KDE Plasma 6.5 Released (kde.org) 13
"Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems," writes longtime Slashdot reader jrepin. "Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.5." From the announcement: This fresh new release is all about fine-tuning, fresh features, and a making everything smooth and sleek for everyone. The new version brings automatic light-to-dark theme switching based on the time of day. You can configure which global themes it switches between. You can also configure whether you want the wallpaper to switch between its light and dark versions based on the color scheme, the time of day, or be always light or dark.
Next up is a "Pinned clipboard items" feature, which lets you save text you use regularly into the clipboard. Breeze-themed windows will now have the same level of roundness in all four corners, even the bottom one. Flatpak Permissions page has been transformed into a general Application Permissions page, where you can configure applications' ability to do things like take screenshots and accept remote control requests. The utility that reads the level of ink or toner from your printer now informs you when it's running low or empty.
For the gamers out there, you can now see more relevant info about game controllers on System Settings' Game Controller page. Artists among you can now configure any rotary dials and touch rings on your drawing tablet. Users sensitive to color can now make use of a grayscale color filter, which desaturates or removes color systemwide.
Plasma 6.5 implements support for an experimental version of the Wayland picture-in-picture protocol that promises to allow apps like Firefox to eventually display proper PiP windows that stay above others automatically. Support for "overlay planes" was added, which can reduce CPU usage and power draw when displaying full-screen content using a compatible GPU. You can read more about these and many other new features in the Plasma 6.5 release announcement and complete changelog.
Next up is a "Pinned clipboard items" feature, which lets you save text you use regularly into the clipboard. Breeze-themed windows will now have the same level of roundness in all four corners, even the bottom one. Flatpak Permissions page has been transformed into a general Application Permissions page, where you can configure applications' ability to do things like take screenshots and accept remote control requests. The utility that reads the level of ink or toner from your printer now informs you when it's running low or empty.
For the gamers out there, you can now see more relevant info about game controllers on System Settings' Game Controller page. Artists among you can now configure any rotary dials and touch rings on your drawing tablet. Users sensitive to color can now make use of a grayscale color filter, which desaturates or removes color systemwide.
Plasma 6.5 implements support for an experimental version of the Wayland picture-in-picture protocol that promises to allow apps like Firefox to eventually display proper PiP windows that stay above others automatically. Support for "overlay planes" was added, which can reduce CPU usage and power draw when displaying full-screen content using a compatible GPU. You can read more about these and many other new features in the Plasma 6.5 release announcement and complete changelog.
Ideal workstation (Score:2)
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The version of Plasma in Debian 13 seemed excellent during the brief time I used it. The version in Ubuntu 24.04 wasn't quite as good, and it's still on X Windows. But still much better than Gnome.
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How is it for folks more atuned to Gnome? Back in the ancient days I used to use KDE but came to find it bloated and a little too expensive on the machines I'd run it on. Nowdays though, I'm finding gnome a little too sparse and it seems like even baseline laptops have caught up, power wise.
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Great DE (Score:2)
Been using Plasma on FC42 and love it.
Highly recommend openSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE (Score:3)
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KDE used to be the cathedral of customization
KDE is still the cathedral of customization.
* KDE lets you customize the curvature radius in pixels of the rounded corners; choose a different curvature radius for in-focus and inactive windows; the existence of an animation in between the two; activate or de-activate the rounded corners in tiled and/or in maximized windows; see Plasma 6.3 last May https://ubuntuhandbook.org/ind... [ubuntuhandbook.org]
* The new thing in Plasma 6.5 is now the borderless windows also can have bottom rounded corners. This time it's a Breeze effect
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Attention to detail (Score:2)
People may laugh about things like the same roundness, but I appreciate how KDE pays attention to detail and also fixes the small issues. Maybe you didn't notice the roundness, but what about when the popup that opens next to a panel isn't completely aligned? No show stopper, but nevertheless something one notices until they fix it. Certain other projects would probably close the bug or let it expire with "no activity since 30 days" in their bugtracker, but KDE tries to catch them all.
Plsma Desktop (Score:2)
Calling KDE Plasma is like calling Linux GNU/Linux. You will find some persons who do that.