KDE Plasma 6.6 Released (kde.org) 42
Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin writes: KDE Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile too) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.6.
In this new major release, Spectacle can recognize texts from screenshots, a new on-screen keyboard and new login manager are available for testing, and a first-time wizard Plasma Setup was added. Your current theme can be saved as a new global theme, which can also be used for the day and night theme-switching feature. Emoji selector got a new easier way to select skin tone. If your computer has a camera available, you can now connect to a Wi-Fi network by scanning a QR code. Application sound volume can now be changed by scrolling over an application taskbar button via mouse wheel. When screencasting and sharing your desktop, you can now filter windows so they are not shared. A setting was added to enable having virtual desktops only on the primary screen. If your device has an ambient light sensor, you can enable automatic screen brightness adjustment. Game controllers can now be used as regular input devices.
For complete list of new features and changes, check out the KDE Plasma 6.6 release announcement and the complete changelog.
In this new major release, Spectacle can recognize texts from screenshots, a new on-screen keyboard and new login manager are available for testing, and a first-time wizard Plasma Setup was added. Your current theme can be saved as a new global theme, which can also be used for the day and night theme-switching feature. Emoji selector got a new easier way to select skin tone. If your computer has a camera available, you can now connect to a Wi-Fi network by scanning a QR code. Application sound volume can now be changed by scrolling over an application taskbar button via mouse wheel. When screencasting and sharing your desktop, you can now filter windows so they are not shared. A setting was added to enable having virtual desktops only on the primary screen. If your device has an ambient light sensor, you can enable automatic screen brightness adjustment. Game controllers can now be used as regular input devices.
For complete list of new features and changes, check out the KDE Plasma 6.6 release announcement and the complete changelog.
Let's be anti-FUD proactively (Score:3)
Re: Let's be anti-FUD proactively (Score:2)
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Very true. Although I hope KDE continues to work equally well on X11 and Wayland. And on other Unix OSes. Perhaps even on Windows. There was a time when I ran KDE on Windows, mostly for kicks. Alternate shells for Windows have disappeared and been banished by MS, sadly.
Regarding Wayland, it is worth noting that one of the features in the summary---not showing certain windows when screen sharing---is a wayland-only feature. X11 simply does not have a way to easily do it.
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Instead of the systemd argument, we can have the wayland argument! Seems like in 15 years they could have added that feature to X11.
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No, not really. X11 simply has no architecture for that sort of separation, and no way to screen share anything other than what is in the frame buffer.
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It rather seems like another thing that goes into the compositor.
Re: Let's be anti-FUD proactively (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes and that's how it's done on Wayland. I don't see any reason why kwin on X11 couldn't do something similar except that you'd have to get all the various programs that want to see the screen to cooperate.
With Wayland, the only way to get an image of the screen is through the compositor through a somewhat well-defined interface (works across several different compositors), so that's what Zoom, OBS, screenshot programs all have to use. But on X11 all the apps just grab screen shots directly from the X server currently. At this stage a standard for X11 just isn't going to happen. Besides that, what would you do if you didn't have a compositor running? Would require fallback code. I just don't see anyone getting real excited about that. Whereas on Wayland these features can be added by the compositor for free as it were, and the screen sharing apps don't have to know anything about it or do anything special.
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I'd suggesting using the same interface since as you say it's somewhat well-defined and works across different compositors. There's also no reason that X11 cannot have a standard compositor which does the bare minimum. In fact such compositors already exist, so they could be used.
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Plasma won the Desktop wars (Score:3)
I used to be a supporter of lightweight desktops but now there is really no good reason left to avoid KDE Plasma.
An amazind desktop.
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now there is really no good reason left to avoid KDE Plasma.
An amazind desktop.
oh, there is. the most important thing of a desktop metaphor is that i don't realize it's there. i want to launch programs, and that's it. the more functionality you add to it the more it gets in my way. that's (imo) a very good reason to avoid plasma from what i see in this release.
don't get me wrong, i surely could go with plasma. i've used them all, i have fiddled around a lot, but now i care so little about desktop environments that i usually go with the default of the distro i install, which currently
Re: Plasma won the Desktop wars (Score:2)
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super+t: terminal
super+start typing name of program, +ret, launches program
super+shift+direction: resize or move windows around or to another monitor
alt-esc: cycle programs
that works pretty well and it's hard to get any frustration out of that, and that's what i use most of the time. that means 98% of the time. 1% is when i want to check the time (the clock is right there at the top) or i have to adjust wifi or bluetooth (it's right there at the top-right corner), the other 1% is when i install some program
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You can configure KDE to work with the same weird key combos you're using now if you want to for some reason.
Every time I try to use GNOME I find that I have to go hunting for addons to make it do things I want to do. It doesn't matter that I only want to do them occasionally, as I still want to do them. So I gave up and I just use KDE, where it does all the things.
Agreed on Windows though, for sure. It is now spyware, nagware, and every other kind of badware. The incompetence is spectacular as always, but
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You can configure KDE to work with the same weird key combos you're using now if you want to for some reason.
they're not weird, they're the default. as i said every desktop environment has some sort of equivalent that takes 5 minutes to learn, and that's enough to fully operate a desktop.
my philosophy here, after a very long time of use, including periods of extremely customizing very different uis, some quite esoteric, is that less is more. now, you might want more for any reason, that's ok, and if kde suits you in that regard then i'm happy for you. i'm not going to switch from something that works to something
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Oh, I'm not trying to talk you into anything. I'm only pointing out that you can configure things. You don't have to learn new things unless they work totally differently. A lot of what a DE does is happening behind the scenes and making things more harmonious by applying similar settings to different applications. If that's not relevant to you, why indeed should you spend the resources?
A lot of key combos are just weird in that you have to learn them, like anything with an fkey. But the least weird of thos
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oh, please, don't leave me like this. tell me how i should be using my computer. i've only been using computers continuously for about 45 years, both for fun and professionally, all sorts of them, from micros to mainframes. i can't wait to be enlighted and inspired by your wisdom.
Re: Plasma won the Desktop wars (Score:2)
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I'll start with an easy one. Have you ever heard of a shift key or capital letters?
super+shift+direction: resize or move windows around or to another monitor
Oh, I see you do know what a shift key is. Perhaps you can try using it while typing soon.
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Virtually every desktop is move cursor to icon and click to launch a program
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KDE was really the first real DE for Linux, long before Gnome was a thing. Had it not been for the Qt license issue back then, GTK and Gnome would never have been created. Imagine a world without Gnome and where the GIMP was made from Qt. Some would like it and others probably shiver.
Back in 1998 I was struggling to learn Red Hat 5.1 with fvwm2, coming from an MS/DOS and Windows 95 background. KDE 1.0 came out and I downloaded a bunch of RPMs at the uni lab on a zip disk. I installed it and that changed
Re: Plasma won the Desktop wars (Score:3)
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I do begrudge there being two major competing toolkits in Qt and GTK
It's just not a problem in practice as you can easily run them both at the same time, and there have been tools which theme Qt with GTK or vice versa for years so you can have essentially the same look across both.
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Also Qt's biggest downside is it's a C++ toolkit and to use it from other languages requires wrapper layers that instantiate and hold the C++ objects while exposing essentially a C-level interface to those objects. This means in Python, every time you instantiate a Qt object you really are dealing with two objects: the python one and the C++ one. I've run into bugs where the C++ object's lifespan got out of sync with the python object and led to crashes. Also the C++ nature of Qt means often your code is l
Re: Plasma won the Desktop wars (Score:4, Insightful)
Gnome is still the default on the biggest distros, but KDE really should be. KDE is something a non-Linux user can immediately find usable. It does not take much to make Gnome usable, but the biggest Linux distros should not have a broken by default DE that takes several extensions to turn into a DE that has the functionality users expect.
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Linux + KDE Plasma is the best way to replace Mac OS X. Did it on my MacBook Pro 2011, and on my daughter's MacBook Pro Retina.
all I want to know (Score:2)
Did they finally institute sensible drag and drop behavior for files or does it still prompt me every time even though Apple had this figured out in the eighties?
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It still did as of 6.5.5. But the nice thing about KDE is you can use whatever parts of it you want. I'm currently using Caja as the file manager inside of KDE. No particular reason, but it works fine and I think it looks a lot better than Dolphin.
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I've read there is a config option to make "move" the default like it is on other OS's, but I can't find it. Using shift and ctrl does work like other OS's and avoids the popup menu. But yeah it's awkward, so I'm glad I just use Caja and avoid dolphin altogether.
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See the screenshot near the end of this PR https://invent.kde.org/plasma/... [kde.org]
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Oh I see. It's not an option in Dolphin, it's in Plasma settings under Workspace->General behavior.
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By default it prompts to ask if you want to move it, copy it, or create a link, so it does in fact behave sensibly.
I disagree that this is sensible. The sensible thing to do is copy to another volume, or move on the same volume, like everyone else has done for ages.
If you prefer it to just do one of those without prompting you can configure it that way in configure/confirmations
Last time I looked at the discussion the KDE peeps were saying this had to be fixed someplace other than the file manager, it was in some library or something. Since that setting doesn't exist in ye olde version included with Devuan, I haven't seen it. It's nice to know they finally stopped saying everyone should just be happy with it the way it was and figur
Re: all I want to know (Score:2)
I find it to be totally sensible. If I don't want the popup, I just hold down Ctrl while dragging, same as you do in Windows to explicitly copy, and it copies. If I want it to move, I hold down shift while dragging, same again as Windows to explicitly move. If I want to link, I hold down ctrl+shift while dragging. No popups! I prefer all destinations have the same default action (popup) if I forget to specify.
If you don't like that you can totally disable the popup system and it behaves exactly as in Window
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Perhaps in the next version of Debian I will get a KDE which has this feature. I didn't realize how far behind they were even in Trixie until this story came out.
It's probably for the best, because in the past when I've run cutting edge KDE I've regretted it.
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Ugh. KDE 4.0. Don't remind me of that turd.
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It's behind, but it's not that behind. It's 6.3.6.
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If drag the file it does (dolphin 25.12.2), but if you use the a modifier key (Shift, Control, Ctrl-Shift) then it executes Move/Copy/Link without asking. I personally enjoy the menu, I often use those 3 actions and I like it to ask me. Though I understand this should have been made configurable. I even find a pity it does not offer hardlink in addition to symbolic link.