Plasma is arguably one of the prettiest Linux desktop environments around, and it's highly configurable too. The KDE team just released a huge upgrade with Plasma 5.20. This is a massive release that upgrades all parts of the Plasma desktop.
Fans of Wayland which is gradually replacing X.Org, compatibility continues being a focus and they've managed to make more steps as of this release. They mentioned that since 2019 they set a priority goal to adapt everything to support Wayland and it's "starting to pay off big time" now. As of this release middle-click paste with the Klipper clipboard app now works, plus the launcher/search tool KRunner now shows up correctly. Mouse and Touchpad support is getting close to being on par with X too, screencasting is now supported and more. Lots of steps taken.
That's just the under-the-hood stuff, tons of user-facing changes and improvements can be found across the whole desktop like the task manager being icon-only by default. A nicer default I think, as grouped icons look great and save precious space.
There's also new on-screen displays when you perform various actions like adjust volume, the system tray pop up now uses a grid rather than a list which looks a huge amount better, the digital clock widget is a bit more compact and has the date by default, the ALT keybind to hold and then drag windows around was moved to the Super key (also known as the "Windows" key) which is a nicer default with so many games needing the ALT key it was a common interference and the list of subtle improvements goes on for some time. Little things add up, and sane defaults are seriously important.
You can also find a newer Plasma Disks application which will add storage drive S.M.A.R.T monitoring directly into your System Settings — nice!
Check out their new release video:
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Direct Link
Direct Link
See the release announcement here. Full changelog here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
About the author - Liam Dawe
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
See more from me
See more from me
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
Nezchan 13 Oct 2020
I played around with Plasma in a VM not that long ago, and I found that it was a really pretty desktop with really ugly widgets to make it functional.
Seemed to work fine otherwise though. Not really sold on the idea of switching to it.
Seemed to work fine otherwise though. Not really sold on the idea of switching to it.
1 Likes
rustybroomhandle 13 Oct 2020
Not sure if it's the compositor or sddm or what, but for some reason games just feel like they run better on KDE. Have not benchmarked and purely going on feels here.
0 Likes
Been a long time since I gave KDE a shot; I should think about having another look.
0 Likes
Nezchan 13 Oct 2020
As an aside, whoever made that video needs to know that a borderless white font in front of a white window, even with the light gray bar, is almost unreadable. I gave up partway through the video because I was squinting so much.
1 Likes
TheSHEEEP 13 Oct 2020
I used to use Plasma, but for the second time now, this ancient, still unfixed bug where the kwin_x11 process just continues to hog up CPU until 100% (making the entire system unresponsive) has occurred - and once it does, only fresh install will fix it.
In the end, I just switched to Cinnamon. Not quite as pretty, but a hell of a lot more reliable.
In the end, I just switched to Cinnamon. Not quite as pretty, but a hell of a lot more reliable.
0 Likes
appetrosyan 13 Oct 2020
Not sure if it's the compositor or sddm or what, but for some reason games just feel like they run better on KDE. Have not benchmarked and purely going on feels here.
It's a bit of everything. KWin is the most advanced compositor, I've come across, second only to sway and river. The reason why you get better feel may be due to the driver stack being a monolithic C++ library, plus some nice stuff, like unredirect by default and being able to disable the entire compositing stack with a key combo.
You can get a similar experience on BSPWM, and Sway, and to a much more experimental extent on river, but not on Compiz (XFCE, unity), Metacity forks (Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE, Gnome), Clutter (Gnome) or OpenBOX.
5 Likes
Termy 13 Oct 2020
Not sure if it's the compositor or sddm or what, but for some reason games just feel like they run better on KDE. Have not benchmarked and purely going on feels here.I agree - but only until you try kwin-lowlatency xD
KDE is still my favorite by a long shot. I just hope this icon-only task manager crap will not be the only option in the future ^^
0 Likes
Dorrit 13 Oct 2020
I just hope this icon-only task manager crap will not be the only option in the future ^^I much prefer the classic task manager too.
0 Likes
tuubi 13 Oct 2020
You can get a similar experience on BSPWM, and Sway, and to a much more experimental extent on river, but not on Compiz (XFCE, unity), Metacity forks (Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE, Gnome), Clutter (Gnome) or OpenBOX.Just a small correction: Neither Xfce's compositing window manager Xfwm nor Compton (probably the most popular replacement compositor among Xfce users) are Metacity forks.
0 Likes
Kuduzkehpan 13 Oct 2020
long time in KDE
faster then gnome-shell
king of customizations beyond all DEs.
less resource hungary then any other gnome-shell or gnome forks.
highly responsive, easy to master.
very flexible u can even create your own desktop layout.
many improvements with wayland too.
But the thing that make me love it much more than anything isssss :
U can put a fully working icon , shortcut on desktop.
and with KDE NEON distro top notch kde updates are wellcomes you.
faster then gnome-shell
king of customizations beyond all DEs.
less resource hungary then any other gnome-shell or gnome forks.
highly responsive, easy to master.
very flexible u can even create your own desktop layout.
many improvements with wayland too.
But the thing that make me love it much more than anything isssss :
U can put a fully working icon , shortcut on desktop.
and with KDE NEON distro top notch kde updates are wellcomes you.
0 Likes
bingus 13 Oct 2020
I've used other distros but I always come back to KDE. Have followed the work that's gone into this version, so will be nice to have it on the desktop. The next version (5.21) also sounds like its going to be an interesting one, with the systemd changes supposedly making it much faster.
Last edited by bingus on 13 Oct 2020 at 10:49 pm UTC
Last edited by bingus on 13 Oct 2020 at 10:49 pm UTC
0 Likes
Trollwut 14 Oct 2020
I'm so used to my i3 workflow, that I won't switch.
But man, KDE looks sooo intriguing. Like everyhting you need AND on top of that nice eye-candy.
But man, KDE looks sooo intriguing. Like everyhting you need AND on top of that nice eye-candy.
0 Likes
tmtvl 14 Oct 2020
I may give kwin another try but I just know it'll still be EWMH compliant and therefore terrible on multiscreen.
0 Likes
Termy 14 Oct 2020
I just hope this icon-only task manager crap will not be the only option in the future ^^I much prefer the classic task manager too.
Change it back to the classic task manager its not difficult. Options is always the way to go
i know, thats why i hope that doesn't change in the future ;)
I may give kwin another try but I just know it'll still be EWMH compliant and therefore terrible on multiscreen.
what issues do you have on multiscreen?
i use two screens (of different size) and the only issue i have is that freesync doesn't work with that - and thats no kwin issue ^^
Last edited by Termy on 14 Oct 2020 at 6:45 am UTC
0 Likes
LungDrago 14 Oct 2020
I may give kwin another try but I just know it'll still be EWMH compliant and therefore terrible on multiscreen.
what issues do you have on multiscreen?
i use two screens (of different size) and the only issue i have is that freesync doesn't work with that - and thats no kwin issue ^^
Same here, no issues with KDE on multiple screens.
KDE is amazing. It's very flexible and configurable, which is just the way I like it. For all the functionality it's surprisingly quick and lean too, having a smaller memory footprint than many "minimalist" DEs out there. That describes KDE quite well, actually. You still get a very peformant DE but with no compromises on features or eye candy.
In my mind, the only reason you wouldn't use KDE is if
a) you're a newbie user and/or can't be bothered to tinker with your desktop to suit your needs and tastes
b) you're a fancy enlightened i3 user - although it's worth noting that again surprisingly KDE is very useable keyboard only if you wish.
0 Likes
const 14 Oct 2020
I was very interested in KDE when KDE4 was still new (even tried out the fancy betas). I liked the direction but found it unstable like hell. Also my favorite programs are all gtk and they looked horribly misplaced in kde back then.
Also, I found that most KDE applications had 100s of options you would set once and leave that way in some toolbar-sub-sub-sub menu and most things I would change on a regular basis were put in the preferences. Couldn't get used to this at all.
But maybe I should give it another try. feels like 10 years or so ^^
I'm using gnome for one reason alone: The overview when pressing the windows-button has become second nature to me. It's just amazing.
Last edited by const on 14 Oct 2020 at 5:06 pm UTC
Also, I found that most KDE applications had 100s of options you would set once and leave that way in some toolbar-sub-sub-sub menu and most things I would change on a regular basis were put in the preferences. Couldn't get used to this at all.
But maybe I should give it another try. feels like 10 years or so ^^
I'm using gnome for one reason alone: The overview when pressing the windows-button has become second nature to me. It's just amazing.
Last edited by const on 14 Oct 2020 at 5:06 pm UTC
0 Likes
Nocifer 14 Oct 2020
In my mind, the only reason you wouldn't use KDE is ifc) You need proper CJK support and IME integration and can't be bothered with jumping through a couple hundred of hoops just to end up with a half baked, barely working solution.
a) you're a newbie user and/or can't be bothered to tinker with your desktop to suit your needs and tastes
b) you're a fancy enlightened i3 user - although it's worth noting that again surprisingly KDE is very useable keyboard only if you wish.
Other than that though, and minus some additional minor niggles here and there, KDE is indeed a great DE.
0 Likes
Nezchan 15 Oct 2020
In my mind, the only reason you wouldn't use KDE is if
a) you're a newbie user and/or can't be bothered to tinker with your desktop to suit your needs and tastes
b) you're a fancy enlightened i3 user - although it's worth noting that again surprisingly KDE is very useable keyboard only if you wish.
I keep reading that list and I can't seem to find "you're happy with your current DE and have no pressing need to change it."
Probably there somewhere. I'll keep looking.
3 Likes
LungDrago 15 Oct 2020
In my mind, the only reason you wouldn't use KDE is if
a) you're a newbie user and/or can't be bothered to tinker with your desktop to suit your needs and tastes
b) you're a fancy enlightened i3 user - although it's worth noting that again surprisingly KDE is very useable keyboard only if you wish.
I keep reading that list and I can't seem to find "you're happy with your current DE and have no pressing need to change it."
Probably there somewhere. I'll keep looking.
Fair enough. There is indeed no need to switch if you're happy so far with what you have. No arguments there. :)
1 Likes
appetrosyan 15 Oct 2020
You can get a similar experience on BSPWM, and Sway, and to a much more experimental extent on river, but not on Compiz (XFCE, unity), Metacity forks (Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE, Gnome), Clutter (Gnome) or OpenBOX.Just a small correction: Neither Xfce's compositing window manager Xfwm nor Compton (probably the most popular replacement compositor among Xfce users) are Metacity forks.
My mistake, should have said compiz.
0 Likes
Patreon
PayPal
How to play games from GOG and Epic Games on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck
How to get Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 online working on Linux, SteamOS, Steam Deck