Every article tag can be clicked to get a list of all articles in that category. Every article tag also has an RSS feed! You can customize an RSS feed too!
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Stability and usability are the keys to the new KDE Plasma 5.22 release that's officially available today.

I am always in awe of what Plasma can do. It's probably one of the most versatile Linux desktop environments available. It has options for everything, options within options and it manages to somehow look good while doing everything you could possibly want it to.

Plasma 5.22 works even better with Wayland as of this release, which is becoming increasingly important. KDE say it now works with variable refresh rate/FreeSync, marking off another big piece from the list, especially with different refresh rates possible across different screens.

Other Wayland improvements include the ability to set a screen's overscan value, the Present Windows effect is hooked up exactly as it is on X11, you can maximise windows both vertically and horizontally, external graphics cards will work without a Plasma restart, performance improvements for Plasma, notifications won't bother you when you're screen sharing and much more.

There's plenty that isn't related to Wayland too including:

  • Adaptive Transparency for panels
  • System Settings gained a speed dial feature for common settings
  • You can disable offline upgrades
  • The System Tray Widgets should look a lot more consistent, along with Widgets like the Digital Clock gaining more ways to customize the date. You can now select an audio devices' profile directly in the Audio Volume Widget too/
  • KRunner can also now show multiple lines of text.
  • The modern Plasma System Monitor replaces the old KSysguard
  • On both Wayland and X11, windows open on the screen where your cursor is.

A lot more on top of that, those are just some of the more noticeable improvements to be expected.

Check out the flashy release page for more or see the main changelog.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
21 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check 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. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
25 comments
Page: «2/3»
  Go to:

Purple Library Guy Jun 8, 2021
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: slaapliedjeThere is still not really a reason to move to Wayland. Like sure maybe architecturally it's better. But as a user and needing my things to actually work correctly, then why would I move to Wayland?
The people who used to work on X11 don't want to any more. They only work on Wayland now. No one else has taken over the X11 work. Wayland will become adequate or it won't, but, either way, there's no viable alternative.
Long term, sure. But right now it does seem that, certainly for KDE looking at that list, Wayland still has a lot of regressions. Or rather, KDE has a lot of regressions on Wayland--not really Wayland's fault, but for an end user the point is, if you go to Wayland you have a list of problems.
I do get the feeling that lately, people have been getting much more serious about making their stuff work with Wayland, and also that what I've been hearing about Wayland progress these days is much less likely to be "Wayland finally gets N to work" and much more likely to be "Somebody finally gets their N to work on Wayland". So I think we're getting a lot closer and the last mile could come rather faster than things have been going up till now. Well, it'd be hard for it to go slower.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 8 June 2021 at 5:59 pm UTC
LinuxGamesTV Jun 8, 2021
Can i set a primary Display? I have 3 Displays and in KDE 5.21.90 i can't.
slaapliedje Jun 9, 2021
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: slaapliedjeThere is still not really a reason to move to Wayland. Like sure maybe architecturally it's better. But as a user and needing my things to actually work correctly, then why would I move to Wayland?
The people who used to work on X11 don't want to any more. They only work on Wayland now. No one else has taken over the X11 work. Wayland will become adequate or it won't, but, either way, there's no viable alternative.
This isn't entirely true, they did just release some new Xinput updates. They're just not doing full releases like they used to.

Funny thing is, that was the WHOLE point in moving from XFree86 to Xorg. They wanted to make it more modular and so you could update individual pieces here and there without having to modify and do full releases.

Then someone got the bug and decided that Xorg was old, and we should have something shinier, but for some reason they didn't want to support features that 'nobody' used... then got a bunch of push back and then keep teetering on the fence about such features being added or not. X11 forwarding may not be used very often, but when you absolutely need it, it's one of those features that are literally impossible to find on any non-Unix platform. Sure beats having to remotely display an entire user interface, when you only need one application to run!

There are other just random things that don't work in Wayland. As I've pointed out elsewhere, specifically the Tomb Raider ports for Linux won't run on it. I was getting some errors from Shadow of the Tomb Raider for sure, until I switched to Xorg on my VCS.

Basically, 'It's not ready until it works for me' is a perfectly good reason not to switch to Wayland, but you have some individuals who think that if you're an Xorg user over Wayland that you're an evil scum. People are so weird. "think my way, or I hate you!" seems to have caused a lot of strife in history, you'd think some would just come to the conclusion 'hey, what works for you may not work for me' and leave it at that. :P

Like the Gnome vs KDE war, etc. Amiga vs ST. ST vs Mac... haha. the wars will always go on, it's just kind of weird.
Shmerl Jun 10, 2021
Just tried Plasma 5.22 / frameworks 5.82.0 with the Wayland session and I get a weird issue when copying to clipboard works only every other time. I.e. Ctrl+C on something - works. Another time - it doesn't. Then it works, then again not.

Did anyone encounter such issue? Is it a bug or something isn't configured properly?

I'm going back to X11 session for now because this issue is extremely annoying.
starfarer Jun 10, 2021
Quoting: ShmerlJust tried Plasma 5.22 / frameworks 5.82.0 with the Wayland session and I get a weird issue when copying to clipboard works only every other time. I.e. Ctrl+C on something - works. Another time - it doesn't. Then it works, then again not.

Did anyone encounter such issue? Is it a bug or something isn't configured properly?

I'm going back to X11 session for now because this issue is extremely annoying.

There you go. :)

Quoting: starfarerPeople harp on about how great Wayland is. Unfortunately I am not willing to move away from KDE and it doesn't look like KDE will work with Wayland very well very soon. :/

It's the first showstopper issue from that page.
Shmerl Jun 10, 2021
Quoting: starfarerIt's the first showstopper issue from that page.

I'm not sure it was. I was using Wayland to Wayland clipboard copying and it was still messed up and only worked every other time. But symptoms are similar, yes. It's not limited to XWayland probably. Also following the comments I found this one:

https://github.com/swaywm/wlr-protocols/issues/92


Last edited by Shmerl on 10 June 2021 at 5:10 am UTC
slaapliedje Jun 10, 2021
Quoting: ShmerlJust tried Plasma 5.22 / frameworks 5.82.0 with the Wayland session and I get a weird issue when copying to clipboard works only every other time. I.e. Ctrl+C on something - works. Another time - it doesn't. Then it works, then again not.

Did anyone encounter such issue? Is it a bug or something isn't configured properly?

I'm going back to X11 session for now because this issue is extremely annoying.
Could be worse. A new 'feature' in Microsoft Teams makes it so if you try to copy a piece of text out of a code block, it copies the entire thing. Legit is making us all stab happy.
slaapliedje Jun 10, 2021
Hmm, I did not check which version is in the Pop_OS 20.04 or 21.04 beta, but it seems to handle gurps character sheet (GCS) that is Java based better than Gnome does. Gnome messes up the fonts in the main window, but it looks fine in KDE.

Does Konsole support split windows like Tilix?

And why does KDE not have a screenshot shortcut built in? (Sorry, was that time of year I try KDE again.)
LinuxGamesTV Jun 10, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedje...
Does Konsole support split windows like Tilix?

Yes.

Quoting: slaapliedje...
And why does KDE not have a screenshot shortcut built in? (Sorry, was that time of year I try KDE again.)

It does. Spectacle is the answer.
slaapliedje Jun 10, 2021
Quoting: LinuxGamesTV
Quoting: slaapliedje...
Does Konsole support split windows like Tilix?

Yes.

Quoting: slaapliedje...
And why does KDE not have a screenshot shortcut built in? (Sorry, was that time of year I try KDE again.)

It does. Spectacle is the answer.
Yeah, I found Spectacle. But that's a separate application (may be part of KDE, but was not installed via 'sudo apt install plasma-desktop' in pop_os). Gnome-Shell has all the screenshot shortcuts built into it by default.

I should write a review of it. Like a 'Gnome user's perspective'. Kind of funny, I recently had a conversation with a co-worker about various versions of Windows. He thought I didn't have a valid opinion, because I've used so many things other than Windows (I was saying Windows 7 was good, but there was something that annoyed me about it, though it's been so long I couldn't remember what it was). I said the opposite is more true, as I've used a rather wide range of operating systems and know where one thing works better than another.

Then again, I am kind of weird and LIKED the spatial Nautilus set up (as I grew up more with the Atari ST and Amiga and that definitely was more like that, vs Windows 9x and onward where explorer windows didn't slam windows all over your desktop :P)
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.