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
- libera.chat is an Agenda-Peddling Platform Run by Agenda-Peddling Individuals
- The volunteers of libera.chat ("staff") aren't working for free, they work towards an agenda
- Secret Microsoft Layoffs and Maybe Another "Voluntary Exit Program at Microsoft in October"
- there's a morale crisis at Microsoft
- Many Topics to Cover
- Drops in a big ocean
-
- Gemini Links 05/10/2026: "Posthumanism", Cardputer, and More
- Links for the day
- Links 05/10/2026: “I’m Embarrassed on Behalf of the Tech Industry” and Slop Scammers "Lobbying the Vatican"
- Links for the day
- SIRIUS OPEN SOURCE LTD Officially Insolvent, Is Reform UK Next?
- Sirius no more
- Links 05/10/2026: "Congress Must Investigate War Profiteers Once Again" and Update on Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence
- Links for the day
- Nobel Season is Plutocracy Week
- Later this week the billionaires will give a fake "Nobel" (in "Economics") to someone who parrots their preferred narrative and those same billionaires will use "Nobel" to bless the promoter of their latest pyramid scheme/buzzword
- GNU/Linux Market Share in North America 13% This Past Weekend
- It is perhaps not shocking that adoption of GNU/Linux is very high there
- When Did Europe Begin to Side With White-Collar Criminals (or Participate in Suppressing People Who Oppose Them)?
- How much corruption can we tolerate before the European Union becomes another Russian Federation?
- Libera Chat's "Level of Control Might Make Sense for a Corporate Platform"
- IRC is not centralised
- Brigading Against Women - Part XVIII - Turning Censorship Attempts (Articles About Matthew Garrett) Into Mild Redactions
- What Lozza did two years ago
- Greenland Needs Digital Sovereignty
- the large icy island isn't moving to GNU/Linux as quickly as the rest of Europe
- Tracker of Internet Relay Chat Networks Out of Service (But Not Down) Since Thursday
- We should note that the number of unique networks they track has grown since we last checked
- Gemini Links 05/10/2026: NixOS, Guix, Codeberg Banning Slop, and "Gopher Apps on Android"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 04, 2026
- MIT Technology Review (MTR) Reinforces MIT's Role in Promoting Slop (Pyramid Scheme) in Exchange for Money
- MIT is a poster boy (or child) of institutional corruption, perverts, and corporate takeover
- Proving Wrong Those Slop Maximalists and Boosters, GAFAM Says Slop is a Nuisance and Bans/Hides the Slop Submissions
- People who say slop in projects is inevitable or even desirable are usually cheaters with self-guilt
- Links 04/10/2026: “AI Torture Chamber” and "Aggressive Push to Integrate Hey Hi (AI) Slop Into Schools Is Turning Into a Disaster"
- Links for the day
- How Microsoft Hides Massive Layoffs From the Media (as Explained by Microsofters)
- "rewards" are not exactly rewarding
- Brigading Against Women - Part XVII - The Appeal
- more to be known towards the end of the year
- Gemini Links 04/10/2026: Peace in Outage, Pen Pals, and deGoogling
- Links for the day
- Links 04/10/2026: Fires Rage in Borneo and Mass Layoffs at Disney
- Links for the day
- Garrett's Litigation Partner is Unemployed Again
- losing one's job
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 03, 2026
- Teaser/Taster
- Tomorrow morning we'll have an important story regarding "GGG"
- Gemini Links 03/10/2026: Book Swaps and Book Crossing, Hidden Figures (2016), Apps and Tools for Research and Writing
- Links for the day
- Michael Catanzaro Seems to be Missing the Point
- Calling people you disagree with "Ostriches" is lazy name-calling
- Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 41
- People who want humans and communities to maintain their software chains (and by extension their digital life) will back GNU
- Links 03/10/2026: "Banned Books Week 2026" and "American Journalist Imprisoned as a Spy in Russia"
- Links for the day
- In Case Anybody Still Believes Microsoft Lunduke Cares About GNU/Linux...
- GNU/Linux users aren't bots
- Gemini Links 03/10/2026: Speculative Realism, Paper2SlopBot, Joplin, and Offline Experiment
- Links for the day
- Union Syndicale Fédérale (USF) Tries to Compel the European Patent Office (EPO) to Actually Function Properly
- We'll be covering the EPO a lot more soon
- Brigading Against Women - Part XVI - When Your Own Colleagues Complain About You Maybe the Problem is You
- "if 2 people tell you that you're drunk, you go to sleep"
- Links 03/10/2026: Slop-Generated War Songs and "Privatisation Has Failed"
- Links for the day
- Proprietary Software Giant Microsoft is Quietly Laying Off Lots of Employees, Insider Explains How It's Done
- about Microsoft exits
- United States: More Than One in Ten Using GNU/Linux on Laptop/Desktop
- Clownflare Radar seems to show a similar trend
- Brigading Against Women - Part XV - Trying to Put Women in Prisons
- We'll soon get to the 'meat' or the 'beef', showing how "Gas The Jews" Lozza helped Garrett a few days after we had sued him in September 2024
- A Leap in GNU/Linux Usage, Japan's Share in Particular
- One thing that merits attention right now is Japan. It looks like it's adopting GNU/Linux instead of GAFAM.
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 02, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, October 02, 2026