It’s coming! The date for the big release of KDE’s new desktop environment has been set.
#Plasma6 should land on your computer in February 2024 🤞.
https://pointieststick.com/2023/09/06/september-plasma-6-update/
I think that KDE’s track record shows that devs do not remove stuff just because. Quite the contrary.
But sometimes stuff does get removed and often it is because or it is unmaintained (and been so for a while), or because it is built on some old technology that cannot be replicated in the new environment without a complete rewrite.
In both cases, the reason a feature is discontinued boils down to a lack of resources.
Fortunately, the solution is simple: do your part.
KDE is a porous, grassroots and welcoming community. Join us and become part of the effort to build one of the largest and most diverse collections of end user, publicly-owned, free software projects in existence.
I know, I know: “but I can’t code”, etc., etc. But there are many things you can do to help. You can help organise Akademy 2024, you can translate menus and system messages, you can write documentation, draw wallpapers, design icons, edit videos, support booth staff at events, triage and report bugs, or just donate and contribute to financially supporting devs who still have to hold down pesky day jobs that get in the way of coding for KDE… The list goes on and on.
The point is, regardless of your level of technical knowledge, the more resources you free up elsewhere, the more time the people who do know how to code will have to maintain and translate software and features in the new Plasma 6 environment.
I really couldn’t get into KDE before. I’ll give it another go when 6 comes out.
That’s how I felt with KDE 1 and 2. I left it alone for a while and recently came back to KDE 5 after getting a steam deck and now I’ve switched my desktop to it.
I’ve recently switched from Gnome to KDE in preperation for Plasma 6. I’m definitely noticing some rough edges even on 5.27, so I’m highly looking forward to 6.00
@kde@floss.social @kde@lemmy.kde.social excited! Always loved KDE, but finally made the switch to an AMD GPU this month and finally getting to enjoy kde with Wayland and it so good!(once I disabled freesync on my monitors so my computer would stop crashing)
@kde@floss.social @kde@lemmy.kde.social wake me up when you restore the ability to place multiple application tabs in a single window. Many have been up in arms about the inability to use different backgrounds on different desktops for years. But the loss of the ability to combine applications in tabbed windows is a more serious regression in my opinion.
Rude, but a teachable moment:
This is our standard answer to people who need reminding that KDE is a community powered by volunteers and that each contributor works for free to bring you the best software they can make with the means they have.
Maybe I’m very dumb, but I don’t even see the utlity right now, or how that could even work…
@Sina it did work. I used it. It’s apparently not for you. Some people like to organize their displays by grouping particular windows together. Tabs are used for this in many applications such as browsers (try it). KDE extended this capability across applications but the feature disappeared with one of their downgrades about the time they removed the ability to set different backgrounds on desktops.
So I assume you are working on the needed code to reimplement that? Let me know if you need any help with it.
I’d love Plasma if they removed like 2/3 of the options and made the default look a bit more modern.
Gnome is a little too minimalist for my taste, but the default is good enough.
Getting Plasma to behave and look in a way that doesn’t annoy me is possible without installing anything extra, but it’s a chore. And I hate that bouncing loading cursor with a passion.
I’m genuinely glad there’s an alternative to Gnome, though.if you like the current look, then you wouldn’t even have to see the options, because you wouldn’t be trying to customize it.
but you’re arrogant enough to assume that if you don’t need them, then I shouldn’t either
The point of kde plasma is extensive customizability and aesthetics at the cost of performance. I don’t like default kde, but after tweaking everything with kvantum manager I can’t go back
There is no sacrifice of performance. Plasma is one of the lighter desktops out there and having lots of options does not impact that. We are also increasing efficiency across the board thanks to the Eco project.