will only use a stable version of Kbuntu.

If the current version of KDE includes invasive software, is there an alternative that does not?

[Snowhog]

A fresh installation of Kubuntu does not automatically install zeitgeist.

[Qqmike]

I just checked my 14.04, Muon shows it as "installed." Any harm in clicking remove or purge zeitgeist?

[Snowhog]

I just checked my 14.04, Muon shows it as "installed." Any harm in clicking remove or purge zeitgeist?

No.

[Qqmike]

I have a standard installation of 14.04 and find that zeitgeist is installed. I then installed the gui: zeitgeist-explorer and ran it from Konsole (I forget the name of its executable /use/bin/zeitgeist-explorer, maybe). The gui opens and under Applications you can see what it is logging under each of your major apps. I could find no option to disable logging or whatever in this GUI. I removed the zeitgeist packages, autoremove removes some of them, and apt-get -s --purge remove tells you some more.

I kept going, but I did not remove libzeitgeist-1.0-1:
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libzeitgeist-1.0-1* nautilus* nautilus-sendto*

Anyone know anything about zeitgeist in Kubuntu?

[Snowhog]

Are you using Nautilus? Gnomes equivalent to Dolphin?

[Qqmike]

No, not using Nautilus and probably never would.
Edit: yeah, good point; I'll get rid of libzeitgeist-1.0-1, too.

[dequire]

Is this the thing that can be enabled in Muon to rank use of apps in Ubuntu? If so, it is not enabled by default, at least according to Muon. So, perhaps, even if it's installed it still appears to be a opt-in kind of thing. At least if we're talking about the same thing.

[claydoh]

Zeitgeist is (iirc) what Ubuntu uses to aggregate recent files, apps, browser history, and the like for use in Unity's Dash. It is not installed on my systems, so i'll guess some Gnome/gtk things may be built to use it, and libzeitgeist (which is NOT the program itself) is just a dep that helps with the aggregation.

[Qqmike]

Like I said,

The gui opens and under Applications you can see what it is logging under each of your major apps. I could find no option to disable logging or whatever in this GUI.

For example, under Kaffeine, Libre Office, and Dolphin, I could see lists of specific files that I had accessed.

I don't know what's going on, but somehow zeitgeist and approx six other related-supporting programs got installed in my stock 14.04. Would it be installed if you checked "Install 3rd-party programs" during the installation of Kubuntu from live CD?

[Qqmike]

I didn't spend much time looking into it, but if you google, most of what you find is in the context of Ubuntu; almost nothing on Kubuntu/KDE. Muon's description of the program is about all you see quoted in on-line posts. Apparently, removing it can cause issues in Ubuntu-Unity.

[NoWorries]

I have been using Ubuntu. I have no issues with ubuntu, but I am concerned by what I have read about Zeitgeist.

If I switch to Kbuntu, using KDE, will I still have an operating system that includes zeitgeist, key loggers, or a service to collect information about my computer use?

I would install Kbuntu as a fresh install, with no attempt at migration, upgrade, etc.

I will only use a stable version of Kbuntu.

If the current version of KDE includes invasive software, is there an alternative that does not?

I have noticed many good answers by well respected members of this forum, but there has not been any response from tgar9. After posting this query it would be great to know what has been decided. It has been good to find out about zeitgeist as I had never heard of it before, but, with that said, I hope out time has not been wasted.

[marco07]

On my kubuntu 14.04-64bit, Muon shows that zeitgeist not installed. I just left it as is.

[claydoh]

Like I said,


For example, under Kaffeine, Libre Office, and Dolphin, I could see lists of specific files that I had accessed.

I don't know what's going on, but somehow zeitgeist and approx six other related-supporting programs got installed in my stock 14.04. Would it be installed if you checked "Install 3rd-party programs" during the installation of Kubuntu from live CD?

No Third party is for non-freee things like Skype and the like.. Some program you installed likely depends on a zeitgeist library in Ubuntu. The lib by itself does nothing. The zeitgeist daemon does all the data grabbing, if it is present and running on one's system.

Think of this as a different sort of Akonadi type of thing, or Nepomuk.

While out of date, the beginning of this article explains a bit about what it is. As you can see, KDE were very interested in zeitgeist, way back in 2010. Ubuntu is not the only desktop/distro that uses zeitgeist, if I am looking it it correctly. If anyone is concerned about this doohickey, a tiny bit of research will hopefully clear things up a bit. But do note that a lot of the "controversy" is from what, 6 or 8 years ago now? If there were any real, legitimate concern about privacy, it would have been brought to the forefront.

6 or 8 years ago.

[claydoh]

Is this the thing that can be enabled in Muon to rank use of apps in Ubuntu? If so, it is not enabled by default, at least according to Muon. So, perhaps, even if it's installed it still appears to be a opt-in kind of thing. At least if we're talking about the same thing.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5896[/ATTACH]

No, this has nothing to do with zeitgeist