Thanks for the nice words about Plasma 6! We worked really hard on this release, and I'm so glad it's working out for people and helping them to make the best of their systems!
It being like Windows is the best aspect. Windows was designed the way it was from a lot of research. Linux devs needs to take more note of this. You guys need to drop the code names on apps. Call mail mail, call Files files, call things what they're not some rando name that has no meaning.
I was a Windows user for almost 30 years. My current job requires me to use Linux, so I installed Debian two months ago. I tried GNOME and Xfce, but with Plasma, it was love at first sight Debian is my backup system now (I use Arch btw), and Windows went to hell Thank you
@@joshuarandall167 In what way? I've tried both, and they seemed to behave the same. At least in 5.27.10 anyway. Haven't tried it in distros on earlier versions, of Plasma 5.
@@joshuarandall167 How many years/months of work did they claim to put into kde 6 again. Was it really worth it for a floating bar. it's still a buggy mess, still looks outdated and clunky af. But hey. my bar is buzzing.
@@AUserCAAPI tried Gnome and just couldn't get used to it. I really wanted to like it too. Too heavily reliant on plugins, and many of those plugins have a tendency to break whenever the system updates.
Your comments about multi-monitor setup is SPOT ON! KDE has been my go-to forever b/c it handles my 4 monitor setup perfectly. 2 ultrawides stacked + 2 16:9s stacked. Not to mention the panels that for each screen customized to deal this the stuff on THAT screen. Most of the other DEs either dont support the monitor-specific panel/task-managers or have janky, horrible ones that never work properly.
I would mention, even though it doesn't come out of the box with a Mac style setup, it's far more adaptable to a Mac user's workflow than other desktops - largely because of the possibility of using a global menu and the ability to customize the window button locations. Global menu support is a little spotty on wayland/flatpak (largely because of GTK being controlled by GNOME who hate global menus), but just having it there as an option is huge for Mac people. A lot of people will cite GNOME and Pantheon as being Mac-like, but they really aren't - both try their own "unique" take which sits somewhere between Mac, Windows, and Android, but doesn't comfortably cater to anyone used to any of those workflows due to their ideologically motivated restrictions. I think it would be cool if Plasma came with a first-start program which would offer to give the user a choice of desktop layout based on certain templates - and then distros could add their own layouts as they want. That way they could default to their standard sort of Windows-like layout, but offer a quick option to switch a Mac-like layout for new users who would like that but aren't versed enough to trawl through the settings menu and all the panel editing settings.
A global menu is one of the main reasons I use Plasma. On a traditional desktop, I think it's still by far the best option to reach menu items, if one doesn't want to use shortcuts or the function isn't available as a button in the window.
I like the idea of desktop layout template choice after the first boot. That would be attractive to all linux newbies (like me).It would serve as a good head start to customizing their desktop.
Hi Matt, I'm an XFCE guy but I gonna try KDE one of these days... Could you do a video about things you must do after a fresh install of OpenSuse like install codecs, community repos, idk if flatpaks must be added, things like that, Cheers !!!
I like the idea of a Linux distro that can be made to work differently from windows. There are some really good aspects about the Gnome workflow, particularly the Cosmic edition. KDE 6 and Cosmic DE will be giving Gnome a run for their money. From my perspective Linux DEs are getting away from mimicking Windows or MacOS and are really taking off. Getting better every day.
Being able to use all keyboard shortcuts and window placement on specific workspaces (like I have with the tilers) ootb makes KDE the only viable DE for me. Plus of course that endless tweaking rabbit hole. Nice one, thanks Matt. Never thought i'd see the day of you praising KDE. What a year it's turning out to be ;-)
Open Suse with Plasma and Hyprland is a landing point for me. June 2024 will be one year in Linux and I have found a very comfortable operating solution for my PCs. Thanks Matt for the content.
its funny that you made this video now because I just this week installed a vanilla Debian with KED plasma and I absolutely love it! I wish that I had found Plasma a long time ago.
The only reason to use Gnome is because for some reason you prefer the lack of control similar to MacOS. Other than that it's inferior in every single way.
Love the site. Just switched from Fedora to Debian on my main. The gnome extensions are great. But Wayland is frustrating. I have an entertainment setup with 3 monitors... After watching this, I'm thinking I need to POC Plasma. Thank you!!!
KDE Wayland having VRR support OOTB is so nice. I can finally play Elden Ring with Freesync, it's a miracle. I could not on X11 (Running Debian 12 Stable with KDE Wayland currently).
Totally agree with this. For me the last one, the Wayland and fractional scaling support is one of the top reasons to switch. So frustrating if you can't set the monitor scaling correctly.
I use kde plasma mainly because I have a funky monitor resolution, and it's the only de that supports it without any hassle. Since you decided to call us out lol, I'll admit I'm a default enjoyer. I spent a lot of my childhood customizing things and trying to make things mine, and eh now I just want it to work and that's good enough. With that being said, I'll occasionally change the color scheme on plasma lol
I'd love to see you dive deeper into Krusader. I also am a big fan of the 2-pane commander style layout, and Krusader does have a lot of neat features beyond that. But some things, like their mountman tool, are not as nice to use as even Dolphin's method of mounting unmounting media. Would also be interested in the ways you setup/customize it.
Plasma 6 is better than expected. The biggest problem for me is that the compositing performance on Wayland is just very low with older gpus. (and some not that old intel igpus) Resizing windows & entering the new overview etc lags a lot, even with effects as close to off as Plasma lets you. Good WLR window managers like River, Hyprland & Labwc perform 10x better. (or any other arbitrarily large number times, because lag vs. smooth) The Xorg session has gotten much better though, they fixed several awful deal-breaking Kwin bugs.
I went with Tuxedo OS. After 2 months now into Linux on 4 machines, 2 in dual boot, I never will regret it. Only gaming does not realistically work on Tuxedo or Linux. Steam gives error to write on second ssd and Lutris runs my game, Enlisted, but Anticheat throws me constantly out. Gaming at the moment is only possible in dual boot with Windows. Alternatively KDE neon would be an alternative but they have an toggle to send back data while installing. Tuxedo is basically KDE neon or Kubuntu. KDE Plasma is leaps and bounds better than the scattered settings of Windows 11. Tuxedo was so appealing to me because of KDE's closeness with Windows. I would not like Gnome or EXFC (or how that calls). KDE is way way better as the lay out of Windows 11. That makes the difference for the user and not the Unterbau of Ubuntu or Debian.
Because it's flawed and an out dated design. People are just too stubborn and don't like change. Also I left windows because I hated the experience. I don't want a copy paste like KDE tries to offer. Gnome and Hyprland are the reason I stayed on Linux.
@@TrolleyTrampInc Windows is outdated? Windows 11 UI is more modern than anything on Linux (though windows 11 is overall pretty bad). For me, KDE is the reason I stayed on Linux. Gnome felt so weird and counterintuitive to me. Again, UI and design is subjective.
@@101kawsar windows UI is hated by the vast majority of it's user. I agree it's UI is better and I actually prefer it. But there's a reason things Like startAllBack exist. People mod it back to its original outdated look. KDE for me feels like windows. It gets in your way more than it helps you. Gnome looks modern and sleek and ultimately gets out of your way. It shows you what you need and want then let's you work. As for the customisation argument, you can customise gnome. Yes not to the point of KDE. But unless you're in the 0.01% club, that doesn't matter. 3/4 of the settings in kde don't get used and exist because some dev was bored. They break the system 90% of the time. KDE will always be a buggy windows knock off unless it drastically changes direction.
@@101kawsar windows UI is hated by the vast majority of it's user. I agree it's UI is better and I actually prefer it. But there's a reason things Like startAllBack exist. People mod it back to its original outdated look. KDE for me feels like windows. It gets in your way more than it helps you. Gnome looks modern and sleek and ultimately gets out of your way. It shows you what you need and want then let's you work. As for the customisation argument, you can customise gnome. Yes not to the point of KDE. But unless you're in the 0.01% club, that doesn't matter. 3/4 of the settings in kde don't get used and exist because some dev was bored. They break the system 90% of the time. KDE will always be a buggy windows knock off unless it drastically changes direction.
I just switched from Ubuntu to an Arch based distro running KDE Plasma 6. What i miss from gnome is clicking a button and getting a full window with all my apps, even some folders with more apps and also a small preview of my desktops. I don't know if I can set up KDE like that but there are so many options that it's not easy to find what you want to do.
KDE Plasma is awesome and in my opinion, the best desktop environment for Linux! And Linux market share will be higher if distros come with it by default.
Upgrading to 6 broke all my custom shortcuts, and the damn "import/export" shortcut buttons don't seem to do a damn thing. So now I have to recreate my shortcuts - by hand - on each machine. F&*%!!!!
Plasma is the best desktop I have used. The ability to whip my mouse into the corner and see other full desktops is about as good as a second monitor... Or a third a fourth. Besides that it is snappy, everything I do is instantaneous, the scrolling the windows, opening apps, it's pretty much perfect, it works like Windows but much better and the fans don't start screaming for no reason, because it's only doing what I know it's doing.
There are some main reasons: 1) Using the de facto standards instead of trying to force everyone to use their way of things 2) More options inside the DE garden avoiding messing with third party apps to modify the system 3) Big native apps ecosystem 4) The last update was or bug fixes and eye candy that everyone likes (more than security and privacy for a lot of people) 5) They have big apps unlike GNOME. Tell me if GNOME has anything that compares to Kdenlive, Krita and KdeConnect 6) They keep major versions working for a long long time like Windows 7) All in for dev freedom on their apps. You want tray? done. Want to change the window icon? done. Want to move the window? done. Want to use custom decorations? Done. Talking about DEs, almost none really like the idea of devs being able do dodge their UI standards. While GNOME devs where searching for a reason to allow wayland apps to change their icon on runtime, KDE devs would do that just because devs use that and would complain if not available.
The best desktop environment is the one that fits your workflow with the fewest changes from defaults. When I try KDE I end up spending a lot of time trying to fix aesthetics. On gnome I'm just doing the actual tasks I intended to do. This will be different for everyone. There is no best DE.
Also, my multi-monitor setup gets messed up with GNOME 46: I lock the screen, leave it for a few minutes, and after coming back, windows are all in different places from what I left them. Sometimes, if I suspend, the GUI does not even work, abd have to get it back using the CLI, also, whenever I disconnect the docking station and reconnect it, it does not remember the layout...basically GNOME sucks for multi-monitors setup
All the advantages you mention about Plasma, like customizability with a ton of options; theming flexibility; frequent new features on request of the community, customization of the Wayland setup of monitors; all true, but the consequence is more code and more complex code and thus more bugs :) :) And that was especially visible many years ago, it is still there, but it is better under control now! Reliability is, why I prefer the defaults of xfce or gnome. Consequently I refuse to use those stupid gnome extensions, for me (as developer in IT from 1969 till 2011) it is not a feature but a design flaw.
@@arnorobinwerkmanI prefer gnome. KDE looks like it was designed in the 80's and patched together by highschool kids learning to code. Nothing changed with KDE 6. Still an ugly buggy mess, if I wanted that experience I would have stayed on Windows. We all have opinions
@@XionicalXionical I'm a software engineer and I've talked directly to one of the older people that worked for Microsoft when they were making these designs. It's also well known that Apple spends a lot of money researching these aspects. Try again r**ard...
i have been running Debian KDE it's developed in QT since 2019 it just works, i tried xfce and gnome before that,, XFCE is nice but like most other desktops developed in GTK, it's done by people sitting on each their island, so it will never get more the 90% finished.
As a Software person, I find Plasma on KDE Neon very close to being hack-able and programmable for the Apps that I use daily. For example daily drivers like the desktop env, cli, tui and gui apps.
Wayland was giving me freezes every 10 minutes for around 5 seconds and i could't move Winamp skinned Qmmp without holding down the win key. Both issues went away when i switched back to X thankfully.
Yes KDE Plasma is simply the best desktop currently available on computers. So nice out of the box and so very customizable and flexible to change it into almost any workflow and look you want. It can easily mimic any other desktop out there. The default look is just default and can easily be changed. And I also like how it has a ton of features built in without the need of very fragile extensions to bring it to an almost usable state as is the case with GNOME. And to think that even with all that customizability and features it is till so lightweight is juts amazing. And yes as you say, KDE developers actually listen to users and don't just ignorantly cut out features and do changes nobody wants. I believe GNU/Linux would be much more widespread if distros defaulted to KDE Plasma and that people would see the first time they come in contact with GNU/Linux.
Nice by default? Plasma looks really ugly by default, there is not world where people can think that default Plasma looks better than default Gnome, Plasma is just for people that cant let go Windows and his awful worflow
@@danielruiz2864Plasma looks great out the box. it's aesthetically appealing and intuitively designed for folks coming from Windows it's a bit more sophisticated than Gnome, which is really just a personal preference thing. though they did dial the chrome back just a bit in Plasma 6 which gives it a slightly cleaner look
@@UncleJemima it looks ugly out of the box! Bit more sophisticated? Jesus are we looking at the same DE?. It looks like it was developed by children from the 60s.
@@UncleJemima it looks ugly out of the box! Bit more sophisticated? Jesus are we looking at the same DE?. It looks like it was developed by children from the 60s.
@@TrolleyTrampInc that's a big compliment to 60's children, considering that GUIs weren't even available until the 70's. guess they were 60 years ahead of their time
Glad to hear that KDE is (hopefully) moving away from the windoze lookalike bandwagon. I have watched a lot of people learn how to use computers, and I am convinced that a clean break from m$ is the best way forward for anyone. I may try Plasma 6 but historically KDE has always looked and felt bloated to me. My hope is that Plasma 6 can replace macOS on my intel MacBook.
I was thinking about your monitors and how they sometimes give you trouble by not sleeping. I have a monitor connected via VGA that goes into standby on its own when I shut off the laptop plugged into it. One time I changed the cable I used, and the monitor no longer went into standby mode automatically. What I’m saying is that sometimes physical cables are to blame for problems rather than software.
Hmm, no fractional scaling in Gnome? Has the Mint team done something on their own? Though experimental, Cinnamon has 75%, 100%, 125%, 150%, 175% and 200%. I don't need it, so I don't know how well it works. That scaling slider at 10:39 looks more generous than Cinnamon. Does it start at 50% and it ends at 300%?
Matt, please make a video on how to to use kde + hyprland or qtile for the window manager instead of kwin. Meaning all the services of kde and hyprland or qtile as window manager in wayland same session.
the fact that the most customizable de can't change panels' and menus' color with a simple setting is just sad. it's like saying you can do any custom decorative wall plaster with very specific tools and materials, but you can't just paint it green. makes no sense.
You really should have shown the KDE discuss web site (which I'm not going to link to because RU-vid hates me doing that, but you can find it if you want).
0:56 - almost two minutes with a blinking cursor in that search box, and I _scream_ at the screen (not really): »type something, klick on somethinganythingpllleeeease…« 😀 Just half-joking - I use Gnome at work and am glad for being able to return to my KDE/Plasma after work. (Similarly with MS-Win10 at work and macOS while commuting.) Cheers and thanks for your video!
But I don't understand why KDE team doesn't make panel transparent. Opaque or translucent panel interfare with bottom part of windows. I use latte dock with variety, modern clock. However, i now love plasma more than I loved cinnamon.
What is the benefit of a floating panel bar? I have my ui setup so I can move my mouse to the very bottom of the screen for accessing panel ui, and then to the very top of the screen for accessing window ui. Having a panel not right up against the screen seems counter productive, I don't want to move my mouse to the bottom of the screen and then slightly up.
Even if you click below the panel in that little gap, plasma will treat it as if you clicked on the panel itself. So you can still yank your mouse to the edge of the screen and click.
You can get a KDE spin of most of them. Some are better than others. I personally use that popular but hated Manjaro KDE spin. You can do almost any of the popular distros and get KDE. Now, if you do Debian ... you won't be seeing Plasma 6 for a while, it's a Debian thing. Anyway. Go take a look and I'm sure you'll find a fit for you.
I use xfce, but im starting to worry wayland isnt going to drop soon enough. KDE is very usable, but it is a comparatively heavy desktop environment and i am a ram usage fetishist. My xfce system uses 450mb of ram on a fresh install. Apparently experimental wayland support is going to drop this year for xfce, but if it doesnt ill be switching.
Plasma 5 doesn't allow you to paste with the mouse into KDE dialog boxes. you must use the keyboard. Have they fixed this major bug in 6? All the bells and whistles but the basics are ignored.
The "fractional scaling" is such a broken idea. What is needed is a completely resolution independent and mostly vector based graphical system that just renders with maximum fidelity using the available hardware.
Liking plasma 6 so far been running it for a few weeks BUT you lose most themes when upgrading and there are a handful of widgets - all gone. So that sucks which I suppose will get better but that was surprising. Other than a few errors here and there - very minor - it's runnable as a daily.
- Global Themes: Explained at the end. - Plasma Styles: Yeah apart from purging KDE4 themes I don't know why they got purged... right now. Plasma Styles from 5.2x are literally 100% compatible still iirc. - Colours: 100% compatible - if they got purged, not justified imo, but I forget if they purged that category or not. - Window Decorations: Module-based decorations make 100% sense - different Qt version so different library directory. Otherwise, I'd argue the purge of this category was a necessary evil to encourage themes to pre-supply the years-old Korners bugfix mask. - Icons: If they purged Get New Icons, then... I'd say it's debatably justified - it'd encourage icon sets to support all the system tray icons, etc. if purged, but arguably it's literally unnecessary since Breeze is a forced fallback no matter the icons. - Cursors: Literally unjustified if they purged it, imo - they still work fine - maybe once they potentially follow suit with deprecating X11 legacy-cursor-names someday... but that's a real stretch tbh. - Splash Screen, Lock Screen, and so on.: Makes 100% sense - the ABI completely changed, completely bricking KDE Plasma 5.xx versions of these items. The fact these belong inside Global Themes' folders is likely the reason Global Themes were also purged, and is the reason why all 5.xx Plasmoids broke.
@@ThatLinuxDude Makes sense! Colors, Icons, and the like I did lose but as able to re add. I am seeing a few more global themes that have been added recently (utterly for example). I'm sure this will all get better as its adopted by more and the plasmoids (widgets) are redone for plasma 6. Appreciate the response and the info!
KDE is the determining factor on which distro I use. Arch, Ubuntu, Debian, all linux forks are irrelevant to me. I would prefer KDE Neon over any non-KDE distro. And I'll add to that, that I would prefer the worst windows OS - 8 original even, than any gnome DE distro.
If it reminds me of windows I don't like it. Of course I don't mean any disrespect to anybody that does like it but I use gnome and all I do is hit the Super Key and i type the program I want and hit enter and I'm on my way. No start menus to look at.
OK, liking that KDE 6 is now a thing. Now, I currently have Garuda Dragonized KDE, and it's very pretty. Is there an easy way to port that theme and icons across to KDE6? Also, Garuda, which is currently a 'rolling release', as far as I know, doesn't yet have KDE6 as an upgrade available. What should I do?!
@@MauiWauiPineappleExpress Just reverted tonight. First and most obvious was that the Settings app would never close, and had an inactive 'Close' button. Thank goodness for Snapshots!
well, I have a nvidia card, and while plasma is a great desktop, wayland is not ready to be a default, kde6 looks amazing, ive been messing with it since beta, but wayland ruins everything, and then I get the feeling im not using the full potential of my computer, in a few years, where you install wayland and it simply works on the average computer, yes, make it a default, but when it still has SO many flaws, just turns out to be a nightmare where stuff doesnt work, the system glitches because configs have to be changed, then that other package you work with doesnt support it, or xwayland simply bugs out and glitches the graphics, basically what im saying is, the wayland default is a pretty risky choice, could be made an option, but not a default. thanks for reading my wayland rant
@@JureRepinc you do have a point, but wayland came after, nvidia did delay a lot, only recently "wayland support" was added to the proprietary drivers, but wayland should not be a default, not when it doesnt work fully with like 40% of the linux community, nvidia users in this case
@@UncleJemimaI haven't tested many or all Linux for sure. but so far all my C/C++ programming using thread libraries shows that the load balancing is poor or simply rely on the kernel pre-emption without any load balancing philosophy. So when I program and run a test application, I notice that I cannot configure myself the pre-emption of my threads on a programming level (of course there are some console commands, I haven't seen any programming libraries offering such flexibility). The only programming flexibility available is when I am using the same type of library on a FreeBSD.
for me: gnome is better for a small laptop - and gnome needs a trackpad, to be usefull (especialy with wayland.. the workflow is so fast) - on a big screen and without a trackpad, i prefer KDE
I went back to Xfce because the upgrade on neon was a total disaster and they already released 6.0.1 to fix all the bugs. For now I'm very happy with MX 23.2. Quick and very stable.
