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KDE Plasma 5.5 Has Matured Past the Point of Plasma 4 (phoronix.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the time-to-direct-the-complain-cannon-at-something-else dept.

An anonymous reader writes: KDE's Plasma 5 desktop received a lot of early heat for being unstable, missing functionality compared to the older Plasma 4, and other changes that irritated Linux desktop users. Fortunately, with the recent release of Plasma 5.5, they have hit a stage where there's fairly wide agreement that Plasma 5 has now matured past the point of Plasma 4. Ken Vermette looked meticulously at the KDE stack for 2016, including how it's working on Wayland, the setup, widgets, various new features, and more.

75 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Of course ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They've added 1.5 to the version, of course it has matured.

    I remember over the years companies taking v1.1 and renaming it v 8.1 or something equally stupid ... because clearly lying about the major version number means the product has matured.

    Version numbers are cheap, and in the hands of marketing they can say anything you want them to. ;-)

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Of course ... by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      "The HP200A was the first product made by Hewlett-Packard and was manufactured in David Packard's garage in Palo Alto, California......

      The product code was chosen to give the impression that HP was an established company. "

    2. Re:Of course ... by canistel · · Score: 1

      Ha, I did something similar when I started my business. First cheque I wrote was numbered "1024". Wanted a number > 1000, and 1024 is that nice, magic number.

    3. Re:Of course ... by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Yes. Whenever I see a check number 24 (as it is typical to begin with 1000) I always think, "Now this is an established company!.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  2. I'll have to give it another look.... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2
    ... the last time I tried out KDE, I was frustrated that I was not able to configure it to remember any window's size and position upon closing that window, so that it would be the same size/position the next time I opened it. To me, that seemed like second nature for a desktop interface.

    .
    The best I was able to do was to get a window to be centered on the screen when I opened it.

    1. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by realmolo · · Score: 2

      Do ANY Linux desktop environments save window position? I don't think any of them do. It's up to the developer of the application to handle that, under Linux.

      And you know what? The "your window position isn't always saved" thing drives me NUTS on Linux. It's one of the little "fit and finish" things that Windows and OS X do so well, but never seems to get taken care of with Linux DEs.

    2. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

      Do ANY Linux desktop environments save window position? I don't think any of them do. It's up to the developer of the application to handle that, under Linux....

      Really? None of the Linux desktop environments do it? Wow.

      .
      Why should the app developer care about where on the screen the window is? It's a user's preference on how the desktop looks and is used, and, as such, it should be done via the desktop interface.

      ... It's one of the little "fit and finish" things that Windows and OS X do so well...

      Yup.

    3. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by Tough+Love · · Score: 3

      ... the last time I tried out KDE, I was frustrated that I was not able to configure it to remember any window's size and position upon closing that window, so that it would be the same size/position the next time I opened it.

      Really? All versions of kde I have used have been able to do this, with varying degrees of convenience. In KDE 5, right click on the title bar and go to "more actions".

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    4. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      KDE has allowed you to *set* window position for many years now. In addition, the WM allows you to configure absolute window position/size/opacity/etc. on a per-window basis. Every one of my main windows has a pre-configured size and position.

    5. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

      ... with varying degrees of convenience....

      Perhaps that's the rub. I went digging into the window control panel and came up empty. That and other expeditions proved fruitless for me. When I checked online, I saw some comments about the feature not being present because it interfered with switching hardware while the system was running (?!?!).

      .
      In any case, as I said, I'll try it again. I've saved your instructions. thanks.

    6. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by monkeyhybrid · · Score: 2

      It's one of the little "fit and finish" things that Windows and OS X do so well

      I'm not sure I'd say OS X does it well, from my experience at least. It seems to work fine most of the time but some of the core utilities, especially Finder, 'forget' their window size on seemingly ransom occasions and it annoys the hell out of me.

      On the other hand, most (if not all) of the GUI applications I tend to use in KDE remember their size and position without a hitch. Things like Dolphin and Konsole, that I am very particular about in their arrangement, open up in the same layout every time. Granted, that's probably down to the apps, not the OS, but I can't say it's ever bothered me.

    7. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2

      I am not talking about me digging through menus to *set* the size/position, but the desktop remembering the size/position by itself when I adjust it ion the desktop. I've been down the path of having to dig through menus set the size/position on a per-window basis, and it was not enjoyable.

    8. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by monkeyhybrid · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'd agree that some of the community doesn't think about stuff like that, but on the whole, KDE is the least frustrating desktop environment I've ever used. And I've probably used more than most.

      I'm not saying it's not without its faults, but KDE actually has plenty of very thoughtful touches, sane defaults and UI polish. OS X is generally pretty good and then there is Windows, 'nuff said.

      All just my personal opinion of course. When it comes to things like GUIs, different people will always favour different ways of doing things.

    9. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by thoromyr · · Score: 1

      I'd agree with you, up to KDE 3 -- after that it took a nose dive. Its just a shame that Trinity didn't succeed because KDE used to be great.

      (this message posted from a system running KDE... its still my daily environment)

    10. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      You can also left click on the window program icon on the top left. There are a really wide variety of window pinning options. You click through two menus and end up in a system wide tabbed dialog with zillions of options for controlling various kinds of window behavior for all kinds of applications. This is a bit more awkward than the old 3.5 interface, which was really convenient, but it does the job and has a lot of depth. You certainly can't complain about missing features.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    11. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2

      I am not talking about me digging through menus to *set* the size/position, but the desktop remembering the size/position by itself when I adjust it ion the desktop.

      Would a window menu item to the effect of "save window as default" do what you want?

      This would let you:
        - easily update the window default parameters without hunting for and tuning its defaults in some other menu.
        - only do it when you WANT to - thus not annoying other users who don't want it to work this way (and also not causing you to lose the window because you happened to move it when you DIDN'T intend to make it live there later).

      As for "switching platforms" (i.e. starting a new desktop on a display where the window would be offscreen), the window manager could open it somewhere it picked that was ON the smaller desktop, without updating the default, so it would be back where it should be the next time you're at your usual display.

      (For the record: I just thought of this, and have no idea if anyone else has done this before. I'm perfectly happy for open source - or other - projects to use these ideas, if they happen to be new. So this posting can serve as "prior art" if somebody tries to patent it in the future.)

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    12. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

      You click through two menus and end up in a system wide tabbed dialog with zillions of options for controlling various kinds of window behavior for all kinds of applications. ...

      Are any of those zillions, "remember the last size and position of the window when reopening it"? When I last went through them, that particular one was not present. But as I mentioned twice so far, I'll check out the new version.

      You certainly can't complain about missing features.

      I can if the feature I want is not there. Quality, not quantity. :)

    13. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by dcooper_db9 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      IIRC this feature existed when 4 came out and it's been there since.
      1. Position and size your window as you want it in the future.
      2. Right click on the title bar
      3. More Actions:Special Window Settings
      4. Size and Position tab
      5. Check Position
      6. Change the dropdown to "Remember" (or force if you don't want it to be movable). Note that KDE recognizes the current size and position of the window. You can override these numbers if you like
      7. Do the same with Size
      8. Explore. There are a ton of refinements in these settings.
      9. If you want to adjust the window settings later they're found under Settings:Workspace:Window Management:Window Rules
      --
      I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
    14. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I'm really quite partial to LXDE. I also kind of like Cinnamon which is a fork of Gnome IIRC. I don't do so well at keeping track of all that stuff. :/

      However, I've tried a whole ton of them and I use LXDE. I made my own little dock that pops up when I mouse over the top of the screen. Meh, it works for me. Back before Christmas I took a screenie for someone, I forget who. I might as well share it anew.

      http://i.imgur.com/tnptzQN.png

      I find it insanely fast on new hardware and still really fast on older hardware. That's a desktop that I remote into back in Maine - this one is a bit too messy to share. I tried to get as much into the screen to see as possible but I find it looks fine, does what I need it to do, and does it reasonably well. So, that's the one that works for me but I'm not really into fancy. I am a bit curious about LXQt, I'll be sure to try that at some point.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    15. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by caseih · · Score: 1

      In Windows it's always been up to the application developer too, if I recall correctly. Many apps save this information in the registry. I don't think Windows itself does this for the apps.

    16. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      Are any of those zillions, "remember the last size and position of the window when reopening it"?

      Yes, why are you asking? It's right there, your options are: "do not affect"; "apply initially"; "remember"; "force"; "apply now"; "force temporarily". Overkill if anything.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    17. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by 1369IC · · Score: 2

      Pretty sure fluxbox (admittedly a WM, not a DE) does. From the wiki: "It is possible to force an application to always have the same dimensions, position, and other settings when it is first launched. These settings are saved in the ‘apps’ file. Most simple settings can be saved using the “Remember” submenu of the window menu, which can usually be opened with a right-click on the titlebar."

    18. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by bjwest · · Score: 1

      And this douche is why we're perpetually wondering if this year will be the year of the Linux desktop. Way too many attitudes like this can be found amongst the Linux Elite.

      Isn't it obvious to you yet? They don't want normal people to use Linux.

      It's not that we don't want normal people to use Linux, it's that we don't want Linux dumbed down to a normal level with no way to turn the dumbness off, which is what usually happens.

      --

      --- Keep the choice with the user..
    19. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by Reziac · · Score: 1

      I prefer WinXP, but of the linux desktops I've messed with, KDE 4.x is the most usable and least annoying. For the first time in the 18 years I've been trying to find a linux I can love, I could probably live with it as a daily desktop.

      Then I looked at KDE 5.x ... which is apparently starting the slide to copying Gnome. All sorts of annoyances and missing functionality. Won't be going there, nope...

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    20. Re:I'll have to give it another look.... by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      "Do ANY Linux desktop environments save window position? "

      I use KDE5, so I'm only going to speak about it. KDE5 is far, far more configurable (and powerful) than the Windows scheme. I can, for example, configure all windows with Thunderbird" in the title such that they fold into a paper airplane and fly to the taskbar when I minimize them. I am not going to go into an exhaustive list. I merely picked that one as a radical example of something of which Windows has never even imagined itself capable.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  3. Yeah... by szo · · Score: 3, Informative

    No

    --
    Red Leader Standing By!
    1. Re:Yeah... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wow, that is a monumentally stupid bug. I mean, really YYYY-MM-DD is the only thing which results in any sensible lexical ordering of dates, and remove the most ambiguity.

      This tells me shiny is taking precedence over useful.

      That's insane.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Yeah... by nnull · · Score: 1

      Over a year to fix that "stupid bug".

    3. Re:Yeah... by thoromyr · · Score: 2

      Holy cow that is awful. Although I've been using KDE for the last fifteen years or so my current workstation is KDE only because of long refresh cycles. Since I can't have KDE 3 I think I'll switch to MATE. Not great, but better than that.

      For those who can't be bothered to follow the link: one of the "improvements" in KDE 5 is removing Locale and using Qt's limited locale functionality. Which eliminated nearly all locale configurability. The lack of configurability won't be fixed by the KDE team because it is a feature of their elimination of KDE's locale.

      I didn't see it stated, but I expect Qt won't add it because the configurability belongs in the desktop manager, not individual applications. In other words, if your locale is "US" then you get the stupid US date format (I only ever use YYYY-MM-DD) and similar stupidity. In KDE 5 your locale settings can only be what is normal for your region. Don't like it? Find a region that does match what you like (usually not possible) and set it to that. The usability is actually even worse, but for more you'd have to read through the bug report comments.

    4. Re:Yeah... by thoromyr · · Score: 1

      Not exactly that. What they did was junk the entire KDE locale, presumably in order to have less code to maintain (hard to figure out why else they would). It is actually less shiny -- no preview of what the change will do, etc.

      It isn't as if KDE's user space consisted largely of people who liked to customize the shit out of it. Oh, wait...

    5. Re:Yeah... by thoromyr · · Score: 1

      "user space" -> "user base". Doh!

    6. Re:Yeah... by szo · · Score: 1

      Also, you seem to lose the ability to change on the fly: the change applies only when you re-login, which is mind-blowing in 2016, for me, the whole point of KLocale was that it worked around the UNIX's environment variable problem.

      --
      Red Leader Standing By!
    7. Re:Yeah... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      There's no option to set the time using the strftime format? Like %A %x? (Not a KDE user so not sure if such is enabled. It seems like it'd be something, somewhere, that you can set.) There's gotta be a config file somewhere... :/

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    8. Re:Yeah... by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      From the bug report YOU linked to: "Please note this is a missing feature and must be implemented ideally on Qt's side" Way to divert the blame to the wrong project though!

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    9. Re:Yeah... by szo · · Score: 1

      The feature existed in 4.x, the developers decided to toss it, knowing full well - I hope at least - that qt has nothing comparable. So what you (and they) say is technically true, only bullshit. For me, it is preferable to have a feature implemented (not ideally in KDE) to not implemented (ideally in QT).

      --
      Red Leader Standing By!
  4. Several Years Later .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Firstly, Kudos to the plasma team for getting this far. I'm sure the KDE users are happy.

    My only comment related to this (not just Plasma/KDE but more generally, many software rewriting endeavours lately), is that I wonder how far along we could've been if we started with the original base and incrementally improved and/or evolved things instead of always going for the 'quantum leap'; throwing things out and starting from scratch. Google is of late the worst offender in this regard (but certainly not the only one), throwing out perfectly functioning programs that users are happy with, for little reason other than "it's time for something new". Interestingly the amount of time that it takes something to become old and unwanted is getting consistently shorter and shorter. You can barely learn a new technology before it's out of favour.

    We've reached the point of software becoming fashion. And I guess I'm showing my age by longing for a time when building a good software system meant slowly and incrementally improving on a solid base, making improvements and enhancements in a predictable and timely fashion. Software was supposed to be predictable and stable. No more.. I find myself agreeing with the engineers (a dubious position to be in). Software is no longer about engineering.

    Speaking as a developer in the sunset of my career, when I retire (and people like me), I shudder to think of what the people remaining in the industry will do to established systems when there is nobody to keep them in check. Perhaps by this point I won't care anymore.

  5. KDE 3.5 by klapek · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Has is matured past the point of KDE 3.5?

    1. Re:KDE 3.5 by malditaenvidia · · Score: 1, Interesting

      No, but if it's any consolation, it has matured past the point of Gnome 3.18

  6. Different wallpaper for each virtual desktop by anandrajan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Still can't (won't?) do this. And as for Activities, "We don't need no stinking Activities."

    --
    Anand Rangarajan anand@cise.ufl.edu
    1. Re:Different wallpaper for each virtual desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So, you complain that you need the features implemented in activities, but proceed to bitch that you don't need no stinking activities.

      Perhaps you do need activitites after all.

      meta+tab. learn to use it and stop bitching about the solutions to your problem.

    2. Re:Different wallpaper for each virtual desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Can it do a single wallpaper spanning a multimonitor display? Can it NOT attempt to auto-arrange monitors upon connection? Either of those, alone, would have me agitating to reinstall one of our workstations.

      The fact that Gnome (afaik) cannot me made to do either of these is annoying. The fact that it *used to be able* to do a spanning wallpaper, and that feature was *deliberately removed*, is just utterly galling.

      Nothing says "polish" like having an 8K display in a conference room... that can't set a meaningful background because a 2x2 tile of the same picture generally looks stupid. Or having Gnome unstoppably trash the monitor arrangement the second ANY monitor is turned on, requiring constant (and painful) manual re-alignment. A setup whose monitors I'm loathe to ever turn off, because of this.

    3. Re:Different wallpaper for each virtual desktop by anandrajan · · Score: 2

      Yes, this seems to be problematic. The developers are aware of these (see this as well) but it'll take some time to fix the problems.

      --
      Anand Rangarajan anand@cise.ufl.edu
    4. Re:Different wallpaper for each virtual desktop by unixisc · · Score: 1

      I never had problem w/ different wallpapers for different virtual desktops for KDE. Some, like GNOME and Lumina don't support it, but KDE & LXDE is fine as far as THIS feature goes.

    5. Re:Different wallpaper for each virtual desktop by anandrajan · · Score: 1

      KDE 4 supported different wallpapers on virtual desktops but so far I've been unable to achieve this in Plasma 5. You can have a different wallpaper for each Activity but that's not the same as having this for a virtual desktop.

      --
      Anand Rangarajan anand@cise.ufl.edu
  7. Re:so still not as complete as3.5 then? by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Informative

    so still not as complete as3.5 then?

    And not nearly as polished as 4.10 was, either. Here is a list of just the first few problems that I started to list, before the problems started really piling up:

    * Maximized windows do not have thier scrollbars flush against the screen edge. Thus, Fitt's law cannot be used to quickly put the mouse cursor on the scrollbar.
    * Vertical panel does not auto-hide with second monitor attached.
    * No System Monitor widget. Apparently being worked on.
    * Volume Up cannot be set. Volume Down and mute work fine.
    * Krunner no longer accepts Bash commands. I have a bash command that I run periodically, this would work in Krunner in KDE 4 but does not work in KDE 5.
    * The panel app freezes often. I can intermittently freeze the panel by clicking on More Settings in the panel configuration toolbar.
    * Lots of crashes, most of which are not reproducible. I've had the Plasma Panel crash, System Settings, and other applications.
    * Keyboard Layout indicator missing.
    * Keyboard State widget disappears from the system tray, no resolution in the KDE forums.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  8. Window Maker by itomato · · Score: 1

    wmaker does. Saves your whole session if you like.

  9. Save and undo-save window defaults. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    Would a window menu item to the effect of "save window as default" do what you want?

    Also: If the manager remembers the previous default and switches the menu item to something like "restore previous window defaults" or "undo save window as default" when the window is at the default location, accidentally hitting the menu item when something else was intended would also be easy.

    (Same comments about being fine with me if you use it and this posting becoming prior art.)

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    1. Re:Save and undo-save window defaults. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      accidentally hitting the menu item when something else was intended would also be easy.

      UNDOING accidentally hitting the menu item when something else was intended would also be easy. B-b

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  10. Re:Fix for Virtualbox 3d bug? by Ramze · · Score: 1

    I can't speak for specifics, especially with virtualbox as I usually use VMware, but linux in general has had driver issues with 3D rendering in virtual machines for a while... and it's recently gotten worse.

    I fought w/ a bug for months before I got a resolution - the fix was to set virtual hardware from version 11 to 12 on the VM for vmware, upgrade to the 4.3.x kernel, and update to Mesa 11.1 or higher so i could use OpenGL 3.3 -- the OpenGL 2 fall-back had the bug.

    It's possible your issue has nothing to do w/ KDE btw... just like mine had nothing to do with Cinnamon.

  11. Still feels like an early beta by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · · Score: 1

    Judging from the users input and my own experience Plasma 5.5.3 still works and feels like an early beta other than a final product which has seen several minor releases.

    I don't know what happened to the KDE project but surely something was lost during the transition from KDE 3.5.x to KDE 4.x/5.x.

    1. Re:Still feels like an early beta by Magnus+Pym · · Score: 1

      It is worse than that. It has taken huge backwards strides in stability, in the past 4-6 months to the point where it is unusable. Kwin crashes randomly. The entire desktop freezes up when you try to move windows around. Menu items in the filemanager randomly stop working. Unfortunately gnome is not too much better either at the moment, so I am back to using a regular window manager. Hopefully they get their act together fast.

  12. Some killer apps by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Let's not forget some of the killer apps that are part of the ecology, two that come to mind are konsole and krita, both best in class by a mile. Who can complain about a painting program that many artists are starting to prefer over Photoshop, but free? I'm also impressed with Kdenlive. I never edited a video before and in about 10 minutes I produced my first cross fades. There's a whole lot more, including, let's not forget, almost the entire browser world, except for Mozilla and IE.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  13. Re:Desktop only matters for linked apps by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    I want my CPU to last a long time. When I see temperature over 70C and multiple cores at 100%, I know it's time to run cpulimit. gkrellm is my friend.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  14. Re:so still not as complete as3.5 then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    * Maximized windows do not have thier scrollbars flush against the screen edge. Thus, Fitt's law cannot be used to quickly put the mouse cursor on the scrollbar.
    > try setting the window border size to 0. Most people I know don't care about Fitt's law, though.

    * Vertical panel does not auto-hide with second monitor attached.
    > "Panel Settings -> More Settings -> Auto Hide". Not too bad, is it? Oh, it crashes before you can see that.. doesn't crash in my distro.

    * No System Monitor widget. Apparently being worked on.
    > "Panel Settings -> Add Widgets -> System Load Viewer".. or did you want something else?

    * Volume Up cannot be set. Volume Down and mute work fine.
    > I haven't had any problems increasing the volume..

    * Krunner no longer accepts Bash commands. I have a bash command that I run periodically, this would work in Krunner in KDE 4 but does not work in KDE 5.
    > See if your distribution disabled the "Command Line" krunner. My distribution didn't, so I've never run into this.

    * The panel app freezes often. I can intermittently freeze the panel by clicking on More Settings in the panel configuration toolbar.
    > I've had one or two panel crashes, but it doesn't happen very often at all. The "More Settings" works fine for me.

    * Lots of crashes, most of which are not reproducible. I've had the Plasma Panel crash, System Settings, and other applications.
    > Again, I haven't run into many crashes..

    * Keyboard Layout indicator missing.
    > huh.. so it is. I'm sure a widget will be coming soon.

    * Keyboard State widget disappears from the system tray, no resolution in the KDE forums.
    > Looks like it only shows up when a state is enabled.. weird, but hardly qualifying as a "Problem with the desktop"

    Sure you can be picky about the Plasma 5.5 not being Plasma 4. Notice how the OP freely admits to using fuzzy logic here..
    "where there's fairly wide agreement that Plasma 5 has now matured past the point of Plasma 4". You many not be among the people in wide agreement with this statement, but the "evidence" you've posted doesn't seem bad enough to be characterized as "problems".

    Sounds like you might need to switch distributions. Try OpenSUSE LEAP. No real problems with KDE over here :^)

  15. Re:so still not as complete as3.5 then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm running 5 and I tried these:

    1) Appears to not be a problem in 5, I jam my mouse to the right of my screen with a maximised window and can scroll.
    2) Works for me on three monitors.
    3) There is a system load viewer - not sure if that's the same thing.
    4) As a hotkey? Works for me.
    5) This works for me, it has a 'command line' option that runs the given text.
    6) Hasn't happened to me, I've been running for quite a few months now.
    7) I had one crash so far, as I say, a few months of runtime. The crash may not have been plasma's fault though, as other things died and it happened working with something experimental.
    8) There is one of these enabled in the keyboard options, works for me, I swap between dvorak and qwerty with it.
    9) Don't know that widget, couldn't test.

  16. Seriously? Does the author use KDE? by dcooper_db9 · · Score: 1

    You call this polished and mature? Never mind all the features that got tossed out and have to be rewritten. I use KDE all day every day and I love it, but this release is worse than Windows 10. My screen goes out of sync every time I leave the computer idle and plasma crashes several times an hour. By the way, wiping out all the activities and menu settings with the new platform was brilliant. That just made my day.

    --
    I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
    1. Re:Seriously? Does the author use KDE? by dcooper_db9 · · Score: 1

      My mistake. I'm using 5.4.2 not 5.5. Maybe they've actually fixed some of these issues.

      --
      I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
  17. Re:Qt is a mistake by cfalcon · · Score: 1

    > What I would give for a light modest (but capable) C++ widget set built only on OpenGLES. Linux UI development is so horribly confused.

    The sad part is, if a magic fairy stumbled upon your request and PWOOFed exactly that into existence, it would only add to the confusion.

    Would it support Vulkan?

    Also are you sure it isn't somewhere in this massive list of things?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    The huge amount of things available is in many ways a strength, but in many ways obnoxious.

  18. Akonadi, 5 years and still sucking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I guess now they only need to ditch (as in permanently remove and prohibit the main coder to commit to any KDE repository again) Akonadi and fix the useless mess that Kmail has become (can't delete messages from imap Courier server, instant crash when trying to compose message with non-english dictionary, etc...) and Kontact in general, and I might consider updating from 3.5.

    I mean, I try to actually do work with my computer.

    1. Re:Akonadi, 5 years and still sucking by unixisc · · Score: 1

      I disabled Akonadi and Nepomunk (where did they get these names?) when I ran KDE. Recently, I uninstalled KDE and can't seem to get it back (this is in PC-BSD). Well, not really complaining - Lumina is fine.

  19. systemd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Once Poettering releases kerneld, he can start working on winmanagerd and denvironmentd for all the new systemd/kerneld distros.

    1. Re:systemd by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Will kerneld be a microkernel? Maybe he could take something like Minix and add it on to systemd. Then do something like an x11d or waylandd followed by KDEd, GNOMEd, LXDEd, XFCEd and so on

  20. You can use KDE 3D compositing with other DE's by Sadsfae · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've switched back and forth to just about every *NIX Desktop Environment since I started using Linux in 1999, loved KDE 3.x, loathed KDE 4.x until it became stable and used KDE 5.x on and off. The good thing about KDE is that the windowing and 3D effects subsystem is modular.

    I'm pretty much settled on using XFCE but I'm using KWIN KDE compositing/3D effects with XFCE for a nice compromise between a 'classic' desktop that's rock solid but with the nice themes, windowing effects and features that KWIN (KDE's compositor) brings to the table.

    --
    Have a squat over at the hobo house.
  21. Re:so still not as complete as3.5 then? by dfsmith · · Score: 1

    I'll add a couple more things I miss (lost going from Kubuntu 14.10 to 15.10):

    • * Window titles on the side. I have a widescreen laptop, and having the window title bar on the side (rather than the top) of my windows was surprisingly useful. (I couldn't find an equivalent to the "bespin" widescreen theme. I'd do it myself if I could find a working theme editor, but after searching for an hour, I couldn't find a coherent description on how to theme Plasma5/Qt. The Bespin source code is a big horrible mess that I didn't want to port.)
    • * PDF preview in Dolphin file browser. An essential feature when you have hundreds of disparate PDF documents. It was apparently a Qt bug, and I hope it's fixed by now.
  22. Patheticly lame bugs languishing for years by fnj · · Score: 1

    Have they fixed the stupid bullshit dumbass bug where konsole will not transmit control-space or control-shift-@ to console mode emacs? It's been there for FUCKING YEARS now. As far as I know, konsole can't transmit these keystrokes to ANY program. I have tried over a dozen other console apps, and NONE of the others have any trouble at all with these keystrokes, in the same session.

    If it makes any difference, I'm using Arch x86_64. I have tried everything. No hint where those keystrokes are getting sucked up, but none of the goddam fixes found in google searches or other places work. I finally gave up, caved in, and added a mapping of control-alt-m for set-mark, but that doesn't make it right.

    1. Re:Patheticly lame bugs languishing for years by daremonai · · Score: 1

      Fixed: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug....

  23. Re:Desktop only matters for linked apps by KGIII · · Score: 1

    LXDE and Terminator as the terminal. Further up thread, I posted a link to a screen shot taken back before the holidays. Works for me. I'm not big on eye candy so much.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  24. My mini review. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Hi, I'm a regular KDE4 user.

    Sometime ago I installed Sparkylinux (not the last) on an external HD and booted one notebook of mine with it.

    Though I initially intended to use Xfce, I decided to give Plasma 5 a try, out of curiosity.

    It is (IMHO) already more usable than Xfce (mainly because applications like Dolphin vis-à-vis Thunar).

    Since I'm used to KDE4, I noticed:

    - some configs changed places like "performance"/compositing leaving Desktop Effects and being transferred to Monitor configuration.
    - some themes are nicer, both wrt colors and icons.
    - I have a two-monitor setting with one of them being the notebook screen and the other a pivoting one in portrait position. The rotated one cannot receive a normal 16:9 background to be scaled and cropped: part of the monitor remains unpainted, like if Plasma 5 thought it's not rotated. Since both monitors are configured to be side-by-side, the rotated monitor background pic spreads a little into the notebook. KDE4 doesn't do that (AFAIK).
    - The panel even if configured to a custom length (vertically at the extreme left) also ends up where the background ends (like if Plasma 5 thought the monitor was horizontal). Also, at least one time I had to logout/login because the panel had disappeared (possibly by mishandling on my part, like my finger escaping while dragging it... it was nowhere to be found... on login it had moved to the other side).
    - It's an abomination to have to reconfigure KDE everytime I get to a new installation... ideally, I'd download a desktop profile from the cloud and have my preferences setup instantly).
    - there's a new preference about optionally turning the touchpad off when a mouse is found. I thought it was nifty.
    - don't know about Window positioning, but I know FF does that on KDE4 i.e. it remembers the last geometry it was setup with. Maybe LO, too, but I'm not sure (yep, tested it now on KDE4 and it also retains the last geometry). Dolphin retains window size but not coordinates (it always starts with the last size on the upper corner... and new Dolphin windows are put next to the previously open).
    - I recently learned KDE4 is no longer maintained. Even if Plasma 5 is very usable, I wonder if it is wise to make KDE4 suddenly unsupported. Maybe this is not true or I've misread it. Can anyone confirm that?

    All in all Plasma 5 seems stable and very usable, though I remember Qt5 requiring post-Pentium 4 processors and therefore refusing modern processors without Intel instructions. If so, that is regrettable.

    I've used Plasma 5 on very important tasks (work with Libreoffice/Dolphin/Firefox). I acknowledge it is very usable, though claiming it on par with KDE4 seems a tad optimistic to me.

    And Sparkylinux is very beautiful with Xfce, too.

  25. KDE direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Who thought the lackluster performance of KDE5 were needed? KDE4 was fine, no easy way to opt out. Why can't I do a simple roll-back out of the fucking one year mess of KDE5 with massive missing features.
    KDE4 was finally OK, suspend session and everything. Now these idiots thinks they need to "improve" it without asking?
    Half-baKed dumbshit "improvements", cute fucking pastel care-bear colors, who gives a fuck?
    Better leadership at KDE is needed, get the fucking nerds out of the executive room.

  26. Re:so still not as complete as3.5 then? by dotancohen · · Score: 1

    1) Appears to not be a problem in 5, I jam my mouse to the right of my screen with a maximised window and can scroll.

    Good to know, thanks.

    2) Works for me on three monitors.

    I was terse, this issue is when the vertical panel is "between" two monitors. Discussion on the KDE forums:
    https://forum.kde.org/viewtopi...

    3) There is a system load viewer - not sure if that's the same thing.

    Only shows CPU load, not network or memory use. There are a few third-party widgets, but none are nearly as functional or useful as the KDE 4 widget or it's KDE 3.5 heritage.

    4) As a hotkey? Works for me.

    I cannot seem to set Win-] as Volume Up. I have Win-[ as volume down, Win-{as mute and Win-} as pause. Us VIM users take our keyboard shortcuts seriously!

    5) This works for me, it has a 'command line' option that runs the given text.

    Thank you, somehow I missed that one!

    6) Hasn't happened to me, I've been running for quite a few months now. 7) I had one crash so far, as I say, a few months of runtime. The crash may not have been plasma's fault though, as other things died and it happened working with something experimental.

    The crashes seem to be only for some people, not for others. Like most desktop software, those who happen to run hardware similar to that of the devs get a rock-solid experience. All others: airbags and seatbelts.

    8) There is one of these enabled in the keyboard options, works for me, I swap between dvorak and qwerty with it.

    Mine disappeared and stubbornly won't come back. Here is the KDE forums thread:
    https://forum.kde.org/viewtopi...

    9) Don't know that widget, couldn't test.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  27. Re:so still not as complete as3.5 then? by DuckDodgers · · Score: 1

    Which distribution are you using? KDE on Fedora Linux has been a disaster for me for Fedora 21, 22, and 23. When I use Fedora Linux, I end up with GNOME or Xfce for my desktop. I think that's just a result of the particular focus of the Fedora developers on GNOME, and not inherent to KDE or Plasma.

    So instead, if you haven't done it already I respectfully suggest trying one of the desktops that has Plasma as its default desktop: OpenSUSE, PCLinuxOS, KaOS, or maybe Arch.

  28. Re:so still not as complete as3.5 then? by dotancohen · · Score: 1

    Thanks, I probably will take a look at OpenSUSE. I'm on Kubuntu, a distro that I've been happy with for almost a decade.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  29. Re:so still not as complete as3.5 then? by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

    I clicked on this to make a comment questioning if KDE 5 has managed to catch up with KDE 3.5, but I was beaten to the punch.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  30. Re:Plasma 4 parity, eh? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    As a long time KDE user I loved KDE3 and lamented its devise originally. KDE5 far surpasses it though. At least try not to sound ignorant and/or stupid.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  31. Re:Problems likely originate below Plasma layer... by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    "How many of the applications that shipped with Red Hat 5 (no not RHEL 5, RH 5 - from 1997) do you think will still start?"

    You are shitting me, right? We have the source code moron. Every one still runs, you just can't be too incompetent to understand that FOSS isn't proprietary and package maintainers build them all from the source for us. If we need to, we can revert to an earlier revision, but there is rarely any need or advantage to that.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun