KDE. Some think of it as the desktop environment that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

What I like most about KDE is that there is Plasmoid (a form of widget for KDE) for almost everything – Facebook, clocks, weather, tweeting, start menus, Dash, calculator, system monitors etc… you name it.

One plasmoid I find really useful is the “Places” menu. Now I know what you’re thinking, and yes “places” can be accessed from Kickoff (or Lancelot) or even from Dolphin itself, but I’ve always prefered having a separate plasmoid pinned in my panel “a la Gnome 2”.

Look and feel

The plasmoid itself is pretty staightforward to use and has a nifty little feature to show the space usage of a hard disk when hovered with the mouse:

Installation

If you are using Ubuntu yor any of it’s derivates ou can just add my OMG! Ubuntu! PPA and install the package “usu-places”:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kokoto-java/omgubuntu-stuff && sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install usu-places

You can also install it using KDE’s built-in Plasmoid search tool. Just search for usu-places:

It’s also available to download from here as standalone .plasmoid file:

[button size=”medium” color=”green” url=”http://opendesktop.org/content/show.php/usu-places?content=147188″]Download[/button]

If you are interested in the source code you can grab it by clicking here.

Once installed you can add it your preferred panel by right-clicking on the desktop, selecting “Add Widgets” and searching for “usu”.