News About Desktop Environments: Enlightenment, KDE, GNOME, and Others
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-02 10:13:07 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-02 10:13:07 UTC
Enlightenment
With the latest Git development work for the Elementary tool-kit and library, applications can run directly from the DRM driver interface without any display server / compositor / window manager. Applications can be created to run in DRM and by setting the ELM_ENGINE=drm option the apps will run in a standalone mode without anything else underneath.
Current support work is being done to enable client-side applications (as opposed to making a Wayland compositor itself - that is a future plan). Currently EFL applications that use the lower-level Ecore-Evas and higher level Elementary API's will work and display correctly in Wayland, handle input, resizing and moving. Client-side frames are already provided. Both Shared-memory buffers AND EGL/OpenGL-ES2 buffers are supported. The Shared-memory buffers are purely CPU-rendered, meaning that they will work with or without OpenGL hardware acceleration support. They are fast and usable. The OpenGL-ES2 display is fully accelerated with all primitives being rendered by OpenGL (Hardware acceleration) and already work fully due to a long history of supporting this under X11 and other embedded EGL/OpenGL-ES2 environments.
KDE
April 1, 2014. Today KDE makes available the first beta of Frameworks 5. This release is part of a series of releases leading up to the final version planned for June 2014 following the previous alpha last month. This release marks the freeze of source incompatible changes and the introduction of the Frameworks 5 Porting Aids.
And KDE knows what happens when you alienate a group of users since the moment when the anger of some people over KDE 4 lead to the first prominent fork of KDE software, the Trinity Desktop Environment.
Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the fourth in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.12 series. This release also includes an updated Plasma Workspaces 4.11.8. Both releases contain only bugfixes and translation updates, providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone.
Part of the KDE PIM group is meeting over this weekend in Barcelona in the spacious BlueSystems offices, hacking on all sorts of things. Me and David Edmundson took the oportunity to do some super huge changes to our KPeople library that are needed and as the library is in its dawn, it's better to do it sooner than later. These are all internal and boring changes, but one of the changes we've been working on here is really cool and worth mentioning.
The CD and DVD era is coming to an end and developers don't really bother to innovate when it comes to applications that deal with this media. There are quite a few apps that are capable of writing to DVDs available for the Linux platform, and K3B is one of the best.
The fourth beta of digiKam Software Collection 4.0 is now available for photographers interested in testing out this popular KDE software component.
digiKam team is proud to announce the fourth beta release of digiKam Software Collection 4.0.0.
Qt3D is the Qt component that adds 3D support to Qt Quick for easily integrating 3D functionality. Qt3D has been in development for some time and was going to be an "essential" module to Qt 5.0 before being moved to just an add-on as part of Nokia's Qt changes prior to selling it to Digia. Qt3D offers up a lot of potential for 3D user-interfaces and applications, but hasn't seen too much work recently -- the last time we got to mention it was when talking about OpenGL taking on a greater role within Qt in late 2012.
The KDE Project developers have just released the first Release Candidate of Applications and Platform 4.13, and it's all about fixes and improvements.
“KDE has released the release candidate of the 4.13 versions of Applications and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing,” said the KDE developers.
“The Calligra team has released version 2.8.1, the first of the bugfix releases of the Calligra Suite, and Calligra Active in the 2.8 series. This release contains a few important bug fixes to 2.8.0 and we recommend everybody to update,” reads the official announcement.
GNOME
Announcing her departure, Karen said: “Working as the GNOME Foundation Executive Director has been one of the highlights of my career.” She also spoke of the achievements during her time as Executive Director: “I’ve helped to recruit two new advisory board members… and we have run the last three years in the black. We’ve held some successful funding campaigns, particularly around privacy. We have a mind-blowingly fantastic Board of Directors, and the Engagement team is doing amazing work. The GNOME.Asia team is strong, and we’ve got an influx of people, more so than I’ve seen in some time.”
Zukitwo, a beautiful theme designed for GNOME 3.12 that makes use of the GTK2 engine Murrine and the GTK2 pixbuf engine, is now at version 2014.03.29.
The Zukitwo theme was updated shortly after the release of GNOME 3.12 and it’s probably the first theme to support the new version of GNOME. A lot of other themes will probably follow soon but, coincidentally, Zukitwo is also one of the best ones around.
Our dedication towards Wayland has pushed us to build a cleaner architecture overall. What used to be a proliferation of X-specific video and input drivers is mostly culminating in centralized, standardized code. For input, we have libinput, which we’re using from Weston, mutter, and Xorg as well. What used to be a collection of chipset-specific video plugins for doing accelerated rendering have now been replaced by glamor, a credible chipset-independent acceleration architecture. What used to be large monolithic components heavily tied to Xorg and the Xorg input and video architectures have now been split out into separate, easily-reusable libraries with separate, easily-maintainable codebases. New, experimental features can be prototyped faster than ever before.
One of the great things about Linux distributions is the customization. In contrast, an operating system like Windows 8 is rather limited. Sure, you can change some colors, wallpapers and sounds, but pretty much, it is what it is. What you see is what you get. That is probably fine for most people, however, Linux users are not most people.
Itching to get your hands on the latest goodies from Gnome? Look no further… If you’d like to see the project’s latest efforts, including getting the best look at the latest Gnome core apps (Music, Weather, Maps, Videos), Matthias Clasen has a special gift for you. He’s made a special live CD containing a complete Gnome 3.12 atop Fedora 20.
Review When the GNOME 3.x desktop arrived it was, frankly, unusable. It wasn't so much the radical departure from past desktop environments, as the fact that essential things did not work properly or, more frustratingly, had been deemed unnecessary.
THE GNOME PROJECT has released Gnome 3.12, the latest version of the heavyweight Linux desktop environment, which adds support for better displays and faster startup times.
Earlier today GNOME 3.12 has been released, bringing major new features, several redesigned programs and three new applications: Logs, Sound Recorder and Polari.
Misc.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Daniel Pocock in The Guardian This Morning
- There is an opportunity here to spread a message, even if Pocock won't win a seat
- "Samsung Recently Projected a 19-fold Surge in Second-Quarter Operating Profit", Now There Are Mass Layoffs
- In a 9-month period Samsung's debt rose by about 80%
- Gemini Links 20/07/2026: Dungeon Meshi/Undertale Crossover, "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Dark Web and Beyond"
- Links for the day
- IBM's Control of the Media "Just Showed What Taking Accountability Does Not Look Like"
- It is no secret that IBM pays the media
- Microsoft Loses XBox Lawsuit, But There Are More
- The collapse of studios continues
- GNU/Linux Approaching International Average in Djibouti
- One can envisage further gains for GNU/Linux, seeing Microsoft is in such a bad shape
- Daniel Pocock "[t]he Australian Taking on Nigel Farage — from Down Under"
- This can help raise awareness of some issues
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 19, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 19, 2026
- Misleading Coverage in Slashdot Promotes and Openwashes Slop
- Piggybacking RMS for the headline seems like a PR stunt of sorts
- As Envisioned, a Rebellion and Many Whistleblowers at Microsoft
- Whistleblowers ensure Microsoft has totally lost control of the "narrative" (face-saving PR)
- Microsoft is a Right-Wing Company
- Just remember that when people call Microsoft "woke"
- GNU/Linux "Market Share" Rises to About a Quarter in Sudan
- Can anyone explain to us why?
- Gemini Links 19/07/2026: Visiting Ethiopia, Two Dreams, and Price of Skinnerboxes
- Links for the day
- Tears in IBM, Company Falls Apart While Management Fakes "Performance" to Take Bonuses
- Wall Street is a naked emperor
- Telling Our Story
- In the coming years we'll have some high-impact stories to share and generally tell without fear of reprisal
- Microsoft XBox Studio Leaders Upset at What the New CEO Did
- From what we can gather, in 2024 XBox was already entering what's known as a "death spiral". Now it's literally moving down the drain/pipe.
- IRC Started in Finland, GNU/Linux Did Not
- History is like that
- GNU/Linux Rises to 8% in Bhutan, Same as the International Average
- Taking note of estimated GNU/Linux share in that country, we see it hovering around the international median/average this month
- Links 19/07/2026: "The Voice of Google" and "Chinese Surveillance Tech a Threat to Privacy"
- Links for the day
- Keep Both Eyes on the Ball
- At the moment we have six series running in parallel; two of them concern the EPO
- 'Journalists' Who Help IBM Cover Up Fraud
- Journalistic malpractice
- The "Modern Linux" Song
- Join us now, make the kernel
- XBox Layoffs Vastly Bigger Than Microsoft Told the Press, Microsoft Keeps Trying to Change the Subject
- Many so-called "XBox fans" are no more
- Microsoft Lost 1,200 Billion Dollars in "Market Value", Take a Look at What Happened to Windows
- while Windows continues to fall unstoppably GNU/Linux is surging
- Links 19/07/2026: People in China Are Buying Feelings and 404 Media Has Third Anniversary
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 19/07/2026: Camping, Health, and Hardware
- Links for the day
- The State of Slopfarms
- Slopfarms or LLM slopfarms are a menace and a problem on the Web
- GNU/Linux Rising to 6% in Brunei
- seventh in the world for GDP (PPP) per capita
- Free Software is Like an 'Activist Movement'
- People who argue strongly in favour of something (even very good things) will attract the wrath of those whom they oppose
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 18, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 18, 2026
- UKIP TV (GBNoise) Covers Challengers to UKIP Nigel, Daniel Pocock Mentioned
- Way to get noticed
- Links 18/07/2026: Chinese State Media Depicting Neighbours as Monkeys, US "Stocks Sink on Anxiety About Tech and Hey Hi (AI) Spending"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 18/07/2026: "Business Idiots Everywhere", "The Siren Song of DePIN", and Entering Geminispace
- Links for the day
- GNU/Linux in Lithuanian Desktops/Laptops Climbs to 8%, the Global Average
- For its own national security it would be wise to abandon Windows
- This Bubble is Bursting, Piecewise
- It's nice to see Wall Street getting some reality checks
- It's Not About XBox, Microsoft is Already Firing Hundreds of People Who Do "Security [sic] Engineering" [sic]
- The official reason/excuse/lie told is something about slop, but no sane person would buy it (not even insiders who are impacted)
- Can We Finally All Agree That UEFI 'Secure Boot' is a Sham That Harms Security and Gives Microsoft Remote Control Over All PCs and Servers (Even Those That Don't Run Any Microsoft Software)?
- Cui bono?
- Bolivian People Adopt GNU/Linux (They Have a Domestic Distro Too, PluriOS)
- Notice Windows falling to an all-time low
- No Technical People Write About UK Parliamentary Elections
- Almost none of them work in the media, which seems to favour parrots, slop, or parrots that use slop
- "But Stallman is Scaring Away Women..."
- Such dishonest projections (projection tactics) needs to be called out and refuted
- First Female Debian Project Leader (DPL) Affirms Low Profile and Inferior Status of Women in GAFAM
- 3 months ago Sruthi Chandran was elected as Debian Project Leader (DPL) for a period of 12 months
- After 5 Years Vista 11 Still Adopted Less Than Its Predecessor (Orphaned, End of Life Since Last Year)
- Notice Windows going down to 40%
- We Don't Depend on Google (or Search Engines in General)
- there's a lesson here and it extends beyond sites
- Only "Torvaldos" (Linus Torvalds) Can Use the F-Word, CoC Does Not Apply to the Enforcer, and Richard Stallman Punished for Using the Other F-Word ("Freedom")
- "Linus Torvalds tells AI haters to fork off"
- Explaining the Culture of Bulletin Board-Style Chat
- Only desperate detractors would try to present something (cherry-picked) from IRC as some sort of official statement for Techrights
- Independent, But Not Fringe
- "Daniel Pocock is an Independent Candidate."
- In Free Software, Nobody Gets Fired
- Way to own one's code and project
- PIP-Styled Mass Layoffs Allegedly Coming to Microsoft by 12 August 2026
- Microsoft has been doing "silent layoffs" (PIPs and more) for quite some time
- Daniel Pocock's Candidacy (Election of Member of Parliament) Mentioned in BBC and Over a Dozen News Sites Since Yesterday
- Funnily enough, albeit not surprisingly, the same people who attack Pocock also attack us
- Links 18/07/2026: Spotify Uses Slop Song Descriptions, "San Francisco Demands Removal of Nudify Apps"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 17, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, July 17, 2026
- Gemini Links 18/07/2026: A Manifesto by The Dissident, Shokz Headphones, and Gemini Tinylog Reader (GTL)
- Links for the day