Plasma 6.1: the BEST LINUX DESKTOP (in my opinion)

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Go to ground.news/TLE to to know where your news is coming from. Subscribe through my link for 40% off unlimited access this month.

[@keilmillerjr9701]

Chatgtp is incredibly racist and wrong about facts, taking direction from the feds. I doubt openai is any better as Microsoft is a dirty company. Time for you to get a new sponsor and stop pushing your left wing state propaganda.

[@Chr0n0s38]

This might be the first time I've seen a channel that isn't political sponsored by ground news lol.

[@keilmillerjr9701]

@@Chr0n0s38 He is one of those support Ukraine without knowing what is really going on kind of guys, and inserts it here and there. I wasn't shocked to see this ad. It is also no surprise to see my prior comment removed. No 1st amendment in the USA anymore.

[@Chr0n0s38]

@@keilmillerjr9701 Even still, he's not a channel that focuses on politics. Also, plenty of anti-Ukraine channels get sponsored by ground news too lol.

[@keilmillerjr9701]

@@Chr0n0s38 My prior comment mentioned ai being racist and politically biased at instructions from the feds. That's where I have the problem. It's been known that all these fact checkers and such are bullshit. Why tarnish your tech platform with such crap? I don't get it.

[@lordkordus8139]

White text on white background is the best UX design ever

[@TheLinuxEXP]

That was pretty bad, yeah 😂

[@aronkvh]

​@@TheLinuxEXP were you using neon unstable though?

[@nategraham4027]

Oh my goodness, this looks bad. I failed to notice this bug because it doesn't happen when using a custom accent color, but I can reproduce it with the default settings. I'll fix it.

[@Samantas5855]

@@nategraham4027 Same thing happens for me when I right click the clock > Configure Digital Clock > Text Display: Manual > Choose Style while on Breeze Dark

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

That was actually a big problem with Windows 3.1 and 95, until Microsoft finally made it impossible to set any text on any background that weren't several shades apart. Now sure, anyone doing that should expect not to be able to read anything, and lose control of the system unless they can remember where what button was and fix it, as I had to for having had clients with that problem, but I couldn't blame Microsoft for it because some people are just stupid enough to have to find out the hard way what happens when you have white on white! Otherwise I hated Windows for not giving me finer control over shit, taking away changes I made needing more serious hacking to do so, as if I did it by accident... because by default M$ assumed all users were just utterly stupid (now more so than ever since so many users proved they were just that), and incapable of knowing what they want, and I felt very insulted just using their POS OS and software's! In Linux it can be a side affect of using themes that people publish in half baked state that work right in one DE, but not others... are not even done yet like when making a dark theme off of a light one... in that case it's not the users fault, but those who see a communal publishing platform like the KDE store as their personal playground or test bed that has no rules for their own entertainment, without the rest of the community in mind, ... and well they really need some rules there badly, as well as some serious version control.

[@Akselmoi]

I have rounded the corners. Pray I do not round them further.

[@minion3806]

😂 vader is a kde user confirmed, lmao

[@ArniesTech]

The is round

[@octagonworkservices]

lol

[@peterschmidt9942]

😂🤣

[@thatguynar]

If it ain't a circle, then it ain't for me, dog.

[@miguelguthridge]

Even though I'm a Gnome user now, KDE was my first love, and it's awesome seeing it grow and improve.

[@cyberturkey77]

KDE runs like shit on Nvidia lets face it. Gnome just works less laggy, better scaling, easier...

[@jinmong5417]

So you cheated on KDE

[@Kevin-oj2uo]

Idk to be honest I feel KDE is so overwhelming because of so many features and changes you can do.

[@zzahkaboom24-gaming]

​@@cyberturkey77 No, it does not. After installing the Nvidia drivers, it always worked fine before Plasma 6. After Plasma 6, it works perfectly fine without them too, but I still install the drivers for obvious reasons

[@mand4lex]

Aww how sweet

[@PetersonSilva]

If you place the panel inside the wallpaper in edit mode, you kind of have to guess how it will look once you exit edit mode. So things like setting panel height can become guesswork instead of straightforward. There may be other reasons but this was the first I thought of and I think it's great that the panel "pops" and stays out of the way, it's a very important element and I think it's intuitive that it is highlighted this way Agree on the top bar though

[@TheLinuxEXP]

That makes sense!

[@rileyn2983]

Top bar is probably like that so it doesn't get in the way if you have a top panel

[@Arvigeus]

Why guesswork? Everything would be scaled proportionally to the screen, so you will get an idea how would it look. Maybe if you are aiming for pixel-perfect results, then yes.

[@Scoobin]

came to say this. I did like the comment that the settings at the top didn't need to remain inside that window. If top panels are a problem, those settings could switch to the bottom. Not a deal-breaker by any means tho and the KDE team has done great.

[@PetersonSilva]

@@rileyn2983 oooohhh that's a great point about the top bar

[@ryuketsuekiofficial]

From what I have read, the blurry/pixelated enlarged cursor is a limitation of XCursor directly, something that I think HyprCursor aimed to fix, but you know the rest of the story. I would have submitted a bug to KDE otherwise.

[@MrGamelover23]

I don't know the rest.

[@balloontune1769]

@@MrGamelover23 hyprcursor uses a single svg files as a cursor face rather than multiple png/jpg file for each scaling/size option

[@Arthur-hn5yk]

@@MrGamelover23 Hyprcursor/Hyprland dev got banned from Free Desktop

[@kokop1107]

@@balloontune1769theoretically that shouldn't be a problem right? A vector can scale infinitely after all

[@sergeykish]

Wayland client load and draw cursor themselves. It seems compositor cursors defined in "Cursor shape" Wayland protocol, implemented in KWin 6.0, Sway, Hyprland. I don't know rest of the story.

[@AndyGait]

The superkey to overview was something I just looking for this morning. 👍

[@BaremetalFlesh]

okay but can we talk about how gorgeous the KDE desktop is getting?

[@Arvigeus]

It always has been. It’s just getting better :)

[@dbrugan]

​@@Arvigeus in 4.x i totally agree, but 5.x i felt it varied between "ok" and "meh" though i don't know what exactly was the problem, maybe the color choice, but now i think it's pretty good

[@jackwoodhead]

I'm 50/50 about the new theme because it lowers legibility a bit and still has some rough edges. The animations on the other hand? Those really make Plasma shine. The switches are also so much better than the old check boxes.

[@RegrinderAlert]

Almost all of the UI still looks like it’s made by programmers, not actual design experts. Margins, spacing, proportions - all off.

[@Thorned_Rose]

@@RegrinderAlert Why don't you help out then? These things can't improve if all people do is whinge about them instead of stepping up and contributing.

[@JureRepinc]

KDE Plasma is not just best on GNU/Linux but also in general. I have to use proprietary OSes at work and nothing even comes close to customizability and power of KDE Plasma. All looks just as slick and if not more, especially when you customize it.

[@chriss3404]

Well said. I sometimes think that "it's time that I try to switch away from Plasma"... and end up just customizing it into a completely different desktop instead. Using MacOS at work feels like nails on a chalkboard in comparison lmao.

[@Alyx5512]

Basically kde plasma 6.1 is a ui and Nvidia update

[@lovro_ribic]

That is how updates work

[@davuthaxor]

every update in something related to wayland, gaming or visuals is an nvidia update mostly cause many stuff isnt completed before

[@chriss3404]

Dynamic triple buffering is also huge! (and I think also applies to both amd & nvidia gpus)

[@Beryesa.]

Imagine the deck gamers if they jump from 5.27 to 6.1 😂🌟

[@davuthaxor]

they might just use the steam deck as primary pc

[@DFGdanger]

We'd get....rounded corners?

[@tau4333]

installed Gnome on my deck on Sunday, personally I find KDE is overloaded with features and settings...

[@rgreening]

@@tau4333that is an old paradigm. I remember back in the day with GTK vs Qt (gnome vs KDE) people all being bent out of shape because one has more features and options and the other curates user experience and hides options and features to do so. Whatever works for you. Personally, let me have my options and ill turn them on/off vs having to install gnome tweaks to unhide options i wanted in the first place.

[@manoloariza7605]

​@@tau4333I understand/agree. But better to have it and not use it rather than not having it (gnome)

[@imnotexpecting9543]

I'm using plasma 6.1 on arch testing and I used the beta. It was extremely smooth without crashes and the NVIDIA support on latest driver was supreme

[@efeloteishe4675]

it's haven't made it to arch stable yet? I was just about to update the desktop.

[@TheFeelTrain]

​@@efeloteishe4675It came out yesterday. It normally takes a few days for something big like this to be tested.

[@Sheikh-sz5gf]

@@efeloteishe4675 for some reason it didn't

[@lavavex]

Pray for stable soon

[@janmeisel]

@@efeloteishe4675 plasma 6.1 is now stable on Arch

[@AslamNazeerShaikh]

Hey thanks for creating this video. Just 3hours ago before you posted this video, i was searching Review video for 6.1 release and i did not got much but thankfully you upload now, its awesome. ❤🎉

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Nice timing!

[@mechwarrior83]

I love it when youtube listens to you like that

[@Art-of-War-y6g]

In my opinion, the feature to start a session with all applications open will be a game changer. As a power user who relies heavily on automation for daily processes, I always open my sessions in a specific order to easily switch between windows using my notebook's touchpad. This helps me focus on what’s important instead of aimlessly navigating around. If my desktop can manage the autostart on its own, it will be a huge win for me.

[@stephanhuebner4931]

That's been possible for years with Plasma. I have several rules that automatically put certain autostarted apps on certain virtual desktops. Works like a charm, and one of the reasons why I'm still not using Wayland.

[@Art-of-War-y6g]

@@stephanhuebner4931 Can you please describe the process you used to set the rules? Will it be the same when Wayland gains this functionality?

[@MrTarkus01]

It's worked fine in plasma/X11 for years. I can't work without it. The feature has been broken in plasma/XWayland.

[@stephanhuebner4931]

@@Art-of-War-y6g In Plasma 5 (and presumably 6 as well), it is most easily achieved by right-clicking on any window-titlebar of a specific application (say Firefox).,Tthen from the popup-menu choose "More Actions -> Configure special application settings". Then a window should pop up already containing the rule that affects every window of the application. In said window, you have to click the button "add property", then in the section "Size & Position" choose "Virtual Desktop". Back in the rules-window in the "Virtual Desktop"-line, in the two popup-menus you should chose "force" and the desktop you want the app to appear on. That should do it. And I assume the process will be mostly the same with Wayland, as the GUI-method is just an abstraction of what has to be done. How Wayland technically achieves it doesn't really matter for the configuration-process.

[@jurgenhaan7652]

Isn't this just defining what applications to open in your session manager? Most WM's support this if I'm not mistaken.

[@KiraHerdman]

I use KDE neon and the biggest fix over 6.05 for me was the disk space widget displaying the correct information and not doubling my SSD space !!! Keep up the good work.

[@MrVanshajSaxena]

It multiplied my space with 10

[@chriss3404]

No way! Time to bring that widget back into my panel! I'll miss the illusion of having a gigantic drive though :p

[@Marsaxlok4]

on which distro

[@KiraHerdman]

@@Marsaxlok4 KDE neon like I said in my comment ...

[@jackwoodhead]

KDE Plasma is so freaking smooth and polished now. I've switched my gaming PC back and forth between Windows and Linux a few times over the years. Plasma used to be a stuttery mess on my system, Gnome was a little better, but I ended up using XFCE without a compositor because every Linux DE had at least a tiny bit of stutter. After pretty much exclusively running Windows for the past 2 years, I loaded up Fedora with Plasma 6. To say it was smooth would be an understatement. Windows was smooth (for the most part). Plasma 6 was pure butter. The difference can't be described. Zero micro-stutters. Not even the slightest slowdown while launching apps. Relentlessly smooth transitons and animations. Needless to say, my jaw was hanging low. And apparerently there were still optimizations that were yet to come out? I love the Gnome interface, but Plasma is easily the best desktop. I'm so excited to switch away from Windows for the last time (but I'll be patient and wait for 6.1 to become mainstream).

[@frogmanjack]

Great 6.1 overview. I guess i will give it another shot after having issues with 6.0. Glad to see Nick is alive. I was worried when I didn't see a news video over the weekend.

[@Kermit2k]

Nick with the masterclass in title selection for maximum user engagement. Well played sir.

[@WMan37]

8:05 11:01 This is huge for me, it was my biggest complaint with KDE's overview.

[@starmechlx]

Yeah, the single button overview thing is pretty big. I didn't know there was a way to do it via the CLI whenever I tried out KDE like a year ago, and it's my one gripe with pop-shell. It's something that the newer versions of Gnome do super well, imo. One button to see the overview, launch apps, rearrange windows to different workspaces and monitors, etc. It's just too good.

[@WMan37]

@@starmechlx At this point, the only way KDE could get more perfect for my use cases is if I could make KRunner function identically to Cosmic Launcher with the open window finder, ctrl+number shortcuts and all, and there was a native, non janky taskbar GUI toggleable window tiler kwin script that works as well as PopOS's or better.

[@DREAMmediaCreativeStudio]

KDE, please bring back the mouse gestures! I'm so used to this and it's now vital to me.

[@RifazNahiyanFWS]

You are absolutely spot on with your opinions regarding the whole Edit Mode chapter. I feel exactly all that too! Thank you for the deep dive. It really shows that you gave it a complete demo instead of just reading the bullet points.

[@nikkehtine]

Plasma is gradually looking less like a "nerdy open source project for Windows immigrants" and much more like a gorgeous, polished commercial-grade solution. Now is the time more worthy of being called "the year of the Linux desktop" and it makes me so happy

[@alone-vf4vy]

I love KDE Plasma

[@DiverseInBits]

This guy putting the time stamp for the entire ad is so great we don’t need to waste ur time 😊🎉

[@RenderingUser]

5:33 i personally love rounded edge rectangles. i hate how ui in general has moved over to either circles or sharp rectangles. but tbh, if plasma themes are incapable of changing how round a border is, that definitely is an issue that needs to be addressed for people that dont like rounded edge rectangles 14:03 in quantity? maybe. but quality? kde tops

[@KnightRiderOfVoid]

Hey look, another rectangle-with-rounded-corners lover! We do exist, I hate full rounded or full square. If forced to pick between the two, I'd go with full squares over fully rounded though.

[@alexatkin]

@@KnightRiderOfVoid I'm fine with fully rounded, but I do think rounded rectangle is the cleanest look with fully square being the worst. Just having a slight rounded corner makes each window look more distinct from each other, square they just blend into each other.

[@KnightRiderOfVoid]

@@alexatkin there are options for full squared to not be confusing, like colored borders. The big gaps in fully rounded make my eye twitch hahah Preference I guess, but at least there are options either way, sadly we have less and less options for "squircles" nowadays, as fully rounded becomes the only option in most "modern" designs.

[@avalagum7957]

Yeah, plasma is for people who don't have time/energy to tinker. I'm using it now. Although there are a few things I don't like much, I just ignore them. Plasma is still much better than Windows in memory usage: 1.7GB vs 5GB on a 16GB machine. The 3.3GB difference is enough to run IntelliJ.

[@manadecide]

I found myself having to waste time tinkering around with kde rather than gnome.

[@nikkehtine]

KDE is basically the tinkerer's haven as nearly everything is modular and customizable, so I have no idea where that sentiment in the first sentence could come from. Gnome is the DE for people who don't want to tinker around and prefer a working desktop from the get-go with less friction.

[@avalagum7957]

@@manadecide Ah, I didn't mean gnome. I meant other things like waybar in hyprland

[@zerokun2655]

Not really. Kde is more the whatever you want option. Unlike a window manager is something like hyprland you don't NEED to tinker, but you absolutely can do so. I personally don't lose myself too much in customization. A bunch of quick settings changes and some shortcuts. I think the most I "tinkered" was downloading a Fedora SVG from the internet, changing the color to match my accent color, and replace the default fedora icon in Application Launcher to my custom colored one, that's it. (Did it with Arch as well when I had that, I like consistency)

[@avalagum7957]

@@zerokun2655 For me, I have to tinker more when using hyprland: not with hyprland but with waybar.

[@MrRefael33]

Cool, I hope it will come soon to the Steam Deck, now I have version 5.27

[@livemadseason]

6.0.5 is the latest on Bazzite-deck Stable now 🙂

[@chaosfenix]

Valve probably just sticks to the LTS as 5.27 is the latest LTS version. We will need to wait for a newer LTS version.

[@gwgux]

That's exciting! I'm looking forward to it coming to my distro!

[@Ozzymand]

I use KDE and plenty of gnome based apps. Coming from windows, just because a window looks different is the least of my worries. I want the app to work, that's it. It can look however it wants.

[@Chin-Hwa]

The irony of the implementation of the rounded corners is that the bottom corners are not rounded around 5:33. I personally don't care if the corners are rounded or not, but I would like to see the corners match.

[@jinujonn]

Finally, someone noticed !!

[@chriss3404]

@@jinujonn I thought I was going crazy 😭

[@idk-sy3iu]

The reason why they don't do it's because at compositor level it would be very inefficient, kwin devs talked about this many times already

[@tadafireworks3774]

To see that option in the settings, you have to additionally install the krdp package. (Tested on Arch)

[@TomHenryCoursow]

Oh my god finally... That One Key Shortcut Support Feature is totally the best of all the changes :D Will try again to switch to Plasma now to somehow make a very gnome like desktop. In the past I had issues using the terminal way as some remote apps conflicted with the custom shortcut. Hope official support will get rid of that :D

[@chriss3404]

I feel so spoiled for choice when picking a favorite feature! This actually bit me today when trying to bind a mouse button to Meta though haha. So it's definitely up there!

[@balderm001]

that edit mode looks amazing

[@brostoevsky22]

I agree! Plasma has surpassed Gnome by a country mile. I'm excited to see where Cosmic DE goes and how it competes with Gnome. In the future I see Linux DEs competing with each other instead of Windows and MacOS, which will only speed up the exponential growth of Linux for daily users. My overall experience since 2020 has improved drastically.

[@Kris-od3sj]

Barrier is unmaintained. Only the fork called Input Leap provides Wayland support (and as of now you still need a few patched packages on top of that). Input Leap can communicate with Barrier though

[@Chnorzy]

I love your content as a long time linux user and always get inspiration to test new things. thank you so much for your good work and research.

[@blackchristiangeek]

Thank God for you brother. I've been missing you (dern KZbin algorithm 😅), I like learning and you have shared a lot. Can't wait to try some of these new tricks and settings. I recently ventured back to X11 yet again for lack of features and functionality in Wayland. Again, thanks,

[@TheLonelyMoon]

I have KDE, Gnome, and Hyprland installed on my Fedora Surface Book 2. Hyprland for productivity and battery efficiency, Gnome for general use (imo very touch friendly out of the box) and KDE I'm still experimenting. Good to be able to choose

[@SoloMCW]

Let me sleep... its 6 am here.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Hahah WATCH MY VIDEOS

[@DFGdanger]

Evil French Sleep Thief isn't real, he can't hurt you

[@klauserwin9860]

Nic is the Sleep Paralysis Demon for the US.

[@dandiaz19934]

Holy shit the edit mode alone is worth it. It was such a confusing pain in the ass to accidentally enter edit mode and then struggling to close it and change things along the way

[@Jean-MarcCourtiade-ct8vy]

Nice video, I use KDE Plasma, and it is pretty (pretty) cool as you show. It's not always easy to notice all the new features, especially the subtle ones such as more rounded menus, but this is a big update, the animations are now flawless like on Gnome or MacOS. One thing though: there is an annoying bug with Wayland that makes impossible screensharing or video recording in OBS e.g. That said, no doubt that an upcoming update will fix this.

[@skelebro9999]

Which distros get the latest kernel updates? I only know of Arch, Tumbleweed and some other rolling release ones.

[@alexb8969]

Fedora

[@magnificoas388]

NixOS

[@StaffyDoo]

Yeah, as ​@@magnificoas388 says; 6.9.4 powering my flake here.

[@rayjaymor8754]

Downloading it now as we speak!

[@kabatram]

That's really impressive, an actual innovation in desktop environment system

[@alexb8969]

Thanks for the video. Very good ideas for improving the desktop edit mode. You should open a bug report to KDE with these.

[@rijaja]

I had to wait until today to update on fedora because I also have the x11 session (extra dependencies) and wow, it really is impressive. I immediately switched from the launcher to krunner on super, but I'm not sure I'll keep it since I have an autohide taskbar and now I can't just press super to see the time. Many thanks to the contributors, plasma is far ahead of the proprietary desktops at this points.

[@theroboman727]

I'm really excited for explicit sync. Multiple games that I want to play are unplayable on wayland and I've been staying on the x11 version of plasma because of only that.

[@JessicaFEREM]

One thing I would like KDE shortcuts to have is the ability to set one key combo for multiple different commands. like I want to send a window to a desktop AND move there, I can't do that currently to my knowledge. maybe the warning popup can have an extra button that says "allow" to say "yes I want to have multiple commands per shortcut" and then keep the replace and cancel buttons.

[@DanielQRT]

isn't this available as "move window to next screen"?

[@beowolfgang]

I also switched nearly a month ago to kde 6.1(beta) on my gentoo system after using gnome since over 15 years! Also on my arch based notebook, i switched too.

[@wildw1ng]

So does barrier work with wayland correctly now?

[@Linuxgymrat]

I hope so

[@Ironpants57]

Oh my god.. The new edit mode in plasma looks so cool and clean!!

[@SlyEcho]

6:50 you need to install the krdp package, at least it adds it to the menu for me.

[@greenphlem]

Yup, that’s the solution

[@furuthebat]

I'm waiting for nv driver 555 :( ... with the new KDE6 + wayland, a lot of my applications are flickering :/

[@jamesarthur6751]

I swapped to the NVIDIA beta drivers and it solved all my issues!

[@ex0stasis72]

I've been out of the Linux ecosystem for years now, but this video just popped back into my feed here, and this KDE Plasma 6.1 update just singlehandedly made me decide, if I ever switch back to Linux, I'm trying out KDE Plasma first, not Gnome. KDE always had the most configuration options in the GUI, but it always seemed off no matter how long I spent trying to configure it. I could never really pinpoint why. So in the past, I would just go with Gnome as a base first, and then when I have a complaint, I would read online discussions or Q/A websites and copy and paste commands into the terminal.

[@BeefIngot]

KDE has been the best "decent defaults, capable customizability" DE and I hope it stays that way. I really dont want them bowing down to the "we know better than the user" mentality. I was afraid of that when they made icon only the default but they've kept the window title text option so far, so hopefully they will continue to support these features and not go down the gnome path of actively being hostile to user opinions though Im not saying I think theyve done anything to indicate they will.

[@John7No]

Since KDE6 I have lost the ability to open files with vlc/mpv from a NAS share. I tried with a TuxedoOS fresh install , no go there as well. Not sure what is going on but this is a major issue

[@thedarb]

You need to install the krdp package for RDP to show up.

[@Temet79]

Got the update on Arch, you need to install krdp to get the remote session option in the settings.

[@franklinEditor]

Gnome marks the monitor screen with permanent shadows and I've never seen anyone talking about it, the worst cause of this and against my will I had to replace it with KDE 6 plasma, and it changed my life. Simply the best.

[@easterlingderek34]

I think the command bar being on top of the wallpaper if fine so long as it stays out of the way. I actually did a top bar and made it stay hidden and every time I went into edit mode the top taskbar that is set to auto hide will cover the command bar. So if putting a Taskbar on top of screen and not over the actual desktop is how it works then with the command bar being stuck to the desktop will mean you can still get access to it even if you have Auto hide turned on.

[@satnififu]

At this point the only thing that keeps Plasma from being absolutely perfect are the Kwin crashes and not having dynamic workspaces out of the box

[@catto-from-heaven]

You forgot the awful and terribly designed UI/UX Edit: typo

[@RegrinderAlert]

@@catto-from-heavenIt’s incredible reading so many positive comments about the design. While taste is subjective, bad spacing, margins, misalignment are all symptoms of objectively bad design.

[@catto-from-heaven]

​@@RegrinderAlert A big chunk of the Linux user base are software developers, system admins and technical people in general, but there's a lack of designers and artistic people, hence why a lot of Linux users tend to have really bad taste/criteria in UI/UX

[@chriss3404]

@@RegrinderAlert / catto Software dev here. Can confirm that I like the KDE Plasma UI/UX. (note: I run a personally customized 3rd party theme / haven't daily driven the default in years) What design conventions do you see Plasma violating most often? Further, how do you think KDE developers should expand their UI/UX design knowledge? (bar taking classes, I'm talking like, books, resources, talks, and other media)

[@aviatedviewssound4798]

@@catto-from-heaven If you are a UI/UX designer go help them because they need you, be the hero we need.

[@azenyr]

Plasma is amazing and actually much better for new linux users than gnome or cinnamon (this one looks extremely oldschool and not attractive at all for people coming from win 11 or mac). KDE really is the best overall DE and the most complete one (FreeSync/GSync, HDR, etc). Gnome is falling back so much nowadays... the only problem now, is that distros still refuse to offer KDE by default. To get KDE you still need a nieche distro, and because of that your KDE never gets the proper polish it deserves out of the box. All main distros use GTK-based desktops by default and THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE. GTK toolkit is looking very stuck in the past recently and its very hard to recommend a good KDE-first distro for beginners...

[@sainsay]

if the beginner is ok with running arch then EndeavourOS is one I can recommend. if the beginner is ok with running one ubuntu 22.04 then KDE Neon is the place to be. Neon will always be a bit slow on updating their ubuntu version as it is not their focus. they only stick to lts releases and usually take some time after a new lts release to switch to the next one. but you are guaranteed to get the latest KDE updates though. Endeavour follows the arch philosophy and you will always be able to update to the latest and by default they added good integration with the AUR so there are a lot of apps very well supported without you needing to set it up or add it to your personal maintaince schedule as long as you use their own tools to update.

[@azenyr]

@sainsay sadly I think neon is too slow on updates. Kernel gets very old and new hardware support really suffers for beginners I am now suggesting Nobara KDE or just plain Fedora KDE. If you want something ubuntu based, Tuxedo OS seems cool, since they keep KDE and the kernel always updated. I dont understand why LTS releases love to keep their kernel so freaking ancient. It really makes it difficult for beginners to try linux. I hate to buy a new laptop, bootup linux and nothing working. It's a horrendous feeling. But I like the "install and forget" and stability of big distros. So I am using Nobara KDE, seems the best for now

[@zerokun2655]

I think Fedora is a good option, I switched to it from arch recently and I don't find myself in the terminal a lot (at least if not specifically to code or do cli things). A regular user will not care about flatpak vs rpm and will just use discover, which works much better on fedora then it did on arch with me (also ew, graphical package manager on arch xD). The only thing is: the installer is a bit weird in the manual partitioning, wish they used something like gparted to make it friendlier, so if you need to dual boot you might need a tutorial. But I've been using it less than a week so I can't really say much Oh and also, the steam package needs to be installed using dnf, the flatpak sucks ass, tries it, was hella broken with external storage and even just downloading games would sometimes not work

[@Ud4cznik]

When will it go stable? It's now in Extra-Testing arch repo.

[@DunhamLockhart]

That's up to the arch maintainers to decide, but generally in a week or so

[@moshadj]

It's such a tiny change but the ability to set a custom Meta-only modifier in shortcut settings really shows the attention to detail

[@voinea12]

in my humble, objective, undeniable opinion

[@GoldDeniel]

Rounded corners are major for me. I like that it's kind of unified now.

[@hs-youtube8761]

The middle part sound is very sharp

[@zerokun2655]

3:04 yeah, only issue I had: if you want to configure an element in the right side of the panel, you can't reach the menu. The panel menu pops up and if I right click something like a system tray, the configure popup appears BELOW the general panel config. So I have to move the system tray to the left, click configure and move it back. (Don't know if I explained correctly) But I don't know where to give feedback really

[@armagedon515]

I agree. After hopping distro to distro, Plasma is the most beautiful DE for Linux as well the most configurable. I am using Kubuntu with a Windows 11 "theme" and with transparency it look better then Microsoft. Plasma is nice from the box but it is when you slap some easily accessible themes that it look gorgeous. Now, not sure if the current plasma 5 themes are compatibles with versions 6 ?

[@TroubleDog54]

Very informative, thanks Nick! I think I've just found my new favourite DE.

[@LinuxGamingChronicles]

Edge barrier is what I am excited for, I know it's stupidly small but as a dual monitor user it's needed badly. No password on monitor sleep is neat also, I may try that. Otherwise I have been happy with Plasma as a whole.

[@Star_Wars_Galaxy]

Idk if this is normal for rounded corners, but are only the top corners of the windows rounded? At the very least, Dolphin only has the top corners rounded at 5:40, unless youtube compression is doing something wacky

[@Leniwcowaty-xh5cj]

The most important question - did they fix Breeze GTK theme in dark mode? Or is it still broken, 5 years after they decided to not use separate light and dark themes, but rather "generate dark mode on the fly"?

[@jongeduard]

I can only say that I, as an Arch Linux user mostly (I also do dual boot and virtual machines with several operating systems), have moved to actually installing and using KDE Plasma 6+ as my main desktop, after a long time Xfce (which I still apreaciate) use, and I can only say that it's the best desktop experience for me until now. I have been considering it for a lot longer time already, but some important issues with stability, graphics and monitor related stuff kept me away from it. Most of those issues are now solved. However, I also want to emphasize that all Linux desktops and window managers have their own great points. For example I have finally decided to explore Mint and Cinnamon, and I really love what they do. A bit like KDE, they have good understanding of user and what they want, you can see it back in actual usability. KDE is extremely good with features, details, customization. There is one thing which it is not really however, "KISS", which means to keep things really simple. But that's fine! Other desktops are better at that, which can be the best for other people. So this is really about choice and I love that.

[@matheuswohl]

6:52 for the remote desktop settings to appear you apparently have to install kdrp manually. At least that solved it for me on fedora

[@haplozetetic9519]

It has been possible in the past to add a middle click on the desktop for edit mode. It should still be possible.

[@ElHyperion]

Plasma 6 in my experience is much less stable than 5. It's my first time on Wayland too so I'm not sure if it's caused by that or Plasma, but it happens very frequently that when I'm editing widgets on my panels, the edit UI just hangs for a while and the whole Plasma session restarts. Also, when switching between different monitor setups (at home vs docking station at work), Plasma ALWAYS mixes up what panels and wallpapers should show on what monitors and I have to redo it manually every time I change my workplaces. I always heard Plasma does this better than Windows but it's the other way around for me. Also it makes pamac crash quite often during updates than before on Plasma 5 with X11. I'm on Manjaro KDE stable if that matters.

[@KvaGram]

Will plasma 6 come with the next release of kubuntu?

[@DCM777.]

24.10

[@LowBudgetLinuxGaming]

KDE Plasma always looks so cool and desirable when I see it in videos. But when I try it out myself it just doesn't feel right, something is missing. Still a very cool project.

[@sdfhushbguejsd]

Maybe you should get a higher budget monitor. VGA CRT is becoming quite old

[@LowBudgetLinuxGaming]

@@sdfhushbguejsd Sorry, but I can't. Low budget for life 📺

[@MyReviews_karkan]

I'd pretty much be ok with rounded corners...... But when it's all four corners. This looks like it's only the top ones and this is going to drive me insane

[@KORUPTable]

Thank god I can finally use Input Leap on wayland now (Input Leap is Barrier's successor it's forked off of it and is updated)

[@fertxo]

For remote desktop install krdp package. It will appear in settings then

[@DanMnk]

Thanks for the video! How do you go about the still very limited supply of themes, fonts, splash screen options etc. for Plasma 6? I had a beautifully set desktop for Plasma 5, but since migration to Plasma 6 I don't have the tools to reproduce the same changes. Example: things like latte dock (or equivalent) are missing for Plasma 6, and the built-in pane is still very rudimentary in comparison. The available decorations are way fewer for Plasma 6 than for 5. Tbh, I seriously started to regret migration to the later version.

[@berneymark]

Oh my god I might actually try it again now. I could never stay on it long because it always, always, always felt inconsistent no matter what I did. Maybe these rounded corners will make me feel better on KDE.

[@Torviticus]

They deserve the best desktop environment for the hide mouse option alone. I'll have to test it but if it isn't affected by controller activity it'll be a godsend for gaming. It annoys me so much seeing the cursor in the corner of the screen when I'm gaming.

[@PSXman9]

still getting non stop black screens > logout followed by plasmashell has crashed with the latest beta driver from nvidia. :(

[@fabianroscher]

Did you set the nvidia_drm.modeset kernel setting? if you don't that pretty much describes your behaviour on NVIDIA with Wayland.

[@keyboard_g]

The tops of windows are rounded but the bottoms are still squared off. I find that inconsistency even within a single window annoying. Good to see KDE continuing to improve so many things.

[@VicharB]

I am enjoying the tweaks that 6.1 brings, all-n-all. For me Windows placement (to remember) is still on the list, for now end up creating Windows Management rules to save their sizes and placements when opened newly (center is not always the best option).

[@esra_erimez]

The Linux Experiment: one of the BEST LINUX KZbin channels (in my opinion)

[@kubuntukowalski]

same, i only use kde for my main and gaming desktops/laptops but i do love cinnamon and xfce for just web browsing or basic computing pcs.

[@SeanKennedy]

I have really liked Plasma 6.1. However, I can no longer share in Zoom unless I switch from Wayland to X11. I've tried the workarounds on the Arch wiki, but while it gets me past the Zoom info/blocking pop-up, it doesn't show any of my screens or windows for sharing.

[@isoperimetrix]

Sounds like a lot of great improvements. When I had it in a VM w/ Wayland the UI was really slow and I liked X11 better.

[@だん氏]

More than super customizable for both small and large monitors. Looking forward to the performance of Wayland + KDE later on ubuntu 24.10, though mainly for NVIDIA.

[@vikkran401]

Finally they fixed the issue which has bugged the crap out of me for a while now. Like to edit a panel while in edit mode, you have this specific button you click, however the issue is that applets that I add always gets stuck under it and you can't move. Which has been so frustrating

[@LightOffArchives]

Krunner is so fast now, I mapped it to my meta key and it’s a breeze

[@chriss3404]

Breeze you say... 🤔

[@LightOffArchives]

@@chriss3404 Pun indeed intended

[@CyborgZeta]

I'm glad they're making progress, but I'm content staying on Plasma 5.27 in Kubuntu 24.04 right now.

[@bdog111]

Trying to re-arrange pinned apps in the icon-only task manager is still completely broken.

[@JacksonNick-j6i]

Latte Dock doesn't support QT-6 yet. Any alternative or workaround?

[@chromacat248]

make a panel, put a task manager on it, set it to fit content and center it

[@DunhamLockhart]

Latte dock is dead unless a new maintainer steps up, kdes solution is adding dock like panels as of 6

[@stephanhuebner4931]

I haven't found anything adequate. All possible replacements (very, very few anyhow) are pretty poor compared to Latte dock. There is some dock in development, something like Crystal dock, I think, but who knows when this will be available. I actually thought about experimenting with doing something myself and looked for a Python-like language. what I found is Nim which has qt-bindings and produces compiled builds. But I'm not sure if that will ever become a reality, heh.

[@JacksonNick-j6i]

@@chromacat248 It is not as good as Latte Dock with no round corners and acrylic effects.

[@idk-sy3iu]

Just use plasma panels

[@b8890]

does it support touchpad swipe gestures natively like gnome, or you still have to tinker around to make it work?

[@idk-sy3iu]

It has supported them since like 5.24 iirc. Still they work they're just a bit different than usual (for example for overview you swipe with 4 fingers and not 3)

[@zamundaaa776]

Plasma had built in touchpad gestures since 2017

[@AUDIO_ABSTRACTION]

already in the process