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GNU is Not Unix Operating Systems Open Source Software Linux

KDE Plasma 5.9 Released (softpedia.com) 89

Posted by BeauHD from the come-and-get-it dept.
KDE has announced the release and general availability of the KDE Plasma 5.9 desktop environment for GNU/Linux operating systems. While it only took a few months to develop and isn't a long-term supported (LTS) version like KDE Plasma 5.8, the update does have several new features and improving Wayland support. Softpedia reports: Probably the most important one, which will make many KDE users upgrade from KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS or previous versions, is the return of Global Menus, a feature that was available in the KDE 4 series of the desktop environment. Only now, after numerous requests from users, did the KDE developers manage to implement Global Menus again in KDE Plasma 5.9. Quite a multitude of improvements have landed in the KDE Plasma 5.9 desktop environment for those who use the next-generation Wayland display server. These include the ability to take screenshots, support for using the color picker, implementation of borderless maximized windows for full-screen support, and support for dragging apps by clicking on an empty area of the user interface using the Breeze style. KDE Plasma Wayland support allows users to set color schemes for windows, which may come in handy for accessibility, implements auto-hide support for panels, and properly displays the window icon on the panel when using X11 apps. Moreover, there's now a new settings tool for configuring touchpads, which you can see in action in the second video attached below. Wayland users can also set up gestures and relative motions. KDE Plasma 5.9 also adds several cool new tools that promise to enhance your productivity. For example, you'll be able to drag a screenshot taken with the Spectacle utility from the notification pop-up straight into a web browser form, chat window, or email composer. There's also a brand-new drag and drop functionality that lets you add widgets directly to the system tray area, and it's now possible to add widgets directly from the full-screen Application Dashboard launcher. KRunner actions like "Open containing folder" and "Run in Terminal" are now displayed in the application launchers for search results powered by KRunner, of course, and there's now a new applet that lets users group multiple widgets together in a single one. You can read the announcement and download KDE Plasma 5.9 via their website.
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KDE Plasma 5.9 Released More

KDE Plasma 5.9 Released

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  • Link to announcement (Score:5, Informative)

    by colin_faber ( 1083673 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2017 @05:05PM (#53777199)
    https://www.kde.org/announceme... [kde.org]

  • Background per desktop? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by colin_faber ( 1083673 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2017 @05:07PM (#53777209)
    Does anyone know if this feature is back yet? I stopped upgrading KDE because I like having different background images per-desktop and this feature was dropped in favor of the somewhat clunky activities system.
    • Are you kidding me? You're willing tosacrifice your precious VRAM and GPU cycles in such a way?I am flabbergasted!

      • It's the customization capabilities and preferences for each user. If you prefer not to use it, you can either use only a single wallpaper, or use something else altogether, like LX/QT

        If they supported such a feature in one version, they should have the capability to enable that in all subsequent versions

    • I don't think so. I read a bug/wishlist thread on that issue a while ago and my impression was that it is a wontfix. I started using activities last week and it is less awful than it once was. I still prefer KDE to everything else out there.
    • really? you stopped using because of not having a different background image per desktop? a very very trivial reason.....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by agm ( 467017 )

      I run KDE 5.29 using Plasma and have a different image per screen (I run a triple head display). I use compiz as a window manager because it has nicer effects than the built in KDE WM.

  • ...These include the ability to take screenshots...

    This truly is The Year of the Linux Desktop!

  • More bloatware for Linux. Linux really is beginning to catch up to Windows, at long last. Maybe that's what they mean when talk about the year of Linux in the desktop.
    • What are you talking about? I run KDE / Plasms 5.x and it is blazingly fast. It is also highly configurable and there is simply no other environment I have found (incl. but not limited to e16, e17, fluxbox, fvwm2, LXDE, Gnome et. Al) that accommodates my workflow(s) so well.

  • Got excited for a second, I thought plasma TVs were back. I will cry the day my plasma gives up the ghost.

    Could we have more plasma TVs pleasee!

  • "Global Menus have returned. KDE's pioneering feature to separate the menu bar from the application window allows for new user interface paradigm with either a Plasma Widget showing the menu or neatly tucked away in the window bar,"

    You mean stuff that other DEs have had for ages? Same with clicking on an empty area to drag a window - which KDE had back (ISTR) in the days of Mandrake Linux ... must be a lot of work taking stuff out and putting it back in again all the time. They must be taking notes from Microsoft ...

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nnull ( 1148259 )
        The sad part is, a lot of stuff has not even been brought over from KDE 4 yet. A lot of functionality was lost due to the move to KDE 5.x. KDE 4 worked better out of the box than KDE 5.x ever did. KIO is still broken with a lot of stuff and they're at version 5.9 now...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )

      The used to have them, but got rid of them because they're a stupid paradigm. Lets take an integral part of an application and completely separate it from everything else.

      Hopefully its optional and we aren't forced into global menus or that dumb dropdown they show in their screenshots.

  • Flamebait (Score:2, Informative)

    by puddingebola ( 2036796 )
    It still can't hold a candle to Gnome 3.

    • It still can't hold a candle to Gnome 3.

      This is factually correct.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by btroy ( 4122663 )
      ROFL - both have their features I like. Gnome 3 is great for focusing on one topic per monitor at a time. Period. (This is my experience using it over the last year periodically and is just my opinion, I'm sure there are solutions, but generically that's what it seems).

      KDE is more like a common OS Desktop we all know and offers some nice features like multiple desktop and some eye candy that can be entertaining. I happen to live with KDE mostly. Plasma is following a similar line of the old, but is

    • FYI, KDE vs GNOME war is over. XFCE won.

  • Does anyone remember when the stated goal of at least the earliest KDE alpha had the stated goal of being a perfect Windows 95 clone? Looking around, this fact seems to have been erased from history.

    • Re:KDE Alpha (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Trongy ( 64652 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2017 @08:59PM (#53778411)

      It's hard to erase something that never existed. The original announcement [kde.org] mentions using windows design features, but not the goal of a perfect clone.

      There was another Linux desktop whose name escapes me at that time that had that stated goal, not KDE. Most open source projects in the 90's wanted to avoid being sued by Microsoft.

      KDE took ideas from many desktop environments, with a strong influence of Windows. The screenshots of KDE1 [wikipedia.org] show a strong visual similarity. The goal was to make it easy for Windows users to switch. KDE had a start menu and task bar which were the biggest innovations in Windows 95. Even apple eventually copied the taskbar. KDE also had the minimise/maximise/close widgets in the same place as MS Windows, and unlike most other graphical environments at that time. However KDE was never limited to copying Windows and even those early versions had features that were better than Windows 95.

  • Yawn (Score:2)

    by subk ( 551165 )
    Enlightenment users like myself have been alt-clicking *anywhere* in a window to move them since the mid 90's. I'm still baffled by the fact that the most feature-rich WM/DE is also just about the least popular. I guess not everybody can be a smart user.

    • Yeah that's pretty much a standard feature across most X11 desktops including KDE. The good ones allow you to move those bindings from 'alt' to 'meta' for aplications that use alt.

  • I've recently switched from Kubuntu 14.04 to 16.04 and KDE 5 took a while to get used to. I don't care one bit for the global menus as that seems too Mac-like and doesn't appeal to me coming from a PC background. However the biggest thing I am missing is the lack of public holidays in the calendar widget when you click on the clock, I used that a lot in KDE 4.

  • After years of threats, I finally managed to eliminate all the apps that were tying me to a Windows 7 desktop or a Macbook workstation. I've used Linux heavily for years, but never as my desktop OS. It was always my app, web, or build server, and I'd interact with the machine via bash over SSH.

    Now that I'm on a Linux desktop, I'm fairly comfortable with Mint's 'Cinnamon' UI, which I understand is a forked version of Gnome 2.

    Normally, if I wanted to experiment with a new UI, I'd just dive in, but I'm still i

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