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KDE Plasma Active 3 Improves Performance, Brings New Apps

Posted by samzenpus on from the frsh-off-the-line dept.

jrepin writes "KDE has released the 3rd stable version of Plasma Active, KDE's device-independent user experience. The Plasma Active user interface is touch-friendly and works well across a range of devices. Its Activities function gives users a natural way to organize and access their applications, files and information. Plasma Active Three noticeably improves the user experience with its enhanced and expanded set of apps, improved performance and a new virtual keyboard."

44 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. xfce for a tablet? by brennanw · · Score: 3, Informative

    Do they even have xfce for a tablet? Plasma active is KDE's "touch screen" interface, which they say is for "everything" but is clearly targeted at tablets, since all their graphics show it being used on one.

    --
    Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
    1. Re:xfce for a tablet? by taktoa · · Score: 1

      Oh, I misread the title as saying "KDE Plasma 3" rather than "KDE Plasma Active 3", and since KDE Plasma is just the general KDE graphical environment, it was an easy mistake to make. My point still stands, since tablet interfaces generally suck anyway.

  2. Fair enough. by brennanw · · Score: 1

    I like KDE myself but I can see why some people think it's too top heavy.

    I'd actually like to play with this but I'm not sure I have a compatible one... that I'm willing to experiment on to that extent, anyway.

    --
    Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
    1. Re:Fair enough. by chmod+a+x+mojo · · Score: 2

      Sounds like classic PEBKAC to me since the full KDE suite loads faster than that on my 1Ghz netbook.

      And you can make it as basic as you want, even down to using openbox as your window manager in KDE if you don't like kwin.

      --
      To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
    2. Re:Fair enough. by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      Sounds like classic PEBKAC to me since the full KDE suite loads faster than that on my 1Ghz netbook.

      Ah, good old 'blame the user'. I install KDE fresh from Ubuntu and it takes forever to load and therefore it's my fault.

      And it takes nearly as long on my 1.6GHz netbook with an SSD running some different version of Ubuntu, so that would strongly suggest it's not.

    3. Re:Fair enough. by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A lot of the blame KDE gets comes from the many services that the various distros run at startup/login that are not part of KDE. However, on the same system, KDE is less resource intensive than Gnome 3 with Gnome Shell and loads faster. On Ubuntu systems, the same can be said for KDE vs Unity.

      However, if you are loading a lot of background applications when you log in, the speed and resource improvements will be less noticeable as other factors come into play.

      A 1ghz atom processor with 512KB ram is quite responsive. If one is going to spend a lot of time in something like LibreOffice, then 1GB ram might be a better choice, simply because the additional resource required for LO.

      Of course that would be the case for XFCE and LXDE and others, too. We get so hung up on the resource of the base desktop, when it is the choice of applications being run that determine the real resource need (ie LXDE will run happily on 256KB ram, just don't try to open firefox or libreoffice).

       

    4. Re:Fair enough. by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

      I like KDE myself but I can see why some people think it's too top heavy.

      I prefer the term 'bloated pig'.

      I tried KDE again recently because Canonical are about to obsolete the version of Ubuntu I'm running (the last with Gnome 2) and I took about a minute just to log in on an i5 system. A lot of that is probably loading the fancy graphics from disk rather than waiting for the CPU to do something, but I can live without fancy graphics.

      You can turn off the 3d rendering of KWIN in the settings. However, unless it was your first boot where it is creating a bunch of configuration files for the user, etc. It sounds like there is something else wrong. You might check your logs as that is definitely not the norm.

    5. Re:Fair enough. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe the C in PEBKAC is Canonical.

    6. Re:Fair enough. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sounds like classic PEBKAC to me since the full KDE suite loads faster than that on my 1Ghz netbook.

      Ah, good old 'blame the user'. I install KDE fresh from Ubuntu and it takes forever to load and therefore it's my fault.

      And it takes nearly as long on my 1.6GHz netbook with an SSD running some different version of Ubuntu, so that would strongly suggest it's not.

      I agree with chmod a+x mojo. I have Slackware 13.37 on my HP Mini 1000 which has an Atom N270 1.6ghz CPU. I doubt that mine is so much faster than 0123456's simply because I upped my physical RAM to 2gb.

      If I don't include the time it takes to physically type in my BIOS and user passwords it's rather quick from power-off. Also:

      I took about a minute just to log in on an i5 system.

      I think is a lie because there is no possible way my old Atom is out-performing you. On top of that, I suggest you talk to your psychiatrist about upping your Adderall dosage since clearly ~60 seconds is an intolerable period of time to boot a highly polished GUI.

      On the other hand I've heard the meme that Ubuntu is Afrikaanz for "I'm too stupid to run Slackware."

    7. Re:Fair enough. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ah, good old 'blame the user'. I install KDE fresh from Ubuntu and it takes forever to load and therefore it's my fault.

      And it takes nearly as long on my 1.6GHz netbook with an SSD running some different version of Ubuntu, so that would strongly suggest it's not.

      Actually, it suggests what everybody already knows: that Ubuntu's KDE is crap. So much crap that it's slower on an i5 than the same KDE version on a sane distro on a netbook.

      Seriously, try it on some other, non-*buntu based distro. Or compile it yourself on *buntu: I'm sure you'll do a better job compiling it than Canonical, even if you don't know your gcc from your configure, and think "make" means "brand".

    8. Re:Fair enough. by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Is nepomuk outside of KDE now? 'Cause the developers must all have SSD's, based on the way it thrashes my machines at login. KDE is not alone; my Android phone goes about downloading updates and such when I wake it up to make a phone call. Mozilla apps hang, etc.

      I never expetected we'd have multi-gigahertz machines that were too busy to take our keyboard input in realtime.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    9. Re:Fair enough. by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      The desktop search, which does must of the thrashing can be disabled in the settings. Nepomuk can be set not to start, but if you use something that requires it, it will still start up. It does however, cause a lot less problems than previously. Main things that use it, that I am aware of are kmail and kontact. I don't use those and I have it set to not auto-start. As such, it doesn't cause me any grief.

  3. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The standard desktop KDE has done nothing in the touchscreen area...
    Plasma active is another environment designed for touchscreen devices, while Plasma desktop sticks to the old desktop paradigm...
    Nothing to rant about

  4. In their defense... by Picass0 · · Score: 1

    ... you aren't being forced to use the netbook/tablet desktop in KDE as you are in Gnome 3. KDE still has a functional desktop environment.

    I am frustrated by their stability issues more than their desktop functionality. KDE is very flexible in that respect.

    Lightweight/full featured is a different concern. Since the average PC user now measures their RAM in gigabytes this isn't a concern for some people. But if you want your DE to have a smaller memory footprint then KDE is the worst choice.

    1. Re:In their defense... by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ... Since the average PC user now measures their RAM in gigabytes this isn't a concern for some people. But if you want your DE to have a smaller memory footprint then KDE is the worst choice.

      That's not true anymore. KDE is currently the more resource friendly than Gnome or Unity, at least according to Phoronix. On the otherhand, the KDE developers, dismiss such comparisons as they can vary widely from one release/update to the next.

    2. Re:In their defense... by Picass0 · · Score: 1

      Interesting. I hadn't seen that claim by Phoronix.

      I've been giving Mate a trial recently. As a former Gnome user it has it's strong points. I like KDE but I've encountered stability problems in Fedora 15 & 16.

    3. Re:In their defense... by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      I don't have the link handy, but they also had another story back in September about how Unity was slower than Gnome and KDE. As for stability, I'm not sure what version of KDE shipped with Fedora 15 and 16, but 4.8.2 was pretty darn stable on the *buntus. I'm just now evaluating the 4.9 series and so far, it seems faster yet.

    4. Re:In their defense... by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

      I like KDE but I've encountered stability problems in Fedora 15 & 16.

      Stability problems in a cutting edge distributions... News at 11...

  5. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    at least iOS and OSX are kept separate.

    Just like KDE's two separate products.

  6. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    at least iOS and OSX are kept separate.

    Just as KDE Plasma and KDE Plasma Active are kept separate.
    I agree the naming should be clearer, but Slashdot posters should also RTFS.

  7. Re:Sigh by Lucky75 · · Score: 1

    Ah, totally didn't realize that. Haven't really looked at KDE in a few years all that much. That's good, at least.

    --
    DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
  8. Re:Sigh by miltonw · · Score: 1

    I think you are confusing the O/S with the desktop software. The kernel isn't "designed for touchy crap", it's the desktop. If you don't like touchy crap, use one of the bare-bones windowing solutions, like xfce.

  9. Interesting by phrackwulf · · Score: 1

    Can I use it with my Planar touchscreen monitor and netbook though? Would be one way to bridge this huge divide between touch type devices and the PC world.

    --
    What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
    1. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, you can.

      In fact, one thing we'll be working on in (hopefully near) future is the ability to switch (even automatically based on hardware events) between different interface paradigms if you wish: dock for a desktop, run away with a tablet; or flip up the screen for a desktop, swivel it flat for a tablet; or .. just pick manually :)

      We already have the "pick manually" working for switching between Plasma Netbook and Desktop. It's been there for some time in System Settings, in fact. The plan is to take that functionality and make it completely generic so it can be used as a general UI shell / paradigm switcher.

    2. Re:Interesting by phrackwulf · · Score: 1

      Very outstanding, as a test engineer or metallurgical foundry engineer this type of hardware event functionality is just what we need! I actually really miss the Gateway switcheable laptops you used to be able to buy. This type of thing might actually make "ultrabooks" good for something.

      --
      What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
  10. Re:Semantic desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The KDE team has worked a lot on the performance of these components. A modern KDE release won't expose those problems. The Akonadi/Nepomuk combo is certainly not even the bottleneck on Atom-based hardware of three years ago.

    There were performance problems in the beginning, but they're firmly under control now. Please update your bias accordingly. :-)

  11. Re:Sigh by Bertie · · Score: 1

    They're inching ever closer together. Witness OSX's braindead implementation of fullscreen apps, which don't allow you to do things as ingrained into the Mac way of working as dragging and dropping files from the Finder into apps. They did this to get their desktop OS closer to their tablet one, and it makes very little sense.

  12. Re:Sigh by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

    Looks like we need another fork. It's ridiculous how much everyone seems to be into the whole tablet hype. Fuck, as much as I hate Apple, at least iOS and OSX are kept separate.

    Why another fork? The KDE developers already have a desktop version and a touch screen version of Plasma. They are named Plasma Desktop and Plasma Active. There is no need to fork, unlike Gnome and Unity, KDE did not force a new paradigm on their users. The user can decide which interface they want based on the device (Desktop, netbook and now Active). You can even run the various interfaces on devices they were not designed for if you want (but I'm not sure why you would want to do that). Whether Plasma Desktop, Plasma Netbook or Plasma Active, all are running the same KDE below the surface.

    So, no forks needed.

  13. Probably not. by brennanw · · Score: 2

    Quanta hasn't been updated in five years.

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    Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
  14. Still won't fix basic functionality -geometry by kmahan · · Score: 1, Interesting

    All these new features into KDE and the developers still won't (can't?) fix a 4+ year old bug that is about basic functionality -- that of honoring the -geometry command line option.

    Please vote for this bug to be fixed!

    https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=165355

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  15. Re:Still won't fix basic functionality -geometry by kmahan · · Score: 1

    Take a look at https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147094 for the use cases.

    In case you can't be bothered -- my use case is having a shell script that opens up several windows (konsole and other tools) as my dev environment in a standard way. The konsoles are put into the appropriate directories, commands executed in certain windows (cscope, etc..). The konsole windows are not all of the same size. And mixing in the other tools precludes using the built in (but very restrictive) Konsole profile capabilities.

    This functionality worked great in KDE3 (and all the X WMs I used for many years before that).

    So corner case? No. Missing functionality? Yes.

    I guess if all you do is browse the web and write emails that this wouldn't be a very important feature.

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  16. Re:Sigh by Barsteward · · Score: 1

    "Look how many Slashdotters are confused." you must be new here, thats the normal stance.......

    --
    "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
  17. This is HUGE by ingwa · · Score: 2

    I really cannot understand why there is not more interest in this. This is HUGE: It's the first and only fully free working environment for tablets. And it presents a new way of working with tablets (activities) that seems to be more suited to our brains than other paradigms. And it's beautiful to boot.

    1. Re:This is HUGE by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

      I really cannot understand why there is not more interest in this.

      Because Win8 is not yet in stores, along with all those x86 tablets coming with it.
      Don't know about KPA3 but KPA1&2 required patched kdelibs, making it very complicated for Linux distributors to package it.
      I usually like KDE but their patch requirement in KPA1&2 was totally retarded. Hopefully KPA3 relies only on stock SC 4.9.

  18. Re:Still won't fix basic functionality -geometry by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

    All these new features into KDE and the developers still won't (can't?) fix a 4+ year old bug that is about basic functionality -- that of honoring the -geometry command line option.

    That is basic functionality for you? WTF? This is advanced functionality only a tiny niche audience cares about and of that niche audience most would use KWin rules for the same feature.

  19. Re:Still won't fix basic functionality -geometry by kmahan · · Score: 1

    Maybe it is considered advanced for KDE4. Many apps such as Konsole in KDE4 all purport to support this advanced option in their help - so it could be argued that it is a bug in KDE4 and not a new feature.

    As for it being basic - I've been using it in X for 20+ years. I guess I'd consider it more primitive than advanced. KDE3 had great support for it.

    I've looked at KWin Rules before. From the provided examples and trying it I didn't see an obvious way to handle my use scenario - perhaps you can suggest the appropriate technique or point me at an example that works similar to below:
    - Specify a specific profile -- call it "ProjectA"
    - Provide an ICON or some other method for starting ProjectA
    - When started the following happens
    -- 6 konsole windows are opened
    --- each with separate geometry for placement and size
    --- each with different titles
    --- each has a specified home directory to start in
    --- one starts cscope
    --- 2 start VIM
    --- 1 starts an ssh to a target machine
    --- 1 is tailing a log file
    -- 1 firefox window is opened
    --- specific geometry for placement and size
    -- 1 custom app is opened
    --- specific geometry for placement and size

    Creating "ProjectB" should be an easy copy of "ProjectA" and allow for quick editing of window placement, rules, etc.

    It should be trivial to copy these rule sets to another machine.

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  20. Re:Sigh by fast+turtle · · Score: 1

    what are you smoking as I'd like some of it myself. KDE did change the damn UI and forced it on us when they switched from 3 to 4. One feature I use and depend on is the multiple desktop mode as I tend to configure each desktop for a specific purpose. Then they dropped all of that in favor of the god damn M$ way of a single desktop and crammed it down our throats.

    Personally, I'm glad someone decided to keep working on fixing the bugs and various problems in 3 (Trinity Project) as it allows me to continue using the10+ multiple desktops that I've configured to support my various workflows. KDE 4 is so bad, I may as well run Win7 and forget about open source.

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    Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
  21. Re:Sigh by fromhell091 · · Score: 1

    You can blame KDE4 for akonadi, for nepomuk.. but for have an unique desktop? Aye you kidding? In KDE4 you could have for every Virtual Desktop a different configuration (with different wallpapers, plasmoids, etc...). Only the panel remains. More on that, you could have different Activities with differents virtual desktops too. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67ZFrrM9Zro

  22. Re:Sigh by paulatz · · Score: 1

    Then they dropped all of that in favor of the god damn M$ way of a single desktop and crammed it down our throats.

    Since when have you been smoking high quality double-concentrate reinforced crack?. Even the worst bug-infested 4.0.1 KDE version allowed you multiple desktops. They would just crash multiple times but they were there.

    Actually KDE now allows you two different levels of multiplicity: desktops and activity. Where multiple desktops pretty much works as always, activities let you configure different sets of desktop applets (plasmoids), application started by default and more stuff. I personally do not use it, as I find it confusing, but you cannot complain it does not exist.

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  23. Plasma Mobile by rdnetto · · Score: 1

    Once upon a time there was an idea to target both phones and tablets - what happened to that? It seems like they're only concentrating on tablets now.
    -someone who was really looking forward to running KDE on his phone

    --
    Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
    1. Re:Plasma Mobile by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

      Work still in progress: https://projects.kde.org/projects/extragear/base/plasma-mobile/activity

  24. Re:Still won't fix basic functionality -geometry by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

    Thanks for proving my point: It's a feature for a tiny niche audience.

  25. Re:Still won't fix basic functionality -geometry by kmahan · · Score: 1

    You do seem indicative of a lot of the KDE users I've met. The general feeling is that KDE shouldn't be used by developers.

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  26. Re:Still won't fix basic functionality -geometry by KugelKurt · · Score: 1

    You do seem indicative of a lot of the KDE users I've met. The general feeling is that KDE shouldn't be used by developers.

    As if that single option was a requirement by all developers and not a niche...
    KDE software is developed by developers and seems like they can live just fine without the option, just like ALL Windows, OSX, etc. developers can since forever.