Category: Linux

Setup Virtual Desktops in KDE Plasma

Update 01/15/2025

Seems there have been a few changes between Fedora 38/KDE 5.x and Fedora 41 with KDE Plasma 6.2.5. In the newer versions, Virtual Desktop and their shortcuts can be found here:

Virtual Desktops: System Settings > Window Management  > Virtual Desktops

Customize Switching Desktops: System Settings > Keyboard > KWin > Switch One Desktop to the Left (or Right).

If you’re still in KDE 5.25 then here is the magic:

System Settings > Workspace Behavior > Virtual Desktops

Customize Switching Desktops

System Settings > Shortcuts > KWin

Just gonna put this here because I’m a n00b.

In short, for folders:

$ command “Folder Name”

or

$ command Folder\ Name/

… for files

$ command “file name with spaces”

or

$ command file\ name\ with\ spaces

This is primarily for Mixbus and Mixbus32c running on Linux. It also applies to Ardour, which Mixbus is based on. The distro I’m using is Fedora Jam, however this most likely applies to whatever distro you’re using.

Issue

Mixbus 32c shows the following message when launched:

WARNING: Your system has a limit for maximum amount of locked memory. This might cause Mixbus32C to run out of memory before your system runs out of memory. You can view the memory limit with ‘ulimit -l’, and it is normally controlled by /etc/security/limits.conf

Solution

Open a Terminal window and check the memory limit by typing ulimit -l . You may see something like this:

$ ulimit -l 8192

This means that Mixbus is limited to 8GB of memory. To open this limit up, in Terminal, edit limits.conf:

$ sudo vi /etc/security/limits.conf

Add the following lines (or if they already exist with a # in front of it remove the # and change the number value of memlock to unlimited):

@audio – rtprio  95 @audio – memlock unlimited

Save the file and check the ulimit again. You should see this:

$ ulimit -l $ unlimited

If you don’t see this, then restart. You can try logging out and back in, but I found this didn’t work. A full restart, for whatever reason did.

Launch Mixbus. If you see the same warning message, check your group in Terminal:

$ groups yourusername

If you don’t see the audio group listed, for example:

username : username wheel pkg-build

add your user to the audio group:

$ sudo usermod -a -G audio yourusername

Check groups again. You should see audio listed:

$ groups yourusername username : username wheel audio pkg-build

Launch Mixbus and the message should be gone.