Call it bias, call it taste, I like the Plasma desktop environment. After many years, I feel KDE is finally regaining some of that solid pro feel it used to have back in the (g)olden days. But then, the feeling of satisfaction is not guaranteed. Quality is a fickle thing in the Linux world, and…
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Roughly a year ago, I wrote my fairly lengthy State of Plasma article, which examined the KDE’s fifth major desktop environment incarnation in great detail, focusing on the many facets of goodness and badness that imbue it. Fast forward, there’s a new LTS coming, with final touches being added to a largely baked beta release.…
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One more. After exploring the ups and downs of the Gnome and KDE/Plasma crop of this year, we now focus on what Xfce can deliver us. Arguably, this is the third largest, most important desktop environment in the open-source universe, straddling the chasm between the two opposing philosophies of the G and K worlds. Back…
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Plasma me, Plasma you, a-ha, there was nothing we could do. But wait! Yes we can. Let us glimpse back upon Year 2017, and try to figure out which Linux distribution delivered the best overall user experience whilst adorned with the Plasma desktop environment. Continuing what we did with Gnome, we will now focus on the…
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Following in the best of traditions, it is that time of the year, when we wrap up the previous twelve months of hard work, software scrutiny, pain, tears, joy, and hope, all mixed and blended inside one big, scalding cauldron that we call Linux. We shall commence with the Gnome desktop environment. If you look…
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I love Linux. Which is why, whenever there’s a new distro release and it’s less than optimal (read, horrible), a unicorn dies somewhere. And since unicorns are pretty much mythical, it tells you how bad the situation is. On a more serious note, I’ve started my autumn crop of distro testing, and the results are…
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The word best used to describe Linux is variety. That, or fragmentation. Whichever part of the desktop system you choose, from the environment to the text editor to the underlying software packaging mechanism, there’s always a huge number of options. Alas, plenty != choice. In fact, most of the subsystems are incompatible with one another,…
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Just a few short days ago, the KDE team released Plasma 5.11, the latest edition of this desktop environment, plied with a range of bug fixes as well as some new features. Reason enough to celebrate, but even more so when you consider the fact that Plasma has been slowly, steadily – and consistently –…
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Qt desktops are many and varied. So one may ask, all right, if you have to choose one, which one? Well, the answer is both complicated and philosophical. First, because taste is subjective, and my immediate answer would be Plasma, hands down. The way it is realized in Kubuntu 17.04 is just awesome. The best…
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As a whole, the Linux desktop isn’t the most polished family of products in the universe. Due to the chaotic nature of software products, there’s a nonlinear correlation between quality and the amount of effort required to achieve it, and there just isn’t enough human power to fix it all. It’s easy to get to…
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The quest for the ultimate desktop environment continues. In the last few months, we have looked at a range of Qt-based desktops, starting with Ze Papa, Plasma, and then looked at several other new and not so new players, the bold and the beautiful, the less successful and the more rad. The list covers the…
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The good thing about Qt (as a framework and technology) is that it powers so many interesting products seamlessly, quietly, unassumingly. The bad thing is, sometimes you may use something that has Qt DNA, and yet, you wouldn’t know it unless explicitly told. Such is the case with the Lumina desktop. This less-known desktop environment…
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