KDE Plasma is a pretty frelling great desktop environment - but couldn't it be better? The KDE team have begun the previously announced 15-Minute Bug Initiative.
The idea is to clean up issues in Plasma that affect the user experience within the first 15 minutes of booting. Encountering bugs quickly will put people off and gives a bad impression of not just Plasma, but of Linux as a whole. So this is their time to shine, especially with the Steam Deck coming that uses Plasma for the normal desktop mode.
It's up to the KDE team on exactly what they will include in the list, and some may take quite a while to actually solve so they might not fix them all even in the space of a year. What will absolutely get included in the list? Developer Nate Graham outlined these points as a start (but others are considered too of course):
- Affects the default setup
- 100% reproducible
- Something basic doesn’t work (e.g. a button doesn’t do anything when clicked)
- Something basic looks visually broken (e.g. “korners” bug)
- Causes you to get locked you out of your system
- Causes a full session crash
- Requires a reboot or terminal commands to fix
- There’s no workaround
- It’s a recent regression
- The bug report has more than 5 duplicates
You can see the current list of bugs tagged here. There's a few really problematic looking issues there like their application menu Kickoff, which sometimes at random loses the hotkey to open it. A bug I encountered only yesterday and it is thoroughly annoying.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
inlinuxdude Jan 19, 2022
Hmmm, I wouldn't think there would be any of these types of bugs on the stable version anyway... but I guess if there is, it's good they're going to clean them up before the steam deck launch.
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Quoting: inlinuxdudeHmmm, I wouldn't think there would be any of these types of bugs on the stable version anyway... but I guess if there is, it's good they're going to clean them up before the steam deck launch.
Check the article link - they've highlighted 56 bugs right off the bat, three of which are session-enders (highlighted in red). I can't say I've experienced any of them, however.
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I think this is a terrific idea. I remember a long time ago, Ubuntu did something similar. I think they called them "papercuts", which I thought was a nifty way of explaining them.
Those little things really matter, especially to new or learning users. You only get that first chance at a good impression and it seems silly, but those impressions can really stick in people's minds.
Last edited by denyasis on 19 January 2022 at 9:13 pm UTC
Those little things really matter, especially to new or learning users. You only get that first chance at a good impression and it seems silly, but those impressions can really stick in people's minds.
Last edited by denyasis on 19 January 2022 at 9:13 pm UTC
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This is an excellent idea. I think I can reproduce like 3 or 4 of the reported issues on my system (kickoff hotkey loss e.g.), or black screen after re-login. Most of them are small things that are very upsetting cause they nearly happen on a daily basis.
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My main issue with KDE is the slowness to boot when compared to any other DE, it is unusable on systems where the home partition is not stored in a local SSD. However, boot times on the Deck will probably be acceptable.
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I recently gave KDE a try after many years on the cinnamon desktop environment to experience some of the more flashy features seen as cinnamon has fallen way behind in that regard. I was not disappointed here, things like animated wallpapers are really cool and being able to play a gif independently on each monitor. Not to mention all kinds of transparency, blurs and effect choices.
But .. I can't say it went well really, neither on an Ubuntu base or fresh Arch install. Whats remarkable is how well KDE recovers from a crash, whats not remarkable is how often it has to recover from a crash. By crash i mean the panel resetting when you attempt to move widgets or reposition items, for instance dragging widgets to a second monitor could trip up KDE very easily but not consistently. plus a myriad of oddball 'paper cuts' And that is the same feeling i got for KDE for the last 15 years = lack of consistency.
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" 56 bugs right off the bat, three of which are session-enders " i mean that's hilarious. They should of been doing this kind of work years ago. But id wager, that after this initiative ends and the dust settles, in two years time there will be "56 bugs right off the bat, three of which are session-enders ".
imho It's just not a solid feeling environment like the 'dull' GTK alternatives, it kind of feels like it's always waiting to crash and when you stray from defaults expect faults .. hey that could be KDE's new moto.
(to be fair i think you could apply this to Gnome aswell, but only because Gnome devs make it intentionally that way)
Of course Everyone's mileage will vary. Each to their own.
BTW Wayland on Nvidia was a train wreck and much worse than I remember Gnome being.
But .. I can't say it went well really, neither on an Ubuntu base or fresh Arch install. Whats remarkable is how well KDE recovers from a crash, whats not remarkable is how often it has to recover from a crash. By crash i mean the panel resetting when you attempt to move widgets or reposition items, for instance dragging widgets to a second monitor could trip up KDE very easily but not consistently. plus a myriad of oddball 'paper cuts' And that is the same feeling i got for KDE for the last 15 years = lack of consistency.
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" 56 bugs right off the bat, three of which are session-enders " i mean that's hilarious. They should of been doing this kind of work years ago. But id wager, that after this initiative ends and the dust settles, in two years time there will be "56 bugs right off the bat, three of which are session-enders ".
imho It's just not a solid feeling environment like the 'dull' GTK alternatives, it kind of feels like it's always waiting to crash and when you stray from defaults expect faults .. hey that could be KDE's new moto.
(to be fair i think you could apply this to Gnome aswell, but only because Gnome devs make it intentionally that way)
Of course Everyone's mileage will vary. Each to their own.
BTW Wayland on Nvidia was a train wreck and much worse than I remember Gnome being.
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Quoting: MnolegMy main issue with KDE is the slowness to boot when compared to any other DE, it is unusable on systems where the home partition is not stored in a local SSD. However, boot times on the Deck will probably be acceptable.
I think by today's standards HDDs are horribly slow for boot times anyway. Why would you want to boot from one? Booting / startup is the most I/O intensive phase. SSDs are totally a huge benefit for that.
Last edited by Shmerl on 19 January 2022 at 11:51 pm UTC
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Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: MnolegMy main issue with KDE is the slowness to boot when compared to any other DE, it is unusable on systems where the home partition is not stored in a local SSD. However, boot times on the Deck will probably be acceptable.
I think by today's standards HDDs are horribly slow for boot times anyway. Why would you want to boot from one? Booting / startup is the most I/O intensive phase. SSDs are totally a huge benefit for that.
...then today's standards mean unoptimized code.
It is like hiding the dust under cheap carpet hoping that the price of the carpet will continue to go down when we'll need a bigger one.
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Quoting: kokoko3k...then today's standards mean unoptimized code.
It is like hiding the dust under cheap carpet hoping that the price of the carpet will continue to go down when we'll need a bigger one.
It's a physical limitation, not a code one. I.e. if you want to use rotational disks, I don't see a need to complain they are slow.
I agree though it's not an excuse when something isn't optimized in general. But it's not about that. HDDs are slow, no matter what you do.
Last edited by Shmerl on 20 January 2022 at 5:34 am UTC
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