Desktop Environments News: KDE, GNOME, XFCE...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-11 14:02:51 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-11 14:02:51 UTC
K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
The primary goal of the conference was to encourage people to get involved with open source and to understand its power and its reach. We also wanted to help them get started by teaching them the basics and by getting them to know more about KDE. When the conference was over, it didn't matter how many lines of code anyone could understand or even actually write. If some people were convinced of the magic of open source and of KDE, and are now willing to be contributors to this noble cause even if only slightly, then the event accomplished its aim. Events, speakers and mentors like these add fuel to the fire inside. Students were inspired to reach out and experience the power of free and open source technology.
-
As my readers probably know there won’t be a combined release as the software compilation used to be. There are independent ongoing projects around the libraries (frameworks or KF5) the workspaces (Plasma Next) and the applications. These projects have independent release cycles and are not one product. I know, I know, many people will disagree and say that it’s still one. But if we go for this strong simplification both “will support Wayland” and “will not support Wayland” are true.
-
Today I ported the ~7.5 year-old "services" KRunner plugin to Sprinter and added support for some of the new Sprinter features in the process, which I show in the video below. It felt like something of a milestone to have the first plugin I wrote for KRunner now running on libsprinter. :)
-
"Community" why is that more important than "Design"? Because it is design. It is the basis of Open Source Design. One of my favorite distros and desktops (aside from Plasma Desktop) is Crunchbang. It's one of my first pure Linux Loves and will always have a certain place in my heart.Crunchbang got one huge chunk of design right: communication. Design is communication - it is not just "make pretty", its the ability to communicate goals, ideals and ideas to a group. In Open Source the benefit we have is that everyone can be a part - we use it in almost every aspect, from the Kernel up to Widget programming. But we tend to forget Design because design have a myth about it of the "Lone Genius" and that "Design by committee" it's supposed counterpart is somehow "bad for design".
-
It’s Christmas time for KDE Software users, the team has just announced the first beta of the 4.13 versions of Applications and Development Platform. This release also marks a freeze on APIs, dependencies and features so the team will now focus on hunting down bugs and polish it further.
-
With these things in mind, I very quickly focused on two desktop managers that might provide the desired desktop: Xfce and Trinity. Since I prefer to use openSUSE as the underlying operating system and Xfce is one of the desktop manager options fully supported by openSUSE installations, Xfce was an obvious first choice for consideration. This article will consider the Xfce desktop manager from the perspective of a KDE4 user and it is addressed to all those KDE4 users who feel similarly frustrated with the development direction KDE4 has taken.
-
Krita 2.8.0 was released yesterday, and this version comes with quite a big list of changes. In addition to the new features that were implemented, Krita is also available for Windows with an installer available from here.
-
The KDE Project has released a major new version of its Krita image editing software, with the latest version of the free and open source Photoshop replacement available for both Windows and Linux.
The latest update, version 2.8, marks a significant milestone for the software, marking the first stable version of the software released for Windows.
-
Krita 2.8 offers better tablet support based upon Qt's tablet code, a new high-quality scaling mode for Krita's OpenGL canvas, a new wrap-around mode, new brush presets, a layer picker, support for G'mic filters, and tons of new artist features and other improvements.
-
The Calligra team is proud and pleased to announce the release of version 2.8 of the Calligra Suite, Calligra Active and the Calligra Office Engine. This version is the result of thousands of commits which provide new features, polishing of the user experience and bug fixes.
GNOME Desktop/GTK
-
Ubuntu Gnome team wants to join the elite club of Ubuntu flavours which enjoy the LTS (Long Term Support) status. 14.04 is going to be an LTS release and its apt for Ubuntu Gnome team to get extended support of 2 years and 3 months as an LTS release which will make it easier for those users to use Gnome who want to use stable LTS releases.
-
Several other minor improvements have been added to this release, and various bugs have been fixed, including the removal of the “Now Playing” entry from the App Menu, songs are no longer being replayed when they’re paused, the current track is now restarted when the Previous button is clicked, and the position is greater than 3 seconds.
Mixed
-
The sleeper desktop environment – which I didn’t even considered years ago – has been XFCE. I've found that XFCE offers more robustness than say, LXDE, which lacks much of XFCE's polish in its default configuration. XFCE provides all the benefits one may have enjoyed in GNOME 2, but with a lightweight experience that makes it a hit on older computers.
-
Linux users do not like change. Well, actually, they do not like change for the sake of change. If something works, they typically hang on to it until something truly better comes along. A good example of this is GNOME 2. People love it and it works well. However, the GNOME Project moved to version 3 and radically changed how it works. GNOME purists were angry as version 2 worked just fine -- for them. And so, many hung onto the outdated version, shunning version 3.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Links 09/11/2026: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Cheats on Wife With A Suspected Chinese Spy, "400,000 Russians Killed in Battle Since 2022 Invasion"
- Links for the day
- Digitalisation Is Not Inevitable or Unavoidable
- Nor inescapable
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXIV - Why the Swatting Failed
- After that we only ever heard from or spoke to cops when we invited them to our home to collect evidence
-
- The Register MS is Not Objective Regarding "AI", It's Paid by Pushers of the Pyramid Scheme (including Nvidia)
- Some time soon we'll name some companies that pay millions to The Register MS in order to cement their role in the house of cards (while it lasts)
- GAFAM Moribund
- A lot of what we say about Microsoft in respect to debt is equally applicable to the rest of GAFAM
- NVIDIA as a Scam Company Run by Scammers Who Fake Demand for Their Waste of Energy (Subsidising GPU Sales for Use Cases That Don't Exist)
- First they targeted gamers, then fake 'currencies' (which turned out to be a bust), now it's slop (obfuscation of plagiarism using brute force and fusion) [...] We're quite glad that Huang publicly broadcasts how untrustworthy he is
- Zero Tolerance for Slop
- very few sites that dabbled in slop ended up well off (for it)
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 08, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, November 08, 2026
- Gemini Links 09/11/2026: "The Blue Wave Won't Save Us" and "Discoverability Is Only Solved If You Can Be Discovered"
- Links for the day
- IBM 'Robbery': No More Car Allowance in the UK, Severance Shredded, CEO Pay Up 51% in One Year While Thousands Laid Off in Secret
- Why does a CEO reward himself so much when the company does so badly?
- Gemini Links 08/11/2026: "Back", Zot, and Information Overload
- Links for the day
- “Concerned Microsoft Workers” Say “Working at Microsoft Has Become Joyless and Demoralizing.” (That's What Microsoft Wants, More Will Leave That Way)
- Many Microsoft employees are going to leave
- The Register MS is Losing Hundreds of Thousands of Pounds a Year While Directors Pay Themselves Hundreds of Thousands of Pounds a Year in Dividends
- they take money from slop pushers and have clearly compromised some journalistic standards in the process
- GNU/Linux Measured at 7.4% in the UK This Weekend: Clownflare Radar
- I hope that one day GNU/Linux will be everywhere here
- Never a One-Person Project
- Just because I'm the main "public face" of the site (who takes all the insults and SLAPPs) doesn't mean I deserve all the credit
- “I Always Expect to Lose. I Fight Anyway, and Sometimes I Win.” — Richard Stallman
- To change the world meaningfully people must think big
- Stop Looking for News About "Layoffs", Layoffs Are Over (They've Been Rebranded)
- To properly assess the status quo we need other yardsticks
- Links 08/11/2026: Bosses Who Were Forcing Their Workers to Use Slop Change Mind, "Rapper RBX Files Ninth Circuit Appeal in Fraud-Focused Class Action Lawsuit Against Spotify"
- Links for the day
- Links 08/11/2026: Why Vikings Stayed in Iceland and "TikTok Accused Of Promoting Sex Industry To Young Girls"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 08/11/2026: "Before Sunrise" and LLM Scrapers Versus Self-Hosting (or Web in General)
- Links for the day
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXIII - Weaponising Cops in Another Continent (Europe), Knowing They Cannot Come to Your Home in America, While Threatening Women
- This year it culminated in death threats
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 07, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, November 07, 2026
- The Decade Ahead, a Decade of Suppressed Stories
- Our stories aren't discouraged or considered taboo because of racism or "toxic politics" or anything like that; they just hurt powerful people and corporations
- Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Inaction and Incompetence - Part V - "Reports Closed Without the Evidence Being Examined."
- Totally what the SRA did regarding Brett Wilson LLP
- Gemini Links 07/11/2026: Illusion Garden and Lagrange 2
- Links for the day
- Complexity is the Tyrant's Friend
- Slop is for feeble minds and cheaters
- IBM Firings (or Silent Layoffs) After Bluewashing; "IBM’s Employment History is More Troubling Than its Patriotic Marketing Suggests"
- "It has zip to do with race but everything to do with the greed of the 1% who have been doing all they can to destroy the middle class..."
- “Week van de Werkstress” and Work-Related Stress at the EPO, Where Staff is Bullied Into Granting Illegal Patents for Foreign Monopolists
- "poor working environments, including discrimination and inequality, excessive workloads, low job control and job insecurity pose a risk to mental health"
- Czech Republic: GNU/Linux Rises Above 5% in Desktops and Laptops
- A year ago it was somewhere around 4%
- EPO's Local Staff Committee The Hague Says Almost or About a Third of Staff Assembled to Organise at "a Time of Continued Social Unrest"
- They speak of "circa 850 staff members in attendance" (in The Netherlands there are about a couple thousand)
- Suggestions That XBox Will be Offloaded by Microsoft, Rather Than Shut Down, Make the False Assumption XBox is Profitable (It's Not, It's a Liability)
- Microsoft has serious financial troubles
- Which "Smart" "Phone", Which "Social" "Media", and Which "Cloud" "Storage"?
- Let's take back control of the language
- State of the (Linux) Slop, Late 2026 Edition
- Google News (Gulag Noise) is a plagiarism booster
- Year 21
- It's 5PM here
- Links 07/11/2026: "Flock Cameras Got Eviscerated by the Midterms" and Joshua Wong Shows China is Highly Repressive and Fully Controls Hong Kong
- Links for the day
- At The Register MS the Net Liabilities Doubled in One Year, Tangible Assets Down About 35% in One Year
- signed off in 2026
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXXXII - Running One's Mouth
- British Police told me "making a false complaint to police is a crime" in relation to Lozza
- Another 20 Years of Exposing Corruption
- We'll focus on carrying on what we do
- EPO Budget and Finance Committee (in Very Recent Meeting) Increases Bribes to People Who Vote on Campinos Reappointment ("Cooperation Activities")
- Buying 'elections' to protect the cocaine-stained regime in Europe's second-largest institution
- Links 07/11/2026: London's SLAPP Industry Now Targets Kirkenes (Northern Norway) at the Behest of Corrupt Thieves in Russia and Microsoft’s 'Buyout' Offer Crashes Microsoft Systems
- Links for the day
- Links 07/11/2026: "The Moon is Waning Crescent", Homeworlds, and "Can't Handle The AVIF!"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 06, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, November 06, 2026