Nearly 10 years after KDE Plasma 5.0, the launch of KDE Plasma 6.0 is approaching and a first "Megarelease - Alpha" is out now for testing. KDE Plasma is the desktop environment used on the Steam Deck's desktop mode, and my current favourite for my own desktop with Kubuntu.
This Alpha release includes KDE Plasma 6, lots of updates to all the KDE Gear applications (file explorers, music and video players etc), upgrades to KDE's Frameworks (for devs to build apps) and moving as much as possible over to Qt6, the framework upon which Plasma is built.
It's difficult to list everything that's going to be new and improved because there's just so much of it. Expect better Wayland support, better performance, an improved Discover software centre, the return of the Desktop Cube effect (pictured below), the Spectacle screenshot tool finally has an option to remove shadows, new and improved colour-blind accessibility options, various improvements to System Settings layout and the list just goes on and on. Reading Nate Graham's blog goes over a lot.
Pictured - The KDE Plasma 6 Desktop Cube Effect, credit: Nate Graham
This is the current roadmap:
- 8 November 2023: Alpha <-- you are here
- 29 November 2023: Beta 1
- 20 December 2023: Beta 2
- 10 January 2024: Release Candidate 1
- 31 January 2024: Release Candidate 2
- 21 February 2024: Private Tarball Release
- 28 February 2024: Public Release
See their full announcement here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje Nov 8, 2023
Quoting: slaapliedjeOne of the DEs should get on the VR HUD usage soonish. With things like what the Apple thing is, and some very rough support already for SteamVR, I'm expecting we're likely 10ish years away from basically having floating displays via small glasses. Can already sort of do it with the Xreal air glasses and a Mac, the software still kind of stinks, so it's only a matter of time.
With what we know about Deckard, this would certainly make sense. Still, there's a lot KDE could do to improve their handheld experience and I haven't really seen anything in that area unless Valve explicitly sponsored it, sadly.
no_information_here Nov 9, 2023
fenglengshun Nov 9, 2023
Quoting: slaapliedjeOne of the DEs should get on the VR HUD usage soonish. With things like what the Apple thing is, and some very rough support already for SteamVR, I'm expecting we're likely 10ish years away from basically having floating displays via small glasses. Can already sort of do it with the Xreal air glasses and a Mac, the software still kind of stinks, so it's only a matter of time.
xrdesktop has had integrations with KDE (and GNOME) for a while at this point, so the desktop use-case for AR/VR is already there - with some limitations of course.
Quoting: no_information_hereAwesome! I look forward to using it a year or so after it hits public release (I no longer live on the leading edge). Thank-you to everyone who is fixing bugs!
Yeah. I just thought I'll see it with Debian trixie release in 25. :-D
Quoting: kokoko3kI hope Xorg users will continue to get fixes.
I was under the impression that not only KDE on X, but especially Xorg itself does not get a lot of love anymore?
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me