• KDE Ships March Updates to Applications, Platform and Plasma Workspaces

  Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the third in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.12 series. This release also includes an updated Plasma Workspaces 4.11.7. Both releases contain only bugfixes and translation updates, providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone.

• Three Turning Points, KDE Releases, and Loving Ubuntu

• Learning More About KDE’s Plasma Next Desktop

  For those KDE users wishing to learn more about the forthcoming “Plasma Next” desktop work alongside KDE Frameworks 5 and Qt5, there’s new information available.

• KDE Frameworks 5 Alpha Two Is Out

  Today KDE released the second alpha of Frameworks 5, part of a series of releases leading up to the final version planned for June 2014. This release includes progress since the previous alpha last month.

• First beta of Kubuntu 14.04 out for testing

  Ubuntu derivatives have announced the first beta for 14.04 release. Since ‘daddy’ Ubuntu releases only one beta before final release the images for Unity are not available. Being a KDE user I am definitely looking forward to Kubuntu which will come with KDE Applications 4.12.2 along with newest Muon Software Center. I did notice a bug in Kubuntu beta and that’s freezing of installer if you have more than one hard drive attached to the system. I hope developers will fix this ‘deal breaking’ bug before the final release. Other betas are from Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome and other members of Ubuntu family.

• Exciting Features Coming For Qt 5.3

  The official release of Qt 5.3 is tentatively planned for April but with the feature freeze coming up we already have a good idea for the features of this next tool-kit release.

• Qt5 To Most Likely Stick With Time-Based Released

  Some developers have been interested in seeing Qt go back to doing feature-based releases rather than being time-based. Right now the Qt5 tool-kit is released about every six months regardless of the number of features, but generally with the Qt5 releases thus far they have also been quite heavy on features. Six month release cycles is not good enough for some developers (in either direction) but Lars Knoll decided to chime in on the discussion Monday about changing the Qt release cycle and how branching is done.

• KDE Applications and Development Platform February Updates Available

  Packages for the release of KDE SC 4.12.2 are available for Kubuntu 12.04LTS, 13.10 and our development release. You can get them from the Kubuntu Backports PPA. It includes an update of kde-workspace to 4.11.6.

• The Mer-Powered “Improv” Board Is Running Behind Schedule

KDE at India

• Rocking India

  My own talk was about where KDE, both technically and socially/organizationally, is going, also resulted in quite a few questions. They ranged from “what does RTFM mean” to discussions about involvement of startups and decision making processes. Much of what I talked about won’t be new for KDE people who follow what is going on in our community quite closely. I mostly extrapolate from trends which have been visible for quite a few years. But for those who are new or less close to our community, I plan on putting it in a blog post or two over the coming days/weeks.

Development

• KDE PIM November Sprint

• Rocking conf.kde.in 2014!

• KDE Commit-Digest for 26th January 2014

• Cantor’s script editor news

  There is news for others Cantor backends too. Now script editor load default syntax highlighting for each backend – in old versions it did not happen. And, if you push New button, the new script editor will have the default syntax highlighting working too.

• KDE Commit-Digest for 19th January 2014

• Sprinter development, Luminosity Episode 17

Krunner

• Krunner: maximize your productivity in KDE’s Plasma Desktop

  If you’re a KDE user, you’re probably familiar with Krunner, a launcher application. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a small popup window that appears at the top of your screen when you press “Alt+F2″, which is the default shortcut for it. Krunner allows Plasma Workspace users to perform a lot of simple as well as much complex tasks. So, if you are a KDE SC user, you must get familiar with this pretty awesome tool.

Commentary

• Nine Lessons Other Desktops Can Learn from KDE

  The story of KDE’s user revolt is well-known. What is less well known is that, in the six years since then, KDE has been steadily regaining its user-share.

• New Distro Planned, Example KDE, and Linux Bucks

• Classic Desktops, KDE Changes, and Photoshop

Summer of Code

• KDE and Google Summer of Code 2014

  KDE is happy to announce that it has been accepted as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code 2014. This will allow students from around the world to work with mentors on KDE software projects. Successful students will receive stipends from Google.

Nepomuk

• KDE’s Next Generation Semantic Search

  For years, KDE software has included a semantic (relationship-based) searching infrastructure. KDE’s Semantic Search was built around concepts previously developed in a European Union-funded research project NEPOMUK which explored the use of relationships between data to improve search results. Based on these ideas, KDE’s implementation of Semantic Search made it possible to search for all pictures – taken in – a particular place. On top of that, it added text search and tagging.

• KDE’s Nepomuk Doesn’t Seem To Have A Future

  It appears there isn’t much of a future left to KDE’s Nepomuk framework. It’s going to be replaced going forward in the KDE land.

Steam

• Krita will soon be available on Steam

  Krita becomes one of the first open source illustration software to be greenlit for Steam. They started their campaign on 7th this month and the Steam community approved it in less than a fortnight. The Krita team is planning to integrate Big Picture, the Cloud and workshop in Gemini version. It will take some time for them to be commercially available on Steam.

Success Stories

• KDE is helping an Australian wine maker, time to get drunk

  A fantastic interview with Bernard Gray (the IT guy for a wine company) surfaced recently, detailing the exploits of De Bortoli Wines of Austrailia. The Dot interviewed Bernard about his experience, and how he utilizes KDE in his Wine making company. Gray pegs himself as “a tertiary qualified programmer, and has been involved in either core development or supporting development with a few Open Source distros/projects over the years”. With experience under his belt, the long standing wine company, started in 1928, has been using GNU/Linux since the late 90′s. Being no stranger to Linux, Bernard accelerated his Linux efforts in 2003, developing Graphical Terminals to replace existing thin clients at the company. The secret sauce for the project laid in “the fact that it runs out of a ramdisk and on generously spec’d desktop hardware, we finally managed to nail the trifecta of Cheap, Fast AND Good.”

• KDE Software Down Under

  Today we proudly feature an interview with Bernard Gray from De Bortoli Wines, an Australian winemaking company.We spoke with Bernard Gray who has worked for the company for over 10 years in an IT project management and development role. He is, in his own words: “”a tertiary qualified programmer, and has been involved in either core development or supporting development with a few Open Source distros/projects over the years””.

• KDE Plasma at the movies

• KDE plasma was used in creation of Oscar nominee Gravity!

  KDE Software has always enjoyed undisputed reputation among the Open Source users; its desktop environment continues to get voted as one of the most popular and widely used DE. KDE SC is not limited to home users, it’s used by organizations around the globe.

• KDE 4.12.2 and 4.11.6 Officially Released with More than 20 Bugfixes

  Today, February 4, the KDE Project has announced, as expected, the second maintenance release for the stable KDE 4.12 Applications and Development Platform, as well as the sixth maintenance release of the KDE 4.11 Plasma Workspaces.

• KDE 4.12.2 Released Along With Plasma WS 4.11.6

• KDE Ships February Updates to Applications and Platform

  Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the second in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.12 series. This release also includes an updated Plasma Workspaces 4.11.6. Both releases contain only bugfixes and translation updates; providing a safe and pleasant update for everyone.

• KDE Software Compilation 4.12.2 available in the stable repositories

  KDE’s second update of its 4.12 series of Workspaces, Applications and Development Platform is now available in the stable repositories.

• KDE Desktop vs. GNOME Apps: The Great Paradox

  A paradox lies at the center of the Linux desktop today. For all their limitations, reader polls consistently show that KDE is the single most popular desktop, preferred by just under a third of users. Yet at the same time, 40-45% use a desktop that sits on top of GNOME technology, such as GNOME3, Cinnamon, Mate, or Unity.

• New Touchpad management app in Kubuntu 14.04

  The new app replaces the old Synaptiks touchpad management app and has many more buttons and settings that you can twiddle and tweak to get the best experience. The Kubuntu team would like to thank Alexander Mezin for working on this replacement app as part of his GSoC project. The package comes complete with its own plasmoid for easy access to enable and disable touchpads! Quite useful for folks who don’t have a physical hardware button to Enable/Disable touchpads

• First look at cockpit, a web based server management interface

  The web page also states three aims: beginners friendly interface, multi server management – and that there should be no interference in mixed usage of web interface and shell. Especially the last point caught my attention: many other web based solutions introduce their own magic, thus making it sometimes tricky to co-administrate the system manually via the shell. The listed objectives also make clear that cockpit does not try to replace tools that go much deeper into the configuration of servers, like Webmin, which for example offers modules to configure Apache servers in a quite detailed manner. Cockpit tries to simply administrate the server, not the applications. I must admit that I would always do such a application configuration manually anyway…

• Homerun 1.2.0

  The main addition in Homerun 1.2.0 is a second interface built atop Homerun’s collection of data sources, the Homerun Kicker launcher menu shown above. Unlike the first Homerun interface, which is designed for use on the full screen or desktop background and meant to be both mouse- and finger-friendly (you can check it out here if you’re new to Homerun or just need a memory boost), Homerun Kicker is a more traditional launcher menu design optimized for efficient use by mouse or touchscreen when placed on a panel.

• kate: intelligent code completion for all languages!

• KDE Commit-Digest for 12th January 2014

• Removing/Disabling The Semantic Deskop in KDE4 (and firing up Thunderbird) Part 1

  As a result of the first article on KMail, three things emerged. First, while some users may like the semantic desktop, there is serious dislike for the semantic desktop (as has been implemented in KDE4) amongst a considerable number of other users, and these people set about disabling the software in various ways. Second, why does the implementation of the semantic desktop produce such apparent deterioration in the performance of the KDE4 desktop and what happens if you try to remove it altogether ? Third, what are some possible solutions ? This second article tries to explore those three items.

• KMail Complexity – and a little Patience

  This article considers some problems I had when I tried to set up and use the latest version of what I still consider is a superb email client: KMail. I believe that this package is no longer intended for the “stand-alone” user, but is firmly aimed at multi-user networks. Attention is also drawn to another far less important but still extensively used KDE4 package, the patience card-game software which I believe has been degraded due to over-development.

• Leveraging the Power of Choice

  That was exactly what I had in mind (and I assume Àlex as well), and it would be a great way to leverage one of Plasma’s biggest strengths: Flexibility, which offers choice! Of course maintaining multiple Plasmoids for the same purpose also means multiplied work, but not all Plasmoids have to be created by the core Plasma team. Everyone can write a Plasmoid for a certain purpose, add the X-Plasma-Provides line to the desktop file and thereby plug it right into this system! With this in place, whenever a user complains that a Plasmoid is either too complex or offers too little choice and an alternative exists, we can point them to it and they can easily switch.

• Nitrux Develops an ARM Mini-Computer Called QtBox, Powered by KDE

  The developer of the beautiful and attractive Nitrux, Compass, and Flatter icon themes is preparing an ARM mini-computer called QtBox and designed to be portable, small (8.8cm x 8.8cm x 8.3cm), running the Nitrux 1.0 operating system and using the eye-candy KDE 4.12 desktop environment.

• QupZilla 1.6.1 QtWebKit Browser Adds New Features

  Moreover, this new stable release of QupZilla fixes speed dial issues when JavaScript was disabled, fixes tab tooltips display issues when tab previews were disabled, repairs search shortcuts that are longer than one character in the address bar, allows users to disable tab previews from the preferences dialog, and fixes building against the new GNOME and KDE keyring passwords.

• Maintenance–The Achilles Heel of Linux

  One of the great things about KDE theming is the fact that the middle man is cut out of the deal. Many theming features invite you to browse different theming possibilities right where you sit. You don’t have to find the websites and the themes; KDE is built to let you choose those things right inside the app. This is pretty cool. From there you can download and install it right from the same GUI.

• New in kdepim 4.13: SieveEditor

  As usual I try to improve sieve support in KMail.
  In 4.9, I fixed the dialogbox for managing them.
  In 4.10, I added a good text editor with highlighting and auto-completion.
  In 4.11, I added a dialogbox for generating sieve code directly (like kmail filter dialogbox)
  In 4.12 I added sieve script parsing and an UI to create sieve script even if you didn’t know sieve language.

• KDevelop / Kate sprint in Barcelona in January 2014

  Last week I have been in Barcelona at the KDevelop / Kate sprint with all the other nice people working on those projects. As always, it was very cool to meet everyone again and spend a week together improving software. A big thanks to the organizers and sponsors, too!

THE “BIG THREE”, namely GNOME, KDE, and XFCE, are not the only games in town. Now we have Defora [1], Moonlight [2], and Ome [3], not to mention LXLE [4,5] and Enlightenment, which recently released E18 [6-8] and will soon release E19 [9]. There are several other desktop environments that continues to be developed, whereas several perished over the years.

Speaking for myself, I recently switched from KDE to Enlightenment on the desktop where I write articles. Enlightenment is a fantastic desktop environment even for relatively new desktops, especially if memory becomes a constraint and speed can use some significant improvement. There are bugs, sure, as well as ‘missing’ features, but this desktop environment which I used regularly over a decade ago is still very light and powerful. Without it, I would have no choice but to cope with bloat, pretty much like in Microsoft and Apple land.

People who claim that GNU/Linux offers not much of real choice because it’s all about KDE, GNOME and some desktop bundles that are no longer maintained (or have been stale for a decade or two) are simply not looking hard enough. It can be rewarding for everyone to experience many environments on mobile (GNU/)Linux and even on desktops (like Unity); the more, the merrier. This attracts develops because it fosters creativity and self expression. To emancipate ourselves from GUI tyrannies (Apple is the worst in that regard) we need to explore alternatives environments, just as we do in many walks of life. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Defora Provides Yet Another Open-Source Desktop

   If you have not yet found the perfect open-source desktop match for your needs, the desktop environment born out of DeforaOS is yet another option. This desktop environment is built using GTK2 and part of a larger effort to provide “ubiquitous, secure and transparent access to one’s resources” and to work regardless of form factor.

2. Moonlight: Yet Another Linux Desktop Environment

   Moonlight is a project still in its early stages and likely will fade away like the many other third-party desktop environments with limited manpower and scope. Moonlight Desktop is trying to be a lightweight desktop for the Raspberry Pi and other low-powered, low-end, old devices — similar in scope to Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment, etc. They really don’t seem to be far along at all right now and are still working towards an appearance for their desktop.

3. Ome: A New Cross-Platform Desktop Environment

   Originally the developer behind Ome was set out on making his own operating system and was thinking of using LLVM IR for its application binary while making the packages like Android’s APK files. He had posted to the LLVM mailing list last month for feedback on these plans but now today he’s posted a new LLVM mailing list message.

4. LXLE Gives New Zest to Old Machines

   I have not been a happy user of Ubuntu since the shift to the Unity desktop. Even the Lubuntu version has some bothersome Ubuntu traits attached. Enter the LXLE distro with its Lubuntu-less appearance. It provides a Long Term Support advantage over using Lubuntu and has a larger and more useful default application set. Even on poorly endowed hardware, this distro boots in less than 1 minute.

5. LXLE 12.04.4 officially released.

6. Enlightenment 0.18.3 Release Allows the Use of Elementary 1.9 or Later

   The development team behind the Enlightenment project, an open source, powerful, lightweight, and eye-candy desktop environment for the X window system has announced the third maintenance release of the stable Enlightenment 0.18 branch, which includes various fixes and improvements.

7. Enlightenment DR 18 Released

8. Enlightenment DR 0.18 Released

   Just one year after the long-time coming official release of Enlightenment 0.17 (E17), Enlightenment 0.18 has been released!

9. Enlightenment E19 Going Into Feature Freeze Soon

   The freeze for E19 will begin in one month, on 28 Feb 2014. After that point, I am likely to reject most* requests for feature additions, and I will be shifting into release mode.

Releases

• KDE Ships January Updates to Applications and Platform 4.12

  Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the first in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.12 series. Starting with the next Applications and Development Platform release, 4.12.2, there will also be a maintenance release of Workspaces 4.11.6. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates; it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone.

• KDE SC 4.12 gets January update

  The KDE community has announced the updates for KDE SC 4.12 series. According to the community blog, “Starting with the next Applications and Development Platform release, 4.12.2, there will also be a maintenace release of Workspaces 4.11.6. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates; it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone.”

Development

• KDE Commit-Digest for 29th December 2013

• KDE Commit-Digest for 5th January 2014

Conferences/Meetings

• Plasma and a new beginning

  The Plasma team is meeting in Barcelona, Spain these days to work on the next major version of KDE’s popular workspaces. As we are in a transition period, technically and organisationally, this is a very important meeting. I won’t go into too many details in this post, as they are still being fleshed out, but to give you an idea what we are talking about, here’s a quick run-down of some of the things we talked about.

• First Talks for conf.kde.in, Registration Open

  conf.kde.in was announced in November, to take place February 21 – 23, 2014 in Gandhinagar, India. This three-day conference, the biggest KDE event in India, will bring together Qt developers, KDE contributors, open source enthusiasts and users from all across the nation. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn, share, contribute, innovate and create around Qt and KDE technology.

• Plasma Team Gathers in Barcelona

  In the second week of January, KDE’s Plasma team gathered in the Blue Systems office in Barcelona, Spain, to discuss and work on the next generation of KDE’s popular workspace products. The meeting comes just at the right time, as the Plasma team has just finished a first technology preview, which puts the base technology in place and allows for an evaluation of the current progress. It also gives an opportunity for more refined plans for a first stable release.

Applications

• digiKam 4.0 Is Closer To Being Released

• Akregator – The KDE Feed Reader

  Akregator is the default KDE RSS/Atom feed reader and it does it very well. Without being bloated with a lot of features, Akregator takes a rather simple approach, yet providing all the needed features one would expect from a feed reader. You have an integrated web browser, tabs, feed fetching interval configuration, feed archiving, system tray notifications and a few other notable features shown below. Akregator is part of the KDE Kontact Suite.

• What to do after the last image?

  If you have used Gwenview before KDE SC 4.11 you might be familiar with the following situation: you are running Gwenview in fullscreen mode, pressing Space to go through a folder full of images. At one point, pressing Space does not do anything anymore… What’s wrong? A quick move of the mouse to bring up the fullscreen bar reveals that you are on the last image.

• Calligra 2.8 Beta 2 Released

  The Calligra team is proud and pleased to announce the second beta release of version 2.8 of the Calligra Suite for testing! The team will now focus on fixing remaining bugs. Let’s make sure the final release of 2.8, expected by the end of January is as stable as possible by giving the current beta a good testing!

• KDE Developer Works On Mesa OpenGL 4.4 Feature

  Mesa contributor and KDE developer Fredrik Höglund has been working on support within Mesa for GL_ARB_multi_bind. This OpenGL 4.4 extension is implemented across eighteen patches and Fredrik hopes to land the support next week.

Misc.

• Those Krazy Kids & KDE

  In May of this year, our project to place refurbished computers into the homes of disadvantaged kids will turn nine years old. Aside from an extremely short-lived and disastrous trial with Microsoft Windows in the beginning, Reglue (formally HeliOS) has depended on Linux to power those computers and we’ve used a number of distros over the years.

• The Luminosity of Free Software: Episode 16

• Open Hardware for KDE

  KDE’s leadership is an opportunity to extend free and open technology, providing creative minds unlimited room to innovate. Mainstream tech companies try to do this without disrupting their profits or stock prices. We are fortunate to have such freedom.

–Steve Jobs

Summary: One of the companies most hostile towards Free/Open Source software (FOSS) is trying to approach those whose work it exploited and harmed

Apple is a liar that has done nothing for Free/Open Source software except take it and then sue its original developers (and/or their clients). Anyone who still believes the fiction of Apple as an “Open Source” supporter (as their Web site and PR agents/fans try to tell us) is just not keeping a grip on reality and may therefore fall for this schmoozing campaign from last week [1]. Yes, Apple is trying to approach KDE developers now. FOSS developers should send Apple’s E-mails where the sun does not shine. Apple does many other bad things, but we need not look further than just Apple’s betrayal and exploitation of FOSS in this context.

There is a new article right now [2] about Apple’s abuse of patents and lawyers, showing quite clearly that the company has nothing to do with innovation. Right now Apple is just suing Linux backers and trying to stop antitrust regulators from doing their job. KDE should take this as a hint; Apple is a crude, dishonest, manipulative company, just like its mean-spirited spiritual leader. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Greetings from the Safari team at Apple Computer

2. Apple Meets Its Worst Nightmare: Federally Appointed Antitrust Lawyer Hell-Bent on Doing His Job

   As detailed in a recent article in the New York Times, Apple is flipping out over an outside monitor nosing around in its business. The technology giant has spent the last several months pulling out all the stops to keep one Michael R. Bromwich, a Washington lawyer appointed by a federal judge to ensure Apple’s compliance with antitrust laws, from doing his job.

   [...]

   Most absurd, Apple claims that if Bromwich is not stopped, the company will no longer be able to innovate and create new products. What a hoot! If Apple was really eager to innovate and create new products, perhaps it would stop doing stock buybacks to enrich executives and devote some of the Mt. Fuji of cash it is sitting on to R&D.

   The judge who appointed the monitor is not amused by Apple’s antics. The NYT reports that at a Jan. 13 hearing in Manhattan, Judge Denise Cote “told Apple and its lawyers to stop wasting time and start cooperating with the monitor.” Apple’s lawyer retorted that the company planned to continue its fight to unseat Bromwich with an appellate court. This is getting quite nasty. The Wall Street Journal huffed that the judge was mean and bad, too. If only these people would go back to doing nothing and leave big business in peace.

Summary: News about KDE and and its gradual movement towards Qt5 and Wayland

KDE, the world’s most powerful desktop, has released version 4.11.5 [1] as well as some updates to Plasma workspaces, applications, and the platform itself [2]. There is even a Frameworks 5 Tech Preview [3] (Qt5 is coming to the core of KDE). Qt is a major component in KDE [4,5] and it’s what truly distinguishes it (in a good way) from GTK/GNOME [6] (both are heading towards full Wayland support [7]). Qt is no longer the proprietary trap it used to be when GNOME was born, so saying that one is freer than the other is unfair. Because of the GNU in GNOME, Richard Stallman recently insinuated to me that he favours GNOME (which he uses on his computer), but given the activity (face to face [8,9] and development [10-12]) it would be unfair to neglect KDE. The following image (uploaded 2 weeks) can’t be true, can it? The source is unknown, but it claims a gradual decline in development in 2012 but not in 2013. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. KDE 4.11.5 Officially Released, Fixes over 65 Bugs

2. KDE Ships January Updates to Plasma Workspaces, Applications and Platform

3. Frameworks 5 Tech Preview

   The KDE Community is proud to announce a Tech Preview of KDE Frameworks 5. Frameworks 5 is the result of almost three years of work to plan, modularize, review and port the set of libraries previously known as KDElibs or KDE Platform 4 into a set of Qt Addons with well-defined dependencies and abilities, ready for Qt 5. This gives the Qt ecosystem a powerful set of drop-in libraries providing additional functionality for a wide variety of tasks and platforms, based on over 15 years of KDE experience in building applications. Today, all the Frameworks are available in Tech Preview mode; a final release is planned for the first half of 2014. Some Tech Preview addons (notably KArchive and Threadweaver) are more mature than others at this time.

4. Adding Enginio (qtenginio) to the Qt release

   we (some of us at Digia) have been working on Enginio – a convenient cloud storage for Qt applications. Since the library is actively maintained we would like to integrate it into the official Qt release for Qt 5.3.

5. Qt 5.3+ To Have Printing Support Improvements

6. The Biggest Problem With GTK & What Qt Does Good

   Dirk Hohndel of Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center has talked at length on his experiences in the GTK and Qt tool-kits, including what he views as the biggest problem with GTK.

7. KDE On Wayland To Be Focus For Next Few Months

8. KDE at FOSDEM 2014

   There will be a a panel discussion with the governing bodies of the GNOME Foundation and KDE e.V. (the association that supports KDE), a presentation about KDE Frameworks 5, and a personal account of challenges and triumphs—”Do you have to be brain damaged to care about desktop Linux?.

9. India’s KDE conference conf.kde to be held in Feb 2014

   The second edition of India’s KDE conference – conf.kde will be held in February in Gandhinagar. The event will start at 2pm on Feb 21 and end at 5pm on Feb 23. The organizers have opted to hold the conference at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT) which also hosted the KDE Meetup last year. Registrations are open with early bird discounts on offer till Jan 15.

10. KDE Commit-Digest for 8th December 2013

11. KDE Commit-Digest for 15th December 2013

12. KDE Commit-Digest for 22nd December 2013

FOR a period of time a couple of years ago Wayland made some headlines; Canonical has since then moved on to its own (with Canonical copyrights) X Server replacement, so Wayland did not make many headlines in 2013. But Wayland is making a bit of a comeback, not in Unity or GNOME (which now has version 3.11.3 in focus [1,2,3]) but in KDE.

KDE 4.12 was recently made available [4], potentially attracting many news users [5]. With the leadership of BlueSystem there is a shift towards Wayland [6], which becomes ever more real in the Qt- and Wayland-Powered Hawaii 0.2 Desktop [7,8].

Judging by where KWin development is going, Canonical is unlikely to ever revisit it (Kubuntu is no longer part of Canonical) and Wayland may be central in KDE’s future, including on Plasma-powered devices such as tablets. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Eye of GNOME 3.11.3 Allows for Transparent Backgrounds

   The GNOME developers announced recently yet another development release towards Eye of GNOME 3.12, the default image viewer application for the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.

2. GNOME Display Manager 3.11.3 Fixes PAM Re-authentication Issue

   The GNOME developers behind the GDM (GNOME Display Manager) software have announced a few days ago the immediate availability for download and testing of version 3.11.3 of the default login manager app for the GNOME desktop environment.

3. GNOME Software 3.11.3 Adds More Featured Apps

   The GNOME Project has announced a few days ago that a new development release towards the stable GNOME Software 3.12 application for the GNOME desktop environment is available for download and testing, introducing two new features and lots of bugfixes.

4. KDE 4.12 Performance Updates Revealed

   The Majority of the changes for this release can be found in the excellent selection of KDE applications. Several applications come with new features and increased stability. If you want to see the latest improvements for KDE 4.12, we have all the exciting details.

5. Why Do Users Choose KDE?

   Popularity polls for software are questionable indicators at best. However, with KDE receiving just under a third of the votes in LinuxQuestion’s Members Choice for 2011 and 2012 and in Linux Journal’s 2013 Readers’ Choice Awards, there’s enough consistency to call KDE the most popular Linux desktop environment.

   Admittedly, if you add all the choices that use GNOME technology (Cinnamon, GNOME, Mate, and Unity), then KDE loses its position. But if you consider a desktop environment as a combination of both the shell and the underlying technology, KDE’s position is unchallenged. At a time when half a dozen choices are available, KDE’s one-third is probably as close to dominance as any desktop is likely to get.

6. Retrospection

   It’s now almost one year since I started my job at BlueSystem to work full time on KDE software. It’s a perfect time to look back and do some retrospection as well as trying to look into the future.

   Of course my focus of work was on KWin, but especially over the last months I worked all over the KDE workspaces. Overall we have achieved a great result. KWin is running in near production-ready quality after the port to Qt 5 and the Plasma workspaces are also in a very good shape already. I tend to mentially compare the experience with the state of Plasma 1 six years ago which was just a few weeks before the first release. We are in a better state and there is still lots of time till we will do our Plasma 2 release.

7. Qt & Wayland-Powered Hawaii 0.2 Desktop Released

8. Wayland-Powered Hawaii 0.2 Desktop Released

   The Maui project have released a completely new Wayland powered desktop named Hawaii 0.2, which promises to bring a new generation of desktop experience for GNU/Linux users. This desktop promises to bring a completely new out of box experience GNU experience for users and ships the latest and greatest open source software out there. The desktop environment uses Qt 5.2 as the toolkit backed by qtwayland module.

NEXT YEAR KDE will turn 18. The project has matured a lot for almost a couple of decades and we now have KDE 4.12 [1], the twelfth release of KDE4. We can also take a glimpse at Plasma 2 [2], which makes GNU/Linux looks more visually attractive than any other operating systems (subjective), even the proprietary ones that are all about packaging and very little substance (yes, Apple). Kdenlive has just been revived [3] and Plasma Media Center 1.2 was released for the holidays [4], ushering good news about Akademy 2014 [5].

Of course, not everyone is entirely happy with KDE [6]. That is fine. KDE is not for everyone and it’s good that alternatives exist so that GNU/Linux isn’t the choice between KDE or nothing at all (Windows and Apple OSuX offer no alternative ‘shells’). Black Lab Linux is one of the latest distributions to have embraced KDE [7] and now we have Qt 5.2 [8] to enhance the new/prosepctive releases [9], promising a future of rapid development of both the toolkit and the applications, not just the desktop environment (KWin, KDM, Plasma, and so on). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. KDE 4.12 Applications & Development Platform Released

2. Plasma 2 Technology Preview

   KDE’s Plasma Team presents a first glimpse at the evolution of the Plasma Workspaces. Plasma 2 Technology Preview demonstrates the current development status.

3. Kdenlive’s Video Editing Future Has Been Revived

   Last month I wrote how the Kdenlive project had gone dark after the KDE video editing software’s leader had gone missing. Fortunately, the maintainer is alive and well and there’s renewed hope for new developments within Kdenlive.

4. Plasma Media Center 1.2 Released In Time For Christmas

   The KDE community has a Christmas gift for you! We are happy to announce the release of KDE’s Plasma Media Center 1.2—your first stop for media and entertainment created by the Elves at KDE. Plasma Media Center is designed to provide an easy and comfortable way to watch your videos, browse your photo collection and listen to your music, all in one place. This release brings many refinements and a host of new features, making consuming media even easier and more fun.

5. Akademy 2014 – Brno, Czech Republic

   Where is the next Akademy? In Czech, “KDE je příští Akademy?” as ‘kde’ means ‘where’ in Czech.

6. A Few Grains of Sand in the FOSS Bucket

   I switched back to KDE a couple months ago, and low and behold, the very same problem that released my inner crybaby in 2009, 2012 and even a month ago is still plaguing KDE today. Like Gnome, KDE has a dedicated search tool. Just as Gnome has Gnome Search Tool, KDE has Kfind.

   There’s only one problem. Kfind Ksucks.

   I’ve played with about every setting you can imagine in Kfind, from the funky default file string to the box that says “use indexing.” It gives me nothing. Nada. Zip. Ziltch.

7. Black Lab Linux 4.1.9 KDE released

8. KDE Releases Applications and Development Platform 4.12

   The KDE Community is proud to announce the latest major updates to KDE Applications delivering new features and fixes. With Plasma Workspaces and the KDE Platform frozen and receiving only long term support, those teams are focusing on the technical transition to Frameworks 5.

9. Qt 5.2 – Foundation for KDE Frameworks 5

• It’s Now Even Easier Trying Out KDE Frameworks 5

• Release 0.24 is finally out!

  This release introduces the video metadata support added by Abhinav Badola for GSoC 2012, and lots of makernote updates, especially added lenses. This is also the first release that includes the (still experimental) CMake build files.

• Improv: An Open ARM Development Board Running Mer

  After dabbling with a KDE Plasma Active Tablet, Aaron Siego has announced today Make Play Live’s first product as the Improv. The Improv is an open-source ARM development board that runs Mer OS and is compatible with Wayland.

• Qt 5.2 RC1 Released Along Side Qt Creator 3.0 RC1

• The reason why Kdenlive can’t die…it’s Open Source

  So does that mean Kdenlive is dead as many say? Yes, it would have been dead if it was a proprietary software like Microsoft Windows. Luckily it’s free software – governed by GNU GPL v2 – so anyone can take over the development.

• KWrite Ported To KDE Frameworks 5

• KDE Ships Release Candidate of Applications and Platform 4.12

  In the past, major releases usually included all three elements of the complete software family produced by KDE. This release does not include Plasma Workspaces, which was frozen for new features in 4.11.x. In addition, the Development Platform has seen only minor changes for a number of releases in anticipation of KDE Frameworks 5. So this release is mainly about improving and polishing KDE Applications.

• Mutter Wayland 3.11.2 Now Syncs Keymap from X.Org to Wayland

• GNOME Terminal 3.11 Lets Apps Handle Clicks in Mouse Tracking Mode

  The GNOME Project has announced recently that the first development version towards GNOME Terminal 3.12 is available for download and testing. The final release will be part of the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.

• GNOME Boxes 3.11.2 Allows Import of Libvirt Virtual Machines

  The GNOME Boxes developers released the second development version towards GNOME Boxes 3.12 software for managing virtual machines under the GNOME desktop environment.

• GNOME Online Accounts Adds Support for Windows Live Mail

• GNOME 3.11.2 Is Now Available for Testing

  The wonderful and great Matthias Clasen had the pleasure of announcing a few days ago that a new development release of the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is ready for download and testing.

• GNOME Chess 3.11.2 Fixes the Black Background in 3D View

• Nautilus 3.11.2 Brings Back the Eject Button in Sidebar

  The GNOME developers are hard at work, releasing packages for the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment. The release of Nautilus 3.11.2 is now here and brings several fixes and improvements.

• GNOME Logs 3.11.2 Uses Pretty Timestamp Formats

  The GNOME Logs software saw its second development release a few days ago. The 3.11.2 version brings assorted bugfixes, improvements, and updated/new translations.

Summary: The world’s most features-rich desktop is coming to a milestone which represents expansion to yet more form factors

KDE SC is approaching its 12^th KDE4 release [1], which brings further improvement [2] not just for desktops [3]. KDE has become a platform for tablets and perhaps phones, not just desktops and laptops. Even home media centers are an area of focus and in places like CERN KDE gets uses scientifically as a kind of server/experiments front end. Based on what we’ve seen on the Web, these efforts from KDE are all fruitful and people are increasingly satisfied with KDE, even those who used to dislike it. Development of KDE continues [4] even if some KDE/Qt applications lose momentum [5] (they cannot die, in part owing to the licence) and new GNU/Linux releases continue to show signs of confidence in KDE; even the bad guys use KDE [6]. GNOME has a new release too [7] and it brings significant improvements [8], which helps show that a decade and a half down the line these two leading desktop environments can coexist and mutually thrive. Now is an excellent time to migrate to GNU/Linux. It’s mature, it’s reliable, it is easy to use, and it’s user-respecting. People no longer should assume that Microsoft is inescapable. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. KDE Ships Third Beta of Applications and Platform 4.12

   KDE has released the third beta of the 4.12 versions of Applications and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing. Your assistance is requested.

2. KDE Applications Get Further Fixes In 4.12 Beta 3

   The third beta of KDE 4.12 was released this week, but for those that missed the news only really are the 4.12 apps being improved in this next KDE desktop release.

3. KDE Plasma Media Center 1.2 Beta Has New Features

   Plasma Media Center, the KDE project to slowly take on the likes of XBMC and provide a nice user-interface for multimedia tasks atop the KDE experience, is up to version 1.2 beta. The 1.2 beta release of Plasma Media Center is packing a number of new features.

4. KDE Commit-Digest for 10th November 2013

5. KDE’s Kdenlive Video Editor Has Gone Dark

   While there’s many Kdenlive fans out there for the KDE-focused open-source video editor, it seems new development efforts around the project have ceased.

6. openSUSE 13.1 KDE

7. GNOME 3.10.2 Has Been Officially Released

8. GNOME Shell 3.11.2 Supports Disabling Browser Plugin

Summary: Why in the world of GNU/Linux and UNIX/BSD, having more diversity is a good thing, not a thing to be feared and rejected

IT HAS long been recognised that cooperation combined with some competition leads to faster development and elimination of weaker concepts/implementations. We see a lot of this in the aviation and automobile industries. Many planes and cars use components from the same suppliers, but they still integrate uniquely in order to compete. Their improvements and integration work set them apart. The Linux Foundation, a unifying force in the world of Linux (kernel) development, says that “Competition Among Open Source Projects Delivers Better Technology Faster” [1]. Remember there even within Linux (and UNIX) there is a lot of competition, e.g. between file systems. There are pros and cons to each candidate and weaker ones cease to be developed.

What people call “Linux” is much more than a kernel; in a practical sense they often refer to Linux/X/GNU/KDE/Mozilla or something along those lines. The abbreviation “Linux” for what would better be described as the Free/libre operating system (not necessarily just GPL-licensed and not necessarily desktops) is so deeply rooted in society that it would be virtually impossible to change now, but let’s look at the desktop layer for a moment, taking into account recent news.

“It is disheartening to see a lot of anger directed at those who conceptualise and then implement their own alternatives which they deem technically better.”GVFS, which causes me much trouble at work, has a new release available for testing [2] and the same goes for GNOME Notes [3]. Cinnamon [4] and Wayland [5] help show that Shell and X are no longer the only game in GNOME town, demonstrating diversity in other layers of the stack too (GNOME does not necessarily run on GNU/Linux, either). GNOME is probably the most widely used Free/livre desktop environment, but over time it becomes easy to see that it branches off in many directions.

When it comes to KDE, which has a lot of power [6] and is actively developed by a very large group [7,8], the same is true. KDE can run on almost any operating system, with varying degrees of compatibility and integration. It’s not just for desktops, either. That’s why KDE was pretty much renamed/rebranded a “Software Compilation” a few years ago. My wife uses KDE because KWin makes it easier to use and it is more visually pleasing. But it’s not for everyone.

Let’s not forget others players like Xfce [9] (usually considered third in popularity) and of course the plethora of tools which make the command line so powerful [10,11,12,13]. On servers where performance comes first, command-line tools are a must.

When the “Free Desktop” expands to other form factors, supports more desktop/interface environments, initialisation systems, file systems, graphical servers etc. we should expect it to evolve faster, not more slowly. The development community grows when diversity increases. It is disheartening to see a lot of anger directed at those who conceptualise and then implement their own alternatives which they deem technically better. It’s not the spirit of GNU to just slag off those who come up with new solutions, seeking to replace — based on merit — what’s currently popular among users. It is okay to criticise those who try to leverage software patents to ban or tax their competitors (like Novell did with Microsoft), but to berate companies for doing GNU/Linux their own way (under copyleft) is worse than a waste of time; it’s very counter-productive and it distracts from the real threats. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Competition Among Open Source Projects Delivers Better Technology Faster

   Today we’re pleased to announce that The Linux Foundation will host the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), the organization dedicated to education and advocacy for KVM. KVM is growing in popularity among businesses and open source communities like OpenStack with a 50 percent increase in deployments this year, according to IDC. We will work with OVA to extend education and advocacy that supports and helps advance the important work of this developer community.

2. GVFS 1.19.1 Is Now Available for Testing

   The first development version towards the GVFS 1.20 application for the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment was announced a few days ago, introducing various fixes and improvements.

3. The First Development Release of GNOME Notes 3.12 Arrives

   The first development release towards GNOME Notes 3.12, a nice and simple application designed to create, view, and edit notes on the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment, has been announced on October 27, 2013.

4. Cinnamon Desktop: Breaks with GNOME, finds beefed-up Nemo

   The Cinnamon Desktop project recently released version 2, a major overhaul of the desktop environment that’s best known as the default option for Linux Mint’s flagship release.

5. Running The Latest GNOME Wayland Shell On Fedora 20

   With the Fedora 20 beta coming up I decided to see where the latest Fedora 20 packages are now at for their support of Wayland and the GNOME Shell Wayland session. In particular, looking at whether the session is still buggy and how the XWayland performance is for Linux gaming.

6. How-to configure keyboard layouts in KDE 4 (video)

7. KDE Commit-Digest for 13th October 2013

8. KDE Commit-Digest for 20th October 2013

9. I installed the Whisker Menu for Xfce

   I just read about the Whisker Menu for Xfce at OMG! Ubuntu and installed it on my system from the Fedora repositories.

   While I’m happy with my panel on the left and the traditional Xfce Application Finder, I thought the Whisker Menu would be worth a try.

10. Special laptop keys with Linux

    Laptops often have special keystroke combinations for certain functions or commands

11. Bloated Audio Players? No Thanks!

    The term lightweight is a label attached to computer software which is relatively simpler or faster than its counterparts. Feature bloat is endemic in software especially commercial software. Often, the easiest way to persuade users to upgrade to the latest version is to add new spangly features. This happens with open source software (to a lesser degree), and open source music software is not immune to feature bloat. Music players can often seem to be designed for everything except actually listening to music with tons of bloat that you do not actually need.

12. In Depth Look at Linux’s Archiving and Compression Commands

13. Linux rsync command with practical examples

Summary: Noting the continued momentum and importance of KDE

KDE is in many ways more advanced than its counterparts, which may make it hard for beginners to grasp but at the same time irreplaceable for longtime users [1]. Google is actively supporting KDE [2] and so does Digia [3,4], the company behind Qt (which has changed many hands but is still in Finland). Some KDE applications, such as GRUB2 Editor [5], are useful for both GNOME and KDE, just like GParted helps both. This takes us back to the point made in the previous short article. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Seven Things You Can Do in KDE (But Not on Other Linux Desktops)

   If you don’t know KDE, you don’t know what the Linux desktop can do.

2. KDE Accomplishments – Google Summer of Code 2013

   Google Summer of Code 2013 (GSoC) brought fifty budding new shoots and branches to the mighty KDE family tree, and the canopy of warmth and love offered by the community helped them blossom and bloom in the three months of the program. With a few snips, a little trimming and pruning, they have learned, innovated, created and contributed to one of the largest free and open source communities in the world, and have developed software that will touch many people around the world. They now have their roots firmly planted in the KDE community with the successful completion of their projects and are ready to shelter budding shoots to come!

3. Digia becomes KDE patron

   Digia, the company that acquired Qt from Nokia, has now joined KDE e.V as a patron. Digia looks after Qt development and it’s licencing to other companies. The company also looks after the Qt Project under open governance and KDE software is based on the Qt framework.

4. Digia becomes Patron of KDE eV

   We are happy to announce that Digia is joining KDE e.V. as a Patron.

5. GRUB2 Editor 0.6.4 Is the Perfect Tool for Your GRUB Needs

   GRUB2 Editor, a KDE Control Module for configuring the GRUB2 bootloader, is now at version 0.6.4.

Summary: A quick note addressing complaints regarding “fragmentation” and “benevolent dictators”

THE schism — perhaps even the rivalry — between KDE and GNOME (or Qt and GTK) often overlooks the fact that both sides benefit from the other. The more they both advance, the more applications GNU/Linux have and the more compelling platform GNU/Linux becomes for more people. With bridges between these two toolkits and desktop environments it is evident that those who use GNOME and KDE as an example of maligned “fragmentation” simply misunderstand or berate GNU/Linux using misconceptions. For choice and freedom to be more than just marketing terms we do need to have competing (and quasi-collaborating) toolkits and desktops. What’s important is standards and copyleft.

“If many users are unhappy with a direction that some project takes, then it is probably that a large fork/branch will develop.”Many nice applications come with the latest GNOME (either core applications [1,2] or non-core ones [3]). Developers are free to do with these applications as they please [4,5], even port them to Qt if they like it better, so complaints like [6] sort of miss the point. Developers are not in the business of pleasing every user, but they should at least allow any single individual to take the project in any desired direction. If many users are unhappy with a direction that some project takes, then it is probably that a large fork/branch will develop. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. GNOME Settings Daemon 3.10.1 Fixes Memory Leaks

   The GNOME developers announced a few days ago that the first maintenance release of the stable GNOME Settings Daemon 3.10 package, a daemon run by all GNOME sessions to provide live access to configuration settings and the changes done to them, is available for download.

2. GNOME Control Center 3.10.1 Released with Multiple Improvements

   GNOME Control Center, GNOME’s main interface for configuration of various aspects of your desktop, is now at version 3.10.1.

3. GNOME CAKE 3.10 – Fully Baked, No Bugs

4. Learn how to compile from source Linux software with AbiWord 3

5. Writing a GNOME thumbnailer

   How does GNOME generate thumbnails for files? It uses a collection of programs called thumbnailers, each one generating thumbnails for a specific set of content-types of files. For example, totem-video-thumbnailer generates thumbnails for video files using GStreamer; evince-thumbnailer generates thumbnails for PDFs and other document files.

6. The Linuxsphere – Benevolent Dictators Need Not Apply

   The issue was improving Nautilus by bringing back the ability of adding color and texture to the background. For as long as I can remember, Gnome/Nautilus users have been able to set a background in this file manager.

Summary: GNOME is ditched by Cinnamon, which is yet another example of users and developers taking control in the interest of users

DEALING with varying user requirements is hard. There is no one-size-fits-all paradigm when it comes to desktop environments. Just as we require many types of vehicles (trucks, vans, motorcycles, etc.) we need to facilitate a variety of needs, which vary from person to person. Microsoft and Apple ignore this and they try to shoehorn people into their own restrictive environments. GNU/Linux is different. Development of KDE, the world’s most advanced desktop, carries on [1,2] and documentation improves as well [3]. The KDE Community Forums turns 5 [4] and new users come to KDE [5], which is — although it is debatable — better than GNOME when it comes to applications but not as a desktop for new users [6] (KDE is very advanced, too much for some). Cinnamon 2.0, in the mean time, is forking GNOME [7] and even ditching it [8]. It is now available in Ubuntu 13.10 [9], which is Mirless [10]. Many distributions still use classic GNOME [11] or modified GNOME [12], but what’s clear overall is that over time we are left with more choices of desktop environments. KDE itself has been forked to satisfy those who wish to keep the KDE3 experience. This is a strength, not a weakness. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. KDE Commit-Digest for 6th October 2013

2. KDE Commit-Digest for 29th September 2013

3. Plasma Active Handbook released

   The Projectsite of the handbook is placed under: http://pactivehandbook.sf.net. There you can download a PDF in the english or german language. Also a XHTML version of the book is available in both languages there.

4. 5 Years of KDE Community Forums

5. Installed KDE via Kubuntu v13.04 – My First Thoughts

   I moved to Kubuntu early Sunday morning, and it was not without a few minor perils. I wanted a clean install, thus formatting /home was a must. I was coming from Linux Mint 14 XFCE to Kubuntu 13.04 which of course uses KDE as the default desktop manager. I really didn’t want any cross contamination in /home nor did I want to dual-boot. It was all in or nothing. So I chose the all in and I am glad I did.

6. KDE vs GNOME: Settings, Apps, Widgets

   Video: While one desktop appears clearly superior to the other, its rival offers some better apps for key uses.

7. Cinnamon 2.0 Desktop Is Readied For Release

   Linux Mint’s Cinnamon 2.0 desktop fork of the GNOME Shell has been tagged and is being readied for release.

8. Cinnamon 2.0 Ditches GNOME, Features Enhanced User and Window Management

   Cinnamon, the desktop shell using in Linux Mint, has finally released v2.0, which features new window tiling and snapping, along with enhanced user management options. And there are lots of other changes under the hood too, including a new backend that no longer requires GNOME.

9. Cinnamon 2.0 in Ubuntu 13.10 Screenshot Tour

   Cinnamon 2.0, a fork of GNOME 3 desktop environment, developed by Clement Lefebvre, the father of Linux Mint, has been released to critical acclaim and now you have a chance to see it working in Ubuntu 13.10.

10. Not so Saucy after all: Ubuntu reveals Mirless Salamander… and what, no Britney?

11. First Look at GNOME 3.10 on Arch Linux

    After approximately two weeks of testing, the Arch Linux developers promoted earlier today, October 7, the recent GNOME 3.10 desktop environment to the stable channels, allowing users to upgrade their six-month-old GNOME 3.8 installation.

12. SolusOS 2 Will Use a Custom GNOME 3.10 Desktop

    Thanks to a leaked screenshot on Google+, we’ve recently discovered that the upcoming and highly anticipated SolusOS 2 Linux operating system will have a darkish and highly modified version of the recently released GNOME 3.10 desktop environment.

Summary: The latest news from the world of KDE, bundled together

KDE, the powerful desktop environment for GNU/Linux, is changing its release structure [1] after its most recent release [2] which brought Plasma Active to more form factors than before [3]. With Frameworks 5 [4] seemingly imminent (Qt5 makes it so) to excite users [5] because core parts are actively developed [6,7] along with peripheral programs [8,9] and various other bits [10-13], the future of KDE looks bright.

Akademy 2014 is also coming [14], promising to help bring KDE developers from different parts of the world of KDE (it is treated specially in Europe [15] and Asia [16]) and many choice remain for people who want a distribution with KDE preinstalled [17].

Regular users of KDE may know that the project no longer focuses just on desktops and laptops. Adaptations are intended to address shifting market dynamics, but inherently, applications remain the same. For phones and tablets that are as powerful and versatile like desktops, KDE is essential. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. KDE Release Structure Evolves

2. KDE Ships September Updates to Plasma Workspaces, Applications and Platform

   Today KDE released updates for its Workspaces, Applications and Development Platform. These updates are the first in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.11 series. As was announced on the release, the workspaces will continue to receive updates for the next two years. This release only contains bugfixes and translation updates and will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone.

3. Plasma Active 4 – ready when you are

   The KDE Community announces the release of Plasma Active 4 (PA4). Plasma Active is a user experience technology stack for consumer electronics. While the default user interface is for tablets, it can be customized to work on smartphones, settop boxes, smart TVs, and touch computing devices such as home automation and in-vehicle infotainment. There are major new improvements to the Files application, an overhaul of the on-screen keyboard and a completely free and open source system based on the Mer Core. The Plasma Active team invites involvement from people who want to participate in the widespread movement towards mobile computing on open platforms.

4. Frameworks 5

   A recent Dot article explained changes in the KDE release cycle that will be happening with the upcoming introduction of Frameworks 5. The changes to KDE’s core libraries are enough to warrant a name change from ‘Platform’ to ‘Frameworks’. This article provides some background, an overview of the changes, and the benefits and improvements that can be expected from KDE Frameworks 5 for the entire Qt community. A later article will address Frameworks 5 benefits for KDE developers.

5. Switching to Kubuntu comments

6. How Desktop Grid brought back SystemSettings

   One of my personal adjustments to KWin is using the top right screen edge as a trigger for the Desktop Grid effect. With the switch to KWin on 5 this hasn’t worked for me any more as we don’t have code in place to transfer the old configuration to the new system.

7. New KScreen Mock-ups Spark Conversation

   KDELast week Björn Balazs posted of the results in a user survey with the goal of redesigning the KScreen multi-monitor configuration interface. After taking all the data into account, new mock-ups have been designed and posted. However, Aaron Seigo said that power settings are “fine” but do not need to be in the main interface confusing users.

8. Krita Demonstrated at IDF Keynote

9. New: Clones Array tool!

10. KDE Commit-Digest for 1st September 2013

11. KDE Commit-Digest for 8th September 2013

12. KDE Commit-Digest for 15th September 2013

13. KDE Commit-Digest for 22nd September 2013

14. Akademy 2014 Call for Host

15. ALERT Project concludes successfully

    Back in the last months of 2010, the ALERT Project began. Partly funded under the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme, the project followed in the footsteps of research efforts such as NEPOMUK. Its objectives were to help open source developers to work more effectively and to produce better software by improving bug tracking, resolution and software quality tools.

16. ezgo – Free And Open Source Software In Taiwan’s Schools

Free and Open Source Software in Taiwan has made impressive strides thanks to the work of the ‘ezgo’ team. They have put together a pre-configured set of Free and Open Source (FOSS) software that makes it easy for teachers and students to get up and running. The New Taipei City government has decided to install ezgo 11 on 10,000 PCs for elementary schools, bringing thousands of students in contact with Linux, KDE and educational Free Software. The ezgo team has written up an account of ezgo and how it came to be.

17. It’s All About Choice: Alternate Applications For Your Kubuntu / NetrunnerOS / Linux Mint KDE Computer

Summary: Qt5 finds its way into the very core of KDE, arguably the best desktop environment in the world (most features-rich)

The K Desktop Environment (KDE) has undergone some major changes in recent years, development-wise. Some say that development stagnated, whereas others say that it’s as good as ever before. The death of Nokia in Microsoft’s hands has certainly not helped the toolkit upon which KDE is based (Qt), but there are signs of progress because the lead KWin developer merged in Qt5 [1,2], with evident development pace accompanying this milestone [3-6].

Amarok, which was seemingly abandoned for some time after a botched bunch of releases, is back in active development with funding from Google [7] and old KDE applications refuse to become deprecated [8] (Krusader and Konqueror are still better than Dolphin in many respects). There are even active surveys [9] regarding the development of KDE and polls which determine the best KDE distro of 2013 [10].

KDE is anything but dead. It’s my desktop environment of choice and after some bad reputation it received in the 4.0-4.1 releases people should definitely give it a go. It’s now hopping on the Qt5 train, later to be followed by the “5″ branch of KDE — the first major leap in several years. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Next step: dogfooding

   Almost a month since my last blog post. And of course lots of work in KWin in the frameworks-scratch branch since then – about 160 commits. Today I finally reached the next milestone: dogfooding. I dared to replace the KWin of my working session by the new version based on Qt 5 and it’s useable.

2. Qt5-Based KDE KWin Enters Usable State

   The next-generation KDE KWin window manager for KDE Frameworks 5 and using the Qt 5.x tool-kit is quickly entering a usable state and can now handle “dogfeeding” by its developers.

3. KDE Commit-Digest for 4th August 2013

4. KDE Commit-Digest for 11th August 2013

5. KDE Commit-Digest for 18th August 2013

6. KDE Commit-Digest for 25th August 2013

7. Wishfix part 2: Amarok.

   Once upon a time Linux had what I think was the best music player/manager, its name was Amarok and people even brought it up as a way to try convince others to move to Linux, intelligent playlists, auto fetching of cover arts, lyrics, last.fm integration, etc, and it was great. Fast forward a few years (almost a decade to be fair) and now Amarok and all KDE music players seems to be lacking, with KDE 5.0 maybe this is the time to fix it.

8. 10 reasons why you should try Krusader

   Find out 10 reasons why you should try Krusader, a twin-pane file manager that might be faster than Dolphin on older computers or just a better match for your computing habits.

9. KScreen Management Survey Results Posted

   Björn Balazs has posted the results of a recent user survey in a “study about the requirements for the screen management tool KScreen.” The purpose was to find out how important screen management is to users and which setting configurations are needed most to aid in development of the Kscreen.

10. Best KDE distro of 2013

    Normally, at the end of the year, I tend to run my best annual distro roundups, choosing the finest among five operating systems or flavors thereof that showed the greatest promise in terms of stability, usability, elegance, support, and other curious items in the outgoing twelve-month period. But I have never dedicated much thought to selecting the best implementation of any one particular desktop environment, regardless of the system underneath.

Summary: UEFI abuses continue, but Microsoft PR, lies, and attempts to silence the media go a long way, ensuring evidence gets insufficient coverage

A few days ago we wrote about UEFI, stressing that it offers no real security and that Debian should issue a complaint to improve the antitrust complaint already filed in Europe. This has not got sufficient coverage; a lot was done to legitimise UEFI in the press. Power-hungry companies love it because it takes control away from computer users.

Microsoft engages in patent racketeering and anticompetitive sabotage, so Microsoft’s arrogant manager should quit telling the press to stop criticising Microsoft. If journalists whom Microsoft has not given gifts and bribes seem unwilling to self-censor, then it’s because Microsoft is worse than a technical failure. It’s an abusive, anti-social, manipulative, corrupt, deceitful and despite all of this highly vain movement. Microsoft treats its domination as a right, not a status quo. And it acts accordingly.

Dr. Garrett, who has since his Microsoft apologism for UEFI left Red Hat (assuming he was not pushed out), tried to make Secure (Restricted) Boot sound benign and now he does the same for Treacherous Computing. His latest long post concludes with: “TPMs are useful for some very domain-specific applications, drive encryption and random number generation. The current state of technology doesn’t make them useful for practical limitations of end-user freedom.”

“Microsoft is probably going to drop the RT version of Surface…”
      –Christine HallBut they will almost certainly be used for that, in due course. Every war starts with the claims of ‘national security’ and UEFI restricted boot got marketed similarly before it got sort of cracked. Is Dr. Garrett not reading history books, only biology or technology book? Security has almost a monopoly on being used as pretext and excuse for control over people.

Microsoft would love to see UEFI lock-in creeping into more hardware (one where restricted boot cannot be disabled) and Christine Hall writes: “Our bet is that it’ll be a long, loinng time before we see a 64-bit version of RT made available to consumers. Microsoft is probably going to drop the RT version of Surface, and OEMs aren’t going to want to touch it until there’s a decent list of apps available for it–which will probably be never.

“If you don’t believe us, you might want to read what Toshiba had to say about RT at a product launch in Sydney, Australia this week.”

Thankfully, she is probably right, but Microsoft should never be tying hardware to software like this. It’s what Apple used to do. Well, even Apple suns Windows RT, so we know Microsoft’s copycat will go extinct.

Anyway, this brings us to the core of this post. A prominent KDE developer writes: “We installed Kubuntu but it didn’t set up Grub and we couldn’t do much useful at the Grub command line.”

KDE/Kubuntu is my choice for the main workstation, so Jonathan Riddell’s post is relevant to me. Last month I upgraded to the latest LTS and found myself struggling with the Grub command line. The system would not even start. Fortunately, on my Debian box, I was able to search the Web for a complicated solution that required chrooting the installation from a live CD. Nobody without a dose of Linux skills would manage to achieve this. It’s demoralising. Even I nearly gave up and resorted to a clean Debian install on my main workstation, abandoning Kubuntu after 4 years (I had used Mandriva before that).

The post from Riddell reveals a Microsoft riddle. The monopolist has made it very difficult to install GNU/Linux, and it is not a coincidence or side effect. “If you go to ubuntu.com,” writes Riddell, “to download it points Windows 8 users to this scary UEFI wiki page with scary headings like “Installing Ubuntu Quickly and Easily via Trial and Error”.

“Kubuntu is slightly more broken then Ubuntu but not much.”
      –Jonathan RiddellHere is his conclusion: “UEFI is a giant MS conspiracy to make installing Linux more faffy [implies hassle] than it already is. Kubuntu is slightly more broken then Ubuntu but not much. Only silver lining is that Windows 8 is rubbish and when we tried it there genuinely was a notification saying “Warning: your children might not be protected”. Think of the children and don’t use Windows 8!

“Oh well, here’s some pretty pictures to keep you amused.”

Vista 8 is a pile of garbage, just like its logo, which looks like a rotated garbage can. Microsoft has been releasing lies about “sales” and sending out trolls to deceive the public. These are all lies wrapped in a riddle. And unless we appeal to regulators Microsoft will continue to warp the market, the press, and computer users’ rights.

Microsoft is hardly a victim of negative press. It reserves a lot more negative press. Some turncoats in the FOSS world helped prevent negative coverage regarding anticompetitive aspects of UEFI. And now they suffer the consequences. Remember that Kubuntu is no longer run by Canonical (the project was hardly warped by Canonical/Mark’s ego, so Canonical abandoned it). I strongly endorse Kubuntu. █

Summary: Response to claims that GNU/Linux is “hard”

Difficult it sure can be to become a high-speed racing/Formula 1 driver. Arduous it is to become an advanced computer user. Virtual desktops are hard to grasp conceptually or practically for those who never saw them in a Microsoft-dominant computer lab, so how can one expect to popularise multiple desktop activities the way KDE does?

The concept of extreme abstraction and removal of features has been popularised more recently by the advancement of smartphones and tablets (I write many of my posts while walking in the streets with my tablet). The general philosophy is that users are dumb and they should be treated as such. The problem with this is not that it’s insulting (in disguise) but that it discourages learning and self improvement.

In the past decade, with the hype of ‘i’ things gaining a foothold, the class of ‘simplicity elitists’ got a lot of mindshare. The idea of excessive simplification was famously chastised by Linus Torvalds who used the “Nazi” word to call attention to the reason he was leaving GNOME. Sometimes more is less, but it has become a stubborn cliché which is hard to leave behind.

When I was a teenager and used KDE the environment was still a tad cluttered and many of the presented settings I could not make sense of. KDE had already gained a reputation as desktop made by geeks, for geeks. By the time KDE3 was out and more so in KDE4 (once many bugs were out of the way) most of the daunting settings had already been ‘shelved’ in Advanced menus and the GUI laid out more intuititively. But the stereotype never died. To this date, one of the prominent patterns of Linux FUD is that it’s hard. Well, the kernel sure is hard, but the user barely ever interacts with it. A command-line user interacts a lot with GNU and GUI users often prefer GNOME or KDE.

When people tell you that “Linux is hard” ask them, “which desktop?”

My father had no issues when I switched him from Windows XP to KDE and he is not even so technical; he is a store manager who likes sports. Since the real barrier is that Linux desktops are different we should ask ourselves not how we make GNU/Linux easier but how to make people easier to change. It’s not about coercion but about diplomacy. People need to be patient when they adapt. Is GNU/Linux hard? It’s hard for impatient people to adapt to. █

Originally posted in Linux Advocates

Summary: Qt suffers a blow after the Elop-led Nokia (with other top executives having been imported from Microsoft) decides to rip things apart, going as far as giving heaps of patents to Linux-hostile patent trolls

Qt is being abandoned by Nokia and Michael Larabel keeps track of things. Qt folks are obviously unhappy. To quote: “Lars Knoll, the current Qt Chief Architect at Nokia and responsible for leading the Qt 5.0 development, has commented on the shutting down of Nokia’s Qt Australia office.

“It is said that the next release of Qt is already harmed and this is going to impede KDE — and by extension GNU/Linux — as well.”“Word leaked two days ago that Nokia would be shutting down their Qt Brisbane office in August, which holds the responsibility of developing and maintaining several Qt components — including Qt Quick and other important pieces to this tool-kit they acquired from Trolltech. The shutting down of this office goes with the very likely plans that they are selling off Qt.

“There’s been a lot of negative words towards Nokia — besides everything else in past months after falling jumping in bed with Microsoft — with this move to effectively abandon Qt and the fate being uncertain. One can only hope many of these important Qt developers will find employment elsewhere and can continue contributing to upstream Qt.”

“Aside from Lars Knoll, the Qt Chief Architect at Nokia, expressing his disappointment over Nokia’s decision to eliminate their Brisbane team, he shared more information in another email today.”

It is said that the next release of Qt is already harmed and this is going to impede KDE — and by extension GNU/Linux — as well.

“The problem is that Microsoft gives Nokia’s patents to Linux-hostile patent trolls such as MOSAID.”One blogger thinks that Intel should buy Nokia, but Intel is not into this type of business. Intel uses criminal activity to preserve x86 monopoly; it sells no packaged products such as phones. The blogger says: “There’s a lot of talk about which company, if any, should buy Nokia: Lenovo was the latest company rumoured to be interested (until a Lenovo executive dismissed the idea as ‘a joke’).

“But, for me, there’s one firm that would be a more natural fit than any of the others being rumoured as potential new owners of Nokia: Intel.”

Nokia under Microsoft’s control has “junk” status; it might still be worth something if broken apart, e.g. into patents and trademarks. The problem is that Microsoft gives Nokia’s patents to Linux-hostile patent trolls such as MOSAID. █

Summary: Qt is being slapped in the face by the Microsoft mole and a debate starts about the impact of this move

THE Microsoft-occupied Nokia attacks Linux platforms and harms KDE by proxy, first neglecting Qt components and then reportedly dropping Qt altogether (as we expected 4 years ago). Quoting the main report we found about it:

Word has leaked out that Nokia will be shutting down their Brisbane Australia office next month. This is the office that’s responsible for developing and maintaining several Qt components.

Hitting the Qt development list on late Tuesday is word that “the Brisbane Australia office, consisting of the teams working on Qt3D, QtDeclarative, QtMultimedia, QtSensors, and QtSystems modules, as well as the CI/QA team for Qt, will be shut down.”

Michael Larabel reaffirms his assertion later:

While word crept out last night that Nokia would be closing down their Brisbane office where several of the Qt components are maintained and developed, it looks like the Qt infliction is going much further. Nokia’s now reportedly trying to offload Qt entirely.

To not much surprise, Nokia doesn’t want to do much these days with the Norwegian tool-kit now that they’re on the Windows Phone bandwagon and letting Microsoft bang their drum. Nokia already parted ways with Maemo and MeeGo (and Symbian) and then last week they put a bullet in Meltemi, their last Linux effort. Now the failing phone company no longer has any use for Qt; Nokia bought out Trolltech in early 2008.

So there we have it. Nokia is showing its hostility towards Linux after the Microsoft entryism. Here is an article someone brought up in IRC (where we still argue on the matter, with some stating that Nokia’s move would be good for Qt).

Here is what the report says: “Reports are coming in that Nokia has shut down its Qt offices in Australia and laid off the developers responsible for QML. The staff that was laid off were responsible for developing key aspects of the Qt open-source toolkit including the QML user interface layout. At least one of the laid off developers, Lorn Potter, has told the Qt community that he intends to continue working on the toolkit himself but is seeking new employment.” █