Inspecting Kubuntu 14.04 - 3 minor issues

[tpprynn]

One of my computers has had Kubuntu 14.04 64 bit on it for a few days. It seems fairly well-behaved but I wonder if the developer(s) who make Mint KDE use this forum. I have firstly a sort of academic interest in why Mint as opposed to Kubuntu puts the expected shadows on Libreoffice's menus - I use Calligrawords so I say 'academic' - but there are two new potential issues that are an annoyance which I'm hoping Mint will correct. One is that suddenly Network Manager gripes about my mobile broadband dongle's pin code. It doesn't have one and this has never come up before, in six years of using Linux. The first time I clicked cancel in the gripe box, the second time I typed in four 1's.

On battery power the default is that the brightness drops after a period but then keeps dropping until it is pretty dark on the screen. I would only expect it to drop once and it's like it's forgotten that it has dropped, that the variable hasn't been saved in the relevant file to register this. I've disabled the further drop in brightness so that battery power merely means using the computer by default with lower brightness, which is fine. This is a Lenovo X200 if it's relevant.

The other thing is that if'd downloaded a file to the /home folder in the past and saw the download there in the plasma representation of the home folder on the desktop, you could drag it into a folder after okaying whether to copy or move it. Now the chosen folder opens and you choose to copy or move it then. I'm wondering if this is a setting or an arbitrary alteration of KDE/Dolphin behaviour. I like to avoid unecessary changes if I can. The network manager applet had seemed fine to me but has been overhauled lately, which is a drag. (I think it should be possible to choose a default drag and drop behaviour so that you haven't got to confirm things.)

After much Linux experimentation and arriving at being a confirmed KDE fan this will be the first time I install with the intention of sticking with the full LTS period - I just want the OS to fade into the background so I can stop tinkering and work/play, and would like not to be surprised again with these little changes.

Hope someone knows what I'm talking about. Thanks.