KDE 5 has been released. Er, that's the
KDE 5 Plasma Desktop since the folks at KDE are now very particular about making sure you call it Plasma. But nomenclature isn't important; what's important is what this latest evolution of the desktop brings to the user, and in my opinion it's quite a lot. Plus, two big things: First, unlike the transition from KDE3 -> KDE4, which broke everything, the transition from KDE4 -> KDE5 should be automatic. Secondly, this article points out everything has gotten
faster, which makes clear a lot of energy has gone into optimizing underneath the hood. Sounds good!
- Converged Shell: means the same components can be used to design a desktop or tablet interface or phone interface. It lays the groundwork for a device that adapts its interface to whatever you're holding, like the Asus Padphone [ed. note: which is pretty damned cool!]
- Modernized launchers: 3 of them, including one called Kicker (for you KDE3 nostalgics like me)
- Improved notification area: leads to fewer distractions, apparently
- Better support for high DPI displays
In the words of Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
1:
When KDE made a radical change to its popular Linux desktop in 2008 in KDE 4, I hated it. Over a year and many changes later, I finally found KDE 4.3 usable. This time, with the just-released KDE Plasma 5, I didn't have to wait for it to be usable. The new KDE is already good to go.
1Get a nickname, dude! SJVN is too much to type!
I give this project credit though, for running a properly-managed project. With the exception of the KDE4.0 debacle, they've generally kept the project moving forward with sensible design choices. I know why they abandoned KDE3 and redid the desktop in a way that each built component can be repurposed. It was a lot of work but I think from a design/architecture perspective they are much better placed now to grow and innovate in the future, so good on 'em. If KDE5 is truly faster, better optimized, and less memory intensive, that's also a huge win.
That said, maybe I'm getting curmudgeonly, but I truly find all I really need in a Linux desktop is a file manager, task tray for a few apps that require it, and a launcher. Windowmaker still offers me all of that, plus full keystroke configurability for things I do often like minimizing or shading windows pulling up the launcher, and so on. I have trouble seeing what else the enormous Desktops really provide at this point. Lastly, I find for some reason, whenever I leave a bittorrent client running for a long time on KDE4 things start to come unglued and eventually the GUI crashes. I am pretty careful to make sure whenever I am torrenting I'm doing so from Openbox or Windowmaker or something like that. Not sure what the deal is, but it's proof they've got some work to do.
Meanwhile, congrats KDE team. I will absolutely look forward to installing this.