FOSSPicks

Desktop environment

KDE Plasma

As a Linux user, I've always managed to sit on the fence in the Gnome versus KDE debate because my daily driver is Lubuntu, which uses LXQt. Still, KDE releases usually are accompanied by a lot of online fanfare. For instance, when version 6 was released in February, it represented the first major version in a decade. Upgrades included defaulting to the Wayland protocol and improved HDR support. Users could also once again use the famous 3D cube animation to switch between virtual desktops. (This feature had been removed in Plasma 5.2.3 in 2021). For the first time, Plasma also supported logins using both a fingerprint and a password at the same time.

Other changes were more subtle, such as a floating panel and customizable results in Plasma search. In the latest version (6.2.1), there's also been a fix to a bug that could cause widget pop-ups to be clipped at the edges of the desktop. The developers have resolved an issue that could cause the desktop switcher onscreen display to fail to appear. Accent colors have been tweaked, along with the System Tray and Widget Explorer, to give Plasma dialogs and pop-ups a more consistent look and feel.

There's also hugely improved support for graphic and drawing tablets. Plasma now has a range of configuration options, a setup wizard, and even a dedicated testing mode to delight aspiring artists. The update also includes improved power management features. Users can now override certain apps such as media players that could otherwise prevent the OS from entering sleep mode or locking the screen. The bundled battery applet now supports three different power profiles: Power Save, Normal, and Performance. According to the release notes on kde.org, users can cycle through these by holding Super+B. However, when I ran KDE neon in a live virtual machine (VM) it said the power profile wasn't available. Plasma has also changed the way it manages updates. Users can still choose to restart after upgrades are applied, but there's now an extra option to shut down your device instead.

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